When I was a child, I read the complete set of twelve volumes of "Chinese fairy tales" in "Han Sheng version". I remember that there are two rewriting stories about the "myth" of the two founding kings of the Xia Dynasty. The first paragraph describes the story of "he": in ancient China, floods were rampant and people were displaced, so he stole "xirang" from the heaven and laid it on the river bank, successfully resisting the flood. However, the theft violated the law of heaven, so the emperor of heaven ordered him to be executed in the extreme north. Although he died, his body never decayed. Later, the emperor sent people to see the man sealed in the icicle, only to find that his body turned into a yellow dragon and jumped out of the icicle, and then the dragon became a man - Yu. The second paragraph describes the story of Yu: the flood still spread in the world. Yu inherited his father's career and guided the flood according to the terrain. He works hard every day and never comes in three times. In order to dig the mountain wall, Yu incarnated into a powerful bear. Every day before Yu's wife delivers food to her husband, Yu will return to his original human form. One day, Yu was too devoted to his work and forgot to change into his original shape. When his wife sent food for him that day, she saw a giant bear at the scene, and was so scared that she immediately turned around and ran away. Yu, who is in the shape of a bear, thinks his wife is in danger and keeps chasing after her. When Yu's wife saw that the giant bear was chasing him, she turned into a stone. At this time, Yu realized that he had lost his wife and children because of his negligence. He knelt down beside the stone and cried, "return my son! At this time, the stone cracked and a living baby appeared in it. Therefore, Yu named this son "Qi" - meaning that he was born from the stone. Because there are various versions of these ancient myths that have been handed down to the present day, and the Chinese people have always regarded the Xia Dynasty as a part of ancient history, many scholars have extracted the "history" they want to demonstrate from the pile of "no archaeological materials" of the classics. However, the author has always believed that, although there is precious value in discussing history from myth, it must not be over extrapolated, because it is quite absurd to use such elements as the names of people, objects and dynasties in myth to correspond to certain people and things in history. Just as many people want to "prove" from the records of this mythical period that Shun elevated Yao, Yao murdered him, Yu imprisoned Shun, and Qi seized the throne of Yi, this is not so much a "historical" argument as the creation of "romance novels". However, if we look at the whole thing purely in terms of "mythological" meaning, there are still many interesting topics within the scope to explore. In the study of mythology, there is a phenomenon summed up by experience, that is, the later the age, the more complete the "story" of mythology. The two paragraphs quoted by the author at the beginning are, of course, quite late stories. However, the later myth is not a complete "re creation" after all, but a re packaging of many primitive elements. We can still get something interesting by going back from the later story. As for the first two stories of this article, the earliest written records I can find are as follows. There is a passage in Guoyu. Jinyu that says to the Duke of Jin Ping: "the In the past, he disobeyed the emperor's orders and turned into a yellow bear in Yushan to enter the Yuyuan. In the book of mountains and seas, haineijing, "he steals the land of the emperor to contain the flood without waiting for the emperor's orders. The emperor ordered Zhu Rong to kill Yu Jiao. He revived Yu. The emperor ordered Yu's death to set up nine prefectures. "The songs of Chu: questions from heaven" How can the witches live when they turn into huangneng? These are the sources of his stories, which can be regarded as the records of the Warring States period.
In the history of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty saw a "xiahoushi" when he visited Mount Song. "Yan shigu" of Tang Dynasty is quoted here as "Qi, the son of Xia Yu.". His mother, Tu Shan's daughter. Yu ruled Hongshui, connected Fuyuan mountain, and turned into a bear. He called it Tushan, saying, "if you want to pay, you can hear the drum. Yu jumped the stone and hit the drum by mistake. When Tu Shan went there, he saw that Yu was a bear. He was ashamed to leave. He turned into a stone at the foot of Song Mountain. Yu said, "it's my son. The stone broke through the north and began to grow. This is the source of the story of Yu Zhiqi. Although Yan shigu claimed that it was from Huainanzi of the Western Han Dynasty, this article has never had such a specific plot. Therefore, we can see that the two kings who founded the Xia Dynasty were matched with the image of "yellow bear". In the later popular stories (i.e. the fairy tale version I read when I was a child), the saying of "Yellow Dragon" instead of "yellow bear" should be changed from "yellow bear" to "Yellow Dragon" in order to make the myth more in line with the noble symbol of the times. However, we also notice that in the process of the circulation of ancient books and the narration of the same story from different sources, "Huang Xiong" sometimes writes "Huang Neng". Therefore, another version of Zi Chan's "yellow bear" in Guoyu is that "he turns into huangneng". There have always been two versions of what "NENG" means. In ShuoWenJieZi, it is interpreted as "Neng, a bear, whose feet are like deer. Can, beast strong, so called virtuous. This is a mutual training between "NENG" and "Xiong". If we adopt the saying in Shuowen, it is not surprising that "Huang Xiong" or "Huang Neng" refer to the same thing. However, in Er Ya Shi Yu, we say, "the turtle has three feet, and it can. This means that Neng is an aquatic turtle, but it has only three feet. But also in Er Ya Shi Shou, there is "bear, tiger, ugly. The bear here is the same animal as the tiger. Therefore, the two theories of "NENG" and "Xiong" in different versions of the legend of Jianyu are totally different.
