The God of the East"
In many Guan temples, there is a couplet like this: "First Wu Mu became a god, the Song Dynasty will last forever, and the Han Dynasty will last forever; As for the saints, there is one person from Shandong and one person from Shanxi. "Guan Yu became a god first after Yue Fei, and then became a saint after Confucius.
In the minds of Chinese people, Guan Gong is both real, artistic, and deified, a composite moral sculpture. In addition to the deification and superstition of this moral sculpture by people in the farming society, Guan Gong represents a profound accumulation of Chinese traditional culture, which has long been condensed in the marrow of Chinese history and civilization, and flows in the blood of the descendants of Yan and Huang. The executioners of cultural autocracy represented by the "Gang of Four" can make literati "hang up their pens", make singers "seal their throats", and freeze all the hard work in the spiritual wilderness, but the butcher knives in their hands will never be able to kill the people of the country. All the links of morality and culture condensed by generations of fire-fighting were cut off.
In the ever-changing human society, personality is an eternal formula. The "Great Wall of Personality" constructed by a series of personal qualities and ethics cannot be blown down by the dark wind or destroyed by the waves. Although Guan Yu's noble personality has been described in Chen Shou's "Three Kingdoms"; although it has been portrayed in many aspects and angles in Luo Guanzhong's "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and in a large number of operas of the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties; although it has been described by numerous poets in the past dynasties after the Three Kingdoms His poems, songs, and couplets were highly praised, but in the eyes of old Chinese literati and common people, the statue of Guan Yu was still lacking.
In the past, the saints and gentlemen in the minds of the Chinese people should establish their character, career, morality and words. The former "Three Lis" Guan Yu possessed himself, but the "Li Yan" was "a big blank" in the general Guan Yu. Literati since the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties have spent a lot of thought and brainpower on Guan Sheng's "establishment of speeches".
Using plum, orchid, pine, and bamboo as metaphors for personality has always been the tradition of Chinese literati, so let Wu Sheng paint bamboo. Painting bamboos also has differences between elegance and vulgarity, so let Wu Sheng paint wind and rain bamboos; painting wind and rain bamboos also has differences, so let Guan Fuzi's wind and rain bamboos use "bamboo leaves to compose characters into poems." In this way, not only will the bamboo paintings painted by Wu Sheng be unique and unique, but it will also allow Guan Fuzi to join the ranks of poets. Guan Fuzi's "Wind Bamboo Picture" said: "If you don't thank Dong Jun, the painting will have its own name. Don't think that the lonely leaf is weak, it will never wither." "Rain Bamboo Picture" says: "If you can't build a great cause, the tripod is so powerful. It's hard for a hero to hold back tears. "It's raining on the branches." According to "Illustrated Records of the Holy Relics of the Emperor Guan Sheng," the stone carvings of Guan Sheng's bamboo poems were excavated from the ground of Chuangtiefo Temple in Xuzhou during the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty. So far, Guan Yu's bamboo poem inscriptions can be found in Yuncheng, Jingzhou and Feicheng in Shandong.
Shanxi Yuncheng Museum has four twelve-character seal script stone steles by Guan Yu. The ancient stele reads: "Read good books, speak good words, do good deeds, and be a good person." There is no official record of when Guan Yu became a calligraphy soldier again. However, Zhu Xi, a famous philosopher, educator in the Southern Song Dynasty and a representative figure of "Cheng Ming Neo-Confucianism", firmly believed that the twelve-character seal script was written by Guan Shengsuo. ", strongly recommend it. It is said that these four sentences were written by Guan Yu to his son Guan Ping. Reading it today, people will feel that this is the same as the inscription by our founding leader when he encouraged the young people.
It seems that the saints in Chinese history can only be passed down for a long time if they have made achievements in philosophy. Zhou Gong made ritual music and established regulations; Confucius wrote the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Analects of Confucius; Laozi wrote the Tao Te Ching, which contains five thousand words, and Zhuangzi wrote the "Autumn Waters", "Horse Hoof", and "Xiaoyaoyou". "... The martial sage Guan Yu should also have his own tricks in theory, so that he can be known to future generations and benefit all people. Since the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, there have been numerous writings written by Guan Gong. The most widely circulated are the "Eternal Life True Sutra of Emperor Guan" and "Eighteen Chapters of the Ching of Loyalty and Righteousness", etc. These are three-, four- or seven-character works that rhyme with each other and are easy to spread. They involve the country and society, public morality and personality. , is an all-encompassing declaration of life and morality. Reading it now, apart from the superstitious elements of karma and retribution and the feudal dross of the Three Cardinal Principles and the Five Constant Rules, it can become a popular reading on social ethics and principles of life in today's society.
