Passed down by the emperor's order, a Shrine of the Queen Mother of the West was established in Huyan County. The shrine is like a stone chamber, with the statue of the Queen Mother of the West enshrined inside, and the four walls are painted with the genus of the sacred beast Seocho, so as to present Kunlun.com. On the day of the ancestral sacrifice, the county order is the head, the three elders are old, and they all pay homage to the ceremony, and Zhao Qianqiu is one of them.
Sometimes, Zhao Qianqiu would meet some Xiongnu or Westerners. Zhao Qianqiu was surprised to find that there was also a noble position of the Queen Mother of the West in the Ten Thousand Temples of their hearts, which may be the spiritual afterglow of the Great Goddesses such as the Queen Mother of Scythesi and the Queen Mother of Tiaozhixi. During the conversation with them, Zhao Qianqiu learned more details about the realm of the Queen Mother of the West, which eventually became illusory in his dreams.
The rivers and mountains changed color, and the nephew of the reincarnated Queen Mother of the West, Empress Dowager Wang Zhengjun, replaced the Emperor of the Han Dynasty and took the throne. Zhao Qianqiu understood that the statue of the West Queen Mother in the ancestral hall was drawn according to the image of this new chamber mother, but this did not matter, because the West Queen Mother in his mind was such an old lady with kind eyebrows and good intentions. What did the court do to him? He only wished that he could wander for a while in the heavenly dream of the Queen Mother of the West.
Recently, the north wind was tight, and Zhao Qianqiu felt that his body was getting heavier. He realized that there might be little time left in this life. His descendants had already been instructed by him to divinate the auspicious house for him in the land of the ancestors. And what Zhao Qianqiu couldn't let go of in his heart was another matter.
On this day, the concierge reported that the painter from Chang'an was already outside the door. Zhao Qianqiu came out with a staff to greet him. After the guest owner's cold noise, Zhao Qianqiu asked the painter to draw his dream.
The painter listened to Zhao Qianqiu's description in detail, asked for some details from time to time, and finally, the painter said that he could try.
A month later, the painter was finished. When Zhao Qianqiu trembled and groped into his eternal cave with the support of his son, the candlelight illuminated the painting on the west wall. Zhao Qianqiu's cloudy eyes immediately lit up. He was sure that this was what he had seen in his dream, and the warm spring filled his eyes.
Two thousand years later, when the mural reappeared in the form of wind and frost, the long-sealed dream seemed to come alive again.
The dream is painted in a red balustrade frame on the west wall of the burial chamber, which is 2.68 meters long, 1.03 meters high and has an area of 2.76 square meters. At this point, zhao Qianqiu's once wandering West Queen Mother Heaven was in sight.
The Paradise of the Queen Mother of the West, the murals of the tombs of Xinmang to the Eastern Han Dynasty in Haotan Township, Dingbian, Shaanxi
The paradise of the Queen Mother of the West, on the Kunlun Mountains. The five peaks towering in the lower left of the mural are the Kunlun Mountain. According to legend, the Kunlun Mountain can reach the heavens, and the Dengzhi will become an immortal and a spirit, and the Huainan Zi says: "Kunlun Mountain, or Shangbeizhi, is a mountain of cool winds, and it is not dead to climb it." Or the upper multiplier, for the hanging garden, the ascending is the spirit, can make the wind and rain. Or the upper double, the heavens, the ascension to the gods, is the residence of the emperor. "And Kunlun as a famous mountain in the West, the worship of it, in the Warring States to the early years of the Western Han Dynasty has risen, Changsha Mawangdui No. 1 tomb Zhu lacquer painted coffin painted three mountains, the middle peak is high, the left and right slightly lower, that is, the image of Kunlun.
Kunlun Sanshan, Hunan Changsha Mawangdui No. 1 tomb painted coffin
The Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Great Wild West Classic says, "There is a great mountain, known as the Hill of Kunlun." There is God, there is a human face and a tiger body, there is a text and a tail, all are white, and they are punished. ...... Some people, Dai Sheng, tiger teeth, leopard tail, cave, known as the West Queen Mother", is the West Queen Mother lives near kunlun mountain, with the human face tiger body god man. According to the "Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Classic of Western Mountains", the Queen Mother of the West lived in Yushan Mountain, thousands of miles away from the west of Kunlun Mountain. There is another shrine on Kunlun Mountain, "its body is like a tiger with nine tails, and a human face and tiger claws." The god of Kunlun and the Queen Mother of the West have similar impressions, both are related to tigers and leopards, and both Kunlun Mountain and Jade Mountain also produce jade, and the two are easily confused. After the god man and the Jade Mountain were not titled, Kunlun Mountain was dedicated to the West Queen Mother.
