Pure Brightness清明

Pure Brightness (清明, Qīng Míng) is the fifth of the twenty-four solar terms and the third month-opener of the year, falling at the instant the sun reaches 15° of ecliptic longitude — usually between 4 and 6 April. The name describes clearing skies and settled, bright weather, the sense in which the worst of the season's changeability is over.

Most readers who search for this term arrive because of the festival rather than the astronomy. Qingming Festival — Tomb-Sweeping Day — is a cultural observance built around this date; this entry is about the solar term underneath it, the astronomical instant that opens the 辰 month in the BaZi calendar.

Astronomically, Pure Brightness sits between Spring Equinox and Grain Rain, a month-opening term rather than a mid-point one. In the agricultural calendar it traditionally marks settled spring weather good for planting, following the equinox's shift into fuller daylight.

It opens the traditional "late spring" pairing with Grain Rain, the final stretch before Beginning of Summer starts the next season.

Pure Brightness is a 節 — a month-opening term — so at that instant the month pillar's branch becomes 辰 (Chén). It is the third of the twelve month-branch changes over the course of a year, and like the other eleven, it lands on a 節.

Running this site's engine across 2026 confirms the specific timing: the month branch steps into 辰 on 2026-04-05, one of the twelve dates that year on which a pillar actually changes. A birth the day before still carries 卯 from Spring Equinox's month; a birth after this instant carries 辰.

That structural fact is exactly what the festival built on the same date does not carry. Tomb-Sweeping observances have their own customs and their own timing conventions, but they have no bearing on which branch a chart's month pillar takes — that is set purely by the astronomical instant.

Qingming Festival (清明節) — Chinese folk and civic calendar. The solar term and the festival share a name and a date but are different kinds of thing. Pure Brightness is the astronomical instant that opens the 辰 month pillar; Qingming Festival is the cultural practice of tomb-sweeping and ancestor veneration held around that date. This entry documents the former.