The fate of a country is like the fate of one person. A person's life lies in his vitality, and a country's life lies in his heart.
Under the autocratic politics of imperial power, the people most hope that officials will have the character of being empty-handed, selfless, meritocratic, and not greasy. In the eyes of the people, Guan Sheng, as the first god in China, can only become the judge of evil people and the protector of good people if he is far better than officials with these qualities. Although the literati have shaped Guan Yu's personality in many aspects in art, the people still feel that "the pearl is left behind." Therefore, they fabricated several stories about Guan Sheng's integrity and uprightness, and further painted the moral statue of Guan Sheng with gold and color.
The legend that Guan Yu put "the horse boy in command" has been popular in Jingchu for a long time: when Guan Yu was in charge of Jingchu, although he was over fifty years old, he still had the habit of dancing to the sound of chickens. One morning, Guan Yu was dancing his sword at the Paima Mountain Army Training Ground. He saw someone riding a red horse galloping back and forth on the field. He took a closer look and saw that it was Guan Xing's stableboy practicing riding skills. Guan Yu watched for several mornings, and the horse boy was like this every day. At this time, Guan Xing was still snoring and sleeping in the military camp. Soon, Guan Yu attacked Fancheng again. When the school troops ordered the generals, Guan Xing rode majestically on a red horse, waiting for his father to order him to lead the troops. However, Guan Yu ordered Guan Xing to dismount and ordered the horse boy to mount. When Ma Tong led his troops to capture Fancheng and return to Jing, Guan Yu went out of the city for sixty miles and held a banquet by a bridge. He personally helped the leader of Ma Tong to cleanse himself from the wind and dust...
Inciting friends and colluding with each other, The biggest form of corruption in officialdom is to use nepotism to show off one's relatives. Guan Gong's move of letting the stable boy take command was enough to make Guan Yu's official virtue shine brightly!
In Jingzhou, there is still a story about "Guan Yu angrily beheaded Guan Ping": There was a family named Wang in Erxianzhuang outside Jingzhou City, and his grandson Wang Peng and his grandmother depended on each other. One day, the grandfather and grandson went to the temple to offer incense. On their way home, Wang Peng was trampled to death by a galloping horse. Wang Peng's grandmother filed a complaint with the county government, but the county magistrate saw that it was Guan Ping who was suing Guan Ping and did not dare to hear the case. The old man came out of the county government office and was about to commit suicide, but he was rescued by one of Guan Yu's generals and led to Guan Mansion. After Guan Yu heard the old man's reason, he refused to explain, so he had Guan Ping captured and taken to the execution ground to be executed. Guan Ping did not ride a horse when Wang Peng was killed. Knowing that Guan Xing was responsible, he was willing to take the blame for his brother. Zhang Fei's son Zhang Bao learned of this and begged Wang Peng's grandmother to save him with a knife. The old man was filled with grief and went to the execution ground to rescue Guan Ping. Shi Guanxing Zao resolutely came out and admitted his fault. Guan Yu spared Guan Ping and then beheaded Guan Xing. Wang Peng's grandmother kowtowed to Guan Yu and begged for mercy, saying that if he didn't kill anyone, she would be willing to hit a pillar and die. Guan Yu's subordinates also knelt down and begged Guan Xing for mercy, but Guan Yu still refused. Just when Cao Cao's army invaded, Wang Peng's grandmother asked Guan Yu again to let Guan Xing kill the enemy. Only then did Guan Yu avoid Guan Xing's death, and took the old man to Guan Mansion to take care of him...
These legends among the people that Guan Yu was an upright official and not interested in personal affairs all regarded Guan Gong as one of them. It is shaped by the "human" skeleton. Even when Guan Gong is beautified as a god, the people mostly use the image of an upright official in their minds to ferment and sublimate it. For example: a monk from a Guan Temple pretended to be Lord Guan and robbed poor people of their money by depositing gold on the statue of Emperor Guan. When Guan Sheng heard this, he was furious and slapped the monk's mouth crookedly... This is where the anecdote of "the crooked-mouthed monk recited the wrong sutra" comes from. Another example: In a Guan temple in a certain place, Guan Sheng, who was standing in front of the altar, once wrongly judged a case among the people. After vindicating the wronged person, Guan Emperor fell into deep self-blame and ordered the Guan temple to be burned down, never allowing Build again!
