For thousands of years, dragons have penetrated into all aspects of China society and become a kind of cultural cohesion and accumulation. The dragon has become a symbol of China, the Chinese nation and China culture. For every Chinese descendant, the image of the dragon is a symbol, a mood, and a feeling of flesh and blood! . The names "Descendants of the Dragon" and "Descendants of the Dragon" often make us excited, energetic and proud. Besides spreading and inheriting in China, Dragon Culture has also been brought to all parts of the world by overseas Chinese. In China residential areas or in China, dragons are still the most eye-catching decorations. Therefore, "Descendants of the Dragon" and "Dragon Country" have also been recognized by the world.
As a descendant of the dragon, you can't know nothing about the dragon culture in China. Without understanding the dragon culture, it is impossible to understand the ancient civilization of China. What is the prototype of the dragon? How did the concept of dragon come into being? How did its image and cultural meaning develop and change? What influence does the dragon have on China culture? These problems have been puzzling people in different ways since ancient times, and they have not all been solved so far, giving people a confusing feeling. Here, we will trace back to the dragon, enter the ancient history and dragon world, and understand and explore the mystery of the dragon. ...
The origin of dragons
Since the beginning of this century, there have been more than 100 kinds of books and papers about the origin and essence of dragons, and there are different opinions. Here we might as well briefly introduce-
Supernatural animal theory
This is the most common view represented by Ci Yuan and Ci Hai. The former said that "dragon is a miraculous animal in ancient legends, fickle and beneficial to all things, and it is the length of scale worms"; The latter said that "dragons are magical animals with scales and whiskers in ancient legends". There is a similar saying: "Dragon is a mysterious animal god with many gods", "an animal imagined by ancient people in China" (Zhu Tianshun) and "Dragon is an elusive animal with long body, big mouth, horns and feet" in China culture (Liu Zhixiong, Yang Jingrong).
"Miraculous animals" are based on "miraculous animals", and the former comes from the latter. So, which animals have become "dragons" through "beasts"? This point is not clearly stated in Ci Yuan and Ci Hai, but scholars have discussed it in various ways. Look:
reptile
Juxian Wei said that "dragons are crocodiles"; Wang Mingda said that "the keynote of the dragon image is crocodile"; Qi Qingfu thinks that dragon is actually the earliest name of crocodile. Wang Dayou believes that "the most primitive dragons in China are bay crocodiles and Chinese alligators"; Tang Lan said that dragons are "lizards with horns"; He Xin said that the dragon was "the name of crocodiles and lizards in the eyes of the ancients".
Xu Naixiang and Cui Yanan believe that "dragons are based on snakes"; Li Duan said that "dragons are made of snakes", which was shaped by the ancients according to the shape and characteristics of snakes and some imagination. Liu Dun would like to think that "the earliest dragon was a snake with feet, and its horns showed its supernatural nature"; He Liang Xing put forward that "the basic form of the dragon is a snake, and the snake closest to the dragon is a python", so it can be said that "the prototype of the dragon is a python".
mammal
Liu Chenghuai said, "In addition to snakes and lizards, dragons have a major part and basic form, that is, horses"; He further pointed out that "the horse, as one of the models of the dragon, was not an ordinary land horse at first, but a hippopotamus", and Li Duan thought that "the dragon's head was shaped by the ancients imitating the cow's head": "We still often talk about ghosts now, so it seems that the dragon is a combination of the two". Sun Shoudao and others put forward that "the tap comes from the pig's head".
Phenological reference animal
Chen Shouxiang thought that the dragon's body was a "twisted worm shape" and the dragon horn was the "timekeeping tool-watch" of ancestors. "In a wide range, people choose different phenological reference animals, so salamanders and crocodiles in Jianghan basin, insects, frogs and fish in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, birds and livestock in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and so on. They may all become relatively fixed reference animals in the phenological calendar ... Later, these relationships evolved into concepts focusing on specific images and formed dragons. "
Totem merging theory
This theory is represented by Wen Yiduo's viewpoint in Fuxi Kao. The article holds that the dragon "is a kind of totem, a virtual creature that exists only in totem but not in biology, because it is a synthesis of many different totems"; It is the result of the assimilation of many weak units by the fusion of snake totems. He Liang Xing also believes that "the dragon is a totem, but it is different from other totems. At first, it may be a totem of a tribe, and later it evolved into a super-tribe and a Yue God, becoming the totem god that the Chinese nation worshipped for the longest time. "
The tree god in the sky said
He Xin once thought that "the reality and entity of the dragon is the cloud" and "the dragon is the life lattice of the cloud god"; "It turns out that the dragon is just an abstract spiral moire. Later, it gradually became concrete and biological, and expanded to the image of amphibians and reptiles close to the real biological world. " Zhu Dashun pointed out that "the opportunity or starting point of the animal god, the magic dragon, may not be because the ancients saw animals like dragons, but because they saw lightning in the sky. Because, if you imagine it as an animal based on lightning, it is easy to be imagined as a slender quadruped. " Zhao Tian officials believe that the lightning dragon is a trinity, and the dragon is the image of lightning.
