The Research on the Folklore Terms of the Seasonal Festivals in the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu

: Dongjing Meng Hua Lu is an important document to study the social life of the Northern Song dynasty. But up to now, there are still many debates about the specific textual researches of relevant nominal words in this book. So, this paper makes further correction, supplement and textual research on the controversial folklore terms. This paper believes that in the folkloric words, the prototype of the word "Mo Hele" is Mahakala; the word "Jing" should have been omitted from the Zaju "Mulian Saving His Mother", which is actually the Zaju using the Buddhist classic of Mulian to show how to save his mother; the word "YeHu" is derived from the sound of fright and intimidation or a ghostly face or mask.Besides, there are still many nominal words in this book which needs more discussion and need more information to demonstrate. Therefore, when interpreting the text of this book, the relevant research also needs to be more careful about the material, and cannot be blindly quoted.


Introduction
Dongjing Meng Hua Lu is an important historical document for the study of the social and cultural life of the Song dynasty, and is highly valued by the academic community.Over the years, there have been numerous studies on urban history, folklore history and cultural history based on this book.In his preface, Meng Yuanlao, the author of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, said, "The language of this book is vulgar and not decorated with the literature," in order to make it "can be understood by people of all walks of life".However, due to the book is far away from the present day, the language habits have changed a lot, and the content of the book is complex, rich in colloquialisms, so in the version of the work of the proofreading of many controversies still exist.In this paper, we will combine the literature and the research of the previous researchers to discuss the controversy over the folklore terms in the seasonal festivals section of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu.Through this work, we aim at further promote the study of the cultural connotation and historical development of the folklore terms related to the festivals in the Song dynasty.

The Author of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu
According to the preface of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu can be seen, this book should be the people of the time record.But for the author of Meng Yuanlao, the bibliophile in Southern Song dynasty Chen Zhensun said: "Yuanlao does not know who", today Deng Zhicheng who makes comments for Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, said: " Yuanlao is always used to name in Song dynasty".And Yi Yongwen in Dongjing Meng Hua Lu notes put forward "Yuanlao most likely takes Song people common name as a pseudonym", he thinks Meng Yuanlao should be the noble and he should be the Zhao's clan descendants Zhao ZiZhi in the Meng Yuanlao Kao.Then He Zhaoquan in his article about the author of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu thinks that Meng Yuanlao may be his name, from the style of writing, he should be from the official, but the status of the nobility.
For Meng Yuanlao identity speculation, in the academic community, there are many different opinions, so far there is no conclusion.But no matter who wrote Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, there is no doubt about his identity in Song dynasty.Meng Yuanlao wrote the preface in the seventeenth year of Shaoxing (1147), twenty years after he left Dongjing.Therefore, this essay would not rely solely on the author's memory, it is very likely to refer to the extremely prosperous notes, novels and other documentary materials.Therefore, the book Dongjing Meng Hua Lu not only shows the author Meng Yuanlao's eyes of the social landscape of the Dongjing city, but also should retain a large number of documentary records of Dongjing city under the vision of Song people, the credibility is very high.

