In the history of Chinese culture, toads are a magical existence. Since ancient times, it looks ugly but carries the brilliant imagination of the ancients: from the primitive worship of fertility to the belief in immortality, to the combination with mythology to become a symbol of the moon, and then to join the Taoist immortal system, incorporating the five elements and the concept of yin and yang... Because of this, the toad has a number of fantasy skills such as reproduction, immortality, water, soldiering, and gold. To this day, many allusions and customs about toads still affect our social life.
As early as the Neolithic period, toads have entered the vision of our ancestors and become one of the earliest totem worship. At that time, the clan society was in the stage of development from hunter-gatherer to sedentary agriculture, human adaptation to the environment was very limited, natural disasters, tribal conflicts posed a serious threat to the reproduction of the entire ethnic group, so the primitive tribes had to ensure the continuation of the group through high fertility. In the eyes of the ancestors, fertility was a divine power given by God, so the toad, which was able to lay a large number of eggs, became the totem of fertility worship.
Figure 1: Chahai culture snake toad clay pot and details, Liaoning Provincial Museum collection
Around 6000 BC, at the Fuxin Chahai Cultural Site in Liaoning Province, the earliest toad relief cylindrical clay pots were unearthed so far. It is worth noting that on this cylindrical clay pot, there is also a relief of a snake swallowing a toad (Fig. 1- right), which may be the prototype of the later Nuwa shape. Later, the Central Plains region entered the Yangshao cultural period, and pottery sculptures of toads were excavated at the site of the Banpo settlement from 4800-4300 BC (Figure 2 - top left); at the site of Jiangzhai from 4600 BC to 4400 BC, clay pots decorated with fish and toad patterns were excavated (Figure 2 - upper right). Later, as the Yangshao culture spread westward, a large number of toads and tadpoles also appeared in the pottery of the Majiayao settlement sites in Gansu and Qinghai from 3000 BC to 2650 BC (Figure 2- below).
Fig. 2: Frog and tadpole ornamentation and pottery frogs on Neolithic pottery
Later, the Central Plains region entered the Longshan culture period of copper and stone, and in the ruins of the Tao Temple from 2400 BC to 1900 BC, copper toads appeared for the first time (Figure 3 - upper left); at the same time, the coal mountain type in the Longshan culture developed southward, combined with the Shijiahe culture in the Yangtze River Basin, and in the Urn Coffin Tomb of the Sunjiagang Site of the Xiaojia roof ridge culture from 2100 BC to 1700 BC, a jade toad pendant ornament suspected of originating from the Shijiahe culture (Figure 3 - upper right) was unearthed. However, the toad pottery sculpture has not completely disappeared, and the gray pottery toad is still excavated from the ruins of the early palace of the Yanshi Erlitou Shang Dynasty during the Erligang culture period from 1600 BC to 1300 BC (Figure 3 - lower left). In addition, after more than a thousand years, the descendants of the former Majiayao culture have been regarded as "Xirong" by the people of the Central Plains, and one of them migrated northeastward during the Shang Zhou Dynasty, and finally came to the foot of Yanshan Mountain, forming the Shanrong tribe. In the ruins of Shanrong in the Spring and Autumn Period, a frog-faced squatting stone man was found (Figure 3 - bottom right). If we consider that the backwardness of nomadic peoples in productivity, nature still poses a challenge to tribal reproduction, then the frog-faced stone man can be regarded as a continuation of the frog fertility cult in ancient times.
