Hello everyone, I'm a reader. Follow me and take you into a different world of culture and history.
As mentioned in the previous lecture, when Qin Shi Huang finished his trip to Fengshan Mountain, the next step was to gather 70 Confucian students from Ludi and brew an unprecedented big move. Since Qin Xiaogong, the Qin State had never attached so much importance to Confucianism, so what was Qin Shi Huang going to do?
This time, from Fengshan mountain straight to Taishan. At the foot of Mount Tai, Qin Shi Huang asked the Confucians to draw up a set of Zen sealing rituals for himself.
What is Feng Zen, the Zizhi Tongjian does not say, because in The era of Sima Guang, Feng Zen was already a common sense problem, and the emperors who pursued it in successive generations did not follow the footsteps of Qin Shi Huang to taishan to seal Zen. However, in the time of Qin Shi Huang, people actually did not know what the so-called Feng Zen was all about. Don't say that Qin Shi Huang was not clear, even the Confucians who had been summoned were not clear, and even the people of the world were not clear. Today we have a large number of oracle bone inscriptions and ceremonial inscriptions to refer to, not only can not see the content related to "sealing Zen", even the word "Zen" has never been seen.
Sima Qian seemed to know something, so the "Records of History" had a special "Book of Sealing Zen", which detailed the theoretical basis and context of the Fengchan Canon, and the first sentence of the split head was: "Since ancient times, the emperor was appointed, and hé (曷) tasted the sealing zen?" This means that since ancient times, all human rulers who have been approved by the Mandate of Heaven have, without exception, been able to seal Zen. This can be understood in reverse: as long as the ruler of the human world successfully handles the Sealing Zen Ceremony, it means that his ruling power is not stolen or stolen, but has been specially approved by Heaven.
If the heavens approve of a certain ruler, Xiangrui will be sent down, and when the ruler sees Xiangrui, he understands that it is time to go to Taishan to do Zen. Sima Qian said that although things seem to be very simple, in fact, although some of the rulers in the past received the Mandate of Heaven, their own creations were not very qualified, some of them went to the foot of Mount Tai, but their virtues were not yet complete, and some of them were ready for everything, but they were entangled in mundane affairs and had been busy, which led to very few emperors who really made the sealing zen ceremony, and the interruption period of sealing Zen was as long as more than a thousand years and as short as hundreds of years, so the details of the etiquette of sealing Zen had long been blurred.
To understand this passage of the Book of Fengchan with today's knowledge, we can say bluntly: The reason why it is vague is not because it has been lost for a long time, but simply because the so-called Fengchan is just a legend, and no one has ever done it before Qin Shi Huang.
So, where did this legend come from?
It is most likely that the Confucians in the Qilu area made it up, after all, Taishan is a local famous mountain in the land of Qilu, if you do not mention the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, only look at the two generations of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, then it is obvious that the political center of the Shang Dynasty is in the hinterland of the Central Plains, and the birthplace and political center of the Zhou Dynasty are in today's Shaanxi and Henan, how can it not be bound to Taishan in Shandong and the highest level of sacrifice ceremonies.
Qin Shi Huang seemed to believe in this evil, and traveled thousands of miles to Taishan to engage in sealing Zen, it is estimated that he never expected that the ritual process should be done in the end, and these 70 professional emcees from the Confucian base camp actually had their own opinions.
Not to mention that the so-called Feng Zen was originally just a legend, and even if it was true, it was still difficult for Confucians to reach an agreement. Confucian etiquette is known for being cumbersome, and the more cumbersome the knowledge system, the more difficult problems it encounters. When there are many problems, everyone naturally has their own ideas, and then they will divide into different factions, each of which will consider themselves orthodox, saying that others are heretics. This is the general principle of the whole world, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, all of which are such a common development vein.
Speculating on qin shi huang's original intention, I am afraid that he did not take Feng Zen too seriously, so he would later retire from Confucianism and take care of himself to climb the mountain and carve the stone. Geographically, the Qin kingdom itself is far away in the western region, and there has never been a tradition of sealing Zen; From a cultural point of view, the Qin state has its own set of sacrifice systems, which does not concern anything at all. The reason why Qin Shi Huang personally came to Mount Taishan to hold a sacrifice ceremony with the highest standard in Qilu's native legend was probably to declare sovereignty to the local people, and second, to send a signal of goodwill, saying that although he was a foreign Westerner, he highly respected local traditions.
In particular, Qin Shi Huang, as a generation of male lords from the State of Tigers and Wolves, actually gathered 70 Ludi Confucians--if you accept the "Book of History and Feng Zen", these people are "seventy Confucian doctors of Qilu", that is to say, these local Confucians were not only invited, but also named doctors, equivalent to the emperor and the central government's advisers and think tanks, and Qin Shi Huang's goodwill cannot be said to be obvious.
