Shan Hai Jing contains many aspects such as geography, history, myths, animals and plants in ancient China. It is an important historical material for studying ancient natural geography and human geography in China, and it is called "a wonderful book for exploring ancestors and seeking sources".
According to historical records, during the period of the Yellow Emperor, there was a mountain in the Great Northern Wilderness, which rose from the ground and was as high as the sky. Kuafu people live in the mountains. They are all tall and strong.
Soon, there was a serious drought on the earth. The sun is like a big fireball, which makes the earth split and the rivers and lakes dry up and become desolate. All the people in Kuafu went out to look for water to fight drought, but the rivers and lakes dried up and there was no water to find. So the brave leader of Kuafu vowed to take off the sun.
Seeing that Kuafu was really angry, the sun was a little flustered, so it sped up and set off to the west. Kuafu led the chase. When the sun glides faster, it shoots heat at Kuafu, trying to stop him from moving forward. However, persistent Kuafu refused to stop, despite sweating.
Kuafu quickly caught up with Wan Li and the valley where the sun set. With nowhere to run, the sun radiates all the heat to Kuafu.
Kuafu was dizzy, his eyes were shining with gold stars, his mouth was thirsty, and his hands were weak.
"Can't fall!" While encouraging himself, Kuafu bent down to drink the Yellow River water, hoping to get the sun after drinking it. I didn't know that he drank all the Yellow River, even the tributary Weihe River, and still felt thirsty.
Stubborn Kuafu is determined to drink water from osawa and compete with the sun. Osawa, also called "Han Hai", is a place where birds breed their young and change their feathers. Kuafu had just reached the edge of osawa, and before he leaned over, he felt dizzy and fell down like a mountain with a bang.
Kuafu looked at the sunset with regret, sighed, threw his cane at the sun and closed his eyes. Immediately, his body immediately became Mount Kuafu.
The next morning, the sun rose proudly in the east. When I saw Kuafu, I couldn't help secretly admiring Kuafu's courage. Strange to say, after the sunshine, Kuafu's walking stick turned into a peach tree forest, and the trees were covered with huge fruits.
Kuafu died, and he missed the sun. However, Emperor Tiandi was moved by his sacrifice and brave heroic spirit and punished the sun. Since then, his tribe has enjoyed good weather every year and everything is thriving. Kuafu's descendants live at the foot of Kuafu Mountain, have children and live a very happy life.
The historical book that records this story is Shan Hai Jing, named Kuafu Chasing the Sun. This is an educational fairy tale, which shows the resolute will and courage of the ancient people who are not afraid of difficulties. At the same time, this story also contains people's understanding of the earth in ancient times.
In the eyes of modern people, the earth is spherical and revolves around the sun. The sun will never fall into the earth, let alone move westward, not blocked by mountains, but to the other side of the earth.
But for the inland tribes like ancient Kuafu, the earth is spherical, the earth revolves around the sun, and they know nothing about the geography of northwest China.
They may know at most from the tribes near the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea that the east is the sea and the sun rises from there. As for the end of the Western Heaven, it is the place where the Yugur sun sets.
In fact, many records in Shan Hai Jing are not so much a collection of fairy tales as a record of verifiable geographical knowledge.
According to legend, The Classic of Mountains and Seas was written by Dayu and Boyi during the Tang Yu period, including 5 volumes of Mountain Scenery, 8 volumes of Sea Classic and 5 volumes of Huang Da Classic. From form to content, this book mainly describes the mountains and rivers around the country. Although there are myths, the proportion is not large. There is no doubt that it is an early geography book.
The mountains and rivers recorded in Shan Hai Jing are richer than those recorded in the earlier Yu Gong. It describes the earliest systematic classification of mountains and rivers in China in the form of myth. For example, the Five Zang Mountain Classics takes mountains as the key link and is divided into five mountain systems: east, west, south, north and middle, which contains a lot of geographical knowledge.
Dongshan Well includes present Shandong Province, northern Jiangsu and Anhui. There are 46 mountains with a path of 9430 kilometers.
Nanshan starts from Zhoushan Islands in Zhejiang Province in the east, reaches western Hunan Province in the west and the South China Sea in Guangdong Province in the south, including Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong and Hunan provinces. 40 seats, 8290 kilometers.
Xishan passes through the Yellow River between the mountains and Shaanxi in the east, Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi and Gansu in the south, Yanchi in Ningxia in the north and Altun Mountain in Xinjiang in the northwest. There are 77 mountains and 8756 kilometers.
The mountains described in Beishanjing are distributed in Ningxia, Xinjiang, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei, Inner Mongolia and other provinces, and the specific location of near 1/4 can be determined. Continuous 1 1665 km.
Zhongshan Jing mainly describes the geographical environment of southern Shanxi, central Shaanxi, western Henan, Henan, Wei, Yi and Luo. There are 2685 famous mountains in the world, which are distributed in the east, west, north and south of the earth, with a distance of 32043 kilometers.
The description of each mountain pass has certain rules, and the mountain name, mileage, plants, animals, water system, aquatic animals, minerals and other items are basic. A large number of ancient mountain names and river names are of great value to today's historical geography research.