Two years ago, the author read Yang Kuan's history of the Warring States period, which included an article published by the author, the statues of the four seasons in Chu silk books and their creation myths. Only in this way can the author feel a sense of "sudden enlightenment". In 1942, the precious cultural relic "Chu silk book" unearthed from the bullet depot in Changsha, Hunan Province, appeared simultaneously in the Warring States period, with the "words" and "pictures" about the "creation myth" and the "four seasons and the moon order" of the state of Chu. Here we first discuss that Fuxi, the creator of the world, gave birth to four sons, one of whom was named "Huang Nan". The silk script also lists the "gods in charge" for 12 months, which are almost the same as those described in Erya. The God of September, the great God who opened autumn, is recorded as "Xuan Siqiu" in the text, that is, Fuxi's son "Huang Nan". The attached picture shows a double snake head and four legged deity.
In his analysis, Yang Kuan believes that the other name of this God is Xuan, and its image is a double headed turtle. The reason is that in different versions of "he", the right side is replaced by "Xuan". The ancient sounds of "Xuan" and "Gan" are similar to those of today's "Kun". "Huang Nan" means "Huang Nan killed (and resurrected)". "Nan" and "NENG" (the middle ancient pronunciation of Neng is "Nai" and "Nai") have the same ancient pronunciation, so "Huang Nan" here is "Huang Neng" in other classics. To sum up, "Gan" and "Xuan" are corresponding to each other, and "Huang Nan" and "Huang Neng" are also corresponding to each other. Its mythical image is the "two headed turtle". In this series of discussions, Yang Kuan believes that the two arguments of "three legged turtle" and "bear" should be the result of misrepresentation. In addition, if we look at the images in the Chu silk books, the later "Xuanwu" also has the same origin with the mythical archetype of this "Xiajia". This is because the head shape of Xuan in the silk script is a snake with two tongues and a four legged turtle. The symbols of "snake" and "Tortoise" are the special symbols of the statue of "Xuantian God".
I just got a corresponding table about "Jinwen / zhongdingwen" recently. If we simplify the question to "can" or "bear", what is the original form of the word? At present, there is no "Xiong" in the inscriptions on oracle bones and bronze inscriptions available to the author. It was not until Xiaozhuan that the two characters "NENG" and "Xiong" could be distinguished. Therefore, the following can only be viewed from the word "NENG". The character "NENG" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is written as follows:
I must admit that I don't see any clue Four "nengs" can be found in the inscriptions on gold, the most representative of which are as follows:
First impressions alone make us instantly recognizable. This is the "profile" of a reptile, with two clawed feet on the bottom and the "head" on the left. There are two lines extending above its body: a short straight line and a long arc. There is no exact answer to what the other line stands for. The other three "inscriptions on gold" found by the author are as follows:
Basically, these can be regarded as derivations from the first word above. If we look at them in sequence, I think the first two words show that they are living in the environment of "fluid" - flying in the air or swimming in the water. However, the shape of the third character is very different from the later seal style. Seeing this, I can answer my previous question: "NENG" should have been a turtle in ancient times. Therefore, "NENG" is interpreted as "three legged turtle" in Erya. If we look at the evolution of the word in the future, we will find that the head of the original creature has been gradually "abstracted" in the back, which is similar to the appearance of "meat". Therefore, in the period of Shuowen in the Han Dynasty, the character "NENG" was written as follows:
We can clearly see that the "head" that originally appeared on the lower left has been "standardized" and has become the "meat (Moon)" to the letter. This is almost the complete appearance of the detachable parts of "NENG" - Fu, Yue and dagger. If we take these supernatural materials out of the myth of the founding of the Xia Dynasty, and look at the changes of ancient and modern versions and characters, the totems of the Xia Dynasty should belong to the "aquatic deities" rather than bears. Compared with the legend of the founding of the Xia Dynasty, it is inseparable from the "water control work", so it is more reasonable to regard "huangneng" as "turtle with gods" than "huangxiong". Moreover, in the spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue, which was written in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there is a paragraph that says: "the spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue is the spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue." He lives in Yushan. He threw himself into the water and turned into Huang Neng, because he was the God of Yu Yuan. It has been shown that the myth of "Water God" has spread to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Furthermore, it can be inferred that this kind of Water God also has the meaning of "water in the abyss". People can easily equate with "the God of the nether world" or even "the God of hell" (of course, there is no such visualized concept of "hell" in that fashion...) Only in this way can he have the mythical meaning of "resurrection from death".
In ancient times, the idea of "GaN / BIE" as "resurrection from death" and "Water God" also appeared in Shu. Yang Xiong's "the book of the king of Shu" mentions that the state of Chu killed "bieling", the leader of his vassal state. His body drifted against the river to Shu and came back to life. Du Yu, king of Shu, took bieling as his prime minister. Bieling successfully controlled the local floods and made the people live and work in peace and contentment. Therefore, the king of Shu passed the throne to bieling, who made great contributions. After bieling ascended the throne, he was known as "Kaiming emperor". The author believes that this is a myth and legend from the same source as "Huang Neng" in Xia Dynasty, which is used as the packaging material for the royal lineage. According to the same series of myths, the image of "Huang Nan" painted on Chu silk books is to add two snake heads to the turtle shaped water god to prove its greater power. Therefore, I believe that the "three legged turtle" in Er Ya is not a mistake, but a variant derived from different regions. Since the king of Yue inherited the Xia Dynasty, we can equate the ancient legends of Xia and Yue. The lineage of the king of Shu obviously has a considerable origin with the state of Chu, so Chu and Shu can also be divided into the same ancient mythological circle. From this point of view, "Xia" and "Chu" are two of the four cultural circles mentioned above. Xia in the Central Plains Dynasty and Chu in the South both have legends from the same mythological Totem - Huang Neng and Huang Nan.
