Dujiangyanfangshui Festival
01 · Historical Records
Dujiangyan City lies in the central part of Sichuan Province, on the northwestern edge of the Chengdu Plain, at the point where the Min River emerges from the mountains, at the junction of its upper and middle reaches. In 256 BCE Li Bing tamed the Min River and built the Dujiangyan water-control works, fundamentally ending the flood disasters of the Min River and making the Chengdu Plain a 'Land of Abundance' where 'flood and drought follow man's will.'
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Qingming Water-Releasing Festival is a folk custom of Dujiangyan City, the site of the Dujiangyan water-control works, a world cultural heritage property. On the day of Qingming among the twenty-four solar terms of the lunar calendar, to celebrate the completion of the annual repair of the Dujiangyan works and the arrival of the busy season of spring plowing, the people hold a grand ceremonial celebration. To commemorate Li Bing, people hold a series of related activities every year, including official and popular sacrificial ceremonies. The official ceremony begins with the chief officiant reading the sacrificial address and offering silk, ale and flowers, after which the participants pay respects at the Temple of the Two Kings. The popular sacrificial activities consist mainly of visiting the Temple of the Two Kings to pray for a year of favorable weather, abundant harvests of the five grains and prosperity of the six domestic animals. The most important activity of the Water-Releasing Festival is the water-opening ceremony held at the Fish Mouth diversion works at the head of the Dujiangyan channels, in which the bamboo ropes binding the wooden tripod dams (macha) are cut and the outer river's water flows into the inner river after its annual repair. The Qingming Water-Releasing Festival reproduces the long historical development of the farming culture and folk culture of the Chengdu Plain, embodies the excellent Chinese national qualities of honoring the virtuous ancestors and repaying virtue with gratitude, and has practical significance for carrying forward traditional culture.
The solar term that opens the water
The festival falls on Qingming, when the annual repair is finished and the ploughing season begins, fusing works inspection with the farming calendar.
The official rite
The official rite reads the sacrificial text, offers silk, wine and flowers, and ends with paying respects at the temple of the two kings.
The people's rite
The public rite is simply to worship at the temple, praying for fair weather, full harvests and thriving livestock.
Cutting the bamboo barrier at Yuzui
The decisive act happens at the Yuzui headworks, where cutting the ropes that hold the bamboo barrier lets the outer water back into the inner channel.
Repairs finished, season begun
The works must be finished before Qingming and ploughing follows the water, so a collective labour turned compulsory every year becomes a shared festival.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Water-Releasing Festival grows only in Dujiangyan City, for no other place has a Fish Mouth diversion works and therefore no macha to cut: the ritual core of this solar-term festival cannot be moved, and need not be. The Temple of the Two Kings is the common site of both official and popular sacrifice. The official rite has a chief officiant, a sacrificial address and a complete set of offerings of silk, ale and flowers; the popular rite consists of the people visiting and making vows on their own. The two forms of sacrifice follow one another in the same temple, forming a fixed destination in the Dujiangyan area around Qingming.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Water-Releasing Festival turns the annual repair system into a visible ritual: once the macha is cut, the outer river's water flows anew into the repaired inner river, and only then does spring plowing have water to use. What the festival celebrates is therefore really a span of time, a bamboo rope, and a body of people who had to finish before spring. In the more than two thousand years of Dujiangyan's continuance, each year's water release has required renegotiating the channel openings, the canal works and the order of water distribution to the fields. The festival joins the strongly engineering-oriented business of water division to the people's prayers, becoming a way for an agrarian society to commemorate public works.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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