Why is the third son of Nanhai Shen the most special? He can only be carried into the temple.

Guangzhou Nanhai Temple is regarded as the birthplace of the Maritime Silk Road, which has attracted much attention from all walks of life. In fact, Nanhai Temple is a folk cultural site with the most complete historical records and the most magnificent temple architecture in China. The origin of the records of the gods in the South China Sea has always been rarely explained. The author has been involved in this issue in recent years, and the relevant textual research is recorded here to teach people from all walks of life who are concerned about Nanhai temples.

Since the primitive society, people have been worshipping witch gods, first of all, nature worship, and then ancestor worship. In the legendary period of Three Emperors and Five Emperors in China (actually equivalent to the late patriarchal society), ancient emperors had the tradition of patrolling and hunting Fang Yue. At that time, their main activities were in the Central Plains and they had never seen the sea at all. Since the founding of the Xia Dynasty, the concept of the monarch's theocracy has been gradually perfected, and emperors of all dynasties have the custom of offering sacrifices to the sun, the moon and mountains out of the need to thank the regime. At the same time, through these activities, people can know the respect and awe for the monarch and achieve the effect of Shinto education. At that time, the East China Sea and the South China Sea were still inhabited by uncivilized peoples such as Dongyi and Baiyue, and the West Sea and the North Sea were even out of reach. The rulers of Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties only offered symbolic sacrifices to the southeast, northwest and everywhere.

After the Qin and Han Dynasties, Qin Shihuang unified the territory of China, which made the culture of the Central Plains directly affect Dongyi Baiyue, and there was a unified situation of "within the four seas, is it the king's land". The feudal imperial power directly touched the coast of the East China Sea and the South China Sea, and the Central Plains culture formed inland felt the vastness of the ocean. However, because the center of feudal power was in the inland areas of the middle reaches of the Yellow River, feudal emperors and their representatives only symbolically built ridges on some hills in the Central Plains to worship the sea on all sides. Among the "Chuan" gods, people worship the river god first. Because the culture of the Central Plains originated in the Yellow River valley, people have special feelings for the Yellow River, so there is a custom of offering sacrifices to Hebo in ancient times. With the gradual expansion of Central Plains culture to coastal areas, ocean worship has also become popular with the extension of imperial power. Because the size of the ocean is daunting, the ceremony of offering sacrifices to the sea in Qin and Han Dynasties is a first-class etiquette, which is higher than that in Hebo.

The record of Nanhai God was first seen in the legend of Yuan Shao in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. It is said that when Yuan Shao was in Guandu, he met a young man in a white robe. Yuan asked who he was, and his subordinates replied: Nanhaijun, judging from this record, Nanhai God was not known to everyone at that time, and his status was not high. Until the reign of Emperor Yangdi Huang Kai, in order to consolidate the political power, Emperor Wendi of Sui Dynasty wrote a letter to set up temples in the offshore area to worship the four seas. When he built the South China Sea Temple in Guangzhou, he only mentioned in general terms that a temple should be built to worship the South China Sea. At that time, he used first-class etiquette and didn't mention why Nanhai God was a person.

The statement that the South China Sea God is Zhu Rong was first seen in Han Yu's Monument to the South China Sea Temple in the Tang Dynasty. The article said: "It is based on biography, and the South China Sea God is the most expensive, above the East, West, North and South Hebo, with the number Zhu Rong." Looking through the ancient literature, there is nothing to test. Zhang Jiugao, a little earlier than Han Yu, wrote a book "Sacrifice to the Gods of the South China Sea", which contains the sentence "floating in the sky, sweating and exhaling". This is a poem about seascape. Whether Han Yu's "Zhu Rong" is "floating in the air" is also worth noting. Since Han Yu erected the temple, the saying that the South China Sea God is Zhu Rong has been widely circulated.

Zhu Rong, the South China Sea God, is the only sea god named after a recorded ancestor in China. Huai Nan Zi records that Zhu Rong is one of the six auxiliary phases of the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Emperor's southern tour made it difficult to tell the direction, and sent Zhu Rong to "tell the south". Therefore, Zhu Rong was appointed to manage southern affairs. His fief was Chu (now Hunan, Hubei, Anhui and Jiangxi), and his palace was built in Zhurongfeng, Hengshan, Hunan, so Zhu Rong was considered as the ancestor of southerners. According to Jin Mu's five elements of fire, water and soil, the south belongs to fire, so Zhu Rong is in charge of the "fire" on earth. It is said that he was once the "fire Lord" of Di Ku. Now people still call that fire "King's Landing in Zhu Rong", which is from this.

