Zhongyuan Festival
01 · Historical Records
In the second year of the Xianfeng reign (1852), Hunan merchants built a grand Hunan Guild Hall covering more than six mu on Hepu Street, two kilometers from the county seat. The Ziyuan River Lantern Festival originated in the shipping traffic of the Zi River waterway; it is a form of mourning for river workers, boatmen, and log rafters who lost their lives on the river. With its long history, it is a faithful reflection of the history of shipping on the Zi River.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Before the Hunan-Guangxi Railway opened, the Zi River was the main transport artery connecting northern Guangxi with Hunan. Every year on the Zhongyuan Festival in the middle of the seventh month, people would spontaneously hold religious rites to release the wronged souls who had perished in the Zi River, ending with the release of a few river lanterns. On the one hand, this was an offering to the dead; on the other, it also prayed for protection against evil, the avoidance of disaster, and good fortune in all things. Thereafter, the Hunan Guild Hall allocated special funds each year from its public property or from public donations; during the middle of the seventh lunar month it invited famous Daoists and eminent monks to set up altars and chant scriptures, holding a "Water-and-Land Dharma Assembly" (also called the Yulanpen Assembly) to release the souls of the dead on water and land, thereby giving expression to people's grief. On the night of Zhongyuan, the guild hall organized the people to float river lanterns in a unified way; over time this developed into today's River Lantern Festival. River lanterns serve to show the way and give light, the intent being to illuminate and guide the wandering souls abroad on the road back home. At first, the Ziyuan river lanterns came in only three kinds: god-worshipping lamps, lotus lamps, and zongzi lamps. The god-worshipping lamp is built as a frame of four lamp posts, pasted with translucent paper on four sides and inscribed with auspicious phrases; it is used to worship the River God, praying for his protection against the disaster of capsized boats. The lotus lamp is made by pasting colored paper cut into lotus shapes around the outside of a bowl, resembling a lotus in full bloom and taking from Buddhism the lotus's meaning of purity; it is used to release and save souls. The zongzi lamp uses rather special materials: crushed rosin granules are wrapped into a zongzi-like shape and set afloat on a wooden board; its intent is to provide traveling food for the lonely souls and wild ghosts who cannot find their way home, so that they may return to their native place. River lantern culture is a product of trade exchange and economic prosperity along the Hunan-Guangxi border reaching a certain level, and it took shape in dependence on the Zhongyuan Festival. Organizationally, the River Lantern Festival was not run by any single village but by the Hunan Guild Hall, which tied the county town together with the riverside villages: the guild hall invited famous Daoists and eminent monks to set up altars, monks and Daoists together read out the registers of the dead of the waters and the land, while the lanterns drifted downstream—on the river were the dead, on the banks were the households. On the day of the lanterns, boats set out from the guild hall's wharf, the lamps going with the current and the people going with the lamps, all the way out of the county town; once soaked by the water the paper lamps fell apart, and only when they had scattered completely were the dead considered to have been seen off. This practice, managed uniformly by the guild hall and concluded on the riverbank, turned scattered mourning into one complete night with a beginning and an end.
The sequence of the water-and-land rite
The altar is raised and names read before the lanterns are launched, priests and boatmen dividing the work through one night.
Lamp for the river god
Four posts frame a lantern faced with translucent paper and pasted with good words, the most solemn type, dedicated to the river god for the safety of boats.
Lotus lantern
Coloured paper cut as lotuses is pasted around a bowl so that it floats like a bloom, borrowed from Buddhist purity to ferry souls lost on the water.
Zongzi lantern
Rosin granules wrapped like zongzi and set on a plank to drift, the most rustic of the three, serving as provisions for souls who cannot return home.
The three lamp types afloat together
All three types drift on the same night, lanterns trailing one another downstream, making a spectacle that needs no announcement.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Ziyuan River Lantern Festival is a traditional festival circulating in the areas of Ziyuan Town, Zhongfeng Township, and Meixi Township in Ziyuan County, Guilin City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It has ethnic and regional characteristics, and it took shape and exists in dependence on the Zhongyuan Festival.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Zhongyuan Festival · Zhongyuan Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
It is both a custom handed down by river workers, boatmen, and log rafters, and a part of the life customs of the riverside residents; it has regional characteristics and considerable socio-cultural value.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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