Figure 3: Copper stone combined with the image of the toad of the period with the frog-faced stone man of the nomadic culture
Nuwa is the goddess of creation in ancient Chinese mythology, and nuwa is closely related to frogs in terms of name and shape. In terms of name, the contemporary scholar Yi Zhongtian proposed in the book "Yi Zhongtian Chinese History and Ancestors", "Nuwa is a female frog, a frog goddess in charge of fertility, and a victory goddess who leads us to face death." Her old man is a frog, and our children are babies." In terms of shape, from the very beginning, Nuwa and another creation god Fuxi appeared together in a tail-crossing posture, as mentioned above, its prototype may be derived from the image of the snake swallowing the frog in nature: on the one hand, the snake and the frog, like the frog, also have the habit of hibernation, and in the eyes of the ancients also have immortal power; on the other hand, the fertility of the snake is also very strong, so people combined the two based on the scene of the snake swallowing the frog, creating the bronze ornament of the snake frog shape in the bronze short sword tomb of Lingyuan Sanguan Dianzi in Liaoning Province (Figure 4-left). In the Han Dynasty, according to the "Century of Emperors" in the "Herpes clan (later pronounced falsely as Fu Yi)... Snake-like head... The gift of dowry, the sacrifice is taken to fill the kitchen", "The Nüwa clan ... According to the records of the inheritance of the system of the snake, also the head of the snake, people based on the contributions of these two creator gods in the reproduction of fertility, faith and other ethnic groups, on the basis of the snakebit frog shape, created the Fuxi Nuwatu (Figure 4 - middle, right) that has influenced future generations for thousands of years.
Figure 4: Snakebit frog and Fuxi nuwa cross tail shape
With the development of agricultural civilization, people's focus gradually shifted from the reproduction of ethnic groups to the immortality of individuals, and the habit of toad hibernation was regarded by the ancients as being able to "come back from the dead", so they placed immortality on it. The toad's "resurrection from the dead" and the moon's cyclical changes have similar connotations, and contemporary archaeologist Yan Wenming even deduced in "The Origin of Gansu Faience Pottery" that the frog motif in the Neolithic faience ornament reflects the worship of the moon god. But in fact, it was not until the Han Dynasty that the relationship between the toad and the moon was clearly established through a well-known mythological story, Chang'e Running Moon. The "Ancient and Modern Events" quotes Zhang Heng's "Lingxian" of the Han Dynasty, "Yi please the medicine of immortality in the Western Queen Mother, Chang'e steals it to run to the moon, will go, The Piece of Zheng is to have Yellow, there is Huang Zhanzhi: 'Ji, Fei Fei Gui Sister, The Only Will Go West, Every Heaven obscure, no fear, Hou Dan Dachang.'" 'Chang'e is entrusted to the moon for the toad'. The beautiful Chang'e's unrepentant rush to the moon has brought about earth-shaking changes in this originally barren and cold place, according to the "Tianzhong Ji Vol. 1" quoted in the Han Dynasty's "Poetry Push Disaster Degree", "The third day of the month becomes a reckless, the eighth day becomes a light, the toad body is on the ground, and the nose of the cave (Song Jun's note: cave, decisive also). Broken nose, rabbit also. Shi Ming", to the effect that Chang'e made the moon have a spirit after three days of running to the moon, and eight days later the moon began to glow and became the "moon", and the toad that Chang'e changed also appeared. Since then, the moon has also been known as the Toad Palace, and the Eastern Han Dynasty Guo Xian's "Meditations on Han WuDong" records that the high platform built during the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to watch the moon shadow was named "Overlooking toad Platform".
Figure 5: Toad and moon in the western Han Dynasty Mawangdui Han tomb painting
The reason why Chang'e transformed into a toad after running to the moon was probably very much related to her taking the elixir of the Queen Mother of the West. In the myth of the Queen Mother of the West, toads play an indispensable role in the process of making elixirs. Han Le Fu's "Dong Escapes and Wants to Go up from the Mountain" reveals the reason for this, and its poem Yun "takes the divine medicine Ruomu Duan, and the jade rabbit kneels to pound the medicine shrimp and toad pills." Offer Your Majesty a jade fir, and take this medicine to get the immortals." Originally, the elixir was taken from the end of Ruomu, one of the ancient Chinese sacred trees, and according to the Huainan zi volume 4 fallen shape training, "if the wood is in the west of Jianmu, there are ten days at the end, and its huazhao descends to the ground", the end of the wood is ten suns, and "the yang accumulation essence is the day" (the Taiping Imperial Records Volume 4 is quoted in the "Dragon Fish River Map"); at the same time, Zhu Xi pointed out in the "Zhou YiShan Tongqi Note" that "the toad is the moon essence", which means that the elixir of life is taken from the yang and practiced in the yin, which embodies the simple concept of the ancient yin and yang and the unity of all things.