Hu Changjian said, "The prototype of the dragon comes from the natural landscape in spring-the hook shape of lightning, the stupid caterpillar fungus sprouting from the hook, the rainbow after the rain in March, etc ... Among them, the rainbow is the most direct prototype of the dragon because it has a beautiful and concrete visual image."
Yin's point of view is unique. He thinks, "The legendary dragon in China is the embodiment of the tree god. China's worship of dragons is a tortuous reflection of the worship of tree gods, and dragons are the gods of trees and plants. The prototype of the dragon is a kind of evergreen pine (mainly pine) and other trees. " "Pine trees and dragons are not only strikingly similar in appearance, but also strikingly similar in other attributes of dragons."
Dinosaur heritage theory
Xu and American scholar Hayes argue that the concept of dragon should be the memory of ancient ancestors of giant reptilian dinosaurs, or that ancestors worshipped dragons because of their fear of dinosaurs. Wang Dayou said, "The dragon, recognized by the ancients as the most primitive ancestor, may still be a dinosaur. The ancients regarded reptiles with four legs, a thin neck and a long tail, which were shaped like snakes, cows and tigers, as dragons. This may be the dinosaur image that the ancients saw and described at that time ... Maybe the dragon they saw was really a dinosaur, and then it gradually disappeared, so they regarded its similar sea crocodile, bay crocodile or Chinese alligator as a class and worshipped it. "
Foreign introduction theory
Zhang believes that the dragon in China is a poisonous dragon in western culture, which was introduced to China around the time of the Yellow Emperor. Smith, a British scholar, believes that all the major civilizations in the world have dragons, and all the dragons come from the same cultural birthplace-Babylon. The dragon in China is also a descendant of Babylonian Gu Long.
Fuzzy set theory
On the origin and essence of the dragon, Pang Jin put forward the "fuzzy set theory", that is, the dragon is a sacred object produced by the ancient people's fuzzy set of natural phenomena such as fish, crocodiles, snakes, pigs, horses and cows. Dragons originated in the Neolithic Age about 8000 years ago. It is the product of primitive ancestors' vague worship of foreign alien forces. It is an artistic creation based on realistic biological and natural phenomena and permeated with fuzzy thinking.
Comments and descriptions
As paleontology, dinosaurs died out in Mesozoic about 70 million years ago. The earliest ape-man lived in the Pleistocene 3 million years ago, with a difference of more than 60 million years. Therefore, it is impossible for an ape-man to see dinosaurs, let alone remember and fear them. Obviously, it is untenable for dragons to remember dinosaurs.
Zhang is an advocate of the westernization of China culture, and his view is only a theoretical hypothesis. The dragon in western culture is similar to the dragon in China culture in the relationship with water, but there are great differences on the whole. Smith's view is due to his extreme communication theory, that is, he insists that world culture originated in Egypt and Babylon, and their views all originated in the 1920s and 1930s. With the in-depth study of cultural phenomena by Chinese and foreign scholars, western culture and extreme communication theory lost their market in China, and the theory that dragons were introduced from other countries was rejected by academic circles.
There is also great controversy about the merger of dragons as totems. The negative view holds that "so far, there is no credible archaeological and historical data to prove that there was a powerful clan tribe with snakes as its totem in the history of China. As for the merger and integration of other clan tribes with horses, dogs, fish, birds and deer as totems, it is entirely out of imagination. " Scholars (Liu Zhixiong and Yang Jingrong) have also pointed out that it is also very wrong to regard animal models or decorative patterns appearing on ancient cultural relics in China as the manifestation of totems. Because a certain type of culture in archaeology and clan and tribe in sociology are two completely different concepts, some scholars put forward paradoxes from the basic characteristics of totem culture, such as: almost all totems are concrete creatures or inanimate objects that exist in nature, while dragons are "sacred objects" that do not exist in nature; Totem is the object revered by clan members and cannot be destroyed, damaged or killed. In China's ancient books, myths and legends, there are many descriptions of belittling, insulting, fighting and beheading dragons.
