Lantern Festival

Ⅹ-71Folk CustomsBin, ShaanxiBatch 4 (2014)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

Binxian began carving grottoes as early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties period. According to the Ming dynasty gazetteer "Record of Binzhou," temple fairs in Binxian were already flourishing during the Zhenguan era of the Tang dynasty. By the Ming dynasty, people had renovated and expanded the original lantern mountain, giving it its present scale. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the worship of Sun Wukong (the Monkey King) arose among the local people. After the Binxian Lantern Mountain temple fair was expanded to its present scale during the Longqing and Tianqi eras of the Ming dynasty, a Lantern Mountain Fair organization came into being; the fair has been handed down from generation to generation as a collective inheritance.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The Binxian Lantern Mountain Fair is a folk traditional activity held in Binxian County, Shaanxi Province, during the Yuanxiao Festival; every year, on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, it takes place at the Flower-Fruit Mountain in Shuilian Village, Chengguan Town, Binxian. Because the Water-Curtain Flower-Fruit Mountain lies on the thoroughfare between Shaanxi and Gansu, this heritage project has broad influence in the Binxian, Changwu, and Baoji areas of Shaanxi, as well as in Jingchuan, Xifeng, and Pingliang of Gansu and Guyuan of Ningxia. The mountain's caves are connected above and below, interlinking with one another; because the mountain is hollow inside and resembles a fortress in appearance, it is also called the "Water-Curtain Stone Fortress." Viewed from afar, the lights shine as brightly as a host of stars, forming from east to west patterns of a monastery, the Leifeng Pagoda, the Big Dipper, a sedan-chair roof, and a memorial archway. The fair is organized in turn by the villagers according to the order of their residences, with all the villagers participating together, and it has been handed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. During the temple fair, the people taking part in the Lantern Mountain Fair observe a vegetarian fast and ascend the mountain, offering sacrifices and performing rites before the seats of the gods above and below the mountain in accordance with traditional ritual protocol. They also set up wooden frames and ladders on the steep cliffs, using torches to light the oil lamps in the various places, so that the points of fire join into lines, forming mysterious and spectacular patterns. The entire lantern mountain has more than 1,700 lamp niches of various sizes; the largest image exceeds 45 square meters, while the smallest is also 5 square meters. The people of Binxian carved patterns such as a monastery, the Leifeng Pagoda, a memorial archway, the Big Dipper, and a sedan-chair roof into the open faces of the stone cliffs; their way of lighting the lamps and the rituals of the fair fully demonstrate outstanding folk wisdom and creativity, possessing a warm, plain, and primal artistic appeal and an aesthetic value that cannot be underestimated.

Lamp niches cut into the cliff

Over 1,700 niches are cut into the cliff, ranging from five to over forty-five square metres.

Black porcelain bowls of rapeseed oil

Thousands of locally fired black bowls hold ordinary rapeseed oil, so lighting needs no special vessels.

Rigging the lamps on scaffolds

After fasting and offerings, wooden scaffolds and ladders let the climbers light the lamps in lines.

Lighting the lantern mountain

Households take turns by the usual order to light the lamps, a scene called lighting the lantern mountain.

Forming pictures out of lights

The lights spell out temples, pagodas and the Big Dipper without any painted board.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

On the night of the Yuanxiao Festival, the local residents form the Lantern Mountain Fair and, following traditional procedures and ritual protocol, light one by one the more than a thousand ceramic oil lamps placed in the stone niches of the open cliff face. Under cover of night, the entire hill spur is brightly lit, forming a special kind of primitive neon-lightscape, which the local people commonly call "lighting the lantern mountain." The Water-Curtain Cave Flower-Fruit Mountain lantern mountain uses lamp niches carved into the cliff face as the supports for the lamps, employing several thousand black porcelain lamp bowls fired by local kilns since the Ming and Qing dynasties as the lamp vessels; the oil poured into the bowls is rapeseed oil, part of the local people's daily diet. The Binxian Lantern Mountain Fair contains a wealth of religious, folk-belief, and festival-culture information, making it an important reference for the study of local history.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

What makes the Lantern Mountain Fair precious is that it takes the mountain itself as the lantern: the lamp niches carved into the cliff face are both the seats of the lamps and the strokes of the patterns, and when more than a thousand black porcelain bowl lamps are lit together, the monastery, the memorial archway, and the Big Dipper shine across the stone in one sweep. The bowls are fired by local kilns dating from the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the oil is the households' own rapeseed oil, so the fair and the farming year are merged into one and the same mountain. Because the Water-Curtain Flower-Fruit Mountain lies on the thoroughfare between Shaanxi and Gansu, the custom's influence extends beyond Binxian; in Changwu, Baoji, and the areas of Jingchuan and Pingliang in Gansu and Guyuan in Ningxia, there are also people who travel to see the lights.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Lantern Festival (Bin, Shaanxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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