In this way, the literati of the past dynasties used the most exquisite ideal brushes to depict the image of the martial saint who was both literary and martial, capable of both left and right. ; In this way, all living beings in the world, with the most affectionate and ardent sustenance, fill in the gaps and add up the missing items, beautifying Guan Gong into the "spiritual coordinate" of all generations who is worthy of the heaven and does not hate the people.
During the "Cultural Revolution", those "high-ranking" figures in the model operas would definitely feel ashamed and dwarfed by this "spiritual specimen"!
If the "Gang of Four" criticized Confucius because of the old man's remarks such as "denying oneself and restoring propriety", this would mean that the "Gang of Four" unreasonably extended it to Confucius's teachings. It found an "excuse" to restore the slavery system and set back history; if we say that the "Critical "Water Margin" and Criticism of Song Jiang" movement launched by the "Gang of Four" was because Song Jiang, known as the "Timely Rain", not only had "a relationship" with Yan Poxi "The relationship between men and women" is stained, and there is a historical fact that the Liangshan heroes betrayed the group interests and surrendered to the imperial court, which gave the "Gang of Four" something to catch; then, in the face of Guan Gong, this flawless moral statue of the Chinese nation, , it is extremely difficult to find where to strike the butcher knife of the cultural dictatorship of the "Gang of Four".
The sacred statue of Guan Gong has long stood in the kind hearts of the Chinese people!
What is sad and sad is that the "god-making movement" launched by the "Gang of Four" also failed to succeed according to their sinful calculations. They lack the most basic historical common sense, that is, living people should never be worshiped as gods. This is because there needs to be a huge distance in time and space between humans and the so-called gods in order to create the mystery and haziness of "gods". And the closer a great man gets to him, the more he feels that he is also a human being. Moreover, after all, the greatest heads lack the so-called omnipotent wisdom. The greater the man, the more likely he is to make major overall mistakes. Today, when great men step down from the altar, our nation still needs to reflect deeply on an era through the lens of the pool of blood that has not completely evaporated!
“If heaven did not give birth to Zhongni, eternity would be as long as night.” A nation without a philosophical giant is a nation with mental paralysis; a nation without a great hero is one of the most hopeless creatures in the world. group. When a nation's philosophical giants and great heroes pass away, they not only hand over their superhuman philosophy and noble character as precious heritage to their own nation, but also to the entire world.
Today, Confucius has become the first of the world’s “Top Ten Philosophers” in human history. This is a rare pride for the Chinese nation! As early as 1665, in the map of various countries in the world published by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Vienna, on the territory of our country stood a national spiritual representative, he was Guan Yu. On the map of the world published in Vienna at that time, only one great man was drawn above each country's territory to represent its nation. This shows that our martial sage Guan Gong had a profound influence on the world at that time. In recent years, David Jiao, a doctor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, said after studying a large amount of information on the Chinese Guan Gong belief: "I respect Guan Yu, the great Eastern god, and he should be respected by everyone. His benevolence, justice, wisdom and courage are still meaningful to this day. Benevolence is love. , righteousness is integrity, wisdom is culture, and courage is not afraid of hardships. If God’s people are like Guan Gong, our world will become a better place.”
Faith is the big bird that announces the morning. , it often sings for the arrival of dawn in the dark night; faith is a brilliant wave of light, which can guide human beings to continuously improve themselves. Guan Yu's mausoleum has long been covered with pines and cypresses. As a giant cypress with the spirit of "loyalty, justice, benevolence and courage", Guan Sheng still remains among our nation with its fragrant rosin, and spreads to every corner of the world. Its fragrance.
According to information collected by the Guan Gong Research Association, there are currently 148 countries and regions in the world that have built temples related to the emperor.
Taiwan, the treasure island of the motherland, has a population of more than 20 million, but there are more than 8 million compatriots who are related to the Holy Spirit. On the island of Taiwan, there are more than 3,000 temples dedicated to Guan Sheng, and there are as many as 14,000 temples and nunneries dedicated to Guan Emperor statues. Taiwanese compatriots are obsessed with Guan Sheng to an incredible degree.
In Taipei City's Xingtian Temple (i.e. Guan Gong Temple), a few days before the group worships Guan Gong, even well-established wives and young ladies have to do three shifts in order to get "voluntary work" when worshiping Guan Gong. I queue up to register when I get up, but when I arrive a little later, it becomes difficult to get in line... The Benzhugong Temple (also related to the Guan Temple) in Miaoli County, Taiwan was built in the 1970s. During the tenth anniversary celebration of the temple, according to the According to temple statistics, Guan Sheng has adopted as many as 140,000 adopted grandchildren...
