Dragon Culture in Ancient China

In China culture, dragons have an important position and influence. From the Neolithic Age more than 7, years ago, the ancestors worshipped the primitive dragon totem, and today people still use idioms or allusions with the word "dragon" to describe the beautiful things in life.

As a descendant of the dragon, you can't be ignorant of the dragon culture in China. Without understanding the dragon culture, it is impossible to understand the ancient Chinese civilization. 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 is the influence of dragons in China culture? These problems have been puzzling people in different ways since ancient times, and they have not all been solved yet, giving people a confusing feeling. Here, we will trace the dragon, enter the ancient history and the dragon world, and understand and explore the mystery of the dragon ...

The origin of the dragon

The dragon originated in the early Neolithic period, which is no less than 8, years away from today. During this period, the primitive ancestors did not simply and passively rely on God's reward. They raised wild horses, bison, wild boars and so on. We don't just eat those wild fruits that are picked up, but selectively plant grains for harvest. 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 other than people, has a greater impact on people's spiritual world.

why are fish unable to swim, alligators in the bay are loud, snakes are eerie and lizards are weird? Why are clouds rolling, lightning flashing, thunder rumbling and heavy rain pouring down? Why do the waves roll over, the rainbow runs through the sky, and the mudslides roar down, devouring people and animals and being invincible? ..... The behavior of these animals and the ever-changing natural phenomena could not be scientifically explained by the ancients.

They guessed vaguely that there should be such a powerful "sacred object" related to "water" that commands and manages these animals and celestial phenomena, just like 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, call, eat, drink, sleep, laugh and curse.

Dragon, as a worship phenomenon and an "understanding" of incredible natural forces, began its "fuzzy collection" from this time.

There are many theories about the origin of dragons: the theory of supernatural animals, the theory of totem merging, the theory of celestial tree gods, the theory of dinosaur legacy, the theory of alien introduction, the theory of fuzzy set and so on.

The connotation of dragon culture

A professor from Peking University revealed the multiple connotations of loong culture from three levels: the first level, the concept of dragon contains the four most important concepts of China people from the image of loong, namely, the cosmology of harmony between man and nature; The mutual subject view of benevolent loving others; The development view of yin-yang intercourse; An inclusive view of multiculturalism. On the second level, the concept of dragon is behind the image of loong and the concept of dragon, which contains the ideal goals and values of China people when dealing with the four main relationships, and pursues the harmony between heaven and man, interpersonal relationship, contradiction between Yin and Yang and multicultural relationship. The third layer, the dragon's spirit is pluralistic and integrated, and the basic spirit of China culture is comprehensive and innovative, which is the deepest cultural connotation of loong's image and dragon culture. Wang Dong believes that exploring the deep connotation of loong culture will help to solve some conflicts of civilizations in the contemporary world.

China's dragon, however, in the unique form of oriental mysticism, contains four basic concepts unique to China people and China culture through complex and changeable artistic modeling:

First, the world view of the harmony between man and nature;

Second, the concept of mutual subjectivity of the benevolent and the loving;

third, the concept of development of yin-yang intercourse (or changeability);

the fourth is the inclusive cultural view.

the cosmology of the harmony between man and nature

The cosmology and worldview of the harmony between man and nature can be regarded as the core concept in Chinese national culture. With vivid and concrete images and mysticism, the dragon contains the concept of harmony between man and nature.

As a heavenly beast, the dragon helps people to reach the way to heaven. Most of the original dragon forms around 3 BC contain this cultural connotation. Among them, the most representative, the first known as "China's first Yi Long", Puyang, Henan Province, the crocodile-shaped protosaurus. According to Li Xueqin, Feng Shi and other famous experts, the cultural connotation of the whole mussel sculpture here is like a picture of the Big Dipper with White Tiger in black dragon 6, years ago, which not only shows that the ancients determined the time and agricultural production season with black dragon, White Tiger and Beidou constellation, but also reflects the tomb owner who was at the top of the power at that time, set foot on Beidou and took charge of Gankun. The crocodile-shaped protodragon shaped by mussels played a role as a heavenly beast here.

As a flying beast, dragons can help people to ascend to heaven. Sima Qian's Historical Records? The Book of Closing the Zen, with the words of Gong Sunqing, a warlock of the State of Qi, tells the myth that Lapras, the Yellow Emperor, ascended to heaven: "The Yellow Emperor picked bronze from the first mountain and cast a tripod at the foot of Jingshan Mountain. When the tripod is completed, a dragon hangs down and beards to meet the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Emperor rode on, and there were more than 7 people from the harem of ministers, and the dragon was on it. Yu Xiaochen can't go up, but he knows that he is holding a dragon beard, and the dragon beard pulls, falls, and falls into the bow of the Yellow Emperor. The people look up to the Yellow Emperor, but they hold his bow and beard. " Here, the dragon pattern on the tripod is a magical intermediary, which makes the dragon descend to earth and helps the Yellow Emperor ascend to heaven.