So, why did Zhu Rong become the South China Sea God? The existing written records are all based on what Han Yubei said, and there seems to be no earlier data records. This may be related to the southward migration of residents in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (that is, Chu State) to Lingnan during the Three Kingdoms, Jin, Sui and Tang Dynasties. Immigrants come to a new city, facing the unpredictable waves on the sea, they integrate the existing beliefs of Lingnan ancestors, fantasize about a sea god who dominates maritime affairs, and hope that this sea god is Zhu Rong, who has long protected his ancestors. Because Zhu Rong was originally ordered by the Yellow Emperor to hold the position of Sina, and the South China Sea is in the south of Chu State, it should naturally belong to this ancestor.

Qu Dajun, a scholar at Lingnan University in the early Qing Dynasty, said in Cantonese New Language: "Your emperor is Zhu Rong, and the emperor of Zhu Rong is also the Fire Emperor. The emperor is Nanyue, and the emperor is Nanhai ... So Zhu Rong is also the fire and water emperor, and the capital is Nanyue. Therefore, the main peak of Nanyue is Zhu Rong, and its palace is Fuxi today (where Nanhai Temple is located today). " Later, a man named Han Hai said on the monument of the temple that according to the astrological classics of ancient stones, Zhu Rong was also called "thinking about the south and the moon and thinking about the South China Sea". According to the dialectical principle of the five elements, the South China Sea is bathed by Yan De and is the water of virtue. Although water and fire are incompatible, on the other hand, they can coexist. So, Zhu Rong also served as the fire emperor.

From the above situation, we can see that Nanhai God was originally positioned as a pure natural god. Only after the Sui and Tang Dynasties, with the expansion of the influence of the Central Plains (or Jingchu) culture in Lingnan, people's worship of Nanhai God was included in the content of ancestor worship.

After the temple was built in Sui and Tang Dynasties, especially during the Tianbao period of Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, it was named "King Guangli", and the sacrifice to the South China Sea God was directly moved to the temple. During the Yuanhe period in Tang Xianzong, Han Yu, a great writer, wrote an inscription for the Nanhai Temple, and its influence continued to expand. Since then, all the feudal emperors have sealed the South China Sea God. After Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty sealed the Nanhai God, Emperor Liu Yong of the Southern Han Dynasty in the Five Dynasties and Ten Countries even named the Nanhai God Emperor Zhaoming. When Song Taizu unified the Southern Han Dynasty, the fake seal of Emperor Zhaoming was cancelled. In the second year of Emperor Renzong's Kangding in the Northern Song Dynasty (104 1), the word "Hongsheng" was added to Guangli wang qian, so the people in the Pearl River Delta still called the South China Sea God "Wang Hongsheng". Emperor Song Renzong? In the fifth year (1050), "Zhao Shun" emblem was added before "Hongsheng". Later, in the 7th year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (1 137), the emblem of "Weixian" was added, and in the 28th year of Yuan Shizu to Yuan Dynasty (129 1), "Weixian" was added. By the time of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty, there was no better word to add, so he simply changed all the titles added in previous dynasties on the pretext that God was given by heaven and earth, and was directly named as the "God of the South China Sea" in the third year of Hongwu (1370) and the "Dragon King of the South China Sea" in the third year of Yongzheng (1725). Every seal or title change of Nanhai God is related to the change of political power or major state activities.

After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the gods of the South China Sea were particularly respected for three reasons. First of all, with the population migration from the north, especially the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the social and economic development of Lingnan has been greatly influenced by the culture of the Central Plains. The worship of Zhu Rong, the ancestor of South China, by Jingchu people has influenced the coastal areas of Guangdong. Second, the Silk Road on land opened by the Western Han Dynasty was blocked by frequent wars in the Central Plains and the split of political power, which promoted the opening and development of the Maritime Silk Road along the coast of Guangdong. Maritime trade provided conditions for Guangzhou's economic prosperity, and the increase of maritime activities promoted the feudal regime's attention to the South China Sea and the expansion of folk influence on the worship of gods in the South China Sea. Thirdly, Han Yu's Nanhai Temple Monument clearly points out that "Nanhai God is the most expensive", and this monument has become one of the most original materials for people to study Nanhai Temple. It has been quoted many times by the central and local rulers and widely circulated among the people, making the worship of Nanhai God enduring; At the same time, the later travels and inscriptions of famous scribes such as Su Dongpo, Tang Xianzu and Chen Xianzhang also promoted the expansion of the influence of Nanhai Temple.