The Symbolic Significance of the Zodiac in the Teaching Resources of Grade Two in Primary School

# 2 # Introduction The origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship. According to the Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmeng Shuihudi, Hubei Province and Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province, there was a relatively complete zodiac system in the pre-Qin period. The earliest handed down literature recorded the same Chinese zodiac as the modern one, and it was Lun Heng written by Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The following is the relevant information, I hope it will help you.

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The symbolic meaning of the zodiac horse occupies a high position in the culture of the Chinese nation and has a series of symbols and implications.

Dragon and Horse Spirit is the national spirit that the Chinese nation has been advocating since ancient times, and it is the spirit of continuous struggle, self-improvement and enterprising spirit. Ancestors thought the dragon horse was a kind horse. It is the spirit of the Yellow River, the embodiment of the descendants of the Chinese people, and represents the main spirit and morality of the Chinese nation. It is eight feet five inches tall and has a long neck, which makes it look very huge. The skeleton has wings, and there is a circle of colorful sideburns on the edge of the wings, which makes the neck scream and make a beautiful and harmonious sound. This is a heroic image and a heroic posture. In the world view, the ancestors have equated the dragon horse with the stem of pure yang, which is synonymous with exuberance, brightness, warmth, height, ascension, fullness, prosperity and development. The Book of Changes simply says: "Being a horse" is a symbol of heaven, representing kings, fathers, adults, gentlemen, ancestors, treasures, awe, majesty, health, kindness and kindness. Yes, this dragon horse, conceived by the soul of our nation, is magnificent, powerful and magnificent, chasing the moon day after day, full of stars, hard work, day and night. Isn't this a vivid portrayal of the struggle between the Chinese nation and nature? Isn't it a vivid metaphor that China people overcome difficulties and move forward forever? Isn't this the embodiment of China people's brave and optimistic life significance?

Horses are also symbols of ability, sages, talents and achievements. The ancients often compared it to a "swift horse". Maxima is an excellent horse and walks thousands of miles every day. According to legend, Zhou Muwang has eight good horses and often travels around the world. The name of eight horses: stunning land, no feet to practice soil, no feet to land, can fly in the air; One is called feathering, which can run faster than birds; One is Benjing, who travels in Wan Li at night; One is called super shadow, which can run after the sun; One is called Zhaohui, and the horse hair is bright and radiant. One is called chaoguang, and one horse has ten shadows. One is called Wu Teng, riding the clouds; One is called shroud, with wings on his body, and he flies like Dapeng Nine Wan Li. Some ancient books imagine "Eight Horses" as eight different colors, and each color has a nice name: Red Horse, Thief Li, Baiyi, Overwheel,, Huayi and Green Ear. In fact, the magical legends of horses are all about talents. Don't really believe that they are myths. In fact, his eight horses are a metaphor for his clique, with outstanding talents and extraordinary skills, each with its own specialties, and jointly assisting Zhou's great cause.

A more definite horse metaphor is the allusion of "1000 yuan for bones". During the Warring States period, kings of various countries competed to recruit talents for the sake of long-term stability of their countries. Yan Zhaowang is no exception, and is willing to recruit outstanding talents with an honest and open attitude and generous remuneration. Guo Kun, a courtier of Yan State, told Zhao Haoqi a fable about a swift horse: Once upon a time, a king wanted to spend thousands of dollars to buy a swift horse, but three years later, he still didn't buy it. The master took the initiative to fight well, saying that he could get a thousand miles of good horses. The monarch sent him to find the whereabouts of Maxima within three months, but the horse was dead. The owner took out 500 gold to buy horse bones and came back to look for a job. The monarch said angrily, "I want a live horse." How can 500 gold buy a bunch of dead bones? " "Yes, today I bought the bones of a swift horse for 500 gold, so I don't know how expensive that live swift horse is." . From this, the whole world knows that the king values Maxima so much, but why don't other Maxima come one after another? "Sure enough, in less than a year, maxima came again.

At this point, Guo Kun suddenly changed the subject, which linked to the current situation: today, if the king really wants talent, then reuse me first. Even people who are not so outstanding like me are valued. What about those people who are really better than me? Once a maxima intends to find someone, no matter how far it is, it will come automatically.

