In ancient times, the origin of the Spring Festival couplets was closely linked to the "peach charm". Peach wood has been believed to have the divine power to ward off evil spirits and avoid filth since ancient times. The earliest prototype of the Spring Festival couplets is the "peach charm", that is, the two gods and goddesses of "Shen Tu and Yu Lei" are carved with peach wood, which are used to drive away evil spirits and protect the homeland. However, over time, the peach charm gradually became standardized, evolving into a six-inch-long and three-inch-wide peachwood board that hung on both sides of the gate.
According to the records of "History of the Song Dynasty and the Shu Family", the Spring Festival couplets can be traced back to the Later Shu of the Five Dynasties. The monarch at that time, Meng Chang, wrote the auspicious words "New Year's Yuqing, Jiajie Changchun" on two pieces of peach wood, and hung it at the palace gate to pray for the people. This behavior was imitated by the people and passed on to the people, becoming a custom during the Spring FestivalThis is the origin of the Spring Festival couplets, and "the New Year's Yuqing, the Jiajie Changchun" has also become the first Spring Festival couplets in Chinese history.
In the Song Dynasty, the Spring Festival couplets were still called "peach symbols". Wang Anshi's "Yuan Ri" has the sentence "Thousands of households always replace the new peach with the old one", which depicts this ancient tradition. In the Ming Dynasty, the peach charm was officially renamed "Spring Festival Couplets".
Spring Festival couplets were widely popularized in the Ming Dynasty, and they were closely related to the vigorous advocacy of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. It is rumored that Zhu Yuanzhang asked every family to post a pair of Spring Festival couplets on the door during the Spring Festival to celebrate. Originally, the Spring Festival couplets were inscribed on a mahogany board, and later rewritten on paper. Since the color of peach wood is red, it happens that red symbolizes auspiciousness and warding off evil in Chinese culture, so the Spring Festival couplets are mostly written on red paper.
It is worth noting that not all couplets are red. In ancient times, the spring couplets posted on temples and ancestral halls were yellow. Even today, in the countryside, the ancestral hall still maintains the tradition of using orange paper to write Spring Festival couplets.