Why do China Zodiac animals have dragons?

What kind of animal is the dragon prototype? There are different opinions. To solve this mystery, we must trace it back to ancient times from the long history of the Chinese nation.

When primitive humans changed from collecting wild fruits and fishing and hunting to planting for a living, grain became the main food, and the quantity of harvest determined people's quality of life. The ancient people, who are still in infancy and have not yet developed their wisdom, can't understand and control the frequent disasters in nature and don't want to be at the mercy of nature, so they hope that some gods can influence the forces of nature to help resist disasters and try to seek protection by praying and offering these gods idols.

In the Yellow River Basin, the birthplace of the Chinese nation, affected by the temperate monsoon climate, floods are a great threat to people. Therefore, it is the greatest wish of ancient ancestors to yearn for a god who can dominate the rain, protect the weather and ensure a bumper harvest. Ancient humans living in different regions and environments benefited from different natural objects around them. Therefore, people use different objects to represent the nature and gas field of natural objects. Some animals living around them are the most commonly used materials to make gods, so our ancestors created a symbolic image of the main water god-dragon, which is based on the alligator, a reptile unique to China.

How was the Chinese alligator, a "living fossil" that once lived with dinosaurs for more than 100 million years and still miraculously maintained its prototype, shaped into Jackie Chan? Before Xia and Shang Dynasties, the environment of the Yellow River basin was like "trees are shaded and clouds are hung by smoke" recorded in Notes on Water Classics. It used to be a place with beautiful scenery and rich vegetation. Paleometeorology shows that the climate is quite warm and humid, so many Chinese alligators live. Because of the ferocious appearance of Chinese alligator, the peculiar habit of amphibious life, and the hidden whereabouts that often appear in semi-diving, the ancients both revered it, so the Chinese alligator, a majestic and mysterious animal in people's eyes, became the inevitable choice of the image of the main water god.

The mythical image of the dragon has all the basic characteristics of the Chinese alligator: 1, a scaly body; 2. Long chin and upturned nose on the top of the head; 3. Conical fangs with sharp edges; 4 big round protruding eyes; 5 long thick tail; 6. Strong limbs and claws with five fingers; 7. There are horizontal stripes on the abdomen.

In order to make up for the defect that the bald tail of the Chinese alligator is detrimental to the image of the gods, the ancients used their full imagination to add horns, whiskers and caudal fins to it, and transformed the protruding horny spines arranged longitudinally on the back into serrated dorsal fins to lengthen the body to render the imposing manner and enrich the decorative effect, so the Chinese alligator was shaped into the legendary dragon image, with its teeth flying about. Although the imaginary dragon is different from the real Chinese alligator after artistic exaggeration, by contrast, we can still see the main features of the Chinese alligator, such as long jaws, fangs, scales, claws and so on.

Later, due to man-made destruction of ecology, slash-and-burn cultivation, deforestation in the Yellow River basin, soil erosion, environmental deterioration and cold climate, the Chinese alligator, which is suitable for warm and humid environment, is difficult to survive and gradually disappears (now only exists in the south of Anhui Province, China). Because the Chinese alligator no longer exists in real life, the impression in people's memory will fade away, leaving only the image of the dragon created by ancestors. As a result, the dragon and the Chinese alligator have become two different concepts, and the origin of the dragon image has become confusing.

Early dragons had no horns. 1987 A 6000-year-old tomb excavated in Puyang, Henan Province, once found a dragon (alligator sinensis) with a clam shell. The dragon image on painted pottery in Yangshao culture is also a reptile with a big head and a long tail. The image of ceratosaurus can be found in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Shang bronzes. A bronze ware with dragon pattern unearthed in Shanxi has an upturned nose, an open mouth and sharp teeth, and the decorative patterns on both sides of the body are exactly the same as those of the Chinese alligator. The Yunlong stone carving in Nanshan, Dazu, Sichuan is a vivid image of a Chinese alligator without horns and eyebrows.

Chinese characters are hieroglyphics, and the dragon in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is an animal with a big mouth and a bent body. The pronunciation of the word dragon is an imitation of ray. The ancients regarded the dragon as the god of thunderstorms. In Shan Hai Jing, there is a saying that "Razer has a god and the dragon has a head." According to some records, lightning and thunder inspired the ancients when the storm came, and it was confirmed that lightning and dragons were closely related. So "rumbling" thunder became the pronunciation of the word dragon. Today, the common names of Chinese alligator in southern China are still "Dragon Map" and "Pig Polong".

People's understanding is the reflection of objective reality. Throughout the ages, many records, legends and folk customs about dragons are related to the living habits of Chinese alligators.

Chinese alligators live in swamps of rivers and lakes. "Zuo Zhuan" "osawa in the deep mountain, born with dragons and snakes." Dragon (Chinese alligator) and snake are two animals with similar living environment and habits.

The Chinese alligator built a labyrinth underground cave near the water. The cave is 2-3 meters deep from the ground and usually lives in water. As a result, people imagined the magical scene of "the Dragon King lives in the Dragon Palace under water". However, when I saw the Chinese alligator escape because its cave was destroyed every time there was a flood, I thought it was "the Dragon King making waves". I didn't know that Chinese alligators were also victims of floods.

Chinese alligators feed on fish, frogs and mussels. There are many pearls in the clam shell. Crocodiles are ferocious by nature, and they will kill each other if they are hungry for a long time. Some people saw the Chinese alligator fighting for mussels and spit out pearls in their mouths, so there was a saying that "two dragons play with pearls".

Chinese alligators mate in June and lay eggs in July. Male crocodiles look for female crocodiles by barking (crocodiles are the only reptiles that can bark). Every June is the beginning of rainy summer in the Yellow River basin, so people associate the loud cry of Chinese alligators with the coming of wind and rain, and think that "dragons can call the wind and rain".

In Shuo Wen Jie Zi, it is described that "dragons ... ascend to heaven at the vernal equinox and dive at the autumnal equinox." There are only two kinds of crocodiles in the world, the Chinese alligator and the Mississippi alligator, which live in temperate zones and need to hibernate. Because of the climate, they go into hibernation every early winter. In spring (February of the lunar calendar), the earth thaws, and they begin to go out after being dormant for a winter. At the same time, when it began to rain in the Yellow River basin, the ancestors linked them together, so there was a custom of offering sacrifices to "On February 2nd, the dragon looked up".

There are many such things, so I won't list them one by one.

Dragon is a specific product of sacrificial culture. The ancient book says, "Water is a dragon." It can be seen that the dragon was created as the main water god (the legendary dragon king), and there is no sufficient basis for the statement that the dragon is related to totem worship in ancient clan society. Since written records, all clans in ancient China have taken China's surname as a symbol, and there is no record of using animal figures as symbols. Ancient humans had low abstract thinking ability and could not think logically. They can only understand things through analogy and reproduction. It is difficult for ancient ancestors to create a virtual animal image that combines various animal characteristics. Therefore, dragons are not virtual animals. In Er Ya Yi, the dragon has "nine elephants" (horns like deer, neck like snake, claws like eagle ...), which means that the local shape of the dragon is similar to some animals, but it does not mean that the dragon is composed of the characteristics of nine animals. Even the worship symbols of ancient foreign nations are images of real animals (eagles, tigers, etc.). ) or the combination of man and beast (Sphinx).

It is natural that dragons appear with other animals in the zodiac, because before Xia and Shang Dynasties, the dragons referred to by the ancients were real Chinese alligators, and crocodiles are one of the animals that people all over the world pay close attention to and worship. There are crocodiles in the zodiac in Egypt and Greece.