In the Film and Television Drama of the Qing Dynasty, there was often such a plot: the eunuch next to the emperor always had to hold a whisk in his hand. It's just that many people don't understand: what role does the eunuch play with a whisk in his hand? This involves a concept: legal driving. In ancient times, the emperor's honor guard was called the Dharma Driver, or Luan Driving. There are strict rules for the Heavenly Son's Law, and no one's honor guard can exceed the size of the Heavenly Son.
For example, when Qin Shi Huang was alive, the scale of the honor guard of Xiang Li Si exceeded the specifications that Xiang Xiang should have, which once led to Qin Shi Huang's dissatisfaction. In the Heavenly Son's Dharma, there are samurai holding ge, samurai with halberds, and in addition, eunuchs holding dust. According to the book "History of Chinese Weapons", in fact, these weapons are not suitable for war use, but only play the role of honor guards, and the dust is also the same. However, with the development of the times, holding the dust became a kind of eunuch's privilege.
This has to start with the Han Dynasty. Throughout the two Han Dynasties and four hundred years, the struggle between foreign relatives and the imperial family never stopped, after all, the distribution of power was a problem of long-term elimination. If the emperor gives his own family too much power, it will lead to his own family having usurpation ambitions - for example, in the era of the Han Jing Emperor, there was the Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms, and Emperor Wu of Han took this into account, so he issued a decree to weaken the power of the imperial family, but this led to the lack of control of the foreign relatives, and eventually, the Western Han Died because of the foreign relatives.
Soon after the opening of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the government of the Eastern Han Dynasty fell into the hands of foreign relatives, and the Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty began to use the power of the eunuch clique to seize power in order to seize power, learn the lessons of the Western Han Dynasty, and in this way, the eunuch clique began to appear as a political force, and it was not until after the Qing Dynasty that this history came to an end. Among the honors given by the emperor to eunuchs was the qualification to hold a dust in his hand, which was a symbol of status and privilege.
Of course, in the beginning, the eunuch took the dust, and the role played was very grounded: that is, when the emperor was ready to sit down, the eunuch needed to use the dust to remove the dust from the seat. In addition, the emperor will also fall ash, if the eunuch directly to remove the dust, it will be regarded as "great disrespect", but if not moved, the dust can not be removed in time, affecting the image of the emperor. As a result, dusting also plays a role in cleaning.
In addition, according to the Buddhist Scriptures, when the Buddha was alive, he regarded the dust as a magic instrument, and after Buddhism was introduced to China, the concept that the dust had the attribute of a magic instrument was also accepted by the Chinese people. However, with the development of Chinese Buddhism, there are not many cases of monks using dust, but dusting has affected Taoism - because monks do not need dust when doing things, but they are often used when Taoists exorcise evil spirits. These circumstances have given dust the attribute of exorcising evil spirits. The eunuch carrying the dust also has the meaning of driving away bad luck for the emperor.