On the many surviving Han Dynasty portrait stones, there are three scenes of refining Dan medicine: one is the toad and the jade rabbit pounding the medicine together (Figure 6-above); the other is the toad raising its arms high and lifting the medicine mortar, the jade rabbit pounding the medicine (Figure 6-bottom); the third is the jade rabbit pounding the medicine, and the toad uses its feet to rub the pounded medicine into a pill in a plate (Figure 7-left). In addition to taking the elixir of immortality, people can also obtain longevity by eating toads with long horns on their heads, and the Taiping Imperial Records Volume 949 quotes the Book of Xuanzhong, "The toad has horns on its head, and it is eaten and eats, and it is a thousand years old." Of course, people's good wishes for the eternal life of the toad are not unfounded, the real toad itself is a kind of Chinese medicinal material that can detoxify heat, the Ming Dynasty Miao Xiyong wrote "Shennong Materia Medica Shu Its main carbuncles, pubic sores, yin erosion, gangrene, malignant sores, and canine wound sores are all hot and poisonous gases that hurt the muscles."
Figure 6: The image of the toad refining Dan medicine in the portrait stone of the West Queen Mother in the ancestral hall of the Songshan Ancestral Hall in The Eastern Han Dynasty
Figure 7: Image of a toad rubbing a pill and holding a pill bottle
Since Chang'e turned into a toad, the toad has become a symbol of the moon. Chinese medicine to toad refers to the moon's profit and loss cycle, and then according to the changes in the body's qi and blood caused by it, the seasonal taboos in acupuncture are stipulated, according to the "Taiping Imperial Pavilion Volume IV" quoted "Baopuzi" contains, "The Yellow Emperor Medical Classic has a shrimp toad diagram, the first two days of the birth of the moon shrimp toad, people can not acupuncture where it is", the "shrimp toad diagram" here was later also known as the "Yellow Emperor Shrimp Toad Sutra". At the time of the Tang and Song dynasties, the spiritual toads in nature brought the light of the moon, and the Tang Dynasty Duan Chengshi "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks , Volume 1 • Tianmi" said, "Changqingzhong (821-824), some people played the fifteenth night of August, and the moonlight belonged to the forest Ruqi (pǐ, the same 'horse') cloth. His people looked for it, and saw a golden-backed shrimp toad, suspected to be the one in the middle of the moon"; Huang Xiufu of the Song Dynasty also recorded in the "Maoting Keshu Volume V" that a villager from the pseudo-Shu would sell the white toad he caught in the market, and a doctor surnamed Wang spent a sum of money to buy it home, "so he stopped hiding, because he used a large mortar to merge with the ground, to the sun, the stone mortar was transparent like a candle cage", and the light emitted by the toad could actually illuminate the thick stone mortar like a lantern, so "Wang was horrified, so he chose the day, and the bell toad resigned to qingcheng Mountain", under this strange omen, The doctor surnamed Wang packed his bags, bid farewell to his family, and took the toad to Qingcheng Mountain, thus escaping the war in the Northern Song Dynasty.
Not only that, but because "the moon is the essence of the yin, the raw water is in the ground, so it is yin" ("The Yellow Emperor Neijing Taisu Volume V"), so the toad has become the object of "receiving water". Ge Hong recorded in the "Baopuzi Inner Chapter, Immortal Medicine Volume XI" that "the meat mushroom, called the long live toad, has horns on its head, and has the eight characters of danshu under its chin, and takes it from the middle of the day on the fifth day of May, and the yin is dry for a hundred days, and draws the ground with its left foot, that is, it is flowing water." In agricultural societies, rain largely determines the harvest of grain, so the toad carries the mission of praying for rain, and the Western Han Jiao Yanshou "Jiao's Yilin Da Yue Sheng" contains, "Shrimp and toads gather, from the sky please rain." Clouds and thunder gather, and they should be with it at any time. Dong Zhongshu recorded the specific steps of the rain prayer ceremony in the Spring and Autumn Flourishing Dew Volume 16: "Chisel the society, pass through the ditch outside Lu, take five shrimp and toads, misplace the society, the pond is eight feet, one foot deep, put the water shrimp and toad, with sake, armed, praying for three days, dressing in clothes, and kneeling to pray as it was." Later, this custom gradually disappeared, and even during the Ming Dynasty's Wanli Dynasty, according to the "Wanli Ye Zhi Zhi Volume XIX", there was a year of drought in the world, in order to pray for rain to prohibit killing, the emperor's side of the matter Of Hu Xiangshan "Shangzhang please ban the hunting of shrews (Note: frog variants), can inspire the heavens", but the result attracted Tang Xianzu's ridicule, and also gave him the nickname of "toad to give things". Despite this, the sacrifice of frogs for rain has survived in some remote areas and incorporated into the mythology of the local people. To this day, the Zhuang villages along the Hongshui River sacrifice ants (i.e., toads) every year to pray for smooth winds and rains and abundant grains.
