The basis of lunar taboo

In China's classical books, choosing a day is also called choosing an auspicious day, which is called auspiciousness and trickling luck, and it is called auspiciousness, choosing or choosing a day. In the folk, it is commonly known as "looking at the sun", "picking up the sun" and "choosing a day", which is a magical way to choose "auspicious day" or "auspicious day". The so-called date selection in this paper refers to the practice of China people choosing special time to do special things by referring to the general book or the peasant calendar. This practice is usually based on the use of the general book or farmer's calendar, or consulting experts in the day-choosing hall and fortune-telling hall to decide when to hold things such as marriage, moving, breaking ground, funeral, opening a shop and so on. However, choosing a special time to do something is not the exclusive right of China people. Take modern America as an example. At the end of each year, many publishing houses will issue the farmers' almanac, horticultural almanac and ephemeris for the next year, which can be bought in almost every supermarket except general bookstores. There are many quotations in the content, which are very similar to our peasant calendar. Ephemeris, in particular, includes daily taboos, such as when it is suitable for traveling, shopping, buying real estate, or finding friends of the opposite sex, similar to the content of choosing a day in China. In Taiwan Province Province, many people believe in choosing a date or act according to the proper taboos of choosing a date. Just look at the weddings and funerals in Taipei, and you can get a glimpse of it. For example, wedding invitations are popular in some months, but they are almost extinct in "Ghost Month". At the same time, many newcomers who take wedding photography unexpectedly come to the scenic park, making them worry about not booking a wedding banquet. In addition, on some days, many people rushed to attend the funeral, and different hearses and relatives were blocked. Even the city government has to appeal to the public not to concentrate on holding funerals on certain days. In today's society, people usually follow certain calendars. For example, people who go to work go to work from Monday to Friday, and rest on Saturday (Saturday that is closed every two days) and Sunday; The school has regular classes, exams, cold snap, and summer vacation; The new official takes office on the effective date of the post; And those who travel far away, according to the requirements of the matter, set out when they are ready. When dealing with these things, they all rely on standardized calendars, or are decided by different institutions according to work needs, and there is little requirement of "choosing luck". However, in the tradition of choosing a day, we should not only "enter school", "go on business" and "go out", but also "see relatives and friends", "seek medical treatment", "cut down trees" and "plant trees". Although today's society does not choose a date for the above events, it is still an important thing for many people to choose a date for weddings, funerals, moving, starting work and opening the market. Behind this behavior of choosing a day, does time have a certain nature and can be used to achieve a certain purpose? This paper attempts to explain the symbolic significance of China's date selection by manipulating the tool of "time". Let's first explain the relevant contents of choosing a day, including the matters of choosing a day, the establishment of a magic system, the contingency measures when it is impossible to choose a day, the nature of "time" in choosing a day, and then discuss the significance of choosing a day. In the act of choosing a day, time itself is operated as a tool. Therefore, different concepts of time will be explained, including the function of "social and cultural time" and the concept of "sacred time". The former concept of time is based on secular social and cultural activities, while the latter is related to the activities of the supernatural world. The seminar pointed out that choosing a day is related to "sacred time", which implies the world view and thinking mode of choosing a day, and the activities engaged in choosing a day are of great value to the parties concerned. In the author's view, choosing the date has the significance of integrating human activities in the supernatural world, and its purpose is to make human activities cooperate with or not affect those in the supernatural world. The general book, peasant calendar and China calendar can be roughly divided into four periods. Before the first year of Han Dynasty (104B). C), it was the "ancient calendar period"; From the early Han Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, the calendar was reformed several times, but the principle remained unchanged. It was all China's own law, which was called the "Sino-French period". Based on Tang Ruowang's "Qing Xin Fa Li Shu", it was compiled into the calendar of Kangxi period and made into a formula. Based on western methods and data, it was in line with the scale of China calendar, and it was a "legal period of combining Chinese and Western". Since the Republic of China, the Gregorian calendar has been changed to the Gregorian calendar, which is the Gregorian calendar period (Chen Zungui 1988:78-80). The official or official date we use today is the western calendar, commonly known as "new calendar", "national calendar" or "solar calendar", while what we used before was commonly known as "old calendar", "summer calendar", "lunar calendar" or "lunar calendar". The calendar for the selected date is "Old Calendar". According to the study of China's almanac, there are all kinds of notes in the almanac, which are called "almanac notes", including solar terms, phenology, good and bad luck in daily activities, etc. Calendar annotation began in Han dynasty, and developed from simplicity to complexity in past dynasties. Its basic form and content are not much different, and it was generally shaped in Song dynasty. An annotated almanac is called an annotated almanac. A book that specifically records the contents of good luck and bad luck by year, month and time is called a "taboo book". Today, the earliest Japanese bamboo slips are Shu in Sleeping Tiger Land, Japanese documents found in Bajiaolang bamboo slips, Fuyang bamboo slips, Jiudian Chu bamboo slips, Zhangjiashan bamboo slips and Fangmatan bamboo slips (Liu Lexian 1994:493). Wang Hanchong called this kind of book containing good and bad things to do every day the book of time, saying, "There are many books of time." There are quite a few records in the annals of literary classics in the past dynasties (Jiang1995:172-176), which shows that it has been circulating since the Qing dynasty. The book of calendar taboos we saw today has many annotations, except for the twenty-four solar terms, the new moon, the moon, the first quarter moon, the second quarter moon, the sunrise and the seventy-two periods, as well as the orientation of the year god, the orientation of the moon god, the daily good and bad gods and their taboos. The other five surnames are prepared for repairing houses, marrying Zhoutang, going to the sun under the age of nine and traditional seven colors of the nine planets. Taboo