Part of ding guanpeng's "Taiping Spring City Picture Scroll" depicting the scene of the rural lively celebration of the Spring Festival in the Qing Dynasty
The Spring Festival is the most important traditional festival of the Chinese nation. As a cultural symbol, the Spring Festival contains our nation's cognition and imagination of racial continuation, family reproduction, cultural inheritance and social development, and is an important carrier of Chinese wisdom inheritance.
The traditional Spring Festival customs are extremely rich, among which there is a type of custom with the theme of epidemic prevention that epitomizes the connotation of the festival of warding off evil and seeking good fortune, which is particularly worthy of attention. The formation of these customs is a concentrated embodiment of the concept and knowledge of epidemic prevention in the process of the ancestors' long-term struggle against infectious diseases in winter and spring. Although with the development of medicine and the improvement of cognitive level, many epidemic prevention customs have gradually faded out of the Spring Festival, the Chinese wisdom and experience contained in it are still our precious cultural and spiritual wealth, and have certain practical significance.
Qing Dynasty New Year painting "Over the New Year", collected by the Capital Museum
The ritual dance with witchcraft function that the ancients danced by imitating fang xiang's exorcism movements was later developed into an important ritual at the end of the year, the yiyi
The Fang Xiang clan exorcism ceremony was a custom that was popular in the official and folk areas during the pre-Qin period. The Fang Xiang clan (also written as "Fang Xiang Shi") is the god of exorcism and evil created by the ancestors. The Fang Xiang clan exorcism ceremony is a ritual dance with witchcraft function that the ancients imitated the action of Fang Xiang clan to drive away the epidemic. This dance later developed into an important ceremony at the end of the year, the yiyi. The original meaning of the word "傩" refers to people's actions in accordance with etiquette and grace, for example, the "Book of Poetry and Bamboo Poles" has a sentence of "Smiling skillfully, Peiyu Zhidao", which describes the elegant and calm appearance of Peiyu women when they walk. The plague exorcism ceremony was originally referred to by the word "difficult", I don't know when it began, the word "difficult" referring to the epidemic exorcism ceremony was borrowed as "傩", and the original meaning of the word "傩" was gradually abolished, and evolved into a word specifically referring to the exorcism ceremony.
The "Zhou Li" records the Exorcism Ceremony of the Fang Xiang Clan in the Court of the Zhou Dynasty: the Fang Xiang Clan was played by four warriors, only to see that they were covered with bear skins on their heads, wearing four-eyed masks cast in gold, wearing black clothes and red clothes, holding Ge he shields, leading a hundred of his men to search around for the plague ghosts, and then beating and expelling the epidemic ghosts. Folk eviction ceremonies are known as "township people", and the Analects of the Township Party says: Confucius once solemnly wore a court dress and stood on the steps to watch the townspeople. "Not speaking strangely and chaotic gods" is an important proposition of Confucius, but from the details of his solemn viewing of the townspeople, it is not difficult to see the importance that people attach to the yi. Because plagues often have serious consequences, even folk exorcism is an extremely solemn ritual, not a recreational activity.
In the Han Dynasty, the official ritual of driving away evil spirits changed. According to the Records of the Later Han Dynasty, one change is temporal. In the pre-Qin period, there was no fixed date for the yiyi, and as long as the plague was prevalent throughout the year, the Fang Xiang clan could be "invited" to drive away the plague, but the Han Dynasty officials only held the day before the most grand wax festival of the year. Wax festival is an ancient sacrifice to ancestors and hundreds of gods, and pray for a good harvest in the coming year, we are familiar with the wax moon is named after the wax festival held in this month. It can be said that the Wax Festival opened the prelude to the New Year's Sacrifice, and the pre-Wax Festival was the preparatory activity for the Wax Festival; another change was that in terms of ceremony, the Han Dynasty Grand Ceremony was more solemn, and the emperor and the civil and military officials had to participate. At half-hour of the seventh night of the first lunar month, officials wore red turbans and stood in the palace, and after the emperor sat down on the throne, the ceremony officially began. Wearing a four-eyed golden mask, Fang Xiangshi leads the twelve divine beasts played by humans to drive away and fight the plague ghosts together. In order to increase the momentum, it was also necessary to select one hundred and twenty boys over the age of ten and under the age of twelve from the families of the officials and eunuchs in advance, and let them hold sticks and drums (similar to today's rattles) and beat them continuously to assist the Fang Xiang clan in expelling the plague ghosts. After the palace ceremony was completed, more than a thousand five-battalion knights escorted torches representing the plague ghosts to the edge of the Luoshui river and threw them at the Luoshui water, symbolizing the suppression of the evil plague under the water. The boys who participated in the exorcism ceremony were called "lizi", and their addition added a new connotation to the Han Dynasty's wuyi to eliminate children's diseases and shelter children's growth.
