In feudal society, people of different classes and status have different understandings of "happiness": for farmers, having their own land, planting in spring and harvesting in autumn, good weather and adequate food and clothing are blessings; The ordinary people have suffered from tyranny, war or famine all the year round, and it is a blessing to have a safe family and survive; Businessmen often calculate that gold is two thousand yuan, and the prosperity of financial resources is three rivers. The "blessing" of a scholar's bachelor is different. After ten years of hardship, "to be no.1" is the greatest "blessing"; The elderly regard health, longevity and having children and grandchildren as their greatest "blessings". With the development of social civilization and the richness of folk culture, the content of happiness has become more and more abundant. As the main content of auspicious culture, blessing embodies people's ideals and aspirations from many angles and levels, and the concept of blessing is subtly integrated into various folk activities and worship of gods.
The ancients' understanding of happiness is both realistic and dialectical. Laozi said, "Misfortune depends on happiness, and happiness comes from misfortune." That is to say, one kind of factor often lurks another opposite factor, and both the disaster and the blessing can be transformed. Laozi further elaborated in the "Tai Shang Induction": "There is no door to misfortune and happiness, only people call." It is believed that misfortune and happiness are hard to predict, but they can be transformed and maintained by human efforts, so as to strive for a happy ending of happiness.
In auspicious patterns, the basic graphic symbols of happiness can be divided into two categories. One category is the gods worshipped by folk gods, such as Tiangong and Samsung. The other kind is auspicious symbols and figures, such as bats, bergamot, moire and so on.
Lu Xing's position
Wenchang, Lu Xing, has six stars, among which Lu Xing, the secretary, is called "Silu rewarded meritorious service as a scholar" in Wei Shu's Life Bract in the Spring and Autumn Period and Yuan Dynasty, which is the fame of the main scholar.
the origin and transformation of Lu Xing
1. wenchang star, the chief official
Lu Xing also evolved from a star. He is located right in front of the Big Dipper and always rises with it. Sima Qian's Book of Historical Records and Official Records records that the six stars in front of the Big Dipper are collectively referred to as Wenchang Palace, and the last one in it is Lu Xing, who is in charge of official posts. In the Northern Song Dynasty, wenchang star gradually became synonymous with Lu Xing.
2. With the popularity of the imperial examination system
After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the rise of the imperial examination system made Lu Xing popular. The imperial examination gave ordinary people the first chance to become officials by studying, thus changing their own destiny. However, this is a narrow path. If you want but can't, you will naturally seek the help of the gods, so the Lu Xing in Wenchang Palace is particularly bright. In the Northern Song Dynasty, wenchang star gradually became synonymous with Lu Xing.
the qiqushan Wenchang temple in zitong county, Mianyang, Sichuan province is the oldest existing Wenchang temple and the ancestral home of all Wenchang temples in the world. In the Wenchang Temple in Qiqu Mountain, the cast iron statues cast in the Song Dynasty have a respect of 12, Jin. Perhaps because the idol is too heavy to be destroyed, it has survived thousands of years of wars of swords and soldiers, and it has been preserved to this day, so we have the privilege of seeing the true face of wenchang star thousands of years ago.
the image of wenchang star in the song dynasty was that of a court official. Several clerks and valets stood around, which set off his noble and extraordinary status. The temple was the best, and themoon won the laurel. All kinds of auspicious patterns can be seen everywhere, creating a beautiful artistic conception in to be no.1. This is the wish land for scholars of all ages, and wenchang star is their lucky star.
3. In Ming Dynasty, Lu Xing was given a brand-new role-sending a son to the gods. In the early years of Ming Dynasty, the lyrics of "Lu Xing came down to earth with his son in his arms" began to appear. It seems that as early as four or five hundred years ago, Lu Xing had already become a fairy to send his son. Some of the functions of this songzi are of unknown origin. In the popular folk stories, Lu Xing is called Songzi Zhang Xian, a fairy named Zhang. According to "A Mirror of the Immortals in Past Dynasties", this Zhang Xian was a Taoist priest named Zhang Yuanxiao in the Five Dynasties. He cultivated immortality in Qingcheng Mountain, a famous Taoist mountain in Bashu, and was good at slingshot stunts. His target was those monsters and ghosts who made trouble in the world. From the Five Dynasties to the Northern Song Dynasty, he was already famous in Bashu area.