This story, from "The Warring States Policy", shows us the truth of being thirsty for talents. Because horses symbolize talent, people who are good at thinking about horses are also called people who are good at knowing talents and doing good deeds. For example, Wang Liang of Zhao State in Qin Dynasty, Bole of Qin State and Fang Jiukun are all experts in thinking about horses. The dull situation of talent burying or poor performance is called "a thousand troops going into battle". Gong Zizhen, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, said in a poem: "Kyushu relies on wind and thunder, and a swift horse can decline;" I advise the gods to shake hands and make peace again, and not stick to one pattern. "

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Symbolic significance of the zodiac chicken Many animals, even plants, are no longer pure animals or plants in people's eyes, but have different rich and profound symbolic meanings. This is especially true as an animal in the zodiac. For example, tigers are mighty, cows are hardworking, monkeys are smart and lively, dogs are loyal and brave, and so on. Similarly, the chicken in the zodiac also has its unique and profound symbolic significance.

Therefore, the most significant symbolic meaning of chicken is trustworthiness and punctuality. The cock crows at dawn, which means that the sky will be bright. Further extension symbolizes the liberation from darkness to light. For example, "the cock crows, it is dawn, and it is liberated" is such a symbolic meaning of progress.

For the ancients, it was very important for chickens to watch the night to announce the dawn. The ancient timing tools were very simple, such as a leaky kettle. Although it could time, it was impossible to wake people up on time, and there was no later alarm clock. Sleepers don't know what time it is. At this time, the golden rooster announced the dawn and told people that it was almost dawn and they had to get up and get ready for work. People often say "work at sunrise and rest at sunset", but you can't wait until sunrise to get up. Moreover, the sun does not come out every day, and rainy weather loses the basis for observing the sun to set the time. And chickens, whether it is hot or cold, whether it is sunny or snowy, keep their promises and never slack off. It can be said that it is precisely because of the difficulty of dawn crowing that fireworks and a vibrant new day began to appear on the earth.

The second symbolic meaning of chicken is ordinary and weak.

Chickens can be found almost everywhere in daily life. Strong reproductive ability, high survival rate, no special requirements for the environment, and can be raised anywhere. As the saying goes, things are rare. The same is true of animals, such as pandas, which are very rare and precious, and are regarded as national treasures because only China has them. Although some animals are not national treasures, they are too few to be extinct, so it is forbidden to kill and protect them as rare animals. It is impossible for chickens to enjoy such treatment. There are so many of them that they are despised. Moreover, as a kind of bird, the flying ability of chicken is greatly degraded. Compared with other birds, they can fly freely in the blue sky; Running on the ground is not as fast and agile as riding a dog, so chickens look ordinary. Therefore, it has the symbolic significance of being ordinary, popular and weak.

Chickens are common. They are busy all day, looking for food everywhere and pecking at the west. Hard as they are, they are far from comfortable. This ordinary characteristic of chicken is also used to describe the similar fate of human beings, and it is called "life of chicken chops", which means that this person is busy, like a chicken pecking at the west, and finally can only talk about food and clothing, and it is impossible to enjoy precious prosperity. There is a story that once a rich man asked someone to tell his fortune. As a result, the rich man's life is not easy, just a "chicken steak life." But the fortune teller said that the rich people live in a good place, because they live in Gucheng (Gucheng County, Hubei Province), where there are chicken harrows everywhere. Naturally, only when they have enough to eat and wear warm clothes can the rich enjoy the treasure. The rich man said, isn't he poor if he doesn't live in the ancient city? The fortune teller said it was true. I don't want the rich not to believe the fortune teller and think: Is it necessary to be poor when moving out of the ancient city? So his family moved to another county, gradually declined in a few years, and finally lived in poverty. This is just a folk story, which may not be true, but it contains the symbolic meaning of ordinary chickens.

Compared with the weak and ordinary, the chicken also has the symbolic significance of courage and fighting.

This meaning comes from cockfighting. Chickens like fighting, especially cocks, which is also a common phenomenon in daily life. When two cocks meet, they often have a fight, and occasionally there will be a ground battle between hens.

In order to watch the wonderful cockfighting, people raise special cockfighting. Usually ordinary weak chickens, once they fight, are also nervous, brave and tenacious, and fight fiercely. People are also encouraged and encouraged to learn the courage of cockfighting. This is an example of ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks had cockfighting competitions very early. In one year BC, a Greek general led his troops to the front to fight the Persian army. On the March, he saw two cocks fighting, and his heart couldn't help moving. He believes that if the soldiers' fighting spirit is as tenacious as this rooster, they will surely win the coming battle. So he ordered the team to stop and let the soldiers watch the brave struggle between the two cocks. Sure enough, the soldiers were encouraged to fight bravely and defeated the country. Commemorate this glorious victory. The king of Greece decided to hold the annual cockfighting meeting in Athens from now on. Cockfighting activities soon spread throughout Greece, and soon spread to Mediterranean countries, ancient Rome and other countries. The victory of the Greek army proves that "both armies are brave when they meet", but "bravery" is inspired by cockfighting, which shows that chickens are not always weak.