Fang Xiangshi's shengxian figure, Han portrait stone, unearthed in Nanyang, Henan
After the Han Dynasty, the scale of court ceremonies continued to expand, for example, there were 240 "servants" in the court ceremonies during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and by the Sui and Tang dynasties, the number of "servants" increased to 500. As an important part of the New Year's sacrifice activities, the Tang Dynasty court ceremony added the connotation of "welcoming spring", and the time was more flexible. The early Tang Dynasty poet Shen Qiqi wrote in the poem "Keeping the Age system": "The southern crossing of the light ice dissolves the Wei Bridge, and the oriental trees are flaunting. The Son of Heaven greets the spring tonight, and the prince sacrifices his birthday to the Ming Dynasty. The lamp people in the temple fight for fire, and the servants in the palace drive away the demons. It is advisable to mix the old wine with a divine medicine, and the Holy Zuo Qianchun Dynasty. The poem describes the scene of the Tang Dynasty Imperial Palace guarding the Age, and Tianzi also enjoyed the exorcism performance of the servants on the Chinese New Year's Eve night of the Spring Festival, indicating that the Tang Dynasty court ceremony has become an important part of the Spring Festival celebrations and has the purpose of driving away the epidemic and welcoming the spring. The performance of the Tang Dynasty's Yi yi was greatly enhanced compared with the previous generation, and gradually evolved into the puppet opera. The performances of the Spring Festival in many contemporary regions are the remnants of ancient rituals, and still have a strong connotation of driving away epidemics and seeking good fortune.
According to legend, the Yiyi to drive away the epidemic and ward off evil spirits was founded by the Yellow Emperor, the common ancestor of the Chinese nation. This myth is recorded in the Zhuangzi anthology and has been reproduced in documents such as the Taiping Imperial Records. Some scholars believe that this passage is part of the "You Kai" section, which is translated into modern Chinese as follows:
You Kai asked, "Why do the people now hold the ceremony of expulsion of the plague, beating the drums and beating the doves, and shouting loudly?" Xiong Huang replied, "In the past, the people often suffered from infectious diseases, so the Yellow Emperor established the official position of Wu Xian, leading the people to bathe and fast, in order to pass the Nine Tips; to beat the drum and beat the duo to lift the spirit; the labor body to take steps to make the yin and yang qi smooth; drink wine and eat green onions, so that the five organs can be smooth." The people did not know these reasons, thinking that the beating of drums and noises was really to drive out the plague ghosts. ”
"Zhuangzi" makes good use of allegorical stories to tell the truth, and both You Kai and Xiong Huang are anthropomorphic characters, the former is a water bird, the latter is a Chinese medicinal material. This myth of the Yellow Emperor's Li Yi explains the purpose of the ancestors to invent the Yi Yi and reveals the essence of the Yi Yi. Most exorcisms— bathing and fasting, beating the drum, and walking in the shape of labor—can achieve the purpose of strengthening the mind, thereby improving the individual's resistance. Drinking onions can directly kill viruses that enter the body to some extent. These scientific methods of epidemic prevention are very valuable information, which have been passed down from generation to generation to benefit many people.
Yao Wenhan's "Celebrating the Year of the Dynasty"
"Firecrackers" and "into the Tusu" are important Spring Festival epidemic prevention customs, of which burning firecrackers to drive away the evil spirits of the mountains that spread cold and fever diseases, drinking Tusu wine has the effect of preventing plague
Probably the most famous of the ancient poems describing the Spring Festival is Wang Anshi's "Yuan Ri": "In the sound of firecrackers, the spring breeze sends warmth into Tusu." Thousands of households always exchange new peaches for old charms. The "firecrackers" and "entering the slaughter" in the poem are important Spring Festival epidemic prevention customs.