The Version and Collation of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu
Dongjing Meng Hua Lu has always been regarded as a book, which is"extremely lovely but not easy to read ", and the research on the interpretation of the text is mostly based on the existing annotations.However, on the issue of edition, there is a gap of forty-seven years between the earliest engraved copy and the manuscript, which is the most likely not hand-calibrated by the author.Among the surviving copies, even the copy in Yuan dynasty, which is recognized as the earliest and best, contains many errors.In the work of proof-reading, due to the volume of this book is very complicated, all the commentaries are selected, each with its own focus.Those who cite more other books are more prone to proofreading errors; those who are cautious in reviewing the book are more difficult to cover all aspects of the annotations.Therefore, since 1982, when Deng Zhicheng made his first annotation for Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, there has been a continuous debate on the interpretation of this book.
In 1959, Deng Zhicheng made his first commentary on Dongjing Meng Hua Lu.This annotation followed the principle of "the material for the annotation is taken from the records of the Song people", and quoted 148 kinds of books from Song and Yuan dynasty.However, Mr Deng was deeply impressed that the original book was "difficult to read in sentences", and although it was short, "the number of those who could interpret it was less than three or four out of ten".
Soon after the publication of Deng's book, Japanese scholar Iriyasu Yoshitaka criticized Deng's book, and the article was subsequently translated and published.In his article, Mr Iriyasu accused that "Some should be annotated but not annotated, some should be annotated but not annotated, and there are also many errors in annotations", and regretted that it did not annotate the terminology and colloquialisms of the Song dynasty.Yoshitaka Iriyasu began to study the original Dongjing Meng Hua Lu word by word in 1949, and published the translation of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu in 1983.This edition is more detailed than Deng's, and is richer in historical references.
In 2004, Yi Yongwen's Notes further corrected and supplemented on the basis of various commentaries, but for the content already annotated by Deng and Inuya, this book chooses to exclude many of them.The above three commentaries are all based on the edition in Yuan dynasty, and the method of using other editions as the base is widely adopted.However, since the earliest surviving copy of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu was probably not hand-calibrated by Meng Yuanlao, even the earliest and best Yuan copy is considered to have some discrepancies with the original manuscript.Therefore, Yi Yongwen added Chen Yuanliang's Suishi Guangji as the main books of the same period, to correct the base of the errors.At the same time, this note also added a large number of new materials, regardless of the age of the near and far, wherever it helps to understand the content of the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, are widely recorded, trying to pave a panoramic picture of the social life of the city of Dongjing with its notes.
In these mainstream commentaries, scholars did not always cover all aspects of the text, but rather, in the work of proofreading, there were a number of selections of content, each with its own emphasis.This situation is particularly obvious the part of seasonal festival in the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, Deng's annotated book for folklore-related items rarely mentioned, while Yi's annotated book collected the material extensively.Therefore, in this paper, in the process of examining the names of festivals and folklore in the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, we will take the editions of the Mice Huihan Book, the Jindai Mishu Book and the Siku Quanshu book as references, and use the opinions of Yi's annotated text as the main point of reference, combined with the other editions and the research results of scholars, to consolidate the relevant materials for the reference of the future researchers.

Overview of the Folklore Terms
Related to The Festivals in the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu.
From Volume 6 to Volume 10 of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu is a section on festivals of the year.The author, Meng Yuanlao, chronologically records the major festivals and customs in the whole year.Due to the rich content and obvious vulgar language of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, a large number of folk festivals in the book have been used in dictionaries such as the Hanyu Dictionary and Song Yuan Language Dictionary to set up lexical items.
For this proofreading, a careful comparison of Deng and Yi' notes can be found, Yi's notes on the basis of a large number of additions to the material, and for the controversial items to make a preliminary description, but most of the material only for the collation, did not carry out the test and inference.This paper note that the literature taken by the book is more complex, and even there are jokes listed in it, in the citation of the authenticity of the material needs to be further demonstrated.As for some of the names of the objects that was misnamed in the process of circulation, their documentation is relatively scarce and has not been analysed clearly, and in some studies on the reinterpretation of the text of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, the wrong names are still used.Therefore, up to now, it is still necessary to correct, supplement and verify the contents of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu.In this paper, we will select some of the folklore nouns and discuss them respectively.