contents contained in the Book of Calendar Avoidance or the Book of Times, that is, the contents contained in the calendar notes, are also important contents of the ancient official almanac. Therefore, an important function of ancient official almanac is actually "choosing good luck", that is, choosing the right time to do things. It was only after the "new calendar" was changed in the Republic of China that the taboo content disappeared from the official almanac. Today's day selection is based on the "General Book of Day Selection", or simply "General Book", which is based on the "old calendar", with complicated contents and various terms, and is mostly adopted by professional day selection teachers; In addition to folk knowledge such as agricultural and fishery information, the farm calendar circulated in ordinary families also contains a brief selection of date taboos, so ordinary people can easily act according to the good and bad luck and taboos contained above, which can be described as an abridged version of ordinary books. At the same time, this study points out that the proportion of households in Taiwan Province Province actually owning a farm calendar is as high as 83.6%. The records of tricks in "Peasant Calendar" include choosing a day, geomantic omen, fortune telling and so on. The analysis of the questionnaire shows that the item "Choose a good day and a beautiful day" accounts for 60.3% of the total sample, which is something worthy of attention (1984:34). The official edition Xie Fangshu, compiled during the Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty, consisted of 36 volumes, which was the result of the development of Japanese studies. In Xie Fangshu, we can see the events of choosing a date in ancient times. The selected items listed in this volume include sixty-seven items for imperial use and thirty-seven items for civil use in the book of ten thousand years contained in the Hall of Qing Hui, and sixty items selected in the general book. These choices can reflect the events that ancient officials and people were concerned about in their daily lives. The books on Japanese studies published on the market now sort out and explain the commonly used items that are popular so far. The names of these items can also be found in the daily branches of farmers' calendars. They are "appropriate" and "taboo" action items. According to the transportation items of Li Yiyuan and Zhuang, they can be divided into ten categories, with a total of 143: 1. There are seven items of childbearing and rearing. 6. Life, a total of seventeen items. There are eleven wedding customs. 7. Official business, a total of four. There are twelve funeral customs. 8. Medical services, three in all. 4. Sacrifice and blessing, a total of fifteen. 9. Industrial and commercial operations, a total of thirteen. 5. Erection (building renovation), a total of 47 items. 10. Agriculture, fishing, animal husbandry and hunting, a total of 14. Among them, wedding and funeral customs, religious ceremonies and building construction are the main items that are often decided by the date, while others such as moving, entering the house, opening the market and installing machinery are also welcomed by people (Li Yiyuan and Zhuang 1984:29). Today, people may feel strange because of the ancient names of date selection, so the special explanations of its terms are often found in the supplementary contents of date selection books and farmers' calendars, and many events have modern significance and continue to be accepted. These events can be regarded as accompanying events in the process of a person's growth, which occur in life stages such as birth, work, marriage and death. They are related to personal safety and health, or to the rise and fall of a person or a family. According to this nature, we can regard it as a ceremony of adoption (van gennep 1960). When choosing a date, ghosts and gods judge good or bad according to "ghosts and gods". According to the calendar, there are auspicious gods (good gods) or evil gods (evil gods), which are also called "evil" or "killing". According to its timeliness, gods and evil spirits can be divided into year gods, moon gods, sun gods and time gods, and the place where gods and evil spirits are located is called the "rational prescription" of gods and evil spirits; When it is, it is called "the value of time". An auspicious soul promotes the growth or realization of things, while an evil soul leads to destruction or destruction. It is the good or ill luck of a certain time, that is, the good or ill luck of evil spirits at that time. According to the time of year, month, day and hour scheduled by China's Ten-Day Trunk and the Twelve Earthly Branches, if it is regarded as a continuous symbol of four groups of "Sixty Jiazi" combinations, then trunks and branches are just counting chips. The meanings of ten-day stem and twelve-day branch originally come from the growth form of plants, and are endowed with the characteristics of yin and yang and five elements, which respectively represent a certain state of qi, so the chronological method of stem and branch has a strong "qualitative" significance. In the traditional thinking, the five elements of qi show the nature of "prosperity, phase, rest, imprisonment and death" in spring, summer, autumn and winter, while in December there are the ups and downs of "longevity, bathing, crown belt, temporary official, emperor prosperity, decline, illness, death, tomb, extinction, pregnancy and nourishment". The relationship between doing and doing is life, resistance, impulse and combination; In addition to birth, restraint, conflict and combination, there is also a relationship between raising and raising, punishment and harm. There are many different relationships between the four groups of trunk and branch: year, month, day and time. By comparing the two groups or the possible changes of Yin and Yang and five elements in the trunk and branch system, the nature of qi at a certain time can be clarified. There are two kinds of dates: gods and evil spirits, most of which are calculated by branches, four-time series or solar terms. For example, at a certain time in a certain year, a certain month, a certain time, branches and evil spirits meet and form a certain god and evil spirit; Or a few days before and after the solar term, that is, when a god appears. These calculations must have the basic theory of mathematics, including the river map, Luo Shu, Yin and Yang, five elements, heavenly stems, earthly branches, new moons, phases, chords, twenty-eight nights, twelve laws, gossip days, Najia, nine planets Shu, Liusu, Kanyu, astronomical calendars (years old, twenty-four solar terms, time and orientation of the sun) and so on. There is also an evil spirit, which is not derived from the operation of the main branch, yin and yang and five elements, but passed down from the people; In other words, although it is derived from the operation of the main branches of Yin-Yang and Five Elements, its algorithm is not recognized by orthodox selectors, such as Lei Gong Arrow, Peach Blossom Devil, Fetus God, Tengu, Yang Gongji and so on. Different magicians hold different views on the existence of such gods and evil spirits. As for what the customer believes, it depends on Mr. Yeri's persuasion and the customer's own judgment.