Oriental Qinglong
In the era when the Five Elements theory was prevalent, stories about the Qinglong slowly began to spread; the Five Elements masters assigned five elements to the southeast, northwest, and middle according to the yin and yang five elements. Each color is paired with a mythical beast and a god; the east is cyan, which is paired with a dragon, the west is white, which is paired with a tiger, the south is vermillion, which is paired with a bird, the north is black, which is paired with martial arts, and yellow is the central color.
In ancient China, those with horns on their heads were called male dragons; those with two horns were called dragons, those with one horn were called dragons; Called mother and son Chi; the dragon's status is much higher than that in India. Because in China the dragon is a divine creature, the supreme being, and the symbol of the emperor. It is also a representative of the East. Among the five elements, it belongs to wood. Because cyan belongs to wood, there is a saying that it is a green dragon on the left and a white tiger on the right.
White Tiger of the West
Among the four sacred animals in China, another one that is often compared to the dragon is the 'white tiger'; the tiger is the leader of all beasts, and its power is as legendary as The ability to subdue ghosts makes it become a divine beast belonging to the yang zodiac. It often goes out with the dragon. "Yun follows the dragon and wind follows the tiger" becoming the best pair for subduing ghosts.
The white tiger is also the god of war and killing. The white tiger has many magical powers such as avoiding evil, warding off disasters, praying for good fortune and punishing evil, promoting good deeds, making wealth, and getting married. And it is one of the four spirits, and of course it is also made of stars. Among the twenty-eight constellations, there are seven in the west: Kui, Lou, Wei, Ang, Bi, Xi, and Shen. Therefore, it is the representative of the West, and its white color is because it is the West. The West belongs to gold among the five elements, and its color is white. So it is called White Tiger not because it is white, but because of the five elements.
Southern Suzaku
The Suzaku can also be said to be a phoenix or black bird. Suzaku is one of the four spirits. Like the other three spirits, it comes from the stars and is the general name of the seven stars in the south: Well, Ghost, Willow, Star, Zhang, Yi, and Zhen. When I think of it, it's Suzaku. Zhu is red, like fire, and the south belongs to fire, so it is called Phoenix. It also has the property of being reincarnated from the fire, just like the phoenix in the West, so it is also called the Fire Phoenix.
According to records in ancient books, the phoenix is ??a beautiful bird, and with its singing voice and demeanor, it is the king of birds. , has the special spirituality of not eating anything that is not bamboo, and not drinking from springs that are not sweet wine. Since it is the length of the feather insect, the dragon and the scale insect have gradually become a pair in the legend, and one is ever-changing. A person with good virtues becomes a pair that complements each other in folk customs. Moreover, because the dragon symbolizes the Yang, and the phoenix, which originally had yin and yang (the phoenix is ??the male and the female is the phoenix), gradually becomes pure after facing the dragon. Yin represents.
Northern Xuanwu
Xuanwu is a spiritual creature composed of a turtle and a snake. The original meaning of Xuanwu is Xuanming, and the ancient sounds of Wu and Ming are connected. Wu means black; Ming means yin. Xuanming originally described turtle divination: the back of the turtle is black, and turtle divination is to ask the turtle to go to the underworld to ask the ancestors, bring the answer back, and show it to the world in the form of divination. Therefore, the earliest Xuanwu was the turtle. Later, the meaning of Xuan Ming continued to expand. Turtles live in rivers, lakes and seas (including sea turtles), so Xuan Ming became the water god; turtles live long, and Xuan Ming became a symbol of immortality; the original underworld was in the north, and the oracle bone divination of the Yin and Shang Dynasties said that "the divination must be northward", So Xuan Ming became the Northern God again. But Xuanwu was promoted by later Taoist priests to become the great emperor of the north, "Emperor Zhenwu". It is different from the other three spirits. The other Qinglong and Baihu only became the door gods of the mountain temple, while Zhuniao became Youtian Xuannv.