"Mo Hele"
In Volume 8 of the "Qi Xi Festival" section, Meng Yuanlao called the term "Mo Hele" "small moulded clay dolls".At that time, from the royal family to the ordinary people, all used this as the festive decorations for the Tanabata Festival.As for the explanation of "Mo Hele", the book also clearly stated that it was originally "Buddhist scripture Muhūrtu", and was written as "Mo Hele" for the sake of popularity.When combining archaeological excavation materials and research results of scholars, Yi Yongwen made some collation of the prototype of "Mo Hele" and the evolution of its image, but it was relatively brief, and did not make any proof of each statement.In the Mengliang Lu, it was said that the custom of "children holding lotus leaves in their hands and emulating the shape of 'Mo Hele'" was "not known coming from".Iriyasu Yoshitaka suggested that the "Mo Hele" originated from the snake-headed but human-body God, Mahiraga.Deng Zhicheng, on the other hand, used the term "Rohula", the only son of Shakyamuni Buddha, as the term "Mo Hele," which is a transliteration of the terms "Rohula" and "Muhūrtu".However, it is less likely that there is a phonetic mistake between "Rohula" and "Muhūrtu".
According to Fu Yunzi, the "Mo Hele", which took the form of a beautiful child in the Song dynasty, was the python God Mahiraga, which was localized to suit the situation when it was introduced to China.This statement is evidenced by the lacquer statue of Mahiraga at Xingfu Temple in Nara, Japan, which is a child's face with a serpentine-shaped crown.Fu Yunzi believes that, Mahiraga is the god of music, who plays the flute and drums.However, he failed to specify the reason for the widespread display of "Mo Hele" in the Song dynasty, and only speculated that Mahiraga was widely displayed because of its infinite meanings and boundless wisdom.This seems to be inconsistent with the character of "Mo Hele" as the festive decorations of the Tanabata Festival.The basic purpose on the Tanabata Festival is to seek a child.In the Qi Xi Festival section of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, "Shui Shangfu", "Zhong Sheng" and "De Qiao", whose are the same festive decorations as "Mo Hele", all have the same meaning.
Another person, Kang Baocheng, believes that "Mo Hele" is the Tantric deity Mahakala.This is not the same thing as the python God Mahiraga.Mahakala is an incarnation of the Brahmin God Shiva, who was absorbed into Buddhism and became an important Dharma protector in Tantric Buddhism, with the power to bestow fertility.This God often presents people in two different forms: one is the aspect of blessing, love, and joy, and the other is the aspect of subduing demons with wrath.But in any case, its image is related to women and babies related to childbirth.
In the Song and Yuan Dynasties, people often praised a child's beauty by looking like "Mo Hele".In the section of "Tanabata", Meng Yuanlao also mentions that "the child must buy a new lotus leaf and hold it, which is to imitate Mo Hele".Yi Yongwen noted that the popularity of the "lotus children" theme should be related to the story of the Buddhist Lotus giving birth.In Buddhism and Hinduism, the lotus flower is often associated with marriage and fertility.Brahma, the Vedic God of birth, was born in a golden lotus flower on Vishnu's navel.According to the Sutra of the Past and Present Causes and Effects, when Prince Shakyamuni was born, "a seven-stemmed lotus flower of seven jewels was born under the tree, as big as a wheel, and the bodhisattva fell into the lotus flower".When monks pass away and their bodies are cremated, people also wish the deceased to go to the Western Paradise and be reborn from the lotus flower during the ceremony.The Song Dynasty white glazed and colored boy unearthed from the kiln site in Ba Village, Yu County, Henan Province, is considered by Wang Lianhai to be the closest work to "Mo Hele".This boy holding a lotus leaf, seated on a drum-shaped embroidered pier, wearing a vest, with an open abdomen and a belt around his waist, which hangs down between his legs, is 21 cm tall, with his eyebrows, temples, and clothing outlined in red and black coloured glazes.
Therefore, the hypothesis held by Kang Baocheng that the "Mahakala is the prototype of Mo Hele" is most likely correct.In the Tantric system of deities, Mahakala is often regarded as an incarnation of Guanyin, and there is a legend that Guanyin gave birth to bodhicitta and decided to help sentient beings escape pain, and Mahakala came out of her heart.And Hu Shi in the examination of the "Mo Heluo", has long been put forward Mahakala of its original war God, and then after a long period of evolution, to the Song and Yuan dynasty into a beautiful woman's point of view.Although these images are not consistent with the "the clay doll made into the shape of a child" in the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu.But this article tends to believe that this is due to the interactive influence of the Mahakala belief , which showcases fertility as a deity, and its "giving birth" power during the dissemination of Buddhism in China.Just like another festival decoration in the Tanabata Festival, "Shui shangfu", which uses a baby made of wax to float on the water to play, taking the meaning that women will be fertile.The popularity of the theme of "children with lotus" finally changed the image of Mahakala, the prototype of "Mo Hele", into that of children with lotus.