Fig. 8: A toad-shaped drop
In addition, the toad's "water-receiving" skills also make it the shape of the study room drops (Figure 8) and the building drainage components (Figure 9). The Song Dynasty's Ziluo Weiluo Vol. VIII written by Sun Yisun records that "the king of Guangchuan (i.e., Liu Go) sent the Jin Ling Gong tomb, which was very magnificent, and the utensils were all decayed, and only a jade toad was as big as a fist belly, empty as five waters, as bright as new, and the king took the tomb of the Jin Ling Gong in the Spring and Autumn Period", Liu Went to excavate the tomb of the Jinling Gong in the Spring and Autumn Period, and then used the excavated jade toad as a stone drop. During the Tang and Song dynasties, toad Yan drops were still very popular, and Liu Yuxi of the Tang Dynasty had a poetry cloud: "Jade slug spits water Xiaguang Jingjing, Cai Han Shu Feng DaiJinxian" ("Tang Xiucai Gave Duanzhou Zishi Yan, Answering it with Poetry"), and Liu Kezhuang of the Southern Song Dynasty also wrote a poem "Toad Yan Drop". In addition, the image of the toad also appears on the parts that receive water in some ancient buildings: according to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Shu Ming Emperor Ji, "Before the water of the Tongyin Valley passes through the Nine Dragon Hall, it is the Jade Well Qilan, the toad is contained, and the divine dragon spits out"; the Northern Wei Li Daoyuan "Water Jing Zhuan Shui Shui" states, "The old Sui Shui enters the cocoon area in the south and becomes a pond swamp, the swamp is ugly, all toads spit water, and the stone god carries the slip (that is, the trough under the eaves to receive rainwater)".
Figure 9: Stone toad of the water discharge component of Tang Shangyang Palace, collected by Luoyang Museum
When the toad bears the characteristics of the moon, the "reproductive divine power" it has possessed since ancient times has also been given to the moon, which in turn has evolved into a great auspicious omen of "dreaming of the moon and giving birth to the heavenly son" ("Northern History, Volume XIII, Liechuan No. 1"): if a baby boy is born, he will become the king of a country in the future; if he gives birth to a baby girl, he can also become the heroine of a generation of dynastic titles. "Dream moon into the heart" was first from the "Former Han Dynasty, Former Han Xiaoyuan Emperor Chronicle" about the Han Yuan Emperor Liu Yi Empress Wang Zhengjun record, "Fang Concubine Zhengjun, Dream Moon into the heart ... In the eighteenth year, When Emperor Xuan entered the court as a family son, as a crown prince, as soon as he saw the palace, he was fortunate to have a concubine, and the son who gave birth to a son was Emperor Cheng", when Emperor Yuan of Han died in 33 BC, he and Wang Zhengjun's son Liu Xiao took the throne, but the government was jointly run by Wang Zhengjun and his brother. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, according to the "Search for God, Volume 10", "Sun Jian's wife Wu Shi, pregnant and dreaming of the moon, has been born of strategy", and later Sun Ce and his brother Sun Quan jointly created the foundation of the Wu kingdom. In the Song Dynasty, according to the History of the Song Dynasty, Vol. 242, "Zhang Xianming Su Empress Liu ... At the beginning, the mother Pang Mengyue entered her arms, and she was already a concubine, and after she was born", Empress Liu was the third empress dowager of Emperor Zhenzong of Song, Zhao Heng, and after the death of Emperor Zhenzong of Song, "Emperor Renzong took the throne, changed to Yuan Tiansheng, and Shizhang Xianming Empress Dowager Su was in charge of the dynasty" (Song Dynasty Ouyang Xiu, "Guitian Lu, Vol. 1"). In the Ming Dynasty, according to the Ming Shi Vol. 114 Liechuan II, "Emperor Xiaozong Xiaokang's Empress Zhang ... Mother Kim, after the dream moon into the arms of the birth. Chenghua was elected crown princess in 1487. In the same year, Emperor Xiaozong ascended the throne and was made empress", although Zhang Shi was not able to claim the title of emperor, she was the only woman