The first of the sixty-four hexagrams in the Book of Changes, which begins with a clear meaning, puts forward a unified thinking frame and mode of "heaven-earth-man" with the phenological calendar of the dragon-black dragon constellation as the intermediary.

In the Book of Changes and the Silk Book of Changes in Confucius' later years, it is from the height of the cosmology of the unity of man and nature that the connotation of the divination in the Book of Changes is explained: "Great efforts are made to dry up the Yuan Dynasty, and ten thousand materials begin to unify the sky"; "When you are six, you can take six dragons to rule the sky."

As a heavenly thing, dragons also help to form a universal model of "the unity of heaven and man" and "the unity of heaven, earth and man". In this respect, perhaps we can cite the Terrain Training of Huainanzi, a masterpiece of the early Western Han Dynasty: "The spirit of the earth is superior to the heaven. Ai Tian was born at the age of 5, yellowish dust was born at the age of 5, yellowish dust was born at the age of 5, Huang Zhuo was born at the age of 5, Huang Zhuo was born at the age of 5, Huang Long was born at the age of 5, and Huanglong was born in Tibet. Egypt in the grave, Huang Yun in the world. Yin and Yang are forced to be thunder and excited to be electricity. The upper one goes down, the flowing water passes, and it is in the Yellow Sea.

There are many mysterious and far-fetched places here, but a reasonable core is to express the cosmological model of "heaven, one place, two people and three people" and put forward the cosmological view of the unity of man and nature, and the dragon has become an intermediary link to communicate "heaven" or "heaven, earth and man".

It can be seen that the image and concept of the dragon, with the unique form of oriental mysticism, contains the world view of the unity of man and nature.

the essence of dragon culture

the original dragon in China once originated from the original totem culture, but the essence and mainstream cannot be simply attributed to the original totem culture. From the four aspects of "background of the times-specific content-cultural meaning-social function", China's dragon capital is significantly different from the original totem, thus showing the following essential characteristics:

Dragon culture originated from totem and transcended totem

China's dragon culture does not only have individual relics in modern China, but still maintains strong vitality, discarding the negative factors of feudalism, mysticism and absolutism, loong.

It's not worship in kind, but cultural creation.

Totem culture is essentially the clan culture of primitive society, while China's dragon, the original dragon, was born around 3 BC, which was the disintegration period of primitive society in China, the origin period of Chinese civilization, and later the dragon of Chinese civilization in China. Although a prototype can be found in nature, it is not an existing object in nature in essence, but a cultural creation based on the concept of national culture. The formative period of the times.

the essential feature of loong is that it transcends the consanguinity of clan culture and sublimates into the connotation of national culture based on geographical relationship.

dragon-this is the unique cultural creation, concept creation and symbol creation of China people.

Descendants of the Dragon

After the Dragon World was opened up, it was time to create life and breed human beings. In the myths and legends of China, this great work was accomplished by Fuxi and Nuwa. Living in the remote and beautiful "Hua Xushi country", the girl "Hua Xushi" went to a scenic "Leize" to play, and occasionally saw a huge footprint, so she stepped on it curiously, so she got pregnant and gave birth to a son named "Fuxi". The footprints in Razer were left by "Raytheon", who has the head of a dragon's body. Therefore, Fuxi was originally a "dragon species" with a dragon head. Unable to find another woman, Mr. Fuxi, who is a dragon and determined to be the "father of mankind", had to marry his sister, Miss Nu Wa, and gave birth to the first batch of men and women. This Nuwa, who is called the "mother of mankind", is also a dragon head. In this way, in those Han Dynasty stone reliefs, the parents of human beings will happily cling to each other, or hold mascots and respect each other, while the two dragons' tails are tightly surrounded and hand in hand. This is probably the origin of the saying "descendants of the dragon". Legend

Symbol of Dragon and Emperor

After the Han Dynasty in the second century BC, the image of dragon was associated with imperial power and became a royal emblem. The emperor calls himself "the real dragon son of heaven", and his descendants are called dragon sons and grandchildren. His clothes are called dragon robes, and all his articles depict the image of the dragon. So, how did the dragon become a symbol of the emperor?

There are probably two reasons: most of the emperors and gods in ancient times were dragons, or they were dragon-like. As we mentioned, Pangu, Fuxi, Nuwa, Huangdi, Yandi, Tang Yao, Yu Shun, Xia Yu, Tai Hao, who took the dragon as an official, Ju Mang, who traveled in Lapras, Zhuan Xu, who took the pig as a musician and taught the flying dragon to play all directions, and Di Ku, who was lucky enough to be born because of her mother's sense of dragons, and so on. China was born in ancient times, and liked to imitate sages. The emperors in the past were dragons, and later emperors were naturally dragons. Even if you don't have dragon nature, you have to try to package yourself into a dragon.

Besides, if the dragon wants to manage the water on the ground and the water in the sky, it must have the ability to come and go freely between heaven and earth. It can go directly to heaven and reflect the human situation to the emperor; You can also come down from heaven, convey the will of God and work for God. Didn't the emperor say that he was "ordered by heaven"? Don't you claim to be the son of heaven and manage the world on behalf of the emperor of heaven? Obviously, the divinity of dragons and the kingliness of monarchs are linked here. As a result, the emperors became "the real dragons".