Malaysia, located in the Nanyang Islands, is not very large, but it has more than 8,000 Guan temples. Singapore, known as the Land of Gardens, has the Zhongyi Temple in the city, which is as majestic and majestic as a palace. Japan is a religious country with gods but no ghosts and no sense of religion. In many of its big cities, there are splendid Guandi temples. During every major festival, giants from the business and corporate circles lead their employees in batches to the Guan Temple to worship Guandi, hoping that their subordinates can sincerely unite in the spirit of "peach garden sworn friendship" and gain greater profits for them.
Kant said: It is a moral necessity to assume the existence of God.
A Western philosopher said: A huge conscience is a temple.
In this sense, Guan Gong, who has been beautified and deified by hundreds of millions of people in China for thousands of years, is not only a bright and shining sword of conscience hanging over people’s heads, but also a symbol for the Chinese nation. The personality coordinates of a nation tempered by traditional culture.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, with the repeated campaigns to eradicate superstition, the Guan Temple in rural China has long since disappeared. The people who adhered to the ancient ways could only pay sincere tribute to Guan Gong. After the reform and opening up, the "Guan Gong craze" overseas has warmed the dormant Guan Sheng complex in the hearts of the Chinese people. First, in some towns on the southeastern coast, people invited Guan Gong to be the God of Wealth again; then, in Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan... wherever Guan Yu left his footprints during his lifetime, the local government also used Guan Gong's culture to stage an economic drama.
Since the early 1990s, Yuncheng, Guan Yu’s hometown, has held the seven-day Guan Gong Cultural Festival every year in the golden autumn. During this period, Yuncheng City was crowded with people, carrying clothes together; in the Guandi Temple in Jiezhou, people were walking and carrying horses, and each household was limited to wearing clothes. The grand ceremony imitates the standards of worshiping saints in the Ming Dynasty. The musical instruments used include sheng, pipe, xun, flute, zither, drum, chime, pipa, gong, etc., which are full of ancient elegant music "gold, stone, silk, bamboo, earth, gourd, leather, The eight-tone design of "wood". The sacrifices used in the ceremony also follow the old system of open sacrifice, and the highest ceremony is Tailao (whole cow, whole pig, whole sheep). The ritual procedures are divided into drum-beating, incense burning, first offering, laying jade and silk fabrics, entering the altar, walking and offering gifts, reading blessings, praying, and final offering. In addition, drinking blessing wine and various artistic performances... It should be said , holding such sacred activities in the Jiezhou Guandi Temple, known as the "ancestor of the Martial Arts Temple", is not only a way to discover, promote and expand the Guan Gong culture, but also become a way for us to closely connect overseas Chinese compatriots. Invisible ties.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Guan opera was favored by both the government and the public. However, when Zhu Yuanzhang and Emperor Yongzheng came to the throne, they both issued decrees banning the performance of Guan operas for fear that actors would desecrate Guan Sheng. "Anyone who violates the rules will be punished by the law." After Hongwu returned in the Ming Dynasty and Yongzheng surrendered in the Qing Dynasty, the emperors found it difficult to stop the ban and had no choice but to lift the ban. However, there are many "natural rules and regulations" for the children of Liyuan to perform Guan Opera. For example, when performing Guan Opera, literary music and elegant music must be used, and martial music and crude music commonly used in martial arts operas must not be used; the person who plays Guan Gong must look good and behave upright, and must not have sex for a month or half a month before performing Guan Opera, and the elements fast; on the eve of the performance, the person who plays Guan Gong must take a bath; before going on stage, all actors must burn incense and pay homage to the saint Guan; during the performance, every move of the person who plays Guan Gong must not lose the demeanor of a gentleman and a saint. There are also many rules for the audience watching Guan Opera, and everyone, whether monarch, minister, or common people, must abide by them. Even Nala, the bossy Queen Mother of the West, had to stand up from her seat when the Guan opera started, take a few steps forward, and make a respectful gesture before returning to her seat.
A few years ago, someone in Taipei City, Taiwan, made a film about Guan Gong in Cao Ying to celebrate the completion of a new cinema. Unexpectedly, just a few scenes of Guan Yu and his two sisters-in-law flirting with each other in the film aroused the audience's indignation and blood boiling. People stood up and glared, rushed to the stage while singing and chanting, tearing up the screen and setting fire to it. Burnt down the theater!