Dragons originated in the early Neolithic age, and the time from today will not be less than 8000 years. During this period, primitive ancestors did not simply and passively rely on God's reward. They raise wild horses, bison, wild boar and so on. We don't just eat those picked wild fruits, but selectively plant grains to harvest them. They can skillfully use fire, learn to build simple houses with wood, start grinding stone tools and bones, make pottery by hand, and gradually settle down and engage in production activities. Production activities make people's contact with nature more and more extensive, and nature, as an incredible force outside people, has a greater impact on people's spiritual world.
Why can't fish swim? Crocodiles in the bay sound like Hong Zhong, snakes are eerie and lizards have strange shapes. Why are clouds rolling, thunder and lightning, and heavy rain pouring down? Why do waves roll, rainbows run through the sky, and mudslides roar down, devouring people and animals and being invincible? ..... The behavior of these animals and the ever-changing natural phenomena are beyond the scientific explanation of the ancients.
They vaguely guessed that there should be such a powerful "sacred object" related to "water" to command and manage these animals and astronomical phenomena, just as a clan must have a leader; In other words, these animals and natural phenomena are the embodiment of this "sacred object", just like people want to talk, scream, eat, drink, sleep, laugh and curse.
As a worship phenomenon and an "understanding" of incredible natural forces, the dragon began its "fuzzy collection" from this time.
The "dragon carving" unearthed from the site of the original village of Chahai in Fuxin, Liaoning Province provides evidence for our "time positioning". Chahai site belongs to the "pre-Hongshan Culture" remains, dating back about 8,000 years. The "Dragon Sculpture" is located in the central square of this primitive village site and is made of red-brown stones of equal size. This dragon is nearly 20 meters long and 2 meters wide. Its first mouth is tilted, its back is bent and its tail is looming. This stone dragon is the oldest and largest dragon found in China so far. It is said that there is a ten thousand-year-old fish-tailed deer Longyan painting on the cliff of Persimmon Beach in Jixian County, Shanxi Province, which is considered as the earliest prototype of the dragon. This rock painting has not been published, and its appearance is still unknown. Then there are pottery dragon patterns unearthed in Xinglong Valley, Aohan Banner, Inner Mongolia, painted pottery dragon patterns unearthed in Beishouling Site, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province, and dragon patterns unearthed in Xishuipo, Puyang City, Henan Province, dating back more than 6,400 years.
The process of fuzzy dragon mining began in the Neolithic Age, and it basically took shape in the Qin and Han Dynasties after considerable development in the Shang, Zhou and Warring States periods. This "basic" has two meanings. One is that the framework, elements and styles of dragons were basically available in Qin and Han dynasties; Second, the dragon is an open and constantly absorbing new system, which does not conform to the basic formation of the Qin and Han Dynasties. Later dynasties, until today, are constantly changing and developing.
Since the formation of Shang Dynasty, the totem image of dragon has been changing and developing with the circulation of long years. The rise and fall of politics, the change of dynasties, the vicissitudes of the world and the pulse of history have left a deep or shallow mark on the image of the dragon, which has a direct or indirect impact.
In Shang dynasty, the dragon was regarded as a strange beast. Its horrible and fantastic image gives people a strong sense of mystery and a fierce beauty, which shows that the dragon has authority beyond the gods in the world. Dragons in Shang Dynasty were mainly carved on bronze ritual vessels, with lines strewn at random and protruding, deep and vigorous. Coupled with the heavy and steady shape of the bronze ritual vessels, the dragon has a great deterrent, which embodies an unspeakable religious concept.