in the harem of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming to be officially canonized. In the Qing Dynasty, the Qing Shilu Yongzheng Dynasty Records recorded that the Yongzheng Emperor's birth mother Wu Yashi "tasted the dream moon into the heart, the four photos of the brilliant color, and had been born... On the eve of his birth, Xiangguang Yu (Note: yù yuè, brilliant and shining), long-lasting dispersion, the palace is called different", the Yongzheng Emperor was born on the night of the auspicious light illuminated the Forbidden City, this may be the light brought by the moon after the dream moon into the arms, although there is an exaggerated component, but the auspicious omen of the dream moon is as always.
Historically, because the ancients did not know the principle of lunar eclipse, it was believed that the lunar eclipse was caused by toads for more than a thousand years before the Qing Dynasty (Note: the concept of the eclipse of the moon by tengu first appeared in the Qing Dynasty). The Huainan Zi Vol. XVII Shu Lin Xun says, "The moon shines on the world, eating in Zhan Zhu (that is, the harmonic sound of toads)". In the eyes of the ancients, the toad eating the moon is a terrible omen of disasters and wars in the world, according to qu Tan Siddha's "Tang Kaiyuan Zhanjing" quoted in the "River Chart", "The toad goes to the moon, the world is in chaos"; "The Yellow Emperor Zhan" says: "The moon looks at the toad in the middle of the moon and the toad does not see, the country where the moon stays, the landslide, the great water, the city falls, the people exile, also the owner is lost, and the palace will be uneasy." "Yi Wei" said, "In the middle of the month, the toad goes to the moon, and after three days, there are all rebellions in the world, and the subjects are fighting against the king, and it will not be more than three years." The Taiping Imperial Records Volume 949 quotes from the Spring and Autumn Fortune Doushu, "Political Discipline, then toad Moon Essence, four-headed Ganxiang (Note: Ganxiang is a demon)".
In addition, the ancients also regarded the spirit of the toad as a revelation from heaven: the toad's present life is an auspicious omen of the world, according to the "Yuding Yuanjian Class Letter , Volume 448" quoted in the "Book of Tao", "Long live the toad, carry the sesame grass on its back, and come out of the world's auspicious rui"; but if you just hear its sound and do not see the toad, or the toad disappears soon after it appears, it indicates the coming doom. The Taiping Imperial Records Volume 949 quotes a story from the Eastern Han Chronicle that recorded a story by Yuyang Taishou and Marquis Peng Pet of Jianzhong in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Peng Pet heard the sound of shrimp and toads in the hall, and under the stove, chiseled the ground to ask for it, and got nothing." Pet killed by slaves", Peng Pet rebelled because he was not divided, heard the toad chirping under the fire of the apartment, dug through the ground and could not find it, and was killed by the slave soon after. The "Northern History Volume 89" also records an incident that happened to Yang Yong, the prince of the Sui Dynasty, "When King Fangling was a prince, yan Donggong was ghostly, and the rat demons were seen." Shangling JiYi Donggong Evil Qi... Xie Tu set up an altar as four doors and placed the five emperors to sit. In the cold of the time, there were shrimp and toads coming from the southwest, entering the door, ascending the Red Emperor to sit, and also coming out of the human gate, walking a few steps, suddenly disappearing", Yang Yong often encountered ghosts after entering the Main Eastern Palace, so Emperor Wen of Sui asked Xiao Ji, who was famous at that time, to pray to the gods and calm the disaster, but just when Xiao Ji was sacrificing the land god, there was a vision of toads entering the door, jumping on the spiritual seat of the Red Emperor, and then disappearing after leaving the door, which may indicate that Yang Yong eventually lost the throne and died of defeat.