The Zaju "Mulian Saving His Mother" and Zaju "Mulian Jing Saving His Mother"
Every year on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, it is both the Taoist Mid-Yuan Festival and the Buddhist Yulan Pen Festival.Every year on this day, a great Yulan Pen Festival is held, in which Buddhist disciples repay the kindness of the "parents in their seven reincarnations" for the upbringing.The scripture used at the Yulan Pen Festival is the Yulan Pen Sutra, and there is only one specific example in this scripture to illustrate the reverence of filial piety in Buddhism, which is "Mu Lian saving his mother".
There are also many records of "Mulian Jing" and Zaju "Mulian Saving Mother" in the section of "Mid-Yuan Festival" in Volume 8 of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, but the commentary of Yi Yongwen is more brief, focusing on the story of Bianwen and Zaju.However, when comparing the versions of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, Chen Qiao found that some of the versions were called Zaju "Mulian saving his mother", while others were called "Mulian Jing saving his mother".
Comparison of the Song and Yuan versions of the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu engraved in the Ming dynasty reveals that in the middle of the Hongzhi period of the Ming dynasty, the Song version of the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu widely reproduced under the influence of the retro movement had the character "Jing", and this version has been circulating as the mainstream version for more than five hundred and sixty years.On the other hand, there is no "Jing" in the Yuan version, and it was popularised with the photocopying and publishing of the Jingjiatang Library in Japan in 1940.The two versions with the difference of one character have been circulating in parallel for a long time.
If we want to argue the existence of the word "Jing", we have to go deeper into the context of this section recorded in the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu.In the study of the Zaju "Mulian Saving His Mother ", the academics have long borrowed from the record of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu: "Since the Tanabata Festival, the musicians have been performing the Zaju 'Mulian Saving His Mother'.By the end of the 15th day of the performance, the number of people watching it has increased several times."This isolated evidence regards the Zaju "Mulian Saveing His Mother" as a complete and massive performance, and even has the title of "the specific formation of Chinese opera".In fact, by integrating the words "Zaju" appearing in volumes 5 and 7 of the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, it can be found that the performance time of Zaju is relatively short.Comparing the structural forms of Song Zaju summarized from ancient and modern times, it can be found that the "Zaju" recorded in Dongjing Meng Hua Lu mostly presents a style without orchestral instruments.And in the Southern Song dynasty, Nai Deweng recorded that "at the beginning of the music workshop, the musicians will first perform a segment of an ordinary and familiar story, called the Yan Duan, which is slightly inferior to the Zheng Zaju" in the Ducheng Jisheng.However, there is no trace of "Yan Duan" in Dongjing Meng Hua Lu.From this, it can be seen that the Northern Song Dynasty's Zaju during this period should still exist in a chaotic and incompletely formed stage.
But if the word "Jing" itself exists, and what is recorded in the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu should be the Zaju "Mu Lian Jing Saving His Mother", then the situation will change.Chen Qiao, in his article argues that there are many scriptures related to Mulian, but the story of "Mulian Saving His Mother" can only be seen in the Yulan Pen Sutra, and "Mulian Saving His Mother" is also the only specific example in the Yulan Pen Sutra that explains the worship of filial piety in Buddhism.Therefore, the Mulian Jing is commonly known as the Yulan Pen Sutra.After the Tang Dynasty, the art of changing scriptures with colloquial language emerged, and by the time of Song Zhenzong, it was explicitly prohibited for monks to colloquially speak scriptures.However, the ideas of precepts, and goodness contained in the Yulan Pen Sutra were accepted by the court and had an educational effect.Therefore, in order to avoid the situation of monks speaking scriptures with colloquial language during the Yulan Pen Festival, musicians who have close relationships with monks and often serve as performance venues in the temple were used to spread the Yulan Pen Sutra in the form of Zaju.These artists, with the theme of "saving the mother" and various performance styles, take turns appearing and repeatedly perform the content of Yulan Pen Sutra.This type of joint performance with alternate appearances is extremely rare in daily life, naturally doubling the number of viewers.From this perspective, when the word "Jing" does exist, it seems to be more in line with the situation of Zaju in the Northern Song Dynasty recorded in the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu.
In summary, this article tends to believe that the word "Jing" should have been omitted from the "Mulian Saving Mother Zaju".The meaning of Mulian Jing is the Yulan Pen Sutra, and the entire performance can be understood as a Zaju with the theme of "saving the mother" in the Yulan Pen Sutra.The temple uses this performance on Yulan Pen Festival to achieve the purpose of preaching scriptures and spreading Buddhism's filial piety and fraternity.

