Guan Yu: History and Imagination Fascinated by Ordinary People —— Reasons for the Formation of Guan Yu's Belief Culture

Guan Yu: History and Imagination Fascinated by Ordinary People —— Reasons for the Formation of Guan Yu's Belief Culture

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If you live in Lingnan area, you will find that people who are good at doing business, whether in Hong Kong, Guangzhou or Chaoshan area, especially in Chaoshan area, will set up a statue of Guanyin in their respective stores; If you watch movies made in Hong Kong, Guan Yu is the person they will worship, whether it is the underworld or the police. Why can Guan Yu eat all the horses of passers-by and be worshipped by them? Or you can say, not only Lingnan, but all the land in China, we all worship Brother Guan. In the overseas Chinese world!

Yes, we generally believe that Guan Er is loyal and brave all his life, and his honesty and reputation are naturally respected by the world. This is a good thing, but is there a systematic statement about Guan Yu's belief in history to explain why Guan Yu was worshipped? The answer is naturally yes. Hu Xiaowei, a researcher at China Academy of Social Sciences, is an authority in this field. Meaning? Or would you say that this is not the boast of the old melon seller? If China people say that China people have emotional elements, then there are experts in this field abroad to study the reasons why Guan Yu is worshipped, and that is Professor Tianhai, a Dutch sinologist. Recently, his new work "Guan Yu: History and Imagination Intoxicated by Everything" is more objective, explaining and studying why Guan Yu is worshipped by people all over the world.

This book consists of nine chapters, and the author explains the reasons why Guan Yu worship spreads and affects the present and the future from the dimension of time. The first chapter is the part between God and man. The author explained that this book is not only a study of Guan Yu's belief itself, but also a study of how oral culture can maintain its great influence in a world where words are becoming more and more important. Generally speaking, we know Guan Yu from Romance of the Three Kingdoms and History of the Three Kingdoms, but in fact, before the publication of these two works, the author thinks that Guan Yu's belief has been popular in the north since the late 100 century.

Among them, in the second chapter, it is said that the early popularity of Guan Yu's belief is related to the Buddhist concept of karma. Guan Yu appeared as an evil ghost after his death. He was initially enlightened by Buddhism and became the Buddhist Galaxy God. How did this statement come from? It turned out that in the eighteenth year of Zhenyuan in Tang Dezong (AD 802), it was decided that Zhiyi had a dream, so that Guan Gong and his son could learn from the past, convert to Buddhism, and contribute to the creation of yuquan temple. Therefore, Guan Gong's role as the protector of Guanlan demon is due to his wisdom. Therefore, it shows the development of yuquan temple, and yuquan temple later became the old Dojo where Guan Yunchang became the guardian of Buddhism for the first time. It also answers why Guan Yu's Buddhist identity makes his influence less than yuquan temple's influence theory. This also shows that the author has been spreading folk oral culture, which makes Guan Yu worship culture gradually warm up.

Since Buddhism has Guan Yu, and there is a god of Kuan Lan, Taoism seems to have nothing to lose, so in the third chapter, Taoism intervened in exorcism. For example, the author of this chapter takes the story of Guan Yu's decoking in Taoism in the Northern Song Dynasty as the research object, and illustrates the important role of Guan Yu's theory in the spread of Guan Yu's belief through the story of Guan Yu's defeat of Xiaolong or virtual things. Among them, there are illustrations in the book, which vividly show the image of Guan Gong in Taoist ceremonies. And in the12nd century, Guan Yu, as a heavenly teacher, suppressed evil spirits and wiped out Chiyou, which made him an exorcist who was also enshrined in Er Shen, Sichuan. Therefore, under the impetus of Taoism and Song Huizong, Guan Yu's influence is more and more extensive.

Chapter IV Guan Yu Conquered China. This background development period is the Hongwu period in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. The publication of Luo Guanzhong's masterpiece Romance of the Three Kingdoms successfully shaped the image of Guan Yu, a military commander, from the narrative tradition, and began to conquer the hearts of China. In this chapter, the author explains the early evidence of Guan Gong's ancestral temple and the list of "Guan Di Temple built early" in the table to illustrate the fact of conquering China.