In the Tang Dynasty, records of toad visions in historical records were not uncommon. During the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, according to the Taiping Guangji Volume 139, quoted in the Xiaoxiang Record, "Emperor Gaozong of Tang tasted the wind of the head and summoned a famous doctor in the four directions, and he could not be cured in the end. The palace people have their own Chen Shiye medical skills, please repair the medicinal bait, Emperor Xuzhi. When I first put the medicine stove on the ground, suddenly a shrimp toad jumped out, the color was like gold, and the word 'Wu' in the Back of the ZhuShu was on its back. The palace people did not dare to hide, and played it. The emperor was quite surprised and ordered it to be placed in the garden pond. The palace people don't wear the ground, get the shrimp and toads as before. The emperor thought it was ominous and ordered him to be killed. On the eve of the night, the palace people were violent. Later Wuhou revolution", Tang Gaozong in order to cure the headache, in the palace digging a medicine stove jumped out of a golden toad with the Zhu character "Wu" written on its back, released and then jumped out when digging a medicine stove elsewhere, although later this toad was removed, but the fate of heaven was difficult to violate, the palace people who killed the toad died of a violent illness, and Wuhou also successfully completed the "Wuzhou Revolution". Later, after Wu Zetian ascended the throne, according to the Old Book of Tang, Volume 37, Zhi 17, "Among the sacred dragons, there are toads in the Wei River, as big as a stone ding, and the people gather to watch, and they are lost for several days." At that age, the water drifted hundreds of houses in the capital, the water of Shangzhou entered the city gate, and the water of Xiangyang reached the branches of the trees", and the departure of the giant toad also announced the demise of the Wuzhou regime. Soon after Li Longji took the throne, according to the New Book of Tang Zhi 26 And 5 Elements 3, "In June of the second year of the first heaven (713), there were large snakes under the bricks of the Beijing Division' court, and there were large shrimps and toads like plates, and the eyes were red as fire, fighting with each other, and the russian snakes entered the trees, and the shrimp and toads entered the grass. Snakes and shrimp toads are all yin; out of the hall, not what they are", this vision of snakes and toads fighting in the court may indicate the coming "congenital coup".
The Apocalypse of the Toad is true for the Imperial Family, and it is also true for the fate of ordinary officials. The Old Book of Tang, Volume 37, Zhi No. 17 records an incident that happened to Li Yu, who was then a waiter in the Ceremonial Department during the Qianyuan Dynasty, "In the month before Li Yu made a photo, there was a big toad like a bed, and he saw that in the room, Russia was lost. The squatter thought that the toad angel also had a blessing and a blessing", Li Yu saw the toad in bed, and the fortune teller thought that this was a blessing, but he did not notice that the toad "lost its place", that is, it disappeared shortly after it appeared, which also foreshadowed that although Li Yu was promoted to the prime minister soon after, he did not sit in the position of prime minister for a long time, and later even experienced "a hundred mouths, poor and poor, and food for him... The miserable fate of the Sixteen Years of Exile" (New Book of Tang, Vol. 150, Liechuan, 75). According to the "Collection of Ancient and Modern Events and Literatures, Volume 31", quoted in the "Northern Dream Trivia", "There is an East Lake in Xinfan County, and Deyu was chiseled by Zairi, and the old father of the night dream said: 'A certain subliminal form is under it, fortunately sheltered in the Ming Dynasty, rich and noble, and in the seventh and ninth years of the Ding Dynasty, when they meet thousands of miles away. 'Later, he got a moth (the same as 'toad', that is, a toad) in the soil, several feet in diameter, and threw it into the water, while Deyu died at ZhuYa with sixty-three, and the fruit should be defended by seven or nine", the glory and wealth of Li Deyu, the famous minister of the late Tang Dynasty, depended on the protection of a toad, and when the toad appeared and was thrown into the water, it also announced Li Deyu's death date. Because toads are closely related to personal destiny, the folk worship of frog gods has never been broken, and in the Qing Dynasty, Pu Songling recorded in "Liaozhai Zhiyi, Volume XII, Frog God" that "between Jiang and Han, the common thing frog god is the most pious." The frogs in the temple do not know the millions, and there are people as big as cages. Or commit the wrath of god, there are strange omens in the house; the frog swims a few beds, or even climbs the edge of the slippery wall, its shape is different, and this family is a murderer. The people are terrified, and the animals are beheaded and prayed, and the gods are happy."