"Firecracker" was also called "firecracker" in the Tang Dynasty, which means to burn the bamboo pole to make it burst and make a sound, and the purpose of this is to drive away the mountain. According to legend, the mountain ghost is a kind of plague ghost that lives in the mountains, also known as the mountain ghost. It looks humanoid, but is only more than a foot tall. The "Divine Alien Sutra and The Western Wilderness Sutra" says: Shan Zhen likes to catch shrimp and crabs naked. It is not afraid of people, if you see pedestrians in the wild lighting a bonfire to rest, it will approach, use the human campfire to roast the shrimp and crabs caught, and wait for the opportunity to steal salt to accompany the shrimp and crabs. If you come into contact with the mountain, you will be infected with a "chilling" disease. "Chilling heat", that is, fear of cold and fever, is a common symptom of many infectious diseases. How can we drive away the mountain and not let it get close to people and infect people? It is said that some people once tried to throw bamboo poles into the fire, and found that the sound of bamboo poles bursting could scare away the mountains, and later there was a custom of burning bamboo poles on the first day of the New Year to drive away the mountains. As early as the pre-Qin period, from the court to the folk, there was a custom of burning bamboo poles to drive away the mountains. There is a poem in the Book of Poetry, "Ting Liao", which describes the situation in which the Zhou Dynasty royal palace burned bamboo in the courtyard during the New Year. The "Chronicle of the Jingchu Years" says: On the first day of the first lunar month, the first thing the people do when they get up is to burn bamboo tubes in front of their houses to drive away the "evil ghosts of the mountains."
As an important myth of plague prevention and avoidance, the myth of the mountain face actually reflects the public's understanding of the outbreak time of the plague and the high temperature to kill the virus. First of all, the people burn firecrackers around the Spring Festival to drive away the mountain ghosts that spread cold and fever diseases, indicating that winter is a frequent period of infectious diseases characterized by fever; secondly, the plot of scaring away mountain ghosts by burning bamboo seems absurd, but may reflect the shallow cognition of the ancestors that high temperatures can kill viruses in the air.
"Entering Tusu" is to drink Tusu wine. Tu Su, also known as Tu Su, Fermented Crisp, Tu Su wine is a medicinal wine soaked in traditional Chinese medicine, the ancients believed that drinking Tu Su wine during the Spring Festival has the effect of preventing plague, this custom has been produced in the Southern Dynasty at the latest. "The Chronicle of the Jingchu Years" says: On the morning of the first day of the Chinese New Year, a family of men, women, old and young were dressed neatly, and after celebrating the New Year in descending order, they would drink Tusu wine together.
According to legend, Tu Su wine was also invented by the Yellow Emperor, so it is also known as "Xuanyuan Yellow Emperor Divine Fang". In addition to the myth of the Yellow Emperor inventing Tu Su wine, there are also other myths about the creation of Tu Su wine. The Chinese medicine book "Xiao Pin Fang" of the Southern and Northern Dynasties period said: The recipe of Tu Su wine that makes people not have plague was created by Hua Tuo, a famous medical scientist in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and drinking it on the first day of the New Year can avoid the plague and all unhealthy qi. The Ming Dynasty's Tongya says that sun Simiao, a medical scientist of the Tang Dynasty, concocted tusu liquor. According to legend, Sun Simiao once lived in the city of Changzhou, and when he saw that the people were often infected with plague in late winter and early spring, he immersed himself in studying medical books and formulated a recipe for medicinal liquor. After the patients in Changzhou took Sun Simiao's medicine and wine, their bodies recovered quickly. Later, Sun Simiao disclosed the recipe of the medicinal liquor and told everyone that drinking this medicinal liquor every year at Chinese New Year's Eve time can prevent the plague.
Myth is not history, tu su wine is not important who invented it, in the yellow emperor, Hua Tuo, Sun Simiao as the inventor of tu su wine in the myth, we see is the ancient people with medicinal wine to prevent and control the knowledge of the inheritance process: in the late primitive society, the ancestors in the process of dealing with plants found that some plants have a special effect on the prevention and control of the plague, resulting in the myth of the Yellow Emperor inventing tu su wine; during the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty, social turmoil intensified the spread of the plague. In the process of treatment, the plague treatment methods inherited from the primitive society were continuously supplemented and improved, forming a relatively fixed plague prescription, which led to the myth that Hua Tuo invented the formula of Tu Su wine; to the Sui and Tang dynasties, with the accumulation of treatment experience, doctors found that warm wine can accelerate the exertion of medicinal effects, the therapeutic effect of Tu Su wine is getting better and better, and the myth of the medicine king Sun Simiao formulating Tu Su wine to save patients was thus generated.
