Source: Humility Wheat
Mandala is an annual herbaceous herb, or subshrub-like, native of the salt mountains, called goldenrod and wild castor beans.
As a child, Xiangge, who was about the same age as his father in the West Courtyard, worked as a factory director in the commune township factory, which produced pesticides, and the raw materials were mandalas and tobacco after breaking away tobacco leaves. The whole fresh mandala is crushed, soaked with juice, and the dregs of the basket are lifted out and thrown in the clearing, and after drying, they can be cooked on fire, and the air is filled with a bad smell.
In order to ensure the normal production of the township factory, the production team planted a large area of mandalas. The mandala at the seedling stage is fluffy, some small fresh and cute, the grown mandala is a semi-shrub-like herb, the plant height is more than one meter, the cylindrical stem is very thick, and the bottom is lignified; Leaves broadly ovate, apex pointed, base wedge-shaped, circumferentially wavy lobed; The flowers are born alone between branches or leaf axils, candle-like erect or dangling, tubular sepals with five edges, concave between the two edges, the corolla is yellow-green when it first emerges, gradually blooming, white (in fact, the mandala flowers are multi-colored, mainly white and purple, the hometown salt mountain, purple flowers are rarely seen in the field mandala), mandala flowers are funnel-shaped long and deep trumpet-like flowers, the top to about half of the flower tube is white, the bottom is light green, the five-sided flower tube gradually to the top of the corolla into five folds, the tip of the corolla forms an upward outward rotating windmill-like five curved sharp corners, Like a flame, and like the Bauhinia emblem of the Hong Kong SAR, as soon as the summer sun comes out, it is hot, the mandala also closed the flower crown, gradually withered, some fell to the ground, some still nostalgic attachment to the branches, often taking advantage of the flowers have not yet rotted, when we were children, we took off the yin dry, as medicinal materials handed over to the material recycling station of the supply and marketing cooperative, in exchange for a few gross tickets, we have pocket money; After plucking the dead flowers, cool green fruits are revealed between the branches, plate-like thorn tips, and as they mature, the thorns gradually harden and darken, and finally crack into four petals, revealing black flat round seeds.
At this time, we are carrying withered thorn fruit, like a unique secret weapon, from time to time while the little friend is not paying attention, quietly stabbing his body, is a playful sound. Now that I think about it, the summer evening in the field of foreign gold, the sunset, the heat gradually receding, the mandala flowers are blooming, especially on the moonlit night, one after another, piece after piece, up or down or left or right or front or back, swaying in the night sky, but also swaying in the depths of my memory, the white mandala flowers are so dreamlike.
Modern medical research, mandala flowers and seeds contain high concentrations of hyoscylane alkaloids, which are the same as atropine drugs we are more familiar with, can act on the human central nervous system, making people hallucinogenic and fascinating, and serious cases cause death. Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" has a description, saying that he used it to boil wine and drink, drank it until he danced until he was drunk, and drank it when he drank it after singing, and he tried it himself. As a result, the mandala was shrouded in mystery, and in some countries in the United States and Europe and ethnic minority areas on the mainland, the hallucinogenicity of the mandala was used for religious activities and divination and witchcraft. Modern medicine is used for sedation and anesthesia for pain relief, as well as the aforementioned manufacture of pesticides.
The mandala in history is also very dreamy and confusing. Mandala is native to the Americas and was only introduced to China in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, initially cultivated artificially in gardens and later reduced to wild. The mandala in ancient books is derived from the Sanskrit word in Buddhism, which means the origin of the universe, and Li Shizhen, according to the discussion in the Lotus Sutra, has this record in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "When the Buddha speaks, the heavenly rain mandala flowers. And the Taoist Big Dipper has a messenger of the Dhara star, holding this flower. That is to say, when the Buddha preached, various flowers descended from the sky, which is indeed the palm of Buddhism, and the mandala at that time was not this mandala.
Because the mandala in the current meaning was introduced in the Ming Dynasty, who is the mandala recorded before, and has the same medicinal properties, such as Hua Tuo, who scraped the bones of Old Master Guan to cure poison, and in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in order to express Guan Gong's heroic arrogance, the painkiller "hemp boiling" that is not allowed to be used is a mandala preparation.