The fourth symbolic meaning of chicken is to ward off evil spirits, eliminate disasters and respect God.

Divination with chickens is found all over the world, and the henhouse means god. The ancients also used chickens to ward off evil spirits and sacrifice. Killing chickens to drive away evil spirits is a kind of witchcraft and superstition. As early as the pre-Qin period, chicken and chicken blood were used to exorcise evil spirits. The ancients believed that chicken and chicken blood had the functions of exorcising ghosts and evil spirits and eliminating disasters.

The ancients attached great importance to sacrifice. Among many sacrifices, chicken is one of them. Sacrificing ancestors with chickens is still popular in some areas.

Chickens are also used to judge cases. Jingpo people use cock crow as a way of divine judgment. Both parties to the dispute bring a live rooster to the agreed place. First, the wizard recited the scriptures, and after reading them, the two sides sang cocks as agreed to decide the outcome. The first caller loses, and the last caller or non-caller wins.

Divination with chicken means that chicken symbolizes God. In addition to chicken divination, there are different kinds of egg divination in different regions and nationalities. For example, in southern Yunnan, eggs are used to ask diseases. When a person is ill, he thinks that a ghost is possessed. He rubbed an egg on the patient, thinking that ghosts could attach themselves to the egg. After the eggs are cooked in a pot, they are examined by a wizard to break good luck or bad luck.

Yao people use eggs for divination in everything they do. If you choose a place to build a house, choose an egg before you break ground. After wearing a small hole, I wrote the words "people, wealth, livestock and ghosts" on the eggshell, and set it on fire until it exploded, relying on the outflow of protein. If the protein is stained with herringbone, it is thought that the basic education prisoners and their families in front of the house will get sick; If you cling to the word wealth, you think it will be difficult to make a living in the future; When you touch the word livestock, you think that if you commit livestock, the livestock will not flourish in the future; If you cling to the word ghost, you think that committing a ghost will make your ancestors and all kinds of blessed gods unhappy and lead to accidents. Encounter the above situation, as a bad omen, we should immediately stop choosing the foundation of the house.

About chickens can ward off evil spirits and eliminate disasters, and crowing can also drive away ghosts.

In folklore, ghosts are most afraid of hearing the crow of chickens, because ghosts can only move in the dark, and crow of chickens means that it is almost dawn. When it is dawn, all ghosts will be helpless. This superstition originated very early. During the Chinese New Year, Jiangnan people hang "paste pictures on chicken coops" on it, and put peach symbols beside it. All ghosts are afraid of it. A picture of a chicken is posted on the door, and hundreds of ghosts are afraid to come to the door. It's just that ghosts are afraid of hearing chickens crow. This superstition was still held by the elderly until the early days of liberation. Adults often tell children that if they meet a ghost at night, they can scare it away by imitating crows.

In a word, chicken also has its unique symbolic meaning, and people deduce and associate its symbolic meaning from its animal characteristics. Like the symbolic meaning of other animals, there are praises and denials, depending on their different contexts and occasions.

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The symbolic meaning of Zodiac Dog is that human beings are friends who share weal and woe. It is considered as a universal animal, and it is particularly loyal to human beings, so it means loyalty. Examples such as "a shepherd dog seeks its master for three thousand miles" and "a dog rescuer" illustrate this point well, and "one dog with one horse's strength" is also used to describe loyalty. But dogs love to use people's power, and "running dogs" have derogatory meanings. Lu Xun's "lackeys of capitalists who lost their homes" symbolizes shameless literati who have no national backbone. However, from the perspective of folklore, dog has some other meanings.

Generally speaking, people in China think dogs are auspicious animals. If a dog suddenly comes to someone else's house, the owner will be happy to adopt it, because it indicates the arrival of wealth, as the saying goes, "cats come poor and dogs come rich." Dogs and their owners share joys and sorrows. If there is any disaster coming, it will also indicate a bad omen. For example, when a dog comes home, it means a thief is coming. Dogs like to bark, but there must be a reason for barking, so the ancients used the time when dogs barked as a sign of good or bad luck. If the dog barks at the right time, the housewife will make noise; Dogs bark when they are ugly, and they are upset and sleepless; As soon as you bark, the god of wealth will come to the door; When the dog barks, the future is bright; As soon as the dog barks, relatives come; Dogs bark at noon and someone treats them; The dog barks at the wrong time, and if the wife has ulterior motives, she will meet a villain; Woe to the child when the dog barks at the application; When the dog barks, it will increase the official Jin Lu; When the dog barks, watch out for trouble; Dogs bark at sea, be careful of being sued.

