DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷八
中元節
The market of the dead.
Zhongyuan as a market for the dead and a report to the ancestors: paper boots and belts on frames, a burning stand, the Mulian play, harvest goods for the table, and the palace’s own rite for war dead and orphan souls.
READ THE FESTIVAL ↓1. Clothes for the dead are sold in the same markets.
七月十五日，中元節。先數日，市井賣冥器：靴鞋、幞頭、帽子、金犀假帶、五綵衣服，以紙糊架子，盤遊出賣。潘樓並州東、西瓦子，亦如七夕，耍鬧處亦賣果食、種生、花果之類，及印賣《尊勝》《目連經》。
The fifteenth of the seventh month is the Zhongyuan festival. Some days before, the markets sell spirit goods: boots and shoes, official caps, hats, imitation gold-and-rhinoceros belts and five-colored clothing, made of paper pasted over frames and carried about for sale. At Pan Tower and the tile markets east and west of the prefecture it is as at Qixi: in the bustling places they also sell fruit food, planted growth, flowers and fruit, and print and sell the Zunsheng and the Mulian Sutra.
The market has simply changed its stock. The sites are the same as for the Seventh Night, and some goods, the fruit food and the sprouted beans, carry over; what is new is a dressing sequence in paper, from boots to cap to belt to clothes, pasted over frames and carried about for sale. Printed scriptures are sold alongside. The text says nothing yet about who buys the paper clothes or what is done with them.
2. A burning stand, a play, and the harvest on the table.
又以竹竿斫成三腳，高三五尺，上織燈窩之狀，謂之「盂蘭盆」，掛搭衣服、冥錢，在上焚之。構肆樂人，自過七夕，便般目連經救母雜劇，直至十五日止，觀者增倍。中元前一日，即賣練葉，享祀時鋪襯卓面。又賣麻穀窠兒，亦是繫在卓子腳上，乃告祖先秋成之意。又賣雞冠花，謂之「洗手花」。
They also hew bamboo poles into a tripod three to five feet high, weave the shape of a lantern basket on top and call it a “yulanpen,” on which clothes and spirit money are hung and burned. The performers of the entertainment precincts, from just after Qixi, put on the variety play “The Mulian Sutra: Rescuing His Mother,” continuously until the fifteenth, and the audience doubles. On the day before Zhongyuan they sell lian leaves, to be spread over the tabletop at the time of the offering. They also sell hemp-and-grain nests, likewise tied to the legs of the table, expressing the idea of reporting the autumn harvest to the ancestors. They also sell cockscomb flowers, called “hand-washing flowers.”
Three inventions are packed into this paragraph. The first is the yulanpen, a bamboo tripod with a woven top that serves as a burning rack for clothes and paper money, a market-made altar. The second is the Mulian play: it begins right after Qixi and runs until the fifteenth, with audiences doubling as the date nears, which links this entry to the last by time as well as site. The third is the table: leaves for the surface, nests of hemp and grain on its legs, cockscomb flowers. Meng ties the grain nests to “reporting the autumn harvest,” so the ancestors’ table also carries an agricultural message. The lian leaves are not further identified.
3. The fifteenth, the grave, and the palace.
十五日，供養祖先素食。纔明，即賣穄米飯，巡門叫賣，亦告成意也。又賣轉明菜花、花油餅、餕豏、沙豏之類。城外有新墳者，即往拜掃。禁中亦出車馬，詣道者院謁墳。本院官給祠部十道，設大會，焚錢山，祭軍陣亡歿，設孤魂道場。
On the fifteenth, vegetarian food is offered to the ancestors. As soon as it is light they sell millet rice, calling it door to door; this too expresses the idea of reporting completion. They also sell zhuanming-vegetable flowers, flower oil cakes, and filled pastries of the junxian and shaxian kinds. Those with new graves outside the city go to sweep them. The palace likewise sends out carriages to the Daoists’ court to visit the graves. The court issues ten certificates of the Bureau of Sacrifices, holds a great assembly, burns a mountain of paper money, makes offerings to those who died in battle, and sets up a rite for orphan souls.
The day opens with food: vegetarian offerings at home and a street vendor at first light, whose door-to-door call recalls the “reporting completion” of the second unit. Then the family and the state run in parallel, since commoners sweep their new graves outside the city and the palace sends carriages to the Daoists’ court. The state’s version is the one place where an official allotment is counted (ten certificates) and where beneficiaries are named, those who died in battle, with a separate rite for orphan souls. The text does not say who the orphans are, nor how the war dead are chosen.
Three places where the Siku text and the reference part.
The Siku scan writes 鬼 at the end of the item, where the sense and the reference edition call for 兒. The page reads 麻穀窠兒, “hemp-and-grain nests.”
The Siku scan has 目連經救母雜劇; the reference edition omits 經 and prints the title as the Mulian rescue play. The page keeps the Siku text, which leaves the relation to the sutra explicit.
The Siku scan runs these names together. The page follows the reference edition’s divisions, though 轉明菜花 may also be read as a vegetable and flower pair. It does not adopt the reference edition’s extra 之 in 孤魂道場.
Goods made to be burned for the dead; here paper-pasted frames of boots, caps, belts and clothing.
The Buddhist name given to a bamboo tripod with a woven top, used as a rack for burning clothes and paper money.
A variety play from the Buddhist story, performed from just after Qixi until the fifteenth.
The popular name for cockscomb flowers sold the day before the festival.
The office whose certificates the court issues ten of for the great assembly; the text says no more of their use.
Souls without descendants to feed them, for whom the palace sets up a rite at the end of the entry.
Entry 66 runs the same festival twice. In the markets and at the table the dead are served with paper clothes and harvest nests; at the court they are served with certificates, a mountain of burning money and a rite for those who died in battle and those with no one to feed them. The next entry steps forward by three weeks, to a leaf worn in the hair on the first day of autumn.
本院官給祠部十道，設大會，焚錢山，祭軍陣亡歿，設孤魂道場。The sequence is Meng’s. The punctuation is editorial.
The primary text is read from the Siku-family witness (Kanripo KR2k0111, 卷八); punctuation and the standardization of Siku variant glyphs are editorial. The Siku 鬼 is read as 兒 after the reference edition.