What are the ancient beasts?

In China, the phoenix is a symbol of happiness. There are many kinds of prototypes. Such as golden pheasants, peacocks, vultures, mandarin ducks, blackbirds (swallows), etc ... Some people say it is a Buddhist Dapeng golden winged bird. According to the phoenix myth, the phoenix has a chicken's head, a swallow's chin, a snake's neck, a fish's tail and five-color stripes. There are five kinds of phoenixes, divided by color: Red Phoenix, Lan Fenghuang, White Swan and Rayna Sue Phoenix, which can also be called Suzaku or Blackbird. Suzaku is one of the four spirits, and like the other three spirits, it comes from the stars, which is the general name of the seven nights in the south: well, ghost, willow, star, Zhang, wing and bird. Think of it as Suzaku. Scarlet, like fire, the south belongs to fire, hence the name Phoenix. It also has the characteristics of being far from fire, also called fire phoenix, just like the immortal birds in the west.

turtle

Xuanwu is a spiritual thing composed of turtles and snakes. Xuanwu originally meant Xuanming, and the ancient sounds of Wu and Ming are interlinked. Wu means black; Ghost means yin. At first, Xuan Ming described the tortoise divination as follows: the tortoise's back is black, and the tortoise divination is to let the tortoise go to the underworld to ask his ancestors, bring back the answers and show them to the world in the form of divination. Therefore, the earliest Xuanwu is the tortoise. Since then, the meaning of Xuanming has been expanding. Turtles live in rivers, lakes and seas (including turtles), so Xuan Ming became a water god; The tortoise lives long, and Xuan Ming has become a symbol of immortality; It turns out that the underworld is in the north, and Oracle Bone Inscriptions's divination in the Shang Dynasty is "divination must go north", so Xuan Ming became a northern god again.

White Tiger

In China, the white tiger is the god of war and war. Tigers have many magical powers, such as avoiding evil, praying and punishing evil, promoting good, getting rich and getting married, etc. And it is one of the four spirits, and of course it is also changed from the stars. Among these 28 stars, there are 7 in the west: osmium, building, stomach, ang, bi, Gou and Shen. Therefore, it is the representative of the west, and its whiteness is due to the west. The five elements belong to gold and the color is white. So it is called white tiger not because it is white, but because it comes from five elements.

Qinglong-the patron saint of the East in Taoism

Qinglong, also known as "Black Dragon", is the God of the East in ancient mythology. Dragon is the totem of the Chinese nation. Since the Yellow Emperor entrusted it to Tianhe and weiser, it has been a symbol of the Chinese nation and even the whole of China, and its stereotype was in the Han Dynasty. Since the Great Han Dynasty, it has been identified as the symbol and representative of the emperor. In oriental legend, the dragon looks like a long snake, the head of a unicorn, the tail of a carp, a long beard, horns like deer and five claws, which is frightening. In western mythology, the dragon is more like a lizard with wings.

kylin

Kirin, also known as "Kirin" or "Lin" for short, is an animal in the ancient legend of China, which is also called "four spirits" with phoenix, turtle and dragon. Known as the sacred beastmaster. It is the mountain of God.

phoenix

Everyone is familiar with the god bird. Its head looks like a chicken, its chin looks like a swallow, its neck looks like a snake, its chest looks like a rainbow and its tail looks like a fish. Birds of Five Virtues.

According to Guo Pu's note in Er Ya Shi Bird, the Phoenix is characterized by "the fishtail with the head of a dog's head and the jaw of a tortoiseshell is five colors, and it is six feet high". "Out of the country of the oriental gentleman, flying over the four seas, crossing the Kunlun Mountains, drinking the mainstay, breaking feathers and weak water, seeing Mosufeng Cave, the world is at peace. There are five kinds of pictographs in Shan Hai Jing Tu Zan: "The first word is virtuous, the wing is smooth, the back is righteous, the abdomen is pleasing, and it is like Ren Yue. " 」

dragon

Dragon is a miraculous animal in China mythology, fickle, sexually stimulating and beneficial to all things. It is said that it can be hidden and displayed, reaching the sky in the spring breeze and diving in the autumn wind. It can also cause clouds and rain. It was the leader of many scales, the head of the four spirits (dragon, phoenix, unicorn and turtle), and later became a symbol of imperial power. Emperors all claimed to be dragons, and their vessels were decorated with dragons.

pottery tile

Beasts in ancient legends.

