Dragon is the artistic sublimation of crocodile image, which has become the consensus of most scholars. Some people even say for sure that as the totem of the Chinese nation, the "dragon" should be based on the Chinese alligator.
The Chinese alligator, called "catfish" or "catfish dragon" in ancient times, commonly known as "Dragon Map" and "Pig Dragon Girl", is a unique animal in China and one of the only two kinds of freshwater alligators in temperate zone in the world. According to fossil records, they are distributed in nearly half of China, especially in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
How did the Chinese alligator become a dragon? First of all, the Chinese alligator has a fierce appearance, amphibious life habits, and often semi-hidden places are like secret whereabouts, which will make the ancients both awe and awe of it, making it a majestic and mysterious animal in the eyes of the public, so it has become an inevitable choice for the image of the main water god.
In fact, this illusory dragon statue has all the basic characteristics of the Chinese alligator: the whole body is covered with scales; The chin is long and there is a prominent nose on the top of the head; Conical fangs with sharp edges; Big, round and bulging eyes; A long, thick tail; Strong limbs, five fingers and claws; A belly with horizontal stripes. In order to make up for the defect that the Chinese alligator's bald head and pointed tail damage the image of the gods, the ancients gave full play to their imagination and added horns, whiskers and caudal fins to the body, transforming the prominent horny spines arranged vertically on the back into serrated dorsal fins, lengthening the body and presenting momentum and decorative effects. Therefore, this Chinese alligator has been shaped into the legendary image of a dragon that can soar in the clouds.
Chinese alligators live in swamps of rivers and lakes. In Zuo Zhuan, "the real dragon and snake in the deep mountain of osawa" may mean that dragons (that is, Chinese alligators) and snakes live in the same environment and have similar habits. "The water is not deep, and the dragon has spirit" means that the dragon can't live without water, which is also in line with the life characteristics of crocodiles in China. "Chinese alligator dragons have the habit of hibernating and wake up in autumn. Every time the ancients saw a crocodile and a thunderstorm appear at the same time, rain flew from the air, so they imagined that it could fly.
The Chinese alligator "built" an underground cave maze by the water. These caves are two or three meters deep from the ground and usually live in water. So people imagine that "the dragon king lives in the underwater Dragon Palace". People think that when the Chinese alligator ran around because its cave was destroyed in the flood, people thought it was the "Dragon King making waves". In fact, the Chinese alligator is also a victim of the flood.
Chinese alligators feed on fish, frogs and mussels, and there are many pearls in their shells. Some people saw the Chinese alligator fighting for pearls in the clam's mouth, so they had the saying of "two dragons playing with pearls".
The mating and spawning season of Chinese alligator is rainy season. Because male crocodiles look for female crocodiles by barking, people associate the cry of Chinese alligators with the coming of wind and rain, that is, "the dragon can call the wind and call the rain", which is also in line with the characteristics that the dragon can cross the river and cross the sea.
Later, due to deforestation, soil erosion and environmental degradation, the Chinese alligator gradually disappeared in many places (only a few areas in Anhui and Zhejiang existed). Because the Chinese alligator no longer exists in real life in most places, the impression in people's memory has gradually disappeared, leaving only the image of the dragon passed down from generation to generation by ancestors. Therefore, the dragon and the Chinese alligator have become two different concepts, and the origin of the dragon image has become confusing.
The word "dragon" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is very pictographic: "The head has horns, the mouth is big, the body has patterns, and the body is bent. Mr. Yang, a famous paleontologist in China, believes that it can be inferred from the pictographic characteristics of dragons that "all are crocodile images" except the horns on their heads. In fact, the prickly protrusions on the old crocodile's head are often obvious, which may be the reason why the ancients mistakenly thought of the angle.
In fact, in ancient times, there was another crocodile in China, Crocodile Bay, which became extinct in China in the middle of Ming Dynasty 15 10. Crocodile is the largest crocodile in existence, with a body length of 2.5-7m, the longest10m and a weight of 200-300kg. One of the main morphological differences between Chinese alligator in China and Chinese alligator in China is the gap between the fourth mandibular tooth and the upper jaw, so when the mouth is closed, the teeth are exposed.