Among the six kingdoms of Shandong, the State of Qi from the queen to the King of Qi, the two generations of rulers carefully maintained friendly relations with the State of Qin, there was no bloody feud between Qi and Qin, even if in the end the Qin army destroyed the State of Qi, it was almost a bloodless blade, so it was not difficult for the People of Qi to change their ways, accept the rule of the Qin Dynasty, and identify with Qin Shi Huang, the emperor who had never been seen before. If those 70 Confucians were not nerds, but had a little political consciousness and negotiated a zen scheme that would satisfy Qin Shi Huang, then history would most likely be rewritten a little.
But in the end, it was precisely because of these Confucians' different opinions that Qin Shi Huang's wish to release goodwill was poured with cold water. Qin Shi Huang later looked down on Confucianism, and it was at this time that the root seedlings were planted.
After deposing 70 Confucian students, Feng Zen was finally able to put it on the agenda.
Although there are only a few words in the "Zizhi Tongjian" that "except for the lane", it is conceivable that it is not easy to build a mountain road that can be opened to traffic and reach the peak of Mount Tai, even today.
After the road was completed, Qin Shi Huang climbed to the top of the mountain from the southern slope of Mount Tai, carved stone monuments, and carried out a number of mysterious rituals, which was considered to have completed the "sealing" in the Sealing Zen Ceremony, and then descended the mountain from the northern slope of Mount Taishan to a relatively small Liang Father (fǔ) Mountain next to it and carried out a sacrifice ceremony, which was regarded as the completion of the "Zen" in the Sealing Zen Ceremony.
Later Confucianism generally believes that "sealing" is in taishan sacrifice heaven, "Zen" is in Liang Father Mountain sacrifice land, this set of arguments is actually not based, but it has been said for a long time, and it has become a convention, and successive emperors have done Zen according to this model.
The "Records of History" records that most of the Qin Shi Huang's sealing ceremonies adopted the rituals used by the local sacrifice officials of the Qin State to sacrifice God in Yongcheng, the religious center of the Qin State, and the letters written to the heavens were secretly sealed, and the content was not handed down, so even the historian did not know. Obviously, Qin Shi Huang hated Confucianism for not being powerful, and wanted to respect the oriental tradition, but finally gave up and used the local etiquette of the Qin state to get things done.
Of course, the enthusiastic Confucians were very disappointed and began to say strange things. It just so happened that when Qin Shi Huang ascended Mount Tai, he suddenly encountered a storm in the middle of the mountainside, and could only pause his travel and hide under a big tree to rest. In Confucian view, this is of course the embodiment of Qin Shi Huang's lack of qualifications for sealing Zen. However, what seems even more strange today is that with the common sense of the Qin people, they would hide under the trees in the moment of the storm, and they were not worried about being struck by lightning at all.
In any case, Qin Shi Huang was only slightly delayed, and when the storm passed, Qin Shi Huang knew the grace map and generously awarded the title of "Five Doctors" to the big tree.
In the records of the "Chronicle of History", in fact, the variety of this tree is never mentioned, but it is not known when it began. This large tree is identified as a pine tree and is called the Five Doctor Pines. Folk are even more confused about the so-called Five Doctors is only a knighthood, and they recognize the Five Doctors Pine as 5 pine trees. The Ming Dynasty man Zha Zhilong wrote a "History of Dai" for Taishan, which contains the article "Virgin Song Bao" by Liu Zongdai of this dynasty, which said that when he first ascended Mount Tai in the summer of Jiajing Yiyou, he personally saw the Five Great Masters Pine sealed by Qin Shi Huang, and not far away there was a large pine tree shaped like an umbrella cover, called Virgin Pine, which was only recently taken to express dissatisfaction with Qin Shi Huang. A few years later, in the spring of the year of Longqing Pengchen, he re-ascended Mount Tai and found that the Five Great Masters Pine was gone, and the Virgin Pine was still unharmed.
The Five Great Masters Pine that Liu Zongdai personally saw may not really be the big tree that Qin Shi Huang named the Fifth Doctor, and taking a step back, even if it is true, at least by Liu Zongdai's time, it has been destroyed, and I don't know whether it was mothed by insects or struck by lightning. The Five Doctor Pines we see on Mount Taishan today will certainly not be the original. However, today, when we go to the Dai Temple at the foot of Mount Taishan, we can still see the fragments left by the carved stone of Mount Taishan at that time by Qin Shi Huang, so that we can imagine the wind and rain that was appropriate or inappropriate on that occasion two thousand years ago.
Qin Shi Huang's parade will continue, and we will talk about it in the next lecture.
Welcome to follow, like, comment, retweet! See you next time!