Figure 10: Toad dance image in Eastern Han Murals and Portrait Stones (Left: Haotan Township Tomb in Dingbian, Shaanxi Province; Right: Sichuan Museum Collection)
In Taoist mythology, the toad, as an attendant of the Queen Mother of the West, appears as a dancer (Fig. 10) and a guard (Fig. 11) in addition to his own job of making medicines. During the Wei and Jin dynasties, according to the Taiping Imperial Records Volume 949, quoted in the "Biography of the Immortals", "Ge Xuan refers to the dance of shrimp and toads, all should be chorded, so that the stop is stopped", and the toad danced with the rhythm under the command of Ge Xuan, the ancestor of the Taoist Lingbao Sect. At the same time, the toad's immortal body and the identity of the guardian embody the toad's ancient "soldier-breaking" (that is, dodging weapon damage) skills. The "Wenzi Shangde" of the Spring and Autumn Period states that "the toad raises troops, and the life expects in May"; if we speculate based on the Shang Dynasty frog pattern excavated from Xiafanba in Yangxian County, Shaanxi, this idea can be traced back to at least the late Shang Dynasty (Figure 12-left). In the Han Dynasty, the Baopuzi Neibao, Immortal Medicine Scroll XI gave specific guidance on how to use toads to "dispel soldiers": "Meat mushrooms are called long live toads... Take the middle of the day on the fifth day of May, and dry it for a hundred days... Take his left hand with him, and send five soldiers, and if the enemy shoots himself, the bow and crossbow arrows will return to himself. In the Tang Dynasty Wu Daozi's "Sending Sons to the Heavenly King", the shield of the warrior who guards the heavenly gods is also painted with the image of a toad (Figure 12 - right).
Figure 11: The image of a toad in the portrait stone of the Queen Mother in Hongshan Village, Jiaxiang, Shandong
Figure 12: Image of a toad on an ancient Chinese weapon
In the Tang Dynasty, the toad in Taoism became the enlightened divine beast of mortal cultivation into immortals. In the Tang Dynasty Du Guangting's "Title Beiping Marsh", there are clouds, "Baozhi (that is, Lingzhi) is often known to know who gets, so that he can drive the golden toad into the too virtual", "into the too virtual" that is, to become an immortal. In the Fifth Dynasty, according to the "Immortal Ji Shi Liang Fang Volume II", Liu Hai toad, one of the Five Ancestors of the Northern Five Ancestors of the Quanzhen Sect, "Shi Liao was the prime minister, and when he met Lü Daxian (that is, Lü Dongbin), he was crazy and avoided Qin Chuan... Lü Daxian gave Dan Dao... Dao Cheng, the end of the South Taihua Mountain, born (that is, ascended) to the altar of the (i.e., The Tao), and the most critical step is also "the puppet golden toad into the right fruit". During the Song and Yuan dynasties, the golden toad dance and the blossoming of qionghua became auspicious omens for the ascension of immortals, and zeng yu of the Southern Song Dynasty recorded in the "Compilation of Immortal Biography" that After Wang Xing, the master of Pujiang, resigned his official position, he practiced in Qiuchang Mountain, "There are thousand-year-old golden toads in the caves under the mountain, and those who see it deserve the Tao; if the qionghua leaves on the top of the mountain are white sandalwood, the flowers bloom and someone ascends to heaven." After nine years of cultivation on this mountain, I suddenly saw Qionghua spitting out flowers, golden toads jumping, cloud cars coming to greet, and the sun ascending to heaven in the daytime"; the "Hanging Jinsuo Ergenli" included in the "Quanjin Yuanzi" wrote, "In the second more, people are quiet and everything is untainted." A pair of golden toads, circling up and down. Scare off the three corpses (Note: The Northern Song Dynasty Zhang Boduan's "Enlightenment" contains, "Killing the three corpses can be expected"), running like thunder and lightning. The snow is long, and the Qionghua tablets are descended", which is also described in the words as a scene of cultivating into immortals; the immortals in the Yuan Dynasty painter Yan Hui's "Statue of the Toad Immortals" are also holding Qionghua branches in their left hand and a golden toad on their shoulders with their right hand (Figure 13).