There are different trees in The Kunlun Mountains, and the Classic of Mountains and Seas states that "there is wood, its shape is like a tang, huanghua is red, its taste is like plum and no seed, the name is shatang, it can resist water, and it makes people not drown." There is grass, known as grass grass, its shape is like a sunflower, its taste is like an onion, and it has been eaten." Later, it was said that the Queen Mother of the West had an elixir of immortality, perhaps it was the Kunlun Immortal Herb. In the mural, those who produce red-stemmed blackrods in the Kunlun Mountains are in the shape of immortal grass.
There is another pillar of heaven on kunlun mountain, which is called "triangle" in the "Ten Continents of The Sea", "there is a triangle on the top, the square is wide, the shape is like a basin, the bottom is narrow and wide, so it is called the Kunlun Mountain Triangle", the pillar of heaven is the center of heaven and earth, the so-called "root of heaven and earth, the handle of the ten thousand degrees", and the West Queen Mother is on it, which reflects the supreme status of the West Queen Mother.
The West Queen Mother Heavenly Pillar, Shandong Cangshan City Qiancun Yuan Jia YuanNian Tomb Portrait Stone
In the mural, three mushroom-shaped pillars of heaven sway out, and the top of the column is a round platform, which is the "Kunlun Mountain Triangle". The tallest person in the center, the Queen Mother of the West, sits on the throne, and there are green-clothed jade women on both sides as ornaments. The Queen Mother of the West was white-haired, in the shape of an old woman, wearing a deep coat with a zhu edge.
It is worth noting that the Queen Mother of the West has a horizontal pole-shaped jewelry on her head, and a disc-shaped object is inserted at both ends. In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Queen Mother of the West is called "Pengfa Daisheng", and Pengfa refers to fluffy hair, why is Dai Shengyi? The Han Dynasty people thought that "sheng" (勝) was "榺", and the Shuowen Jiezi Mubu interpreted it as "machine holder", that is, the machine teeth at both ends of the loom scroll, so in the Han Dynasty portraits, the scroll-like jewelry with machine teeth was used to represent dai sheng, the queen mother of the West. But this statement is suspicious, because the image of the Western Queen Mother in the Classic of Mountains and Seas is quite primitive, and the tiger's tooth and leopard tail can be organic and used as a headdress? Therefore, it is suspected that Sheng should be a special headdress, but due to the long time and the change of meaning, it is difficult to confirm. The Crown of Inanna and the Wig Set of Scythian Tabitti are special headdresses that may provide some room for imagination.
Dai Sheng's Western Queen Mother, a portrait stone of the late Song and Han dynasties in Mantong Township, Jiaxiang County, Shandong Province
It is unknown whether Wang Zhengjun ever wore such a victory, but in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the victory of the Western Queen Mother became a ceremonial ornament for the empress dowager and the empress dowager, and the Book of Later Han and the Chronicle of Public Opinion read: "The empress dowager and the empress dowager entered the temple to dress,...... The hairpin is made of a dragon, one foot long, and the end is Huasheng. It seems that the empresses of the Later Han Dynasty also had the intention of imitating the Queen Mother of the West.
On both sides of the West Queen Mother, there are two feathers, one standing on the pillar platform, holding a canopy, and one standing in the clouds, with lacquer beans enshrined in the jade girls beside the West Queen Mother, and the lacquer beans may be immortal medicine.
Yuren fengyao, Shaanxi Dingbian Haotan Township Xinmang to Eastern Han Tomb murals
Yuren has wings, soars freely, jumps out of the mortal dust, and is regarded as an immortal people, "Chu Ci Yuanyou" said "still Yu people in Danqiu Xi, leaving the old hometown of the immortal", "Lü's Spring and Autumn • Asking for People" said "Yu people, naked people, the land of immortality", it can be seen that in the pre-Qin dynasty, the concept of yu people's immortality has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The ancient Yu people mostly appear in the Shengxian picture, and there are Yu people in the Western Han Tombs in Luoyang, Henan, with naked bodies, long hair floating behind them, and wings on their shoulders. After the rise of the West Queen Mother's faith, the immortal Feather Man appeared in the West Queen Mother's heaven and was arranged as the attendant of the West Queen Mother to serve the immortal medicine, which was also very appropriate.
