The most famous hero in "Romance of the Gods" is the first to push Nezha. In order to write about him, I deliberately spent three times to write stories about his birth, troubled sea, fighting rocks, and seeking revenge on his father.
Nezha was originally a Buddhist god, the third son of the northern king of Bishamen, and originally served as the protector of the heavenly king. Around the time of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Nezha was introduced to China with the Bishamen faith.
In the Buddhist scriptures of Middle-earth, Nezha first appeared in the translation of "The Praise of the Buddha" by the Northern Liang Tan Wuyu, and his name at that time was "Na Luo Jiupo". In addition, there are names such as "Nalakuvara" and "Nalakubara", which are transliterations of the Sanskrit word "Nalakubara". Tan Wuyu was an Indian monk, about the tenth year of the first year of the Northern Liang Xuan Dynasty (421), the lord of the Northern Liang Kingdom, Fuqu Mengxun, welcomed him to Guzang to translate the scriptures, and died in 433.
The story of Nezha's "returning the father with the bones and returning the flesh to the mother" is not in the Buddhist scriptures, but the Zen monks of the Song Dynasty often used it as a "talk" to participate in Zen.
For example, the "Jingde Chuan Lantern Record" records:
Asked: "Then the prince will return the bones to the father and the flesh to the mother, how is the original body of the prince?"
Asked: "Then the prince will return the flesh to the mother and the bones to the father, and then explain the law for his parents on the lotus flower." How can you be a prince before you are tried?"
This question of "returning the bones to the father, the flesh to the mother, how to be the prince's body" is not a Buddhist scripture story, but similar to a thought experiment. It means asking, what is the true self?
You say the bones are yours, but no, the bones were given by the father, and you say the meat is yours, but no, the flesh is given by the mother. The blood of your father and mother created you, and everything in you was given to you by your parents, so where are you?
In fact, Nezha's incarnation of the lotus flower in "The Romance of the Gods" has faintly touched on this question: how can a person become a human being, rather than the continuation of his parents' blood and blood? Where is his independent personality? When and with what signs was it established?
Nezha's appearance of the lotus incarnation is a question that goes straight to the essence of things, and it can also be transformed into a problem similar to "The Ship of Theseus", with only a slight change to the plot.
If Nezha picks off a piece of meat, Taiyi Zhenren will make up a piece of lotus root for him. In this way, when the flesh and bones are removed, all the flesh and bones are replaced by lotus roots, and the whole body becomes a lotus incarnation (and has no soul), is this Nezha still the original Nezha? If so, then he no longer has any of the original pieces of meat, and if not, then when has he not?
