Dragons, hieroglyphs. Oracle Bone Inscriptions, like a dragon. Original intention: In ancient legends, a magical animal with scales and beards can make clouds and rain. "Shuo Wen Jie Zi": Dragon, the length of scale worm. It can be quiet and clear, detailed and huge, short and long. The vernal equinox reaches the sky and the autumnal equinox dives deeply. Rao Jiong's note: "Dragons are things that change for no reason. It is said that because of its supernatural nature, it can ascend to heaven, its things can be deified, and life is called the spirit. " The dragon is also the totem of the Chinese nation.
The evolution of dragon characters has gone through the process of "from simplicity to complexity", "from division to unity" and "from complexity to simplicity"
First, from simple to complex
The word "dragon" was first seen in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the word "dragon" is in the shape of a snake. Since then, the evolution of bronze inscriptions, seal scripts and traditional dragon inscriptions has an obvious law, and the dragon head and dragon body have also become complicated.
Second, from distribution to unification.
After Oracle Bone Inscriptions, until the Qin Dynasty unified Xiao Zhuan, the number of dragon characters was gradually unified. Before the standardization of Chinese characters, dragons had many different characters (see the picture below), and finally they were unified into standardized writing.
Third, from complex to simple.
Before the simplification of Chinese characters, there were many strokes of dragon characters, and some pictographic meanings were retained. After simplification, it has become one of the concise Chinese characters in modern stroke teaching, with only five paintings.
Extended data:
Dragon, an animal in ancient China mythology, is the length of a scale worm and one of the symbols of the Chinese nation. According to legend, dragons can fly, be good at change, call the wind and rain, etc. , tied with Phoenix and Kirin as auspicious, which mainly implied imperial power in ancient times; Fairy tales have the finishing touch, what makes the sea noisy, Sun Moon Lake and so on.
It is mentioned in the clan code: "the ancestral dragon is the old dragon." The "old dragon" is Ying Long, so Ying Long is the "ancestor of the dragon". Because Ying Long has wings and auxiliary wings on his back, he can be regarded as a "real dragon".
Er Ya Yi records that "horns are like deer, heads are like camels, eyes are like rabbits, necks are like snakes, bellies are like dragonflies, scales are like fish, claws are like eagles, palms are like tigers, ears are like cows"; "Lun Heng" records that "secular painting of dragons is like a snake-headed horse"; According to Guangya, there are four kinds of dragons: Jiaolong, Yinglong, Jilong and Jilong.