Yuren, a mural of the Western Han Tomb in Luoyang, Henan
The feathered man in the mural has a strange appearance, with long ears above the top and long hair behind the back. The long-eared feather people can also be seen in the excavated cultural relics, the Western Han bronze feather people excavated from the Southern Yufeng Village in Xi'an, and the eastern Han bronze feather people excavated in the eastern suburbs of Luoyang, all of which are exaggerated long ears, high nose, and backstroke, which are quite similar to the feather people in the murals. The Chinese poem "Long Song Line" says, "Immortals ride white deer, and their hair is short and their ears are long." Lead me to Taihua, LanZhi won the red building", it seems that the long ear is a typical feature of the feather people.
Bronze Feather Man of the Western Han Dynasty (excavated from Nanyufeng Village, Xi'an)
Eastern Han Dynasty Bronze Feather Man (excavated from the eastern suburbs of Luoyang, Henan)
In the Tomb of Xinmang Mural in Xin village, Gaolong Township, Yanshi, Henan, the jade rabbit and the nine-tailed fox beside the West Queen Mother are born with wings, making these beasts also seem to soar in the sky and the underworld.
The Queen Mother and the Jade Rabbit, a mural of the tomb of Xinmang in Xin Village, Gaolong Township, Yanshi, Henan
And Zhang Qian heard that the Queen Mother of Tiaozhixi, Inanna, is herself a feather person, and in Inanna's many reliefs, she is born with wings, and even sometimes her feet are also used as bird claws. In fact, the combination of human and animal figures is a popular tradition of the shape of the West Asian gods, and the wing is considered to have the power of the sky, often used to show the powerful, such as the human head winged bull or lion often guarding the palace gates of the ancient Assyrian king, Elam and the Persians favored the half-lion and half-vulture god beast, and the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda also had a pair of extended giant wings. Therefore, whether the feather people with strange appearances are inspired by exotic cultures is an interesting question.
Statue of Inanna, collection of the British Museum
Assyrian head wing cattle, the Louvre museum in France
Arjera Mazda, Persepolis
In the four years of Jianping's Chuanxi Queen Mother Fundraising Incident, there were rumors that "from the eyes of the people to come.". From the eye, that is, the vertical eye, is the shape of the eye straight. According to rumors, the Zhongmu people should be related to the Queen Mother of the West, but no relevant image data has been found. Recalling the previous relationship between the Griffins and the One-Eyed, it is not known that the "Conformist" here is a theory that the One-Eyed Man, the neighbor of the Queen Mother of Scythesia, is unknown.
The feathered canopy is light as a feather, and flowers grow at both ends. The canopy is a thing of immortals, and legend has it that the Yellow Emperor built the canopy to ascend the immortals. Wang Mang was kind enough to say that the immortals had imitated a canopy, "nine weights, eight feet high, and one foot high, and the golden feathers were more gorgeous than the canopy in the murals, and carried it with a car, so that the pullers all called "Dengxian", which shows that Wang Mang is drawn from the Dengxian.
Under the canopy there is a three-legged crow, dark black, and the three legs are clearly recognizable. The attendant of the West Queen Mother was originally three green birds, and the Classic of Mountains and Seas and the North Classic of Hai Nei said: "The West Queen Mother wears a scepter on the ladder, and there are three green birds in the south, which feed the West Queen Mother." The image of the three blue birds is "red head and black eye", and each has a name, "a big bird, a young bird, and a blue bird". The three-legged Ugo is the sun god bird, and the "Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Great Wilderness Of the East Classic" says: "There are fumu on the Yutani Valley, one day to the end, one day to the other, all contained in the U." Guo Pu commented: "There are three-legged crows in the day." The Book of later Han also notes Zhang Heng's Lingxian of the Eastern Han Dynasty: "The Sect of YangJing of the Sun accumulates into a bird, like a black and has three toes." Yang and the like, its number is odd. "In the study of modern people, the ancients may have observed that there are sunspots in the sun, so they imagine that there are three-legged crows in the sun.
