Why is the ancient tengu swallowing the moon regarded as an ominous sign?

Tiangou swallowing the moon is a name of the ancient people for the phenomenon of lunar eclipse, and even made up myths and legends for it. In fact, people's understanding of astronomical knowledge is just a wrong understanding. Tiangou swallowed the moon, which was called Tiangou in ancient China. According to incomplete statistics, from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Qing Dynasty, there were many eclipse observation records in China.

Due to the limitation of ancient scientific level, many people will think that this vision of eclipse is an ominous sign, and it is God's punishment for mankind. In the final analysis, no one can explain this phenomenon.

According to the understanding of the ancients, the eclipse occurred because God would intervene in the world and warn people on the earth. Whenever an eclipse occurred, the ancients would beat gongs and drums to pray for an early recovery. However, as late as the Han Dynasty, some ancient scholars have inferred the causes and laws of solar eclipse. The so-called eclipse refers to an astronomical scene in which one celestial body is completely or partially covered by another celestial body or its shadow. This explanation is very close to what we have now and much more scientific.

As modern people, we know that when the sun, the earth and the moon are connected in a straight line, the sun will be blocked by the earth and will not shine on the moon, so it will not reflect on the earth, and an eclipse will occur. Shadows caused by the earth blocking sunlight can be divided into umbra and penumbra. If only a part of the moon enters the umbra of the earth, there will be a partial lunar eclipse. If all the moons enter the umbra of the earth, then the moonlight disappears completely, which is the phenomenon of total lunar eclipse.

Now that science has fully explained this phenomenon, it is not a bad omen at all.