Figure 13: Yuan Dynasty Yan Hui painting "Toad Immortal Statue", colored on silk, collected by Chienji Temple, Kyoto, Japan
At the time of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the auspicious omen of the toad cultivation and ascension to the immortals was gone, but instead it was replaced by a trick that was more favored by the audience. During this period, according to the story of Liu Hai Toad playing with the golden toad, the folk conceived the legend of "Liu Hai playing the golden toad, step by step fishing for money": Liu Hai Toad received a golden toad's elixir, and Liu Hai Toad let it spit out money to help the people of all directions, so every household enshrined this golden toad that made money. The Ming Dynasty's "Golden Bottle Plum Words And Words Wanli Ben · Fifteenth Time" records the Shangyuan Lantern Society, which has "Liu Hai Lantern, Upside Down Golden Toad, And Swallows the Treasure"; in the Qianlong Fifty-fourth Year (1789) Preparation of longevity celebrations "Flower Drum Offering Rui" included in the Qing Dynasty's "Neon ClothIng Continuation", there are also "good Liu Haixian, walking step by step to scatter money, kicking the golden toad, and then offering NaDan to come". In fact, the golden toad tujin is not completely fabricated out of thin air, but contains the principle of five elements of gossip, according to the Qing Dynasty Daoist Liu Yiming's "Journey to the West Hundred Detailed Notes · Ninety-fifth Time" included in the "Twelve Kinds of Daoshu", "Toad, golden toad ... Soil can produce gold... Guanghan is the land of pure yin, that is, the image of 'Kun', and the earth is true in the 'Kun' Palace, and can be biological", that is, from the five elements, the earth can produce gold in Kun Gua, and the moon represented by the toad is the land of pure yin, which belongs to the image of Kun Gua in Bagua, so the golden toad can spit out gold.
Figure 14: The image of a golden toad played with bangs during the Ming and Qing dynasties
Unfortunately, however, while the image of the toad spitting out gold and making money is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, another disgraceful image of the toad has spread from the novelist's pen, that is, the toad wants to eat swan meat - the metaphor is not self-aware, with unrealistic ideas. This usage first came from the 101st time in shi nai'an's "Water Margin" of the Ming Dynasty, when Wang Qing, a platoon soldier in Kaifeng Province, took a fancy to the woman tong guanxu had given to Cai Jing as his granddaughter-in-law, but was detected by Dong Yuhou in the Tong Mansion, and after drinking angrily, he spit and scolded: "Oh! I'm stuck like this! How do leper shrimp toads want to eat swan meat! Later, in the opera "The Book of Spring Wu", Wang Feng described the lyrics of Ya Gui's disdain for miss Song Yu, who was quite dismissive of miss Song Yu, a scholar: "Look at your three points are not like people, seven points are not like ghosts, if you want my lady, it is the leper shrimp toad who thinks about swan meat to eat." In the Qing Dynasty, Cao Xueqin in the eleventh "Dream of the Red Chamber" "Celebrating the Birthday Of NingFu Family Banquet, Seeing Xi Feng Jia Rui's Obscene Heart", Ping'er, after listening to Sister Feng say that Jia Rui teased her, taunted: "The toad wants to eat swan meat!" To this day, this ironic saying still appears frequently in people's daily lives.