Shan Hai Jing is a book that records ancient myths, geography, plants, animals, minerals, products, witchcraft, religion, medicine, folk customs and nationalities in China, and reflects all kinds of cultural phenomena. In addition to preserving rich mythological materials, it also involves many academic fields.
For example: philosophy, aesthetics, religion, history, geography, astronomy, meteorology, medicine, animals, plants, minerals, folklore, ethnology, geology, oceanography, psychology, anthropology and so on. It can be said that Wang Yang is a vast place, just like the sea and the sun.
In the case of underdeveloped ancient culture, science and technology and transportation, Shan Hai Jing is a wonderful book with the most myths in China, and it is also an encyclopedia of tourism and geographical knowledge. ?
In the two major parts, Mountain Classic consists of five chapters, focusing on mountains and rivers in all directions, covering ancient history, vegetation, birds and animals, myths, religion and so on. According to the orientation order of south, west, north, east and middle, each article is divided into several sections, and the previous section and the latter section are connected by related sentences, which makes the relationship between the sections very clear.
The five overseas classics in Hai Jing are a group, which mainly records the strange faces of overseas countries. There are five chapters in Haineijing, which mainly records the magical things in the sea; Wild Classics is a group of four articles, which mainly records many important mythological materials related to Huangdi, Nu Wa and Dayu, and reflects the heroic spirit of the Chinese nation.
The organizational structure of each group on the sea classics has its own beginning and end, running through it, with an outline and a purpose. In addition to geographical location, it also records the appearance and style of people from distant countries.
18 Haineijing is a summary of the geographical situation of Shanhaijing, which summarizes the geographical division, mountain system, water system and development zone distribution of China. Crop production; The invention of the well; Musical instrument production; National migration; River basin development and the basic pattern of Chinese mainland's stable development. ?
The book Shan Hai Jing records about 40 countries, 550 mountains, 300 waterways, more than 65,438+000 historical figures and more than 400 monsters. Books usually record these things one by one according to the region.
Most of the recorded things started from the south (wild classics started from the east, so some scholars think that the orientation order of south, west, north and east is the same as that of ancient times, so wild classics started from the east, which may be revised and adjusted by later generations), then went west, then went north, and finally reached the central part of the mainland (Kyushu). Kyushu is surrounded by China's East Sea, West Sea, South China Sea and North Sea.
In ancient China, The Classic of Mountains and Seas has always been regarded as a historical book and a necessary reference book for China historians.
There are always different opinions about the geographical scope and related facts involved in Shan Hai Jing. Many scholars believe that it is a documentary record of a national geographical survey, some of which can be confirmed, such as the Yellow River, Weihe River, Huashan Mountain, Taihang Mountain, Hengshan Mountain, Wuwangshan Mountain and Kunlun Mountain. Their geographical location is generally consistent with reality.
In fact, even the Five Zang Mountain Classics do not conform to the overall pattern and actual mountains and rivers. So far, no one has been able to combine these mountains and rivers convincingly.
However, some of the mountains and rivers described in the Five Zang Mountain Classics exist, especially the mountains in the Zhongshan Classics. The Five Tibetan Mountain Classics (Mountain Classics) was originally based on some real mountains and rivers, but in the barren polar regions, there is nothing we can do, and we can only make it up by imagination.
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The names of counties and counties appear in Shan Hai Jing, and there are historical events after Xia and Yu. Therefore, since ancient times, people have suspected that there are words added by later generations, or completely denied that they were written by Yu and Yi. Zhu, Hu Yinglin and others believe that The Classic of Mountains and Seas was written at the end of the Warring States Period by curious people.
Contemporary scholars generally believe that The Classic of Mountains and Seas was not written in a short time, nor was it written by one person, but was a collective achievement accumulated by different authors in different times for a long time. The data of the Five Zang Mountain Classics can probably be traced back to the Xia Dynasty, but the Book of Mountains and Seas was written from the late Warring States to the Han Dynasty, and it was not compiled until the Western Han Dynasty, and many of them may come from oral legends.
Ma Bole, a French sinologist, thinks that the author of Mountain Classic is from Luoyi. According to Meng's textual research, Shan Hai Jing may be an ancient book circulating in Bashu area and representing Bashu culture.
Xiao Bing speculated that this book may have been written by early eastern alchemists based on the people of various countries gathered in Yanqi. Most scholars believe that Shan Hai Jing was written by Chu people. For example, Yuan Ke said in the article "A Study of China Myth and Shan Hai Jing": "Shan Hai Jing is an ancient book written by many people from the early Warring States to the early Han Dynasty, and the author is probably a Chu."
Shan Hai Jing was published by Liu Xiang and Liu Xin in the Western Han Dynasty. Guo Pu annotated Shan Hai Jing in Jin Dynasty, Wang Chongqing annotated Shan Hai Jing in Ming Dynasty, Yang Shen supplemented Shan Hai Jing, Wu Renchen extensively annotated Shan Hai Jing, Wu Chengzhi geographically annotated Shan Hai Jing in Qing Dynasty, Bi Yuan made a new collation of Shan Hai Jing, and Hao Yixing annotated Shan Hai Jing.
After the Republic of China, Yuan Ke, a mythological scholar, was most famous for his Notes on Mountains and Seas.
Shanhaitu
There are pictures of ancient Shan Hai Jing, and Guo Pu wrote Zan Shan Hai Jing, calling the pictures of Shan Hai Jing he saw "fear of animals". Tao Yuanming's poems include Looking at the Mountains and Seas. The ancient map of Shan Hai Jing has disappeared, and the 10 Volume 242 Shan Hai Jing Tu, which was drawn by Zhang Sengyou in the Six Dynasties and redrawn by Shu Ya in the Song Dynasty, has not been handed down.
The earliest existing map of mountains and seas was written by Hu and Jiang in the Ming Dynasty. During the Edo period (1603- 1867, equivalent to the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China), there were many images in the Atlas of Strange Birds and Animals published according to the map of Shan Hai Jing in the Ming Dynasty.
In the Qing Dynasty, Wu Renchen's Mountain and Sea Map was the earliest and most widely circulated. This book tells itself that its pictures originated from Shu Ya's heavy picture books, but only 144 pictures of its "weird" people are arranged in five categories: spirit, exoticism, orcs, feathered birds and scaly interfaces. What happened afterwards? Bi yuan? Hao Yixing used this map as a copy.
According to Ma Changyi's textual research, Wu Renchen's Atlas contains 7 1 map, all or most of which are taken from Hu's Atlas. In addition, there are 407 images of Wang Biaoben, most of which are ingenious, and they are rarely the same as other maps of mountains and seas in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Japanese scholar Song pointed out in the Comparative Study of Shan Hai Jing that both overseas classics and wild classics contain descriptions of pictures (that is, they are written for pictures). Overseas classics "strip" a huge map in sequence, while wild classics are based on pictures, which are probably pictures of a single god or animal.
Ma Changyi, a researcher at the Institute of Literature, China Academy of Social Sciences, selected 1000 mountain and sea classics from the nine existing ones, and combined with them, compiled the Illustration of Ancient Mountain and Sea Classics, which is an important work for studying mountain and sea classics at present.
Refer to the above? Baidu encyclopedia-shanhaijing