The legend of Chang'e
Who was the first person to land on the moon?
If the answer is American Armstrong,
That would be a big mistake.
It turns out that it was the first to land on the moon
It is the Chinese girl Chang'e.
She has lived there for 4000 years...
Chang'e's face in the moon,
It has also become the most beautiful face of Chinese women.
Unlike other goddesses, it is not just an abstract symbol,
And their own flesh and blood and emotion.
Every time you look up, look up,
Or see the crescent moon like a hook, or see when the silver plate is full of wheels,
Students always have some feelings.
Thus, the story of Chang'e, which has few numbers in the yellow scrolls,
Just as the folk are getting worse...
The source of Chang'e's image has been submerged
In the long river of history, it is difficult to verify.
The earliest known record of Chang'e
Appears in Wang Jiatai's Qin Jian 'Gui Zang' and says:
"Xi Chang'e took the medicine of the Immortal Mother of the West,
Sui Ben is the moon spirit", "Xi Chang'e runs to the moon with immortal medicine".
Meaning: Chang'e stole the elixir of the Queen Mother of the West
There's nothing wrong with that.
To the Western Han Dynasty's "HuainanZi Lan Meditation"
Houyi finally had a name.
"Yi asked the elixir of immortality to the Queen Mother of the West, and Concubine Stole it to run to the moon."
There is no way to continue. ”
Here is just to say that there is medicine in Houyi,
Chang'e steals medicine.
Nor did it say that the two had anything but that
Relationships other than stealing and being stolen.
The ancients made the story more legendary,
Just keep adding material to this story,
Two major versions were derived...
One version came from the invention of the ground motion apparatus
Eastern Han Scholar - Zhang Heng.
He revealed in "Lingxian" that Chang'e stole the elixir
Also looking for fortune tellers to calculate a gua,
The fortune teller said that Chang'e was relieved to eat the medicine Fei Xian.
However, Zhang Heng obviously did not understand that people have to look at faces.
In his account, Chang'e arrived at the moon
Transform into a toad.
"Yi please the medicine of no death in the West Queen Mother, and E steals it to run to the moon."
In the future, there will be yellow, and there will be yellow zhanzhi:
'Gee. Flying back to the sister will go west alone, every day obscure,
Don't be frightened, after its great prosperity. ’
Eun Seol is in the moon and is for the toad. ”
Frogs become princes
Waiting for true love to be redeemed, it's romantic.
But the goddess becomes a toad, what kind of ghost is this?
Sensory, it may not be easy to understand.
But "Chang'e becomes a toad" has its own rationality.
The use of toads as a metaphor for the moon makes sense.
Toads are hydrophilic, stinging in winter and coming out in summer.
From eggs and tadpoles to tailless frogs,
its cyclical life course,
Let the ancients take it for granted that toads are enough
Is the owner of the Moon Palace.
In fact, not only in China,
Using toads or frogs as metaphors for the moon,
It is also widespread in human civilizations throughout the globe.
In the Pacific Ocean, the indigenous people of the Solomon Islands
Also see the moon as the embodiment of a toad;
The Mexicans of the Americas think of the moon goddess,
Is the ruler of water, and her avatar is a large frog;
The Native Americans of Guyana also believe that there is a frog in the moon;
In the legend of the Lanque Indians,
A pair of sisters married to the stars and had a son each.
The younger sister's child, Lan Que, later ascended to heaven and became the moon,
And the wife of the companion becomes the toad in the moon...
In the Western Han Dynasty, the toad in the moon was with the jade rabbit.
Where did the Jade Rabbit come from? Many people are puzzled.
Wen Yiduo has tried, he thinks that "the 'slug' of the cover toad
With the 'rabbit' sound close to easy to mix, toad, becomes toad rabbit."
So the toad split in two and became the toad and the jade rabbit.
There's another explanation —
The image of the toad and the jade rabbit comes from
Shadow pattern on the moon.
In the painting excavated from the Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha,
The section in the upper right corner can be seen
Toad and jade rabbit drawn according to the shadow of the moon.
It's just, "Because of the need for overall composition,
The Moon is the opposite of the previous illustration. ”
There are beautiful women, there are animals,
Of course, plants are indispensable in the Moon Palace.
The simple Chinese chose "Gui".
As for whether it is a laurel tree or an osmanthus tree,
Chinese can't tell the difference.
