"Good rain knows the season, when spring is happening.
Dive into the night with the wind, and the moisturizer is silent. ”
--Tang Dufu, "Happy Rain on Spring Nights"
Gu Yu, meaning "Rain Born hundred valleys", is the last of the twenty-four solar terms in spring. At this time, the rain will increase significantly and the air will become moist. For the first seedlings planted in the farmland, new crops, only sufficient and timely rain can ensure their growth, the so-called "rain is falling, grains and fruits are ascending", the relationship between rainwater and agriculture can be seen. Since ancient times, China has been a big agricultural country with a rich farming culture, so it has also left a lot of cultural evidence. In this article, we will take the famous Huang mural as an example to see the story of spring rain.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > "Farming in the Rain" and Buddhist scriptures</h1>
Cave 23 of Mogao Cave was built in the Northern Wei Dynasty, in the upper left corner of its north wall there is a painting painted in the Sheng Tang Dynasty "Farming in the Rain", only to see that the painting is covered with dark clouds, heavy rain, the field crops are luxuriant, a farmer wearing a bucket hat hurriedly shoulders the crops to go back, another farmer insists on waving a whip in the field to drive cattle, sitting on the ground should be a family of three, the farmer father and son are holding bowls to eat, and the peasant woman accompanies them... The whole picture is very warm and very lifelike.
Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes 23 caves in the rain farming map
Why don't you paint Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in Buddhist caves, but instead paint pictures of agricultural production? In fact, this "Farming in the Rain" is from the Lotus Sutra.
What is warp? It should be known that when the Buddhist scriptures were first introduced to China, there were no stories with rich picture sense and expressiveness, and even if the Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures were accurately translated into Chinese, they were very obscure. Not to mention the words in the original Lotus Sutra that "see the bodhisattva Mahāsāsa, all kinds of causes, all kinds of beliefs, all kinds of appearances, and walk the bodhisattva path." See the Nirvana of the Buddhas again. After seeing the Nirvana of the Buddhas, the Buddha's relics and the Seven Pagodas are raised", ordinary people cannot accurately understand it. Even the most well-known six-character mantra in the Mahayana Sutra of the Buddha, "Hum (ōng)嘛(mā)嘛(nī)叭(bā)咪(mēi)吽(hōng)", few people know the specific meaning.
Dunhuang unearthed Tang Dynasty manuscript "Miaofa Lotus HuaJing"
How can foreign religions spread when the threshold is so high? There is no way, only to "change". So in order to better preach, the monks invented "variations" and "sutras". "Variation" is a kind of rap literature that arose in the Tang Dynasty, that is, the classical difficult story, changed, reinterpreted, became an easy-to-understand language (like a script, there is a combination of rap and singing, rhyme and white, the people understand it as soon as they hear it, it is not boring), the initial variation is only a Buddhist scripture story (Buddha cut meat and feed eagles), and later developed into historical stories, folklore, which directly affected the development of Tang legendary literature.
Mogao Caves Northern Wei Period meat cutting and feeding eagle story painting
The "sutra changes" are more direct--if you don't even bother to listen to them, I will draw the stories of the Buddhist scriptures directly, what lay vimalak and Manjushri bodhisattva debate scene, what hell is like, what you can't imagine, what you can't understand, I will draw it all for you to see. In this way, even illiterate people can understand the meaning.
So again, what is the "Farming in the Rain" that as a change, what is it that you want to express? Originally, the scriptures themselves did not mean "ploughing in the rain", but instead used the Dharma to purify sentient beings such as descending into heaven. In the saying, "Huimu herbs, large and small trees, hundreds of grain seedlings, sugar cane grapes, rain moist, all abundant", which means that the Dharma is boundless, nourishing everything in the world, and everyone can enjoy it.
The people who created the sutra probably felt that if they painted a few people standing in the ground drenched in rain, I am afraid that they would not be able to accurately express the meaning of the Buddhist scriptures. Therefore, he simply "combined theory with practice" and linked this meaning to the farming activities that the vast number of people are most familiar with—crops grow vigorously under the moist moisture of the rain, and people harvest a lot.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > exotic religion in Dunhuang's Ancheng Zoroastrian</h1>
Rain is so important to agriculture that from very early on, our country has had the ritual of praying for rain to the heavens. By the time of the Tang Dynasty, the ceremony of "Yan, Xia Sacrifice happy to the Red Emperor, to pray for ganyu also") was already one of the important official rituals, according to the "Six Classics of Tang": "If the drought is even worse, then the goose is repaired, and after the autumn equinox, although the drought is not wet, the rain feet are reported to the ceremony." However, such a ceremony is not exclusive to the Han Chinese, and in the Dunhuang documents, there is a "Ancheng Zing": "Banzhu Ancheng Day, the shrine and this xing." One state prays for the scenery, and all kinds of people look up to hughes. Apple algae comes without a shortage, if the elves have it. There is also a place of sacrifice, where the wine is like a rope."
The poem describes the grand occasion of the "Sai Zho Pray for Rain" (including lanterns, offerings, performances, and rain prayers) held in "Ancheng" (Conghua Township in the east of Dunhuang City). Most of the inhabitants of this area are "Zhaowu Jiu surnamed Hu" from Sogdia and who believe in Zoroastrian religion. The Sogdians have long been active on the Silk Road and are a people with commercial talents, coupled with the Central Plains culture of heavy agriculture and suppression of commerce, prohibiting the Han people from engaging in international trade, so that the Sogdians once dominated the Silk Road. Zoroastrianism is Zoroastrianism, and the more common name in China is Zoroastrianism, which we have covered in past articles.
Stone carvings of Zoroastrian fire altars in the tomb of Xi'an Northern Zhou Anjia
Dunhuang is located on the edge of the desert, the climate is arid, and the rain is rare and precious, so the locals are particularly religious about praying for rain. In the Dunhuang documents currently unearthed, we can find a large number of records related to the goose sacrifice (such as the "Sacrifice of the Rain Master"), and even records of the specific materials used during the sacrifice, such as "four urns with wine", "one liter of lamp oil, two buckets of bran noodles, nine liters of enemas"... It's very lively and interesting.
"In February, on a rainy day in the mountain valley, the banpo fang tea is fresh. Spring awakening wine disease and thirst quenching, cherish the new shoots and pick and fry. "In the Central Plains, Guyu is the time to boil new tea, the time to eat toon, and the time to watch everything grow, and the traces of "Guyu" left in Dunhuang in the Hexi Corridor are even more unique.
Resources:
[1].Farming culture in Dunhuang murals[J].Gansu Agriculture, 2018(18):2+1.
Zhao Yuping. Dunhuang Mural "Farming in the Rain" and praying for rain in the Fifth Dynasty of the Tang Dynasty[J].Journal of Xinjiang Academy of Arts,2009,7(03):9-13.
Speak professional archaeology in plain language
This article is contributed by special author Plum Zi, welcome to pay attention to the review