"Suzaku" and "Xuanwu"-What is Suzaku?

Suzaku, also known as "Suzaku", looks like the phoenix, the god of the south. Because it looks like a bird, it is located in the south and has the property of fire, so it often appears in the form of a phoenix in the game. But in fact, Suzaku and Phoenix are two different creatures. Phoenix is the king of birds, but Suzaku is a spirit beast in the sky, which is rarer, nobler and more destructive than Phoenix. Seven Stars Well, ghosts, willows, stars, Zhang, wings and birds in the south form a bird, which is called Suzaku. Because it is the length of' feather worm', the legendary dragons with the length of' scale worm' gradually became a pair. One is changeable, the other is beautiful, and they are a pair that complement each other in folklore. Moreover, because the dragon symbolizes the sun, it turns out.

Xuanwu originally meant Xuanming, and the ancient sounds of Wu and Ming are interlinked. Xuan means black; Ghost means yin. At first, Xuan Ming described the turtle divination as follows: the turtle's back is black, and the turtle divination first invited the turtle to ask questions in the underworld, brought back the answers and showed 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 turned out that the underworld was in the north, and the divination of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty was' its divination will be in the north', so Xuan Ming became a northern god again.

Xuanwu, like other three spirits, is also derived from the 28 stars on earth: bucket, ox, female, air, danger, house and wall. However, people after ancient times have the following explanations for Xuanwu. Xuanwu' is a tortoise. "。 Volume 44 of Emperor Tai Shang Ru Zhai Yi calls North Xuanwu Star Jun: "Dou Su Tian Miao Xing Jun, Niu Su Tian Ji Xing Jun, Female Su Tian Nv Jun, Xu Su Tian Qing Xing Jun, Su Su Tian Qian Xing Jun, Su Su Su Tian Qi Xing Jun, Su Bi Shi Tianxing Jun". As for its image, Jiao Tong's Essentials of Daomen has seven clouds: "North Xuanwu, Taiyin Metaplasia, and Virtual Danger. "At the same time, Taoism also uses it in alchemy. For example, Volume 72 of Yun Qi Tanabata quoted the Dan of the Four Gods in ancient books and records as saying: "Xuanwu is the black mercury in northern China, which can be soft and firm. "The Classic says: Bodhisattva is like water. Non-lead, non-tin, non-stone and the like, water is Hedong Shenshui, born before heaven and earth, so medicine can't be abandoned temporarily, and it can support everything, so it is called Xuanwu.

Xuanwu gained value in the Song Dynasty and was personified. This is inseparable from the help of the emperors of the Song Dynasty. In the early Song Dynasty, Zhenwu and Tian Peng were legendary generals in heaven. In the first year of Tianxi, something happened in the military camp. In "The Original" for seven years:' Someone saw a snake in the camp, and the sergeant built a real martial arts school because of it. In April of the following year, the spring was inexhaustible, and the sick people drank more. When Zhenzong heard this, he wrote a letter and built a landscape there, named it' Xiangyuan'. This is probably the earliest Zhenwu Temple in China.

It is often said by later generations that during the reign of Yang Di, the Jade Emperor became one of his three souls, Empress Lezheng, tired of the world, abandoned Wudang Mountain for practice, and successfully ascended to heaven, defended the north and lived in Xuanwu, posthumous title.