Some people say that "laurel, because of its characteristics of flowering month by month,
was attached to the Moon Palace"; there were also those from the Hermeneutics
It is revealed that "Gui" and "frog" are cognates from "Gui",
Thus the "gui" in the middle of the month is from
Derived from the "frog", which symbolizes reproduction.
The feudal defenders blamed Chang'e
Coveting the Immortal Dao, he secretly ran to the moon behind her husband's back.
As a result, Chang'e suffered retribution from the Queen Mother of the West,
Only to become an ugly toad.
Not only that, the ugly Chang'e still has to exhaust her youth,
In the too illusory realm, he was struggling to do medicine.
In the sarcophagus portrait excavated from Shapingba in Chongqing,
We saw one
The "bipedal standing" toad holding a pestle to pound medicine,
This is the end of Chang'e.
Another version: more people are willing to take Chang'e
Portrayed as a heroic and indomitable fighter.
To make the story more ups and downs,
When the Eastern Han scholar Gao Lu gave a commentary on the Huainan Zi
Just add drama to the two:
After Hou Yi got the medicine of immortality, he was reluctant to spoil his wife,
Let Chang'e secretly treasure the elixir of immortality,
I hope that the two will live from now on
The mortal life of "only envying mandarin ducks and not envying immortals".
How to know that the disciple of hou Yixin is not right
When PengMeng learned of this, he took advantage of Houyi's outing to hunt,
He grabbed the knife and forced Chang'e to hand over the elixir of immortality.
Chang'e knew that she was not Pengmeng's opponent,
And he does not want the evil man's conspiracy to succeed and to bring calamity to the world,
So at a critical juncture, there is no chaos in the face of danger,
Swallowed the elixir of immortality in one gulp.
In an instant, Chang'e feathered and ascended to the Moon Palace.
This matter is not over, and after Houyi returns to learn about this matter,
Distraught. Every Mid-Autumn Moon,
Looking at the head of haoyue, always
Miss Chang'e and can't help herself.
Finally helpless Houyi,
In the back garden of the home, put incense cases,
Place the fresh melon fruit that Chang'e loves to eat on weekdays,
Chang'e, who is lonely and lonely in the Haruka Moon Palace.
When the people saw this, they followed suit,
Set up an altar in your own home to worship Chang'e,
This forms the custom of worshiping the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival,
Focused.
In the Qing Dynasty's Shuntianfu Chronicle,
We can still see this record:
"On the fifteenth day of August, the fruit cake will be round...
Paper market moonlight paper, painted full moon portrait...
There is a rabbit pestle and a standing pound in the medicinal mortar. ”
Some of the records since then, basically, are there
Both versions were developed or blended together
Such as "Search for God", "Anthology" and so on.
In the Ming Dynasty, the "Talking Gao" not only recounted
Chang'e Benyue also wrote that Houyi was sick with this thought
On the night of the fourteenth day of the first month, there was a fairy boy who told Hou Yi
Rice noodles are used as a ball offering.
With this method, the two are finally reunited.
It can be seen that the moonlight dissolves the panic brought about by the darkness,
Adds a bit of peace and quiet to the night;
Changes in the phases of the moon are not only a measure of time,
It also pins on people's yearning for reunion.
Chang'e, as the god of the moon, has obtained eternal righteousness from the moon,
Therefore, Chang'e was originally Heng'e.
And the feminine qualities of the moon
Determines its inevitable connection with women.
In terms of female physiological changes,
There is a striking consistency with the lack of clouds and sunshine of the moon,
The profit and loss of the month, the loss and the recovery
Periodic changes are the nature of Chang'e's physiological function.
The moon gives women divinity and eternity,
Women also give the moon immortal life,
Therefore, the moon is a symbol of immortality,
Chang'e transformed into a moon spirit, which became a symbol of "eternity".
The Chang'e mythological story left over from the pre-Qin Dynasty,
To the Han Dynasty Chang'e Benyue portrait stone,
Flying murals of the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang
Even the "Moon Rushing" project at the forefront of contemporary science and technology,
Chang'e has become the Chinese nation to break through all kinds of shackles,
The pursuit of freedom and transcendence symbols,
The imagery of "flying sky" and "running moon" also became
Chinese part of the mental image.
And the Mid-Autumn Festival, with a round of the moon to put us in life
The distance between the hearts and minds is getting farther and farther away
Pull back to the point in time of snuggling with each other.
In this sense, the lively Mid-Autumn Festival,
Jubilant Mid-Autumn Festival,
On the day of the full moon, at the time of reunion,
It should be a calm and warm Mid-Autumn Festival.