A story about Zhang Xian's sending a son was recorded in the notes of the Northern Song Dynasty. Su Xun recorded in one of his poems "Zhang Xianzan" that his two sons Su Dongpo and Su Zhe were sent by Zhang Xian in a dream. Su Dongpo and Su Zhe, two brothers, took part in the imperial examination in the same year, and both of them were high school scholars in the same examination room, which caused a sensation in the ruling and opposition. Zhang Xian is also famous.
Lu Xing descended from an ordinary star to earth, and evolved into the imperial examination god that scholars worshipped, transformed into Zhang Xian, who sent his son away, and finally became an indispensable brilliant star among Fu Lushou's three stars.
Fuxing duty
Fuxing Tianguan should take blessing as his duty. "Three Officials Lamp Instrument" said, "The real capital is Yuanyang, the Lord of Ziwei Palace, the great sage of nature, blessing the celestial officials, controlling the celestial world, serving the ghosts and gods, and ensuring the longevity of the sky."
the origin and transformation of the lucky star
1. Jupiter, which was originally in charge of agriculture
Jupiter is one of the nine planets in the solar system, and the ancients called it the old star and the lucky star. Jupiter is recorded in the silk book "Five Stars Zhan" unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb more than 2, years ago.
through observation, the ancients found that during the 12-year cycle of Jupiter's activities, the climate also showed periodic changes, because Jupiter and the sun have similar periodic laws. In Historical Records, Hanshu and other historical books, it is clearly recorded that Suixing is a star official in charge of agriculture and has a lofty position. According to the records in Shi Ji Tian Guan Shu, during the Qin and Han Dynasties more than 2, years ago, there were temples specially built by the government to worship the longevity star, and this ritual system continued until the late Qing Dynasty.
2. It used to be a monster.
The oldest existing portrait of a star official is called "Five Stars and Twenty-eight Hosts", which was drawn in the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty 13 years ago. The figure depicts the images of gold, wood, water, fire and earth, and 28 stars and gods. Fuxing, who ranks first among the stars, has a monster appearance: his head is like a tiger, his eyes are wide, he sits cross-legged in a simple gown, and he looks like a scholar. His means of transportation is actually a huge wild boar. The author of this portrait, Liang Lingzan, is a famous figure in the history of ancient astronomical technology in China. He was a famous astronomical instrument manufacturer in the middle Tang Dynasty and an outstanding figure painter. He must have portrayed the image of a star official recognized by most people at that time.
3. Fuxing became an honest official in the Tang Dynasty
The transformation of Fuxing began in the Tang Dynasty. A true honest official story was recorded in the Book of the New Tang Dynasty. A Tang official named Yangcheng later became one of Fuxing's incarnations on earth.
During the Tang Dynasty, Daozhou needed to send short people to the palace every year as tributes to be eunuchs, but there were not so many dwarfs in Daozhou. Successive Daozhou secretariat often put good children in clay pots, with only their heads exposed, and food was provided by special personnel. This cruel method was used to make deformed dwarfs as tributes to meet the absurd needs of the emperor. After Yangcheng served as the secretariat of Daozhou, he risked his life to write a letter to the emperor of the dynasty and refused to pay tribute, thus saving the local people from disaster. This true story was later written by Bai Juyi, a great poet, into the poem Dao Zhou Min. As a result, the locals began to worship Yangcheng as a lucky star.
4. After Yuan Dynasty, Fuxing became a gentle elder.
In the Taoist book Searching for the Origin of Three Religions in the Yuan Dynasty 5 years later, this Fuxing Yangcheng is a gentle elder image, which is very close to the present Fuxing's appearance: the heaven is full, the place is Fiona Fang, and the image of great wealth and great wealth. Fuxing has not changed much since Ming and Qing Dynasties.
