Wen • Huang Jianhua
Figure • Network
The history of ancient Shu in the literature is very distant, often giving people a sense of confusion. For example, Yang Xiong's "Benji of the King of Shu" says that "the first king of Shu was a silkworm bush, a cypress, a fish, (Pu Ze), and an enlightened person." It is a time when people are cute and have a bun on the left side, do not know the words, and have no liturgical music. From enlightenment to silkworm bush, it has accumulated thirty-four thousand years." Later, the great tang dynasty poet Li Bai said in "Shu Dao Difficulty" that "silkworm bushes and fish, the founding of the country He Dazed, Erlai is forty-eight thousand years old, not with Qin Saitong people." If thirty-four thousand years old is a legend, then forty-eight thousand years old is a kind of literary exaggeration. The Book of the King of Shu also says that "the ancestor of the King of Shu was named Silkworm Cong, and the descendant was named Bai Shu, and the latter was named Yu Jiao, and these three generations were hundreds of years old, and they were all deified and immortal." And his people went with the king." It is still full of strong myths and legends, and the early history of ancient Shu has also been veiled with mystery.
Late Song and Early Yuan Dynasty Zhao Mengfu "Shu Dao Difficulty" (partial)
Chang Xuan's "Huayang Guozhi" also has a relatively brief account of the early history of ancient Shu, but Chang Xuan is, after all, a polymath and rigorous historian, so the selection of historical materials mostly eliminates the excessive exaggeration and absurdity in the legend, and focuses more on objective narrative and the connection between the local history of Bashu and the history of the Central Plains. For example, in the Huayang Guozhi Shu Zhi, it is said that "Shu zhi is a country, born of the human emperor, and is confined to Ba." To the Yellow Emperor, his son Changyi married the daughter of the Shushan clan, and gave birth to a son Gao Yang, who was the emperor (颛顼); He was enfeoffed as a member of shu and became Hou Bo. Li Xia, Shang, Zhou, Wu Wang, Shu and Yan". This is consistent with the records of the "History of the Five Emperors" and "Shangshu Mu Oath". The Huayang Guozhi Shu Zhi also says, "In the zhou dynasty, it is limited to Qin and Ba, and although it is appointed to the throne, it is not allowed to meet with the Spring and Autumn Alliance, and the monarch is not on the same track." Zhou lost discipline and Shu first claimed the title of king. There are Silkworm Bushes of the Marquis of Shu, whose eyes are longitudinal, and who are called kings at the beginning. Death, as a sarcophagus sarcophagus, the people of the country follow it, so it is customary to use the sarcophagus as a vertical eye of the people Tsukasa also. The second king is known as Bai Irrigation. The second king knows the fish". The three generations of silkworm bushes, cypress irrigation, and fish shrubs mentioned here are extremely brief, which shows that there are indeed too few historical materials, and Chang Xuan's understanding is also very limited, so it can only be summarized.
Bronze longitudinal human mask unearthed from Sanxingdui
It is worth noting that Chang Xuan is precisely because of his excessive rigor and does not believe that the history of ancient Shu is so far away, and the three generations of silkworm bushes, cypress irrigation, and fish are pulled down to the Eastern Zhou Spring and Autumn Period, and some scholars believe that it is probably not in line with history. Or is it that the "Benji of the King of Shu" and the later "History of the Road" Volume IV record that the ancient Shu legend "silkworm bush, bai, and fish are hundreds of years old each", which may be closer to reality. Moreover, from the perspective of historical research, silkworm bushes, cypress irrigation, and fish squid should be the names of the three tribes, and they should represent the three eras of ancient Shu, following the Shushan clan, roughly in the Central Plains Xia, Shang, and Zhou periods. Later, the sensational sanxingdui archaeological discovery made a good confirmation of this, and the ancient Shu bronze civilization in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties has reached an extremely brilliant degree, which shows that the legend of ancient Shu is not a figment.
However, how exactly the three generations of silkworm bushes, cypress shrubs and fish bushes correspond to archaeological findings is still a big mystery. The Huayang Guozhi Shuzhi says that "the silkworm bush has its eyes longitudinal", and there are bronze longitudinal human masks unearthed in Sanxingdui, which speculates that the vertical eye may be a symbol of admiration. The sarcophagus stone rafter, which has been found in many places in the southwest region, is a unique burial custom that spans a long time. Regarding Bai Guan (濩), the historical records are the least, and some scholars believe that it may have moved to the Central Plains with Dayu Zhishui. Is it a tribe with fish and birds as the clan emblem? The gold rod unearthed from Sanxingdui and the golden crown excavated from the Jinsha site have fish and bird patterns, which reveals this information. It is believed that with the increase of archaeological discoveries and the deepening of research, we will have more confirmation and revelation of the long-lost history of ancient Shu.
A golden crown belt carved with fish and bird motifs unearthed at the Jinsha site
Source: Huang Jianhua's "New Interpretation of the Story of Huayang Guozhi"
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