The myth of Tu Su wine also inherits the experience and concept of preventing the interpersonal spread of plague. The Eastern Jin Dynasty's "Elbow Reserve Emergency" says: When the whole family drinks Tusu wine together, it should be drunk from young to long. "One person drinks, one family is free of disease; one drinks, one mile is free of disease." The Ming Dynasty "Compendium of Materia Medica" records the drinking method of Tusu wine: After the medicinal materials for making Tusu wine are mixed, they are packed in a triangular red bag, hung at the bottom of the well on the night of Chinese New Year's Eve, taken out and placed in the wine on the first day, boiled the medicinal wine several times, and after removing the medicinal residue, the whole family drank it in turn from young to long. After drinking, the residue is still put into the well. There are a few details that are very interesting here: first, the whole family drinks Tusu wine together to prevent the interpersonal spread of the plague, even if only one person in the family drinks, and only one family in a mile drinks, it can also block the interpersonal transmission of the plague; second, drinking water is an important carrier of the spread of the plague, and the medicinal materials and residue of the cannon medicine liquor are immersed in the well water, the purpose of which is to purify the drinking water and prevent the spread of the disease; third, the order of drinking Tusu wine from childhood to adulthood is different from that of the general elderly, taking care of the weak characteristics of children It also embodies the traditional moral concept of loving the young.
The myth and custom of drinking Tusu wine to prevent plague in the Spring Festival inherits the experience of preventing plague with medicine, it has been recognized for a long time and widely recognized in ancient times, Su Dongpo has the sentence "But there is poverty and longevity, do not hesitate to drink Tusu at the end" ("Chinese New Year's Eve ye su outside Changzhou"), praised the health care effect of Tusu wine, and commented on the custom of drinking after the elderly: As long as I am healthy, I am not afraid of old age.
Sun Simiao's medicine collection, illustration of the Ming Dynasty's "Three Talents Picture Society"
Among the many gods of wealth greeted on the fifth day of the first lunar month, Zhao Gongming, who had the greatest influence, was once a plague god. The change in its identity reflects the positive dialectical thinking of the ancestors in the face of the plague
Greeting the God of Wealth on the fifth day of the first lunar month is an important part of the Spring Festival customs. Especially in the Jiangnan region, the ceremony to welcome the god of wealth is as grand as the Chinese New Year's Eve night to worship the ancestors and welcome the spring. Among the many gods of wealth, the most influential and most admired is Zhao Gongming.
Few people may know that Zhao Gongming, the god of wealth, was a plague god during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Tao Hongjing, a Taoist priest of the Liang Dynasty, mentioned in the True Truth that the five gods headed by Zhao Gongming were yin gods who specialized in "Tuxia Tsukazhong", with 1,200 subordinates, and were called "plague ghosts". Volume XI of the Taishang Dongyuan Divine Mantra Sutra also says that Zhao Gongming, Liu Yuanda, Zhang Yuanbo, Li Gongzhong, Shi Wenye, Zhong Shiji, and others each led 250,000 ghost soldiers to spread the plague among the human world. By the Sui and Tang dynasties, the myths and beliefs of the plague god Zhao Gongming gradually became part of the myths and beliefs of the five plague gods. The Five Plague Gods, also known as the Five Plague Messengers, are: Spring Plague Zhang Yuanbo, Summer Plague Liu Yuanda, Autumn Plague Zhao Gongming, Winter Plague Zhong Shigui, and General Manager of Zhong plague Shi Wenye. The "Three Sects of Origin and Flow Search for Gods" says: Emperor Wen of Sui once ordered the construction of a shrine for the messengers of the Five Plagues.
From the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, it was a period of Great Social and Economic Development in China, when the population-gathered market towns and cities continued to increase and expand, and the consequences caused by plague outbreaks became more and more serious. For example, in 832 AD, a rare plague occurred from Jiannan Province (present-day Chengdu, Sichuan) to Zhejiang West Province (zhejiang present-day Zhenjiang), and Tang Wenzong said in his edict on disaster relief: If all the families of the victims died, the government prepared coffins and paid funeral expenses, and more than half of the dead households could be exempted from taxes. In 855 AD, another great plague occurred in the Jianghuai area, and Tang Xuanzong issued an edict saying: Because of drought and plague in Jianghuai, the people died or migrated, ten rooms and nine empty, and they could not collect taxes, so they were pardoned for three years. Because the plague brought heavy disasters to the ancient country, Emperor Wen of Sui built shrines for the messengers of the five plagues, and regularly sacrificed them, so that the plague god sacrifices entered the official worship system, in an attempt to control the spread of the plague by sacrificing the plague gods.