"Da Yehu"
Volume 10 "New Year's Eve" section recorded a folk custom called "Da Yehu".The "exorcism" records in the Liang Kejia's Chunxi Sanshan Zhi, which puts forward two claims, one for the Tang Jingzong "catch fox for fun at night", the second for the Cao Jingzong "sent people to shout loudly, pretending to be driving out the epidemic, and went everywhere to people's homes to beg for wine and food", which is known as "Da Yehu" in Minnan language.In the textual research of the relationship between the two, Chunxi Sanshan Zhi proposed two possibilities: one is that the play of exorcising evil spirits in Minnan folk customs is the same as the play of catching foxes at night; the second reason is that the "Ye Hu" was originally true, but later falsely rumored to be the "night fox".Yi Yongwen believes that "Ye Hu" originated from the "wild fox".After the act of expelling charming wild foxes at night, it gradually transformed into a "exorcising exorcism" that became popular in various regions and eventually became a custom.This statement often quotes folk stories of the Song Dynasty that drove wild foxes and demonic foxes.
Xu Shiyi, in his Exploring the Origin of "Ma Hu", argues that "Ma Hu" is a phonetic word, and that it is also written in different ways, such as "Ye Hu", "Ye Yu", "Xie Hu".These words do not seem to have any real counterparts, and they can refer to either wild animals or ghosts, and are the most likely the screams or intimidating sounds used in folk activities to exorcise demons and fight ghosts.Yuan Zhangxuan's interpretation of "Nuo" in the Analects of Confucius is "expelling epidemic ghosts"in Volume 14 of his Zhida Jinling Xinzhi, and he believes that this is also known as the "Yeyu Opera".The folk saying that "Nuo is a Yehu" should be a false rumor.Chen Duo believes that the commonly seen "Ye Hu" and "Ye Bo" in the Song Dynasty are homophones of the Wu dialect's common name for masks, "Hu Tou", and "Da Yehu" is more like the common name and slang for Nuo opera with mask.
In the Jiangao Zhuibi, another statement was proposed, which refers to the performance behavior in the market or without a fixed performance venue as "Da yebo" or "Da yehe".This type of performer is referred to as "Luqi Ren" in Wulin Jiushi.
In contrast, in "Da Yehu", "Ye Hu" has many words with similar pronunciations, but their meanings are similar, often referring to exorcising exorcism.Yi Yongwen's opinions are mostly limited to a single legend of the "wild fox", and the literature cited only includes folk stories about the expulsion of the wild fox, without any clear connection with the "Da Yehu" record.The performance without a stable performance venue mentioned in Jiangao Zhuibi adopts the specific meaning of "Ye Bo", but it is not mentioned that such performances are also referred to as "Da Yehu".In Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, "Da Yehu" seems to have become a folk activity.Since entering December, beggars and poor people will form a team to drive away exorcism, they dress up as women, gods and ghosts, "beating gongs and drums, begging for money door-to-door".From this perspective, this article tends to believe that the statement that "Ye Hu" originates from sounds of fear, intimidation, or grimaces or masks is more reliable."DaYehu" is more like the common name and slang for Nuo opera with mask.

Conclusions
Since Deng Zhicheng first annotated the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu in 1959, the scholarly community has never stopped examining the famous words related to the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu.Due to the large volume and complexity of the book, up to the present day, there are still different annotations continuing to come out.Until now, there hasn't been a perfect annotated book.The researches of the text of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu are mostly based on the existing annotations, but there are still a lot of words and phrases in the book that are worth debating again.
Therefore, this paper is based on the relevant issues of the annual festival name, through the collation of the relevant the literature and the results of previous research, a new perspective has been formed on the textual research of some controversial nominal terms.For example, the prototype of the term "Mo Hele" should be is Mahakala, which was originally a god of war, and was said to be the wrathful face of Guanyin (Avalokitesvara), and then evolved into a beautiful woman in Song and Yuan dynasties.In China, the belief in the God of Fertility and its "child-sending" power interacted with each other, and at the same time, under the influence of the "Lotus giving birth to a child" theme,the final form of Mahakala is a child holding a lotus flower, which is called "Mo Hele".Additionally, after Ye Qiao's collation, he found that in Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, the versions of Zaju "Mulian Saving His Mother" and Zaju "Mulian Jing Saving His Mother", which differed in one word, coexisted for a long time, and he found that the word "Jing" was omitted when comparing with the characteristics of the Northern Song dynasty's Zaju.The "Mulian Saving His Mother" is more likely to as the "saving the mother"theme perform the Northern Song dynasty Zaju arts, in order to popularize the Buddhist classic Mulian Jing , and spread the filial piety thought in Buddhism.Finally, the custom of "Da Yehu" in the New Year's eve festival, does not the saying of originating from "wild fox" in Yi's book."Ye Hu" should be the same as a series of words, like "Ma Hu", which are the sound word.They originated from sounds of shock, intimidation, or grimaces or masks, and then gradually absorbed by Nuo opera, and changed for the specific customs.
To sum up, we combine the literature and the research of the previous researchers to discuss the controversy over the folklore terms in the seasonal festivals section of Dongjing Meng Hua Lu.It is hoped that through the textual research and scrutiny of these vocabulary, a certain contribution can be made to relevant folk research.