Chinese Traditional Festival - LABA Festival 2022

Chinese Traditional Festival – LABA Festival 2022

The Laba Festival, which is the eighth day of December in the lunar calendar every year, is also known as the “Magic Treasure Festival”, “Buddha Enlightenment Festival” and “Enlightenment Society”. It was originally a Buddhist festival to commemorate Sakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment and gradually became a folk festival.

Every Laba day, whether it is the imperial court, the monastery, or the homes of the normal people, they will cook Laba porridge. In the Qing Dynasty, the custom of eating Laba porridge became more popular.

In the north of China, there is a saying, “Kid, kids be patient, Laba starts New Year”, and Laba means the beginning of the New Year. During the Laba Festival, the northern regions are busy peeling garlic to make vinegar, soaking laba garlic, and eating laba noodles and laba porridge. Laba is rarely mentioned in south China, it is a typical Festival in northern China.

The Laba Festival is celebrated on the eighth day of December in the lunar calendar. The main custom is “drinking Laba porridge”. Laba Festival is one of the grand Buddhist festivals. According to Buddhist records, Sakyamuni had practiced asceticism for many years before he became enlightened. He found that asceticism was not the ultimate way of liberation and decided to give up asceticism. At this time, he met a shepherd offering celiac. After eating, he recovered physical strength and sat under the linden tree meditating. He became enlightened on December 8th. To commemorate this event, Buddhists held a puja on this day to cook porridge with rice and fruits for the Buddha.

The Southern Song Dynasty Wu Zimu’s “Menglianglu” contains: “On the 8th of this month, the monastery is called Laba. Dasha and other temples have five-flavor porridge, called Laba porridge.” Since Buddhism was introduced to China, all monasteries have used fragrant grain and fruits to make porridge and give it to the disciples and believers. On Laba’s day, various monasteries held pujas to follow the story of the Buddha’s shepherd offering celiac before enlightenment, and use fragrant grains and fruits to cook porridge for the Buddha. Legend has it that after drinking this kind of porridge, you can be blessed by the Buddha. Therefore, Laba porridge is also called “fortune and longevity porridge“, ” fortune and morality porridge”, and “Budda porridge”. “Laba” was originally a Buddhist festival, but it has gradually evolved into a household folk festival.

Legend of Laba Festival

It is said that Laba Congee originated from India. As the son of a king in the north of ancient India, Sakyamuni could not bear the local people’s suffering from illness and the theocracy ruled by Brahman (one of the four Indian classes). As a result, he abandoned his lofty position and went out to seek a way to enlighten himself according to religious doctrine. After six years of enduring a very hard life and self-torture, he realized the truth of Buddhism while sitting under the bodhi tree on the eighth day of the 12th lunar month. It is remembered that during these six years, Sakyamuni only ate rice every day. So by eating porridge on the eighth day of the 12th month every year people commemorate him.

Laba Rice Porridge

Laba rice porridge contains glutinous rice, red beans, millet, Chinese sorghum, peas, dried lotus seeds, red beans, and some other ingredients, such as dried dates, chestnut meat, walnut meat, almond, peanut, etc. Actually, eight ingredients are used, cooked with sugar to make the porridge tasty. Northerners prefer to use glutinous rice, red beans, dates, lotus seeds, dried long’an pulp, walnuts, pine nuts, and other dried fruits in their porridge; southerners like a salty porridge prepared with rice, soybeans, peanuts, broad beans, taro, water chestnuts, walnuts, vegetables, and diced meat. In the north, it is a dessert with sugar added; in the south, salt is put in. Some people like to add cinnamon and other condiments to add flavor.