In late autumn, Nanjing's stone statue road becomes the most beautiful 600 meters in Jinling. Red beech trees, yellow ginkgo biloba, orange black oak, brownish yellow French plane trees, evergreen cypress, red, green, yellow, orange, pink cross-arranged, like oil paintings.
Stone Elephant Road
The Ming Xiaoling Shinto is located in the Ming Xiaoling Scenic Area, and the main sections are "Shixiang Road" and "Weng Zhong Road", which are obviously different from the Shinto shrines of the former imperial tombs. Before the Ming Dynasty, Shinto was short and straight, while the Ming Xiaoling Shinto winded and twisted, surrounding the plum blossom mountain built with the tomb of Sun Quan in the Three Kingdoms period, forming a curved shape, resembling the Seven Stars of the Big Dipper.
In the eastern section of Shinto, the two sides of the road are lined with lions, badgers, camels, elephants, unicorns, and horses, each with 2 pairs, a total of 12 pairs of 24 pieces, each two lying in two positions, and the middle road greets the waiter. Among the 6 kinds of stone beasts of the Ming Dynasty, the elephant is the largest, weighing 80 tons, and this section of Shinto is now commonly known as the Stone Statue Road, with a total length of 615 meters.
The Shinto stone carving in front of the tomb is a particularly special and eye-catching type of ancient Chinese carving. Fixed and mature Shinto stone carvings appeared in front of the mausoleum of Liu Xiu, the Guangwu Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, but should have had a longer stage of brewing and development before, of which the earliest tomb stone carvings that can be seen now should be the stone carvings in front of the tomb of Huo Fuyi.
Tomb Shinto stone carving as a unique cultural phenomenon and tradition, scholars believe that its purpose is "to decorate the tomb ridge as before the death of the ceremonial guard", that is to say, the original intention of the tomb stone carving is to imitate the tomb owner's former honor guard, death as life, and stone carving, less like because of personnel war, obliterated, can be stored for a long time.
As we all know, after Zhu Yuanzhang pacified the world, he built three mausoleums almost at the same time, the Ming Ancestral Mausoleum, the Ming Emperor Mausoleum and the Ming Xiao Mausoleum.
From south to north, the Ming Ancestral Tombs are lined up in parallel with two pairs of Qilin, six pairs of lions, two pairs of Huabiao, two pairs of horses, one pair of Horse Attendants, one pair of Horses, three pairs of Wenchen, two pairs of martial generals, and two pairs of eunuchs, for a total of twenty-one pairs of large stone carvings.
The Ming Emperor's mausoleum has stone statues of civil servants, military generals, internal servants, and civil officials, each of which is high and tall; thirty-six pairs of stone horses, stone lions, stone tigers, stone sheep, and stone qilins (thirty-four pairs exist), all three times larger than the actual thing.
The placement of these 6 kinds of stone beasts on the Ming Tomb Shinto has its own reasons and meanings.
Needless to say, the lion is a stone beast that can only be used in the emperor's mausoleum, and in front of the tombs of other princes, there can be stone horses, stone tigers, and stone sheep, but stone lions cannot be used. The lion is not a native animal, but in Chinese culture, from emperor to folk, but in fact, its survival time in China is only more than two thousand years. Not only did we continue to receive lions as tributes from Central Asia, but the art forms related to lions also deeply influenced the content of stone carvings in the two Han Dynasties and beyond. The art of stone carving in Central Asia is extremely developed, and the art form or art concept of the circular carved stone lion in front of temples, city sites, palaces, and mausoleums has probably entered from the beginning with the introduction of lions into China as animals. In sites that have been excavated in the Iraqi region around 1000 BC, the image of the stone lion can often be seen.
The lion is the king of the hundred beasts, showing the majesty of the emperor, which is both a symbol of imperial power and plays a role in suppressing demons and warding off evil spirits.
In Buddhism, the lion is manjushri bodhisattva mount, a spiritual beast revered by Buddhism as a protector. Manjushri Bodhisattva is one of the four great bodhisattvas of Buddhism and a symbol of great wisdom. The nine-headed lion that appeared in the Journey to the West was known as the Nine Spirits Yuansheng and was also the lord of the Heavenly Palace.