The three blue birds and the three-legged crow, the form is different, the holding is different, the original wind and horses and cattle are not compatible, but since the Han Dynasty, people have confused the three-legged bird with the three-legged crow, Sima Xiang as in the "Adult Endowment" said "fortunately there is a three-legged crow for the envoy", he added the role of the messenger of the Western Queen Mother to the three-legged crow. The Han chinese error made the Tang people more and more messy, and Zhang Shoujie's "History of Justice" simply believed that "the three-legged Wu, the blue bird also, the Lord for the West Queen Mother to feed, in the north of Kunxu", completely regarded the two as one thing.
The role of the three-legged crow is confused because the three-legged crow broke into the picture of the Queen Mother of the West. Immortals soar up to the sky, and the sun and moon are the eyes of the heavens, so the sun and moon are indispensable in the paintings of the theme of ascension immortals. In the painting unearthed from Tomb No. 1 of Mawangdui, the sun and moon are hanging in the uppermost celestial realm, and there are toads and rabbits in the moon. In the tomb of The Thousand Autumns of the West Han Dynasty in Luoyang Yaogou Village, Henan Province, in addition to the wu in the sun wheel, the hostess who ascended by the three-headed bird also held a three-legged wu in her hand, which shows its status as a sacred bird. Since the heaven of the West Queen Mother is related to the ascension of the immortals, it is reasonable to say that there should also be a double suspension of the sun and the moon, but in this picture, the sun and the moon are not directly represented as the sun wheel and the moon wheel, but are symbolized by the three-legged crow, toad and rabbit, and the joy of the animals makes the whole image more dynamic and lively, which is probably also the creativity of the painter. The Queen Mother of the West has two kinds of birds, the three-blue bird and the three-legged crow, so it is no wonder that people are stupid and confused.
Three-legged Wu in the Sun Wheel, mural of the tomb of The Thousand Autumn Tombs of the West Hanbu in Luoyang Yaogou Village, Henan
The hostess holds a three-legged Wu, a mural of the tomb of Qianqiu in the West Han Dynasty in Luoyang, Henan
When the three-legged wu became the attendant of the Western Queen Mother, the toad and the jade rabbit naturally followed. Toads and rabbits are regarded as the essence of the moon, and Zhang Heng's "Lingxian" says: "The moon, the sect of yin essence, accumulates into a beast, like a rabbit clam." "In the western Han dynasty images, toads and rabbits (sometimes only toads, sometimes both) often appear in the moon wheel. Compared with the three-legged wu, the moon spirit toad and rabbit around the West Queen Mother have one more duty, that is, to mash the medicine of immortality. In this mural, toads and nine-tailed foxes are pounding medicine on the Kunlun Pillar. In the mural of the tomb of Xinmang in Xin village, Gaolong Township, Yanshi, Henan, the rabbit with his hand on the lacquer bean seems to have just completed this work and is offering the immortal medicine to the Queen Mother of the West.
Toad pounding medicine, Shaanxi Dingbian Haotan Township Xinmang to Eastern Han Tomb murals
Toad in the Moon Wheel, mural of the tomb of Qianqiu of the West Han Dynasty in Luoyang Yaogou Village, Henan
The reason why the moon essence is more closely associated with the immortal medicine may be because the moon is yin and clear, as if it is resurrected from the dead. The former quotation from huainanzi is highly seductive: "Concubine, Yi wife, Yi please immortal medicine in the West Queen Mother, did not take it, Jiao'e stole food, got immortals, ran into the middle of the moon, for the moon jingye." And Zhang Heng's "Lingxian" more directly said that the fate of Chang'e (姮娥) is to turn into a toad, "Chang'e stole this month, so entrusted to the moon, is for the toad." Whether it is the beautiful Chang'e in the middle of the moon or the ugly toad, the origin of the immortal medicine and the moon is thus concluded.
Coincidentally, in Indo-Iranian mythology, the moon is also closely related to the elixir of immortality. Rao Zongyi pointed out that in the Persian Avestan Sutra, the nectar of immortality "Haoma has many places that simply represent the moon." Haoma is called Soma in Sanskrit and is exactly the same name as Luna. Perhaps in the distant times, people in different regions have exchanged beautiful fantasies about the moon of the Ming Dynasty and the immortal nectar.