Shang dynasty was replaced by Zhou dynasty in 1 1 century BC. In the primitive religion of the Zhou people, there was a strong humanistic color, because the Zhou people attacked and overthrew the Shang Dynasty because the Shang Dynasty had no virtue and harmed the people, and the Zhou people punished the Shang Dynasty on behalf of heaven. Because Zhou people have "virtue", they can match the sky and win the world. After defeating the merchants, Zhou people not only seized the tripod that embodied the merchants' power (in fact, the ruling power), but also highlighted their religious ideas in the newly cast ritual vessels. Legend has it that there was a huge red phoenix when the Zhou people crusaded against the Shang Dynasty, and the jade and silicon in its mouth (also recorded as the calligraphy of Dan in its mouth) fell on the Zhou people's country hall, representing that it was given to Zhou by heaven. Therefore, in the ritual vessels of the Zhou Dynasty, the image of the phoenix is more prominent, and the image of the dragon tends to weaken. Even in some designs, the crown of the phoenix is put on the dragon's head, and the dragon's posture is less flashy and ferocious.
[Edit this paragraph] Longsheng Jiuzi
In the Ming Dynasty, dragons were associated with a wealthy family. In the history of its image formation, the dragon once evolved from a collection of various animal images into a dragon. However, not all weird animal images are brought into the dragon image. While forming and developing together with the dragon image, some weird animal images are also developing, and some image characteristics of the dragon are combined in some way. So someone linked the two again. In the folk, the saying that the dragon gave birth to nine sons has been circulating for a long time, but there is no exact record of what nine sons are. However, this case-solving has a result because of the curiosity of the "real dragon emperor". It is said that in an early dynasty, Zhu Youtang, Emperor Xiaozong of Ming Dynasty, suddenly had a whim and asked Li Dongyang, a scholar of Wenyuange who is famous for his extensive reading, "I heard that Dragon gave birth to nine sons. What's the name of Jiuzi? " Li Dongyang hurriedly couldn't answer. After leaving North Korea, he thought about it and asked several colleagues. After mixing folklore, he pieced together a list and took a job with the emperor. According to Li Dongyang's list, the nine sons of the dragon are:
(Insect+Eight) (Insect+Summer): Sexually fond of water, carved into the shape of a beast on the bridge column;
Mocking wind: adventurous, so people cast their statues and put them in the corner of the temple;
Yazi: I like killing people all my life, and I like bloody gas. Its shape is an animal image carved on the handle;
Elasticity: great strength, heavy load on the back, that is, the stone turtle carved under the stone tablet today;
Pepper map: It looks like a snail and has good sex. The first link is its image;
Kissing: easy to swallow for life, that is, the shape of the animal head on the ridge of the temple;
Not old: it has a good voice all its life, and its head is used as the button of the big clock;
Sister-in-law: I like squatting. The lion under the Buddha statue is its shape.
Prison bull: sex music, shaped like a sculpture on the top of a harpsichord;
The so-called dragon gave birth to nine children, not that the dragon happened to give birth to nine children. In the traditional culture of ancient China, nine is often used to express many things, which has a supreme position. Nine is an imaginary number and an expensive number, so it is used to describe the dragon son.
Since ancient times, the boundless sky has been a place where people fantasize about galloping.
The vastness of the Milky Way, the bright moon, the brilliance of the sunrise and the magnificence of the clouds all arouse people's infinite reverie and regard the sky as an unparalleled beauty on earth; However, the evolution of the sky, the changes of four seasons from winter to spring, lightning, rain, snow and frost, floods, hurricanes, even earthquakes, landslides, tides, tsunamis and other natural phenomena and disasters have aroused people's great fear, thinking that there are infinite forces in the sky, which can protect people and punish them. These gods live in a wonderful fairyland, watching everyone's every move on the ground and expressing their emotions with strength. So the ancestors produced the original concepts of fairy and fairyland. According to the ancient books Huai Nan Zi and Mu Chuan, the sky is divided into three parts. There is cool water on Kunlun Mountain, which is called the next day. People can live long or die. Further up is Zhongtian, called the Hanging Garden, which is a spiritual world that has not weathered the wind and rain; Further up is heaven, where the gods headed by the great emperor live. There are mountains in spring, clear springs, mild and windless, birds flying and animals playing.
The ancient concept of fairyland was not a model. In addition to the majestic Kunlun Mountain in the northwest, the vast sea in the east also stimulates people's imagination. Liezi described it this way: a few trillion miles east of the Bohai Sea, there is a grand canyon, which is actually a bottomless gully called the Old Market. All rivers and water between heaven and earth flow here, but the water in the valley neither increases nor decreases. There are five fairy mountains, namely Daiyu, Qiao Yuan, Fanghu, Yingzhou and Penglai. Each mountain is about 30,000 miles, and its top is 9,000 miles flat. The two mountains are 7000 miles apart. There is a stone platform on the mountain, all the animals are as white as snow, and there are clusters of Yushu, whose fruits are so sweet that they will never die after eating them. There are countless people who live on the fairy mountain, either immortals or saints. You can fly in a day.