As an emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang placed stone lions in front of his mausoleum to show his supreme dignity and the strength of his symbolic power. The first pair of squat lions in Ming Dynasty Shinto, because they were too close to the Mikawa Bridge, were hit by military vehicles in 1947, but were later repaired and moved to the west.
Since Zhu Yuanzhang entered the Huangjue Temple at the age of sixteen, his immersion in Buddhist culture is naturally deeper than that of ordinary people, so it is also a reasonable choice for this common beast in Buddhism to be placed in the first place of Shinto.
Stone Lion
Badger is a kind of divine beast, unicorn, lion body, green hair, loyal and upright, distinguish between right and wrong, this beast was originally a unicorn beast next to Gao Tao, the official in charge of criminal law at the time of Shun, who understood human words and knew human nature, in the event of a fight between two people, that is, using the horn to touch the wrong side, is the symbol of the judicial "righteous light", "fair and just" and "bright world". There are badgers on the Shinto path of Ming Xiaoling, which praises Zhu Yuanzhang as a saint who is strict and strict.
Badger
The stone beast after the Shinto badger is a camel. Camels were once an important means of transportation on the Silk Roads. The camel is a symbol of desert and tropics, it represents the vast territory of Daming, the emperor Wei town in all directions, showing off the strength of the country, and symbolizing the tranquility of the four regions, the meaning of national prosperity. Camel as a tomb Shinto stone carving, some people believe that it was the first xiaoling, and for the Ming and Qing emperors to inherit.
Looking at the stone carvings in front of the tombs of emperors and subordinates from the Qin and Han dynasties to the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there are indeed no stone camels found.
However, the Northern Wei Li Daoyuan's geographical masterpiece "Notes on the Water Classics" records: "Five or six miles north of the city (Suiyang), there was the tomb of Han Taiwei Bridge, and there was a temple in the east of the tomb, that is, the place where Cao Meng De was personally buried." ...... Tsukasa Number Monument ,...... There are two stone pillars in the south of the temple, two stone sheep in the east of the pillar, two stone tigers in the north of the sheep, two stone camels in the northeast of the temple, and two stone horses in the northwest of the camel, all of which are tall and not very carved. "Qiao Xuan was a famous scholar at the end of the Han Dynasty, an official to a lieutenant, and Li Daoyuan, as a geographer, personally traveled to the vast central plains east of the Qinling Mountains and south of the Great Wall, and the Northern Wei Dynasty was only three hundred years away from the end of the Han Dynasty, and what he saw should be credible.
Of course, from the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties, camels disappeared from the subject matter of Shinto stone carvings in front of the tomb for nearly a thousand years, and to the taizu Zhu Yuanzhang built the capital Nanjing, both because of its cultural background of restoring the Han and Tang dynasties, as well as the direct influence from the Yuan Dynasty.
In the Yuan Dynasty, camels were an important part of the emperor's travel ceremonies. According to the Yuan Shi Youfu Zhi, when the Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty traveled, he was accompanied by horse drums, camel drums, and mule drums. The horse drum is a four-legged wooden frame on horseback, and the leather drum is placed on the wooden frame. The camel drum is a small drum between the two peaks of the Bactrian camel, and the rider is also a drummer.
camel
It is like the mount of a Bodhisattva. Puxian Bodhisattva and Manjushri Bodhisattva, both of whom are the vassals of Vishnu Buddha, are collectively known as the "Three Noble Beings of Huayan". Puxian Bodhisattva mounts the six-toothed white elephant of the Lingya Immortal.
As early as the Han Dynasty, there were elephants in the emperor's honor guard. The elephant can distinguish the virtual reality of the bridge road, "a little vain refuses to cross" and the body is heavy, and the bridge road is walked by the elephant, indicating that it is stable and solid, and the emperor is foolproof. And the elephant is a giant of the beasts, its four legs are thick and powerful, as strong as a rock, indicating the stability of the country. The elephant stone carvings of the Ming Tombs are carved from a single stone, with very smooth lines and magnificent momentum, four meters long and three meters high, weighing more than eighty tons. Looking at the stone carvings of other imperial tombs in China, no sacred beast in the stone carvings of the imperial tombs can compete with the elephants in the Ming Tombs.