What is the composition of the Immortal Medicine of the Queen Mother of the West? Perhaps Qu Yuan had given the original answer, and it was mentioned in the "Wading River" that "Deng Kunlun Eats Jade Ying, Lives with Heaven and Earth, and Shines with the Sun and Moon", which shows that the jade produced in Kunlun itself can be used to make immortal medicine. As for the Immortal Seocho on the Kunlun Mountains, which has various magical effects, it should also be added to the ingredient list of immortal medicines. In the mural painting of the tomb of Xibu Qianqiu in Luoyang Yaogou Village, Henan, the image of a rabbit with immortal grass in its mouth indicates that the immortal medicine should contain grass and wood ingredients. It is precisely because the composition of the immortal medicine is complex, so it needs to be painstakingly pounded by toads, rabbits, etc., in order to be refined.
Rabbit contains immortal grass, a mural of the tomb of Xibu Qianqiu in Luoyang Yaogou Village, Henan
However, the mural does not show rabbits, and the nine-tailed fox becomes a colleague who mixes medicine with the toad, and it also becomes the main attendant of the Queen Mother of the West. Both the Book of Kizuka and the Classic of Mountains and Seas mention that the Qingqiu state has nine tails, and this nine-tailed fox, "whose sound is like a baby, cannibalize people, and who cannibals do not cheat", does not seem to be a good kind. However, the nine-tailed fox has entered the Shengxian picture during the Western Han Dynasty, such as in the mural of the Tomb of the Western Han Bu Qianqiu in Luoyang Yaogou Village, Henan, where the male and female protagonists are accompanied by a running nine-tailed fox on the way to Shengxian. In the mural painting of the tomb of Xinmang in Xin Village, Gaolong Township, Yanshi, Henan, there are also nine-tailed foxes in the clouds of the Immortal Realm of the Western Queen Mother. The nine-tailed fox is associated with Shengxian, perhaps because of its longevity, and the Baopuzi Yuce Ji says that "both the fox and the tanuki live to be eight hundred years old". In fact, this rare fox is regarded as a kind of auspicious rui, and the White Tiger Pass says: "Dezhi Bird Beast is Phoenix Emperor Xiang, Bird Dance, Qilin Zhen, White Tiger To, Fox Nine Tails, White Pheasant Descending, White Deer See, White Bird Under." Why is the nine-tailed fox xiangrui, and the Han explanation is full of Confucian moralization, "What is the nine-tailed fox?" The fox died on the first hill, not forgetting Benye, and Ming'an did not forget the danger. Who must be the Nine Tails? The nine concubines have their place, and their children and grandchildren will also flourish. Where is the tailer? Ming Hou Dang Sheng also". Apparently, this is a repackaging of the simple worship of the nine-tailed fox for high-sounding reasons.
The addition of the nine-tailed fox just made up for the asymmetry of the sun and moon god beast, and the Eastern Han people began to use the nine-tailed fox as a sacred beast representing the sun to form a combination of "three-legged wu + nine-tailed fox vs toad + jade rabbit", such as the eastern Han tomb portrait stone in Xiji Town, Zaozhuang Shanting District, Shandong Province, the nine-tailed fox and the three-legged wu ran in the sun wheel, and the toad jade rabbit in the moon wheel was on an equal footing.
Three-legged Wu and Nine-tailed Fox, Zaozhuang City, Shandong Province, Shanting District, Xiji Town, Eastern Han Dynasty tomb portrait stone
Rabbit and Toad, portrait stone of the early tomb of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Xiji Town, Shanting District, Zaozhuang City, Shandong Province
The above elements constitute the daily life of the Kunlun Mountain's divine realm, the Queen Mother of the West is high, the jade girl is the attendant, the feather people are toiling, the three-legged crow, the toad and the nine-tailed fox beast are accompanied, and the production of immortal medicine is also operating normally. The picture of paradise is fascinating. The natural question, then, as a believer is, is how will he escape from the world, ascend to the heavens, and enter this eternal paradise?
The first two:
Who is the Queen Mother of the West? From the Classic of Mountains and Seas to King Mu of Zhou, from Scythian to Tiaozhi
How did the Queen Mother of the West become a sister of the Divine Realm? Savior, mass movement with Wang Mang