Zuo Qinglong, right white tiger, former Suzaku, and later Xuanwu. What do they mean?

Zuo Qinglong, You Baihu, Qian Suzaku and Hou Xuanwu refer to the mountains or various tangible building objects in front of, behind, left and right of the house respectively.

In the traditional culture of China, people think that architecture should be supported. Generally speaking, everything around the building can be counted as a "mountain". Geographically, the front mountain is Suzaku, the back mountain is Xuanwu, the left mountain is Qinglong, and the right mountain is White Tiger. In the name of four nights, it is another four-sided mountain.

In the early culture of China, the four images refer to Lao Yang, Shaoyin, Shaoyang and Laoyin in Yi Zhuan, and also refer to the natural weather in four seasons. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, it gradually referred to Qinglong, Baihu, Suzaku and Xuanwu, which originated from the ancient belief in stars and represented the stars in the east, west, south and north respectively. They are also called four gods, four spirits and four saints.

As the orientation of the "Four Elephants", it has been recorded in the Book of Rites Quli in the pre-Qin period: "Zhu bird walks forward and then Xuanwu, left Qinglong and right white tiger". "Sparse": "The front south and back north, the right west, the Zhu bird, the Xuanwu, the Qinglong and the White Tiger are also named." Here, Suzaku is Suzaku. The concept of "Zuo Dong has the West" is different from the map we look at, because the map is based on the north. The map of the ancients was based on the south, which made it "up south and north, Zuo Dong right and west".

Reference 4-Baidu Encyclopedia