The last emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, Emperor Yuanshun, not only rode an elephant, but also raised a pet elephant that could kneel and dance. When Xu Da's army broke through Dadu and Emperor Shun fled north, Xu Da transported the tamed elephant that had been left in Dadu to Nanjing and presented it to Zhu Yuanzhang. However, the elephant did not listen to the instructions of the elephant slave and refused to bow down to Zhu Yuanzhang, the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Even on a hunger strike, Zhu Yuanzhang killed this elephant who did not bow down to him in anger, but also felt that it was a righteous elephant, and had more integrity than the Yuan Dynasty minister Wei Su, so he made two wooden plaques, respectively, writing "Danger is not as good as elephant" and "Su is not as good as an elephant", hanging on Wei Su's shoulders, mocking him "Er Eater Lu people, not as good as rice beans": The temperament of people who eat Yuan Junlu is not as good as the elephant that feeds on bean blades.
Stone elephants
Camels and elephants were precious animals that foreign tributes were given to the Ming Dynasty. The placement of such animals from foreign countries on the Xiaoling Shinto also contains the meaning of the vastness of the Ming Dynasty and the mighty power of the emperor.
Qilin is the ancient legend of the divine beast, this in the Shinto, decent, the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" does not describe the Kirin, only said that the central Yellow Emperor's mount is the flame Kirin, and the Kirin is the messenger of heaven, it reached the Yellow Emperor to convey the Mandate of Heaven, announcing that the Central Yellow Emperor is the lord of the world. Qilin is the legendary "four spirits", that is, the head of the lin, turtle, dragon and phoenix, it is a benevolent beast that is covered in scales, does not walk on grass, and does not eat creatures, the male is called Qi, and the female is called Lin, symbolizing the "King of Benevolence" and auspiciousness and light; the ancients said that the Qilin is "the king of the most benevolent, then out". Therefore, the unicorn is a symbol of auspiciousness.
Unicorn
The last two pairs of Shinto stone beasts are stone horses. Needless to say, in ancient times, horses were an important mount for emperors to conquer the south and fight in the north and unify the country. Emperor Wu of Han twice sent troops to conquer the Western Regions, just for the sake of DawanMa. As early as the qin and Han dynasties, there were horses in the honor guard of the emperor on tour, and the Heavenly Son, as stated in the I Ching, ascended to heaven on six dragons (six horses) after his death. The archaeological community has seen that the stone man and the stone horse must be a large tomb.
Stone horse
The stone beasts of ming xiaoling Shinto are carved from a whole boulder circle, with smooth and rounded lines, grandeur and rough style, which not only indicate the sublimity, holiness and beauty of the imperial tomb, but also play a symbolic role in defending, repelling evil spirits and etiquette.
Two vertical and two bedrooms, is the day and night duty, standing on the day shift, lying ready for the night shift, the end of the stone elephant road is a pair of 6.25 meters high white stone pillars, on which carved cloud dragon pattern, also known as Huabiao. Here, Shinto is changed from east-west to north-south. On both sides of the road, pines and cypresses are covered, and Weng Zhong stands solemnly, hence the name "Weng Zhong Road".
Weng Zhong
Weng Zhong has eight statues, divided into four groups, standing opposite each other, 4 meters high, and a large body. Two pairs of armored warriors armed with golden shields. The other two pairs were courtiers wearing imperial crowns and holding imperial wats. There is a poem by the predecessor: "The stone horse hisses in the wind and stands in the middle of the night, and hesitates to go to work at night." ”
"Weng Zhong" was originally a Hercules of the Time of Qin Shi Huang, named Ruan Weng Zhong. Legend has it that he was three feet tall, equivalent to the current 3 meters tall (somewhat unbelievable) heroic abnormality, so Qin Shi Huang ordered him to lead troops to garrison Lintao and threaten the Xiongnu. After Weng Zhong's death, Qin Shi Huang sculpted his image into a bronze statue and stood outside the Sima Gate of the Xianyang Palace. Later, following the practice of Qin Shi Huang, the bronze or stone man standing in front of the palace temple and mausoleum was called "Weng Zhong".
The two sections of Shixiang Road and Weng Zhong Road are secretly connected to the layout of the Big Dipper, so the front side is curved, while the section of Shixiang Road is straight.