It seems that no emperor does not say that he is a dragon. Qin Shihuang was known as the "emperor of the ages", so he was called "Zulong". Emperor Gaozu claimed to be born after his mother Liu Wei matched with the dragon, and he was born with "long precision and long face". When Chu and Han contended, Fan Zeng found that Liu Bang had the spirit of "the son of heaven", and "all of them were dragons and tigers, and they became colorful". Emperor Han Jing dreamed that the red pig turned into a red dragon, so he had Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. In the Jin Dynasty, there was a nursery rhyme, "Five horses float across the river, and one horse turns into a dragon", and the result should be on Emperor Jin Yuan. . When Emperor Taizong was born, there were two dragons playing in the pool of Wugong County. When Song Gaozu was a child, he was alone in front of the podium, and there was a "five-colored dragon badge" on it ...

Throughout the history of feudal society in China, the rulers associated themselves with dragons, all with obvious utilitarian purposes: to enhance their prestige because of their humble origins, or to anesthetize the people because of social unrest.

overseas dragon culture

in western culture, the dragon is a kind of giant reptile, with a fire-breathing monster in its wings, which is a symbol of evil and violence. The dragon in the Bible's Revelation is the incarnation of Satan. The prince fought the fierce dragon with a sword, beheaded its head and rescued the weak girl, which is the western version of the hero saving the beautiful girl. Fierce-looking dragons were also used by ancient westerners on shields, military flags and badges to deter enemies. So the dragon is also a symbol of war in the west.

in eastern culture, dragons are symbols of strength, wealth, prosperity and peace. The worship of dragons in China is very fanatical. Western couples look forward to the Millennium baby, while China people look forward to having a dragon son and a dragon daughter. No matter where they live in the world, Chinese people regard themselves as descendants of dragons. Without dragons, China's cultural traditions, including architecture, costumes, festivals, food, folk customs and even language, would be pale and powerless.

With the emigration of China people, the dragon culture of China has spread all over the world. In fact, long before white people came into contact with loong culture, loong had already crossed the ocean to Japan, Southeast Asia and even Native Americans.

for one or two thousand years, Japanese farmers and fishermen have been offering sacrifices and worshipping dragons, in order to achieve good weather and good harvests. There is a seventh-century mural "Qinglong Tu" in the ancient tomb of Gaosongzhong, and its shape is almost the same as that of loong. Among the Japanese ancient buildings, dragons in China were more common in the Han, Tang, Ming and Qing Dynasties, but rare in the pre-Qin period. It can be seen that loong's art was introduced into Japan in large quantities from the Han Dynasty.

loong's culture was introduced to Southeast Asia much earlier than Japanese, so it is more primitive. The dragon and phoenix art in Viet Nam, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia obviously has the characteristics of the Yangtze River Culture Department in China. Dragons have big heads, some like lions or cows, thick bellies, big tails and small feet. This dragon image can be seen everywhere in architecture, costumes, sculptures, and folk activities such as dragon boat, dragon dance < P > and dragon lantern. There are scattered rivers and lakes to the south of the Yangtze River. Dragon boat culture is very developed. The bronze drum commanding the dragon boat race is decorated with auspicious animal patterns such as dragons and phoenixes. The art of bronze drums in Southeast Asia originated in China. The difference between Yunnan and Guangdong bronze drum art is also found in Southeast Asia, which has become a local variant of the dragon and phoenix culture in the Yangtze River. From the perspective of ancient cultural history, Yalong culture in the southeast is an extension of the Yangtze River culture department, especially Miao Man culture.

The ancient American Indians accepted loong culture much earlier than Southeast Asia. Archaeologists found that as early as 7, years ago, during the Columbus period, loong's art was introduced to America and combined with the local indigenous culture, which became the backbone of Olmec, Maya, Astek, Inca and other tribal dragon cultures. Olmec culture, which rose in 1 BC (equivalent to the late Shang and early Zhou Dynasties in China history), is considered as the cradle of Indian culture. There are two kinds of primitive dragons in Olmec culture: Jilong and Jilong, which are commonly known as Dalong and Xiaolong in China. Similar to the origin of loong in Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The images of dragons seen in some ancient Indian cultural sites are almost sketches of Chinese alligators in China. In Indian myths and legends, the fire dragon and the water dragon represent North and South Er Shen respectively. In the ancient mythology of China, the northern water god was a water dragon and the southern fire god was a fire dragon Zhu Rong. Archaeologists found that the dragon of Maya culture was very similar to the dragon of Yellow River culture and Songliao culture, and the dragon of Inca culture was almost a copy of the dragon of South China culture and Bashu culture. The images of dragons adorned on pyramids and other altars and temples in America show that ancient Indians worship dragon culture as much as China. In fact, dragon culture is only a part of ancient China culture. American culture in loong.