According to legend, he is the son of Zhuan Xu, the Northern Heaven Emperor, with a proud and unruly name. From these names, we can also roughly infer its actions. Like Qiong Qi, Yaoyao later became one of the four leading soldiers.

Qiong Qi

According to Shan Hai Jing? Haibei Jing records that Qiong Qi looks like a tiger, has a pair of wings and likes to eat people, even heads. He is a fierce animal. However, in Shan Hai Jing, Xishan Jing mentioned another image of Qiong Qi. Qiong Qi in this article looks like a cow, with hedgehog hair, which is quite different from that described in Jinghua at Home. But both of them are fierce beasts who like to eat people, and there is no difference in this respect.

muddledness

. The West Mountain Classic, the second volume of Shan Hai Jing, says: "Three hundred and fifty miles west of Tianshan Mountain, happy ever after, with realgar, flows in the Tang Valley in the southwest. There is a divine bird, which looks like a yellow sac, is as red as fire, and has six feet and four wings. It knows nothing about singing and dancing, but it's just Di Jiang. " Chaos is chaos, and the image of chaos is a bird that can sing and dance.

Greedy tāo tiè

The legendary greedy monster. In ancient Zhong Ding, the shape of the head was carved on Yi vessels as decoration. "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals": "If you are greedy, you can eat it, but if you don't swallow it, it will harm you." "Classic Wonder Book of Southwest Wilderness": "Southwest is a sea of people, hairy, greedy as a wolf, good at gathering money and not eating people's valleys. The strong take the old and the weak, and are afraid to fight, which is called gluttony. " Upon hearing this, Song Shaobo recorded: Volume 26: "Shao Shengchu, his ancestors were an official in Chang 'an Mansion and sold soup and cakes in front of Gaozu Temple in Xicheng. He got a piece of white jade, carved with Yunlong, and built it into a sacred mountain in the sea, which is enough to be gluttonous and is a treasure of three generations. "

Baize

The beasts on Kunlun Mountain, the famous beasts, are all white, can speak human words and understand the feelings of all things, and rarely appear, unless a saint ruled the world at that time, and he came with books. (Another way of saying it is a white horse)

heavy ming bird

In the seventy years of Yao's reign, there was a country offering a bird and a pair of clear words in sight.

Bifang

A bird shaped like a crane has one foot, red stripes and a white beak.

The dragon has nine sons, each with his own unique temperament ―― brothers and sisters may be different in many ways.

1, prickly (Bi,): It looks like a turtle and is easy to carry loads. A craze can be seen in palaces, ancestral temples and tombs all over the country. In all kinds of arguments of Long Zi, it is generally ranked first among the nine sons.

2. Pro (Chi, Wen): I like to look around, and I am often arranged on the roof and have a sword repair.

3, Pu (old): Rock temperament, love music, love roar. It was used to decorate the top of the chime of ancient musical instruments, and his figure can also be seen on the knob of the temple clock.

4. Armadillo (Bi, An): in charge of the prison. It is often decorated on the lintel of death row. Because it looks like a tiger, there is also a saying that the tiger head is buckled.

5. Sister-in-law (Su An, Ni): I believe in Buddhism and like incense, which can be seen on the incense burner cover. Moreover, her sister-in-law is also the seat of Manjusri Bodhisattva, which can be seen in temples dedicated to Manjusri Bodhisattva. On Mount Wutai, the Dojo of Manjusri Bodhisattva, there is also a temple dedicated to sister-in-law. Because the eldest sister-in-law is the fifth son of the dragon, the temple is called Wu Ye Temple, which has a great influence in the local area. Once I swam through this temple, and the incense was particularly strong.

6. Hao, Tie: Gourmet, gluttonous. There are often gluttonous patterns on bronzes unearthed in Xia and Shang Dynasties, which are ferocious monsters with Kubinashi's body.

7, Yazi (ya, zi): fierce and irritable, like to fight and kill. This is what the folk idiom "those who are vengeful must pay the price" says. Statues can usually be seen on the handles or the rings at the end of some weapons to enhance the murderous look.

8. Shu (Tu): Shaped like a snail, gentle and a little autistic. So he was arranged on the door, with a knocker in his mouth, so as not to visit at night.

9. Pi (Xiu): It is called the ninth son of the dragon in South Asia and Southeast Asia. It has a big mouth and no anus, but it can't get in or out, so it is very popular with gamblers. Macau casino then released a jade beast, eating everywhere, only earning no compensation.