从节气到节日:“清明”节日化的时间及其历史逻辑

From Solar Term to Festival: the Timeline of Qingming Day Set As a Festival and Its Historic Logic

唐代之前,寒食与清明泾渭分明,寒食节主要节俗为禁火、冷食。唐代寒食节出现了新的重要节俗——郊祭,这一节俗兴起,使得寒食节出现了名实不副的问题。但就文献资料来看,唐代清明只是寒食节的组成部分,即在清明当天改火,清明尚未成为独立节日。这一情形北宋时期无明显变化。到了南宋,禁火、冷食习俗影响力大为衰落,民间更为重视郊祭,而且郊祭一般在清明日,清明显然已取代寒食成为节日。出现这种变化的原因有三:一是寒食习俗兴起于北方,对南方影响力较弱,而南宋经济、文化中心在南方;二是南宋经济发达,民众乐于享受,禁火、冷食习俗失去了社会心理基础;三是南宋时期宗族文化开始兴盛,更为重视祭扫习俗,祭扫取代寒食成了核心节俗,为了名实相副,以清明取代寒食乃是常理。

Before the Tang Dynasty,the Hanshi(Cold Food)Festival and the Qingming(Tomb-Sweeping)Festival were quite distinct from each other.Fire ban and cold food buffet were the prominent features of the Hanshi Festival.In the Tang Dynasty,there was a new important festival custom called outskirt fete,which after then caused the deviation of the essence of the Hanshi festival.However,Qingming as a solar term was statistically a part of the Hanshi Festival in the Tang Dynasty,on whose day people burned the fuel in the stove to heat food.It hadn t been separated from the Hanshi Festival until the Northern Song Dynasty.Up to the Southern Song Dynasty,with fire ban and cold food buffet having limited influences,the outskirt fete began to attract more attentions from folks to Qingming,by which the Hanshi Festival had been replaced.This paper provided three reasons to explain the change,firstly,the custom of cold food buffet deeply rooted in the northern China had more implications than those in the south where the economic and cultural center of the Southern Song Dynasty was located;secondly,the developed economy enabled folks to enjoy themselves rather than follow the constrained customs,then the social psychological foundation turned to decline;thirdly,the emerging clan culture highlighted tomb-sweeping,so that the Qingming Festival gradually took the place of Hanshi Festival.