The coat color of dogs is often yellow, red, white, black, brown, brown and so on. Or more than two or three colors. The ancients said that dogs with different coat colors have different qualities. The book Six Livestock Facies holds that black dogs with yellow eyebrows should be guarded against, and dogs with black eyebrows are the bane of wasting money; Poodles are auspicious things, especially black poodles can make people rich; If the black dog's chest and buttocks are white, it will bring disaster; Yellow dog's eyebrows should be light, and it is unlucky if they are too dark. "Miscellaneous Five Elements Book" thinks that the quality of yellow dog is the worst. But the symbolic meaning of the white dog will vary according to the specific situation. The book says: a black white dog will make its owner rich; A white dog with a black tail will make the owner have a car all his life; A black dog with white ears will make its owner precious; The black dog has two feet before it is white, and the master's children are prosperous; A yellow dog has a white tail, and its owner has nothing to worry about.

The ancients in China believed that dogs not only had the symbolic function of omen and good or bad luck, but also had the function of eliminating disasters. Why? According to the theory of Book of Rites, dogs belong to "animals with the highest yang". Cooking dog meat in the east can make the yang strong, so that everything can survive. Ying Shao of the Eastern Han Dynasty has another explanation in Custom Yi Tong. He said: there are twelve gates in the city where the son of heaven lives, and the three gates in the east are angry gates. In order to prevent the dead from appearing at the door of birth, he killed the dog before another September 6. In the theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements, dogs cooperate with the gold in the five elements, which corresponds to the west in orientation and cooperates with the wood in the east. Killing dogs can stop the spring tide epidemic and revive everything. It is not a strange theory that dogs can ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters. Even Li Shizhen, a medical scientist in Ming Dynasty, realized this special function of dogs. He recorded in Compendium of Materia Medica that surgeons believe that dogs can eliminate all evil spirits and witchcraft. "Historical Records" said: Qin dismembered dogs in front of the east, south, west and north gates to resist disasters. At the same time, the door has been painted with the blood of white dogs since ancient times to drive away ominous customs. According to Hua Tuo's biography, there was a woman with a big sore on her hair, which was itchy but not painful. After the exam, Hua Tuo took a rice bran dog and tied it to the back of the horse. The horse walked fifty miles, and she twisted the dog's neck and buckled it on the woman's sore. After a while, she only saw one. Li Shizhen thought this case was strange, but it was really the blood dog that led the worm out.

Dogs have such a close relationship with humans and have such magical functions. Therefore, dogs became one of the most commonly used livestock in ancient sacrifices. There was a special post of "Dog Man" in the Zhou Dynasty, which was responsible for the "dogs and beasts" learned by the ancients, and made grass into dogs, which were called "grass dogs". The clothes are embroidered with words, and they are sacrificed when they are old. As soon as the sacrifice was over, they were left on the avenue and trampled by any horses and chariots. Laozi said: "Heaven and earth are heartless, and everything is a grass dog;" The saints are ruthless and regard the people as grass dogs. " There have been many differences in understanding this sentence, but the meaning of the word "straw dogs" is certain.

Dogs are people's good companions, but "Tiangou" is a frightening evil spirit. Before the wedding, the fortune teller chooses an auspicious day. After choosing it, he must write down the wedding details and taboos on a piece of red paper. The most important thing is not to offend the "Tiangou". I violated the "Tiangou", and some taboos at the wedding were related to the "Tiangou".

Once upon a time, many infertile women offered "Zhang Xian" to pray for their children, which was called "sending Zhang Xian away". There are no statues. The "Zhang Xian" in the painting is a beautiful man in a horn scarf and robe. He looked up at the sky with a slingshot in his hand. It is said that he is shooting "Tiangou" with a slingshot. So in Beiguan, in addition to fragrant flowers, wine and dishes, there is also a plate of five balls made of raw noodles for him to shoot "Tiangou".

The evil deeds of "Tiangou" are not limited to infertile women. It is said that the "eclipse" is because the "Tiangou" swallowed the moon. So during the eclipse, people will ring instruments to save the moon. It is said that the loud sound of the instrument will frighten the "Tiangou" to spit out the moon. In ancient times, not only a few "ignorant people" rang the bell to save the moon, but even the small officials in charge of heaven in the imperial court had to knock bronze wares to save the moon until the moon recovered.

Not only humans keep dogs, but also the gods in the sky keep dogs as pets. According to folklore, Yang Jian, the Erlang God, has a "roaring dog" that has been with Erlang God to help him fight demons and catch monsters.

It is not advisable to completely deny or believe all kinds of symbolic meanings and legends about dogs, which are both natural factors and man-made mysterious factors. The correct attitude should be to grasp people's views and psychological tendencies towards dogs through mysterious appearances.