Water-Sprinkling Festival

The tradition & historical record

The Water-Sprinkling Festival or Water-Splashing Festival was (simplified Chinese: 泼水节; traditional Chinese: 潑水節; pinyin: Pōshuǐ Jié), is a major and traditional festival of the Dai ethnic group marking the New Year. The Dai are an ethnic minority of China who primarily live in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture in southern Yunnan, and their predominant religion is Theravada Buddhism. This festival occurs on the 6th month of the Dai calendar, which usually corresponds to mid-April of the Gregorian calendar. Additionally, it is known as the Festival for Bathing the Buddha, and typically lasts for three days. On the first day, a variety of activities such as dragon boat races (held on the Lancang River), setting off of Dai rockets (放高升; fàng gāoshēng), and cultural and artistic performances are carried out. On the second day, water-splashing activities are enjoyed. The third and final day also coincides with New Year's Day, where people dress up in traditional garb and visit the temple. Water-splashing activities are carried out in the afternoon, where firstly, the women would clean statues of Buddha with water to obtain blessings; thereafter, individuals splash water on each other to symbolise not only good fortune, but also the "cleansing of illnesses and disasters". Furthermore, men and women take part in activities such as the exchange of small gifts and "losing of items", which are believed to bring good luck.

One folktale related to the Water Splashing Festival is a story about a demon king who took seven wives. One day, his seventh wife discovered his secret; if a strand of his hair was taken, it could be used to cut off his head. So she did so, and his head rolled to the ground and caught fire. There was disaster wherever it rolled. To prevent disaster from spreading, the wives decided to take turns holding the head and splashed water on each other to wash away the Demon King's blood stains. The Dai in Xishuangbanna and Dehong retell the story of the death of the Demon King and commemorate the seven women during the Water Splashing Festival.

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Water-Sprinkling Festival”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.