Crocodiles in the bay are very fierce. It not only attacks cattle, sheep and other livestock on the shore to drink water, but also actively attacks people. There are many shocking stories in history. Han Yu, a writer in the Tang Dynasty, chased crocodiles in the bay. He also wrote a famous article "Sacrificing Crocodiles". Some scholars believe that the dragon totem of the ancient ancestors of China, especially the southern residents, is closely related to crocodiles and other animals that can hurt people in the water, and it is entirely possible that crocodiles often attack them, resulting in fear and worship.
Long Wei said that there are more than 2,700 kinds of snakes in the world, and there are nearly 200 kinds in China, including pythons, pythons, snakes, cobras, sea snakes and poisonous snakes. What kind of snake is the prototype of the dragon? Some scholars think it may be a python through the analysis of archaeological, historical and ethnological data. Because the python is the "king of snakes", the ancients used the largest snake python as the base shape to shape the dragon. There is only one kind of python in China, namely the black-tailed python. It is the largest snake in China and one of the largest snakes in the world. It is 6-7 meters long and weighs 50-60 kilograms. Although the python is slow and clumsy, it is a greedy animal. It has no fangs. When hunting, it usually waits for its prey in groups on the ground, in mountains and streams or on tree trunks.
Regarding the prototype of the dragon, the theory that the dragon is a crocodile can be compared with the theory that the dragon is a snake. Wen Yiduo, a famous scholar, thinks that dragons are "shaped like horses, dogs, fish, birds and deer, but their main body and basic form are snakes. This shows that the snake totem is the most powerful totem in totem units in many cases. The integration of totems is the result of the integration and assimilation of many weak units by snake totems. Perhaps before the totem fusion, the so-called dragon was just a big snake.
The name of this snake is dragon. Later, a group of people regarded this snake as a totem. They merged and absorbed many other totem groups. At this time, the serpent accepted the four legs of the beast, the horse's head, the hyena's tail, the antlers, the dog's claws, the scales and whiskers of the fish, and became the dragon we know now. This view has been supported by many people. They think that no matter how the image of the dragon changes, its main body is still a snake, and the further mystification of the snake will be sublimated into a dragon.
The image of dragon worshipped by primitive ancestors came from snakes, or rather, it was a deified snake with certain witchcraft significance. Snakes often haunt mountains, rivers and grasslands. They are good at hiding and attacking. Poisonous venom can kill enemies. These characteristics will make primitive ancestors have fears and mysterious associations. The unreasonable magic of snakes makes people yield, so they pray for the protection of snakes, so many clans regard snakes as totems. A large number of anthropological data, folklore data and ancient documents prove that the totem worship of snakes is widely popular in matriarchal clan society in China.
It is precisely because of the prevalence of snake totem worship that after the snake totem evolved into a dragon, there are still traces of ancient snake totem in the concept and form of the dragon. In the primitive society of China, there were several clans in the Central Plains with aquatic animals or amphibians as totems, among which the snake clan with snakes as totems was the most important. Snakes are mystified and become totem gods, that is, dragons. So snakes are dragons, and their leaders are Chiyou and Yu. It is also believed that the original image of the dragon is a snake, representing the natural forces of the land. Some people think that the earliest dragons were horned snakes to represent their supernatural opposite sex. The dragon in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the same as the bronze inscription.
Usually, when a live snake preys, it will slowly raise its head and neck to form an "S" shape, then suddenly bite its prey and wrap it tightly with its body until it is strangled or unable to struggle any more. Because the joint between the mandible and the skull is very loose, the left and right parts of the mandible are connected with all parts of the mouth through ligaments, which has tensile tension, the mouth can be opened by more than 130, the throat is also elastic, the chest has no sternum, and the body wall can be freely expanded, so even animals several times larger than its head can swallow it whole. All kinds of animals in the jungle and water, from wild boar, wild sheep and deer to rats, birds, fish and frogs, as well as livestock and poultry such as pigs, chickens and ducks, are its food. There are also many legends about people who eat pythons.