The full text of the Five Tibetan Mountain Classics is in an orderly way, with the direction and Tao as the latitude and longitude. When describing each series of mountains, we also describe the position, height, trend, steepness, shape, valley and area of the mountains, and pay attention to the correlation between the two mountains, some of which also involve vegetation coverage density, rain and snow. Obviously, we have a preliminary concept of mountains.
"Classic of the Sea" and "Classic of Overseas" recorded coastal and worldwide areas. Classic of the Sea focuses on the ocean and remote coastal areas. Overseas classics record countries and regions beyond the four seas.
The records of "domestic classics" and "overseas classics" reflect the ancient world outlook. In the eyes of the ancients, they * * * together constitute the mainland, which is surrounded by sea water, and there are land and countries outside the four seas, all of which are remote places and constitute the world.
Shan Hai Jing also recorded and described some natural geographical phenomena. For example, regarding the precipitousness of Huashan Mountain, Shan Hai Jing records: "Taihua Mountain is divided into four directions, with a height of 5,000 meters and a width of ten miles, and there is nowhere for birds and animals to live." It is the earliest mountain geography book in China, which has grasped the most important features of Huashan so decisively and vividly reflected its geographical features.
When describing a river, The Classic of Mountains and Seas must specify its origin and flow direction, and pay attention to its tributaries or water systems flowing into tributaries, including some undercurrents and undercurrents, as well as records of salt ponds, lakes and Jing Quan.
For example, about the seasonal changes of rivers, teach the description of water:
Teach mountains to teach water to come out. The west flows into the river,
Winter is always dry and summer is always flowing, but it is just a dry river.
Jiaoshui is a seasonal river, which flows into the Yellow River, dry in winter and flows in summer. These records are the results of scientific observation of nature and have certain geographical significance.
Shan Hai Jing records a lot of primitive geographical knowledge, such as caves in the south, seasonal changes of rivers in the north, geographical landscapes in different climatic zones and distribution characteristics of animals and plants.
There is already a concept of four poles in Shan Hai Jing. Four poles are also called "four corners" and "four corners". In the eyes of the ancients, the world is limited and measurable. This proves that it has a relatively primitive geographical understanding.
Shan Hai Jing records the names of many plants and describes some plant forms, some of which can be compared with today's plants. Such as: pine, cypress, mulberry, lacquer, fig, bamboo, bottle, shelf and so on in woody plants; Herbaceous plants are Kanji, Mendong, and so on. Peach, pear, plum, apricot and plum in fruit trees.
In addition, Shan Hai Jing also describes the forms of roots, stems, branches, leaves, flowers and fruits in plants. This reflects that the knowledge of botany was quite rich at that time. Some plants have also recorded medicinal effects. Eating litchi can cure heartache; Medical treatment for eating food; Doctors in Tang Shi are deaf and so on.
The record of this medicinal plant has certain significance in plant geography and the history of traditional medicine in China.
There are also animal names in Shan Hai Jing, which record different kinds of animals. This part of the content has always had different views, because these names seem strange today, and the descriptions of animals are hard to believe. And often when you see these animals, it records that there will be great disasters in the world.
However, if we remove those absurd parts, we will be familiar with animals. They are nothing more than apes, cloven hoofs, foxes, butchers, rodents, birds and other animals. There are elk, tigers, leopards, cows, deer, antelopes, rhinoceroses, elephants, horses and so on.
Now rhinoceros is extinct in our country. Elephants are distributed in Zhongshan, Nanshan and Xishan, indicating that the climate at that time was warmer and wetter than today. Camels, which are called "boats in the desert" by modern people, have appeared in Beishan well twice.
Whether the armadillos mentioned in Dongshan Jing are similar to those in South America is worth studying.
In addition, recorded animals include fish, snakes, gastropods, amphibians and so on. The records of these animals and their distribution areas are actually precious scientific data.
There are a lot of mineral records in Shan Hai Jing. Jade appears many times. Chalk, realgar, aragonite, ochre and other nonmetals 10. There are dozens of metals such as gold, iron, silver, red gold, red copper, tin and red tin.
In the distribution of material resources, the records of minerals are particularly detailed. Referring to more than 300 mineral producing areas, there are 70 or 80 kinds of useful minerals, which are divided into four categories: gold, jade, stone and earth. These are precious mineral geographical data.
Shan Hai Jing also noticed the phenomenon of minerals, identified minerals according to their hardness, color, luster, transparency, structure, knocking sound and medicinal properties, and described the morphology, properties and medicinal effects of animals and plants in detail. Therefore, Shan Hai Jing has made outstanding contributions to mineralogical classification.
Joseph Needham, a writer of the history of science and technology in China, said: "The Classic of Mountains and Seas is a veritable treasure house, from which we can get a lot of knowledge about how the ancients knew minerals and drugs."
In a word, Shan Hai Jing records a lot of simple geographical knowledge, including mountains and rivers, animals and plants, mineral species and their distribution, which is of great value in the history of geographical development.