The area with the deepest belief in the Five Plagues is south of the Yangtze River. Probably because the environment is humid and hot, mosquitoes are easy to grow, and large infectious diseases often break out south of the Ancient Yangtze River, and the myth and belief of the five plagues have been warmly welcomed here. Later, Zhao Gongming, the most prestigious of the five plague messengers, gained a special opportunity for development and became the god of wealth, which is still popular today.
Zhao Gongming Descending Mountains Immortal Doubao Qing Dynasty Edition Gongjian Edition Hand-painted Tianjin Yangliuqing Area (Collection of Li Wenmo)
Around the time of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, Zhao Gongming was made a Marshal of Zhao. The Yuanben "New Compilation of Lianxiang Search Shenguang" records the life and deeds of Marshal Zhao, saying that he was a native of Zhongnanshan, who lived in seclusion in the Qin Dynasty and later cultivated the Tao. The book also gives a detailed description of his appearance: Marshal Zhao has a dark face, wears an iron crown on his head, holds an iron whip in his hand, and sits astride a tiger. This majestic appearance has had a profound impact on future generations, and until the present, the whip and the tiger are still the iconic features of the image of Zhao Gongming, the god of wealth. In the "New Compilation of Lianxiang Search for God Guangji", Marshal Zhao for the first time surpassed the identity of the plague god and had a broader functional scope, such as being able to drive lightning and electricity, call the wind and rain, and even bless the smoothness of the lawsuit and make a fortune in business. At this point, Zhao Gongming has changed from a plague god who simply spreads plague to a multi-potent god, and is a good god who can not only rescue the plague, but also escort commercial operations.
After that, Zhao Gongming's positioning with the plague god gradually drifted away, and finally opened the road to the god of wealth in the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty divine and demonic novel "Journey to the North" narrates that Zhao Gongming and other immortals who had descended without authorization lived in the Fengqing Cave in Xuzhou Province to endanger the people, and after being captured by the ancestors, they were transformed into good gods who protected the people. This narrative of the evil god turning to a good god paved the way for Zhao Gongming's transformation from a plague god to a god of wealth. By the time of the "Fengshen Yanyi", Zhao Gongming had become a relatively clear god of wealth. Jiang Ziya sealed the fallen, and Zhao Gongming was named "Golden Dragon Ruyi Zhengyi Dragon Tiger Xuantan True King", leading the four righteous gods to perform the duties of greeting Xiang Nafu and pursuing the dead. The four righteous gods under Zhao Gongming's account were: Zhaobao Tianzun, Nazhen Tianzun, Zhao Cai Messenger, and Lishi Immortal Official. From the name of the god alone, we can also understand that these four auxiliary gods are all full-time gods of wealth, and Zhao Gongming, who is the official of the four gods of wealth, is naturally also the god of wealth. In the Jiangnan region, many people refer to Zhao Gongming and his four subordinates as the "Five Road God of Wealth", also known as the "Road God", and gradually formed the custom of greeting the Road God on the fifth day of the first month of the first month when the shops opened after the Spring Festival.
Marshal Zhao, illustration of the Qing edition of the "Three Sects of Origin and Flow Search for Gods"
Zhao Gongming's change from the god of plague to the god of wealth has profound significance. On the one hand, it reflects the positive dialectical thinking of the ancestors in the face of the plague: the outbreak of the plague is already a very bad thing, but if human beings can find a cure for the disease, the plague can also be subdued. This kind of thinking is reflected in mythology as the plague god who is evil in the world can be transformed into a good god who benefits the world; on the other hand, the emergence or disappearance of myths and beliefs is related to the objective needs of the people, and the disappearance of Zhao Gongming's plague god function in the Ming Dynasty may represent that some people at that time have realized that the experience and knowledge accumulated in the process of fighting the plague are more reliable than praying to the gods and worshiping Buddha.
Author: Bi Xuling (Director of folklore research office of the Institute of Literature, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Deputy Director of the Theoretical Criticism Committee of the Chinese Folk Writers Association)
Editor: Fan Xin
Planner: Fan Xin
Editor-in-Charge: Wang Yan
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.