However, someone mentioned other snakes. For example, the Yi people in Liangshan, Sichuan, call it "Buer" in Yi language, and people regard it as a dragon. Zhang, a famous amphibian and reptile scientist, put forward the view that dragons are similar to vipers through textual research on ancient documents, ancient books and ancient characters. Agkistrodon acutus is also called "Five-step Dragon". Also known as the Viper. This is a very poisonous snake. Named after people and animals fainted within five steps after being bitten. The five-legged snake is regarded as a god because of its poison, and it is the totem of dragon progress.
In addition, some people think that some main features of dragons are more similar to lizards, and some ancient lizards are also similar to dragons. Some scholars say that the Yi people in Eshan and other counties in southern Yunnan regard the local gecko (lizard) as Jackie Chan, and the dragon made when playing with the dragon lantern every year is in the shape of a lizard. Some scholars have pointed out that the dragon is a combination of Indian python and Java flying lizard. Later, under the influence of huge animal bones excavated underground, it became a winged monster, and finally became a huge and fierce monster in oral legend.
The last group of reptiles-turtles, even amphibians and fish, have already been mentioned. For example, the miscellaneous poems of the Qing Dynasty record the historical materials of the calendar: "The earthly branch also belongs to the fish"; In the Kirgiz zodiac, dragons are also replaced by fish. Therefore, regarding the origin of the dragon image, it is said that the dragon is a combination of various aquatic groups (mainly alligators, alligators, snakes, turtles, etc.). ) and birds and beasts. There is also a saying that people in different regions choose different phenological reference animals, so crocodiles in the Yuan Dynasty and Jianghan Valley, insects, frogs and fish in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, and birds and animals in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River may all be relatively fixed phenological reference animals. After that, these relationships evolved into the concept of focusing on a specific image, thus forming a dragon.
As an extinct reptile, dinosaurs have also been mentioned by some Chinese and foreign scholars. For example, American scholar Hayes thinks that dragons are ancient dinosaurs in his book The Dragon of China.
Because dragons are mysterious animals in the legends of our ancestors. It can fly in the sky, walk on land and lurk in the abyss. It is a great natural creature. Among Mesozoic reptiles, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs and other animals once dominated the land, sea and air. However, as early as 1942, the famous paleontologist Yang first demonstrated that dinosaurs in paleontology had nothing to do with the legendary dragon in China, and then demonstrated that the legendary dragon could not exist in real life. He was also the first person to scientifically prove that "dragons are fictional animals".
Nine dragons look like in fact, dragons do have many animal characteristics. Er Ya Yi in Song Dynasty describes nine similarities of dragons: "Nine people are like deer, their heads are like camels, their eyes are like rabbits, their necks are like snakes, their bellies are like storks, their scales are like carp, their claws are like eagles, their palms are like tigers, and their ears are like cows." No wonder such a complicated and magical image will produce all kinds of contradictions and self-realization statements.
There is also a legend about the origin of dragons. In ancient times, many tribes lived in the wild, and wars often happened between them. After Emperor Xuanyuan defeated the Chiyou tribe, he gradually unified dozens of small tribes.
At that time, each tribe had its own worship objects, including snake totem, horse totem, fish totem, eagle totem, bear totem, leopard totem, sheep totem, elephant totem, dog totem and so on. In order to unify the tribes, the Yellow Emperor decided to make totems together. After some thinking, he drew special totems according to the characteristics of totems of various tribes: snake's body, horse's face, antlers, elephant's teeth, fish scales, sheep's beard and eagle's claws. Totem is called "dragon" because it is associated with clouds and rivers and cannot be found in the real animal world. Since then, the dragon has become a symbol of unity, strength, flying, authority, auspiciousness and joy of the Chinese nation.