In dragon culture, another function of the dragon is to distribute water and rain. Song of the Dragon by Lu You, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, depicts the spectacular sight of dragons flying in the clouds and rain;
Surrounded by giant trees, they are old and useless, but sink into thousands of feet Dragon House.
The claw marks are several inches into the wood, and the musicians dare not wow.
Last year, the drought stretched for thousands of miles, and the wheat was dying.
The ghost in the forest shrine is helpless, and the old dragon owes Xu a hand.
Roaring thunder and strong wind swept the river into the void.
The fire between scales makes lightning, and the golden snake is caught in the clouds at night.
In the Ming dynasty, elders came to compete in the rain, and wizards played flutes and danced.
The word Lord scattered the moon, and the dragon returned to sleep at the bottom of the pearl.
Why is the dragon regarded as the god of sex? This is closely related to the imitation prototype of the dragon and the ancient agricultural economy. We know that although dragons are a combination of various animal shapes and artistic exaggeration, most of these animals are related to water, such as fish, crocodiles, python, snakes, etc. Some natural phenomena related to the origin of dragons, such as clouds, rainbows, lightning, etc., are also closely related to water or rain. In this way, the dragon is easily imagined by ancient ancestors as a kind of god beast that can dive in Yu Yuan, soar in the sky, walk through the clouds and thunder, and influence the clouds and rain in Sichuan. In the Book of Changes, it is believed that the cloud follows the dragon and the phoenix follows the tiger. Wang Chong, a scholar in the Eastern Han Dynasty, said: "The dragon listens to thunder. There must be clouds in the dragon and thunderstorms in summer. Long Panyun, the cloud goes in the rain. "
Dragons have the function of distributing water and rain, and are also God's assistants. Therefore, in ancient legends, the dragon has also become a tool for the struggle between God and God. The Classic of Mountains and Seas records a story about the battle between the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou. In the story, Chiyou led an army to attack the Yellow Emperor, who ordered Ying Long to resist Chiyou's attack in Jizhou wilderness. After Ying Long was ordered, he used water control skills to accumulate water, causing water shortage in an attempt to stop the enemy. But Chiyou invited Fengbo and Rain God to rain. The Yellow Emperor sent a goddess named Yan from heaven to help stop the storm and finally defeated Chiyou. But he Hao couldn't return to heaven, so there was a great drought.
In the second year of Yuanfeng in the Northern Song Dynasty (1079), the great poet Su Shi was demoted to Huzhou. The reason for his demotion is that he disapproves of Wang Anshi's new law. Su Shi paid tribute to Song Shenzong as usual. He knew that he was released, and it was the hint of the new party that did something to him. He couldn't help but hold back his grievances. He couldn't help but write a slightly grumbling "knowing that he was born at a bad time, it is difficult to catch up with newcomers;" Check the suffering of the elderly, or you can raise the king. " After the dinner, the new party officials immediately sniffed out Su Shi's dissatisfaction, and they decided to find an excuse to give Su Shi some color to see.
The excuse was soon found, and this is Su Shi's poem.
The poet's nature is chanting, and whether he is happy or angry, he can enter the poem. Su Shi's younger brother, Su Zhe, knew his brother's fault, so he specifically warned him: "The north guest came to the south to ask questions. Although the West Lake is good, it doesn't recite poems. " However, Su Shi still used poetry to express his feelings and vent his chest, so he was arrested. Three months later, he was sent back to Wutai (that is, the institution that corrected officials in the Song Dynasty-Yushifu).
The poem that made Su feel unlucky was two lines praising the juniper tree: "There is no bend from the root to the grave, and only dragons are known in the world." These two poems are accused of stabbing the emperor: "The emperor is like a dragon in the sky, but Su Shi wants to find a dragon under the grave. There is nothing better than this! "
This is the famous Wutai Poetry Case in history, which is only one of the ten thousand literary inquisitions in Qian Qian in feudal society, but the reason is quite special, because of the "dragon" and the attitude of the characters towards it is problematic. Because in the feudal society of China, the dragon was also the name of the emperor, and the emperor was the "real dragon emperor".