In the fifth chapter, I will focus on the story of how Guan Yu became the god of drama to study the belief culture of molecular Guan Yu. Here, we know that Guan Yu's image is very distinct. It's him: "He is nine feet long and his beard is two feet long. If his face is heavy and his lips are covered with fat, he looks handsome and dignified ",plus the story of Guan Yu's war with Chiyou, plus" Three "

In the sixth chapter, the part of protecting people with rain tells the story of how he was named the rain god. It turned out that Guan Yu was reincarnated as a dragon in the fairy mirrors of past dynasties, but this dragon did not listen to the jade emperor and created a drought-resistant rain for the people. In addition, "Wu Zan" written by Song people said that "the temple looks neat and tidy, and the title is king. I'm Song, Si Yuyuan. This emphasizes that Guan Yu, who was reincarnated by the dragon, has the responsibility of being in charge of meteorology, and Xiaozong in the Southern Song Dynasty firmly believed that he was the title of Rain God when he added Guan Yu as the British aid king. He became a god of wealth because he was from Shanxi, and Xiezhou in Shanxi was a gathering place for salt merchants and needed to do business everywhere. In order to ensure the safety of life and property, it is the most reliable for natural businessmen to protect the gods with their hometown Guan Yu, so they have the title of God of Wealth.

Chapter VII: The God of Sven, on the one hand, knows that Guan Yu's life experience is good in Zuo Zhuan, and on the other hand, he is portrayed by a large number of characters in The Romance of Three Kingdoms, making Guan Yu a Confucian messenger who is familiar with Spring and Autumn Annals. At the same time, the stories of Guan Yu's Lingfu and Lu 'an Shu, as well as the records of a series of stories in Jin Guo, also illustrate the special inevitability between Guan Yu and the literati. So there was the image of Guan Yu, who not only held the dragon crescent moon blade, but also held the image of Guan Gong full of literati temperament in Spring and Autumn Annals.

It is worth noting that in the story of Guan Yu's Luan Shu. The author mentioned the Black Death of Guangdong and Hong Kong in 1894, precisely because there was a charity meeting at that time, which spread Guan Gong's "Lu 'an Book" in the form of leaflets. Because of the medical advice in Luan Shu, the people escaped the plague, and Guan Yu naturally became the savior of Lingnan area. It is natural to worship him.

Chapter VIII Wuwei Ethics, that is to say, Guan Gong is a reflection on defending morality, that is, directly punishing all those who violate the oath, which makes him the backbone of the Jade Emperor, and naturally there is the saying of Guan Di. He has become a moral force that recognizes human kindness. As a male, he corresponds to female Guanyin, cares about human beings and is deeply rooted in people's hearts. Nature is the formation of Guan Yu's belief, and we are respectful today.

Finally, in the summary and prospect of Chapter 9, it is said that Guan Yu's construction story is to legalize China's social values and explain the mode of worship of gods. This book starts with the evolution of Guan Yu's image in past dynasties, with rich details and rigorous argumentation, combined with a large number of historical materials and relics, and even the first-hand information obtained from field investigation, makes a detailed investigation of the cultural mechanism behind it, restores Guan Yu's original image and clarifies Guan Yu's ever-changing new image. This kind of research also combs the traditional culture and context of China, especially highlights the role of oral information interaction in image construction and communication. Taking Guan Yu as an example, the author radiates all kinds of folk in the past dynasties. This study of Guan Yu's belief provides a writing paradigm for studying the collective memory and religious imagination of imperial China, which is a milestone in this field.

Taking Guan Yu as an example, it also shows that in addition to words, human oral culture maintains a great influence on human beliefs, thoughts and values. I don't know which door gods were posted at the door when your family posted Spring Festival couplets. Anyway, the door gods posted by the author every year are Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.