The old man under the moon, referred to as "Yue Lao", also known as Chai. It is the red XiShen who specializes in marriage in China folklore, that is, the media god. There was no record of Yue Lao's deeds before Tang Dynasty.
The earliest record of Tai Sui comes from Li Fuyan's Continued Secret Record Engagement Shop in Tang Dynasty. Description: During their two-year trip to Song Cheng, Wei Gu and Yuan He met an old man sitting on the steps with a cloth bag to collect books from the moon. When asked what book he was looking for, Gu replied, "The world is a wedding."
He asked what was in the bag and replied, "red rope ears." In order to tie the feet of husband and wife, they will use each other for their lives. Although the enemy's home is separated, and heaven remains our neighbourhood, while Wu Chu is a foreign land. This rope is tied together and cannot be broken. " Later, it was often used as a synonym for matchmaker.
The old man who leaned against the cloth bag, sat on the steps and looked up books from the moon was later regarded as the god of marriage among the people. As long as he tied the feet of men and women together with the red rope in his bag, even if he went through the torture of "the enemy's revenge, the difference between high and low, the end of the world being an official and a foreign land in Wu Chu", he would resolve everything and eventually get married.
The development of ancient gods:
In ancient China, due to the limitation of the times, people could not know what was beyond the sky, so they imagined a very magnificent world-heaven.
They think that a group of immortals live outside the sky, and according to their own life experience, they come up with various immortals, such as the spring god who manages the land, the spring god who manages rainfall and planting, and the jade emperor who is in charge of all immortals.
These gods have been perfected step by step in the continuous development of the times, which shows that the appearance of each god position is actually related to the expectations of ordinary people at that time. In the Tang Dynasty, people's life style was more open, so they also had a more enlightened attitude towards marriage and love.
At this time, in order to cater to people's fantasy of marriage, novelists at that time created the image of Yue Lao, and recorded this character in Continued Mystery. Later, with the expansion of the influence of the novel, the image of Yue Lao was gradually accepted by people and passed down to later generations.