"Fu" culture
"Fu" means happiness and blessing. Throughout the ages, there are different opinions about the connotation of "happiness". There is a saying in the Book of Rites: "Those who are blessed are also known as obedient." In other words, "happiness" has the meaning of being smooth and everything goes well. "Shang Shu Hong Fan" said: "Five Blessingg: One is longevity, the other is wealth, the third is Kangning, the fourth is virtue, and the fifth is final." "Five Blessingg" is a multi-faceted concept of happiness, which aims at happiness throughout life, emphasizes longevity, wealth, well-being and virtue, and thinks that such a life is perfect. Han Feizi said, "A long and prosperous life is a blessing." This is the concept of longevity and wealth. Ouyang Xiu, a famous litterateur and politician in the Song Dynasty, expressed his views on Fu De in the poem Du Xianggong, a political teacher on Ji De's Chen Qing: "If you work hard for the country and return home, you will live a long and healthy life." It can be seen that he thinks that the core of Five Blessingg is longevity and health. "Five Blessingg holds longevity", which was popular in Ming and Qing Dynasties, featured five bats flying around the word "longevity", highlighting Five Blessingg's concept of longevity as the center.
The post of the Shouxing
The Shouxing, the Antarctic Seniors, is called "being the master should prolong life" in The Justice of Historical Records.
The origin and changes of the birthday star
1. The birthday star is a star
The birthday star refers to the Jiao and Kang two stars in the Twenty-eight Nights, and "Er Ya Shi Tian" says, "The birthday star has a bright angle." Notes in the Book of Records of the Historian: "The longevity star covers the Antarctic Laoren star, and when you see it, the world will be safe, so the temple will pray for it." Since the Zhou and Qin Dynasties, there have been activities to worship the longevity star in all dynasties. According to Sima Qian's Records of the Historian and the Official Book, when the Qin Dynasty unified the world, it began to build a longevity temple in Xianyang, the capital, to worship the longevity star. To the Eastern Han Dynasty, the sacrifice to the birthday girl was included in the national sacrifice code by successive dynasties, and was abolished in the Ming Dynasty. Shouxing's official position was originally the longevity of the country, that is, the longevity of the country, and was later regarded as the god of longevity in the world.
2. The evolution of the walking stick of the birthday boy
Every time the birthday boy appears in people's field of vision, he will hold a walking stick in his hand. In fact, the walking stick in the hand of the birthday girl has experienced the evolution from the privileged symbol of getting rid of illness and strengthening the body. According to the Records of Etiquette in Hanshu, during the reign of Emperor Han Ming of the East, he presided over a ceremony to worship the birthday girl and arranged a special banquet. The participants were all old people, and all the nobles and civilians were eligible to be the guests of Emperor Han Ming as long as they reached the age of 7. After the feast, the emperor also presented Gu Mi with wine and meat and a beautifully crafted walking stick.
Emperor Han Ming also granted privileges to the elderly, as evidenced by the scepter presented at the banquet. The king's staff, also known as the dove's staff, is named after the statue of the turtledove bird at the top of the staff. In 1958, two such doves were unearthed in the Han tomb. The wooden staff at the lower part of the doves had long been carbonized, and the statue of turtledove at the head was still as bright as new after more than 18 years because of the protection of paint film.
In p>1981, a number of bamboo slips of Han Dynasty were found in Wuwei, Gansu Province, which recorded a number of criminal cases. The first one said that a wang xing man, a civilian in Runan, beat an old man with a stick, and was later sentenced to be beheaded and dumped in a downtown area. The second pile is about a small official at the grass-roots level at the township level in the Han Dynasty. Because an old man with a staff was suspected of breaking the law, he detained the old man without authorization. Although there was no beating, he was also sentenced to death and beheaded. In 32 BC, the imperial edict issued by Emperor Han Chengdi stipulated that elderly couples who had no children to support them could be allowed to operate alcohol business, and all of them were tax-free.
However, after the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the walking stick of the longevity star changed, and the king's stick of the turtledove was replaced by a mahogany walking stick, and its political education function was gradually weakened. It is said that peach wood can get rid of illness and strengthen the body, and prolong life. The king's staff, which used to symbolize privilege, has now become a longevity mascot for the birthday girl to get rid of illness and strengthen the body. The Ming government ordered the cancellation of the national system of offering sacrifices to the birthday girl since Qin and Han Dynasties. The birthday girl was completely removed from the political color, and from then on, she strode into the folk and became the most secular immortal in ancient China.