The body parts of many birds, animals and other animals also enrich the image of dragons. As early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, Wang Chong's Lun Heng Xu Long said that dragons were "horse snakes and the like". This is his preliminary discussion on the dragon prototype according to the dragon shape (horse head and snake tail) popular in Qin and Han Dynasties. The popular "horse's head and snake's tail" dragon in Han dynasty is the inheritance of the previous generation dragon.
The dragon shape on the relics of Yin and Zhou Dynasties is a horse's head and a snake's tail, which is also found in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Scholar Ahldin thinks that the prototype of dragon in China culture is wild horse. However, the dragon is the rain god, and the horse is not a water thing. How could the ancients regard the horse as a model of Jackie Chan? Therefore, it has been suggested that this kind of horse should be a hippo.
Hippos are more mysterious than ordinary horses and can arouse the thoughts of the ancients. Shan Hai Jing, Shangshu and so on all have the view that water flows away from the river. In Pliocene and Pleistocene from12 million years ago to 10000 years ago, hippos were also widely distributed in Europe and Asia, and Pliocene hippos were also found in Yunnan, China. In addition, some scholars believe that the dragon originated from buffalo, which was originally the name of the southern buffalo. There are different opinions about the origin of the image of pig head-related leaders. People think that the origin and birth of dragons are closely related to primitive agriculture.
All kinds of dragons were born independently in different places. The origin of the dragon shape is varied. For a long time, there have been many "dragons" with different postures in China. Because of the great mystery of the dragon, it is easier for future generations to endow it with divinity that meets the needs of real life and make it a symbol with special significance. When the northern tribes were friends with horses, they increased the characteristics of horses; Southern tribes live by water, and when there are fish, the scales and whiskers of fish increase. In order to avoid the harm of jiaozi (actually crocodile), the characteristics of crocodile are attached. ...
Scholars engaged in the study of national culture put forward the "pan-dragon theory", arguing that different nationalities, even the same nationality in different regions, have different views on dragons. For example, the Yi people in Ailao Mountain in western Yunnan regard pangolin (dragon carp) as a dragon, and the statue of "Twelve Animals" depicted in the temple is pangolin rather than dragon. Pangolin is an animal that is good at digging, and lives in the mountainous area in the south of China. In addition to the face and abdomen, it is covered with 500-600 pieces of hard horny thick nails, which are arranged in composite tiles and look like scales. This appearance really reminds people of ancient mythical animals such as dragons.
Pangolin is a terrestrial animal, but the ancients classified it as an aquarium. It is called shad, shad, and even dragon, that is, dragon carp or arowana. Zhuang Chuo's Chicken Ribs in Song Dynasty said: "koi fish is a pangolin"; "Where is the shad?" This is a question raised by Qu Yuan in Tian Wen. According to Shan Hai Jing Overseas West Jing, the country of Xuanyuan "the dragon fish mausoleum lives in its north and looks like a raccoon (carp)"; In the ancient and modern books of the Qing Dynasty, there was an arowana pattern with horns on its head. Compared with pangolin, the ancient imaginary arowana is based on pangolin, exaggerating the neck and head to approximate the shape of dragon.
According to Er Ya Yi and folklore, animals related to dragons include moose, tiger, leopard, deer, lion, rabbit and other famous animals, as well as eagles belonging to birds. Some people think that the dragon's body is a "twisted worm". In addition, some people claim that the prototype of the dragon is giraffe, snail belonging to mollusks, silkworm belonging to insects and other animals. In some places, chickens, tadpoles, sheep, eels and loaches are also used as dragons. Because these views are far-fetched, I won't list them here.
To sum up, the dragon is a kind of god beast, and the ancients gathered it dimly on some reptiles and some animals, birds, fish, insects and so on. The image of the dragon is not a simple representation of something in nature, but an artistic image created by combining the physical characteristics of some animals with those of other animals, which has gradually become the knowledge of the broad masses of the people. This is the main achievement of the study on the origin of dragon worship so far. However, this view needs further in-depth study to enrich and develop.