3. The brain door of the longevity
Later, due to the integration of the Taoist concept of health preservation, the image of the longevity has changed accordingly, the most prominent of which is his enormous forehead. The longevity in the murals of Yongle Palace in Shanxi Province may be the oldest image of the longevity. Among thousands of immortals in Yongle Palace, we can recognize him at a glance because of his super brain.
The brain gate of the birthday girl is closely related to the longevity image created by ancient health preserving techniques. For example, the head of the red-crowned crane bulges high, and another example is that Shoutao is a special longevity fairy fruit offered by the Queen Mother at the flat peach party. Legend has it that it blooms in 3 years and bears fruit in 3 years, and becomes immortal immediately after eating. Perhaps it is because of the fusion and superposition of these longevity images that the brain gate of the birthday girl is finally created.
There is a Shouxing Street in Changsha, Hunan Province, which was named after a large-scale Shouxing Temple. According to local chronicles, the Shouxing Temple was built here as early as the Tang Dynasty and lasted until the Republic of China. From this, more than 1 miles to the south, you can reach the real blessed land of longevity-Hengshan Mountain in Nanyue, which is the Nanshan Mountain that is often mentioned in the couplet. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, there were more than 1 temples of longevity in the mountains, and Mo Bao, a famous artist of all ages, was left on the mountainside stone wall, one of which is the most famous, and it is said that it was written by Song Huizong.
culture of praying for "longevity"
"longevity" means long life and long life. "longevity" and "blessing" complement each other, and longevity is a great blessing. Common folk decorative themes such as "Fu Shou Shuang Quan" and "Five Blessingg holds longevity" can be seen that "Shou" is a auspicious character that can be compared with "Fu". There is a saying in Shang and Zhou Dynasties that longevity is the first in Five Blessingg. There are many words with similar meanings to longevity in bronze inscriptions, such as "Mao", "Xiao" and "Kao". Deeply influenced by Taoist thought, there has always been the concept that "Five Blessingg values longevity", and people expect to live a long life, cherish life and pay attention to this world. Taoism believes that people are everywhere, and they are not very particular about the "afterlife". Based on such a secular view, China people's pursuit of longevity has never wavered, and the concept of praying for longevity runs through all aspects of traditional culture.
The legendary immortals are immortal, so seeking immortality has become an important part of the culture of praying for longevity. It is believed that the Antarctic old man star in the sky dominates the life of the country and the longevity of the people. Since the Zhou Dynasty, there have been grand activities to sacrifice the longevity star. During the Qin and Han dynasties, the idea of Huang Lao led to the prevalence of the concept of immortals, and people hoped to cultivate into immortal immortals. Immortals who live a comfortable life and live a long life are hard to reach. Under the influence of Taoist thought, people are struggling to find a panacea for immortality. Qin Shihuang, a brilliant man, once sent alchemist Xu Fu and 5 boys and girls to the East China Sea to look for the immortal mountain and ask the immortal for the elixir of life. Themes such as "Happiness as the East China Sea, Longevity as the South Mountain" and "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" all have the meaning of praying for immortality and longevity. On the other hand, influenced by Confucianism, there is a saying among the people that "loyalty becomes a god and filial piety becomes an immortal". For the common people, praying for longevity in folk activities seems to be more practical. Birthday birthday is the most common activity of praying for the birthday, and there are many decorative themes around the birthday, such as "Happy Birthday", "Celebrating the Birthday in Five Blessingg", "Happy Birthday" and "Long Life". There are also many decorative changes in the word "Shouzi". The long one is called "Longevity" and the round one is called "Tuanshou". There are also multi-word ideographic patterns, such as the "longevity picture", which consists of 1 different shapes of longevity characters. These longevity characters are also widely used in daily furniture, buildings and utensils, reflecting the good wishes of China people to protect themselves with the characters of "longevity" and pursue health and longevity.