Jiyuan scenery
Shang Fangchao | wen
On the evening of April 12, Yuji, a well-known local social platform in China, pushed an article by Mr. Mao Heng entitled "Is the Source of the Legend of the White Snake in Hangzhou or Hebi". After reading it, I was deeply impressed. On the one hand, the author dares to challenge the classic story of "The Legend of the White Snake in Hangzhou", on the other hand, the author puts forward his own insights.
It's good to have a fight. In fact, as early as a few years ago, many netizens proposed that "the story of the white snake is likely to originate in Jiyuan". I also paid attention to this problem at that time, and combined with the analysis of netizens and my own judgment, I demonstrated this possibility from several aspects.
Today, with the platform of "Yu Ji", this possibility is analyzed from several angles, such as literature and reality, key roles, key locations, key titles, cultural inheritance, and population migration. Since the Legend of the White Snake is only a myth and legend, it is impossible to argue about it as rigorously and thoroughly as a historical treatise, so please understand. If I can provide you with a new idea, I will be at ease.
In fact, the stories of "Xu Xian White Snake" and "Water Flooding Jinshan" have been mentioned in Jiyuan for a long time, but they have never attracted much attention. There are two reasons for this: first, the story of Hangzhou's West Lake has become a household name through the interpretation of the TV series "The Legend of the White Snake", and it seems to have become a fact; second, Jiyuan has not put forward more convincing evidence.
But the household name is more dependent on the literary and artistic propaganda of the media era, and this story does have a lot to consider. In fact, as the myths and legends of the Chinese nation, the story of the White Snake is slowly formed and cannot appear suddenly, as Professor Gao Youpeng pointed out: "Myths and legends are gradually formed in the long period of historical and cultural development" (Gao Youpeng: Myths and Legends and National Memory, Henan University Press, 2015 edition).
So, what evidence does the theory that "the story of the White Snake took place in Jiyuan" remain in the long river of history?
The story of the White Snake is found in the Ming Dynasty writer Feng Menglong's "Cautionary Tales" Volume 28: "White Lady Yongzhen Leifeng Pagoda". Feng Menglong is a famous writer and opera composer, whose representative works are "Yu Shi Ming Yan"), "Warning World Tongyan", "Awakening The Constant Word", his creation is based on ancient legends, which is similar to the "Ghost of Qiannu" like a ghostly love has not yet been imagined. So where did the ancient legends, the basis for his creation of "The Legend of the White Snake", come from? It is very likely that it is Jiyuan - the Jiyuan of the Tang Dynasty.
1. Why did Feng Menglong write The Story of Ji yuan in the south?
As we all know, there have been three large-scale population migrations in Chinese history, the second occurred after the Anshi Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty, and the third occurred in the last years of the Northern Song Dynasty, in short, before Feng Menglong wrote. Most of the northerners migrated to the south, as did the Jiyuan people. Therefore, the story of the White Snake spread to the south with the Jiyuan people moving south.
Feng Menglong is a southerner, but also from the family of scholars, engaged in literary creation is inevitable to look for materials everywhere, after hearing the story of the white snake, take local materials, combined with southern characteristics, to create, so it is not surprising that the story of the white snake legend appeared in Hangzhou.
2. The relationship between excellent literary works in ancient China and reality
Most of the excellent literary works in ancient China reflect the political and social environment related to reality, in other words, innuendo, just like "Water Margin" and "Journey to the West", otherwise it would not be widely circulated and forever classic. Feng Menglong's "Legend of the White Snake" is in his masterpiece "Cautionary Tales", what is the "warning"? The warning is the controversy over the Buddhist path.
In history, an important place in the dispute between Buddhism and Taoism was in Jiyuan. Wangwu Mountain in Jiyuan is one of the nine famous mountains in ancient China, and was listed as the first of the ten major cave heavens of Taoism during the Han and Wei dynasties, known as the "first cave heaven in the world", where the ancestors of The Yellow Emperor of China set up an altar to worship the heavens, and the Taoist culture was developed. The eastern capital of the Tang Dynasty, Luoyang, is known as the divine capital, the Buddhist power is very large, naturally extending to the north, Jiyuan is adjacent to Luoyang, and the dispute between Buddhism and Taoism is inevitable. So that's the background to the origin of the story.
Bodhi and ginkgo biloba in front of the Jiyuan Wangwu Mountain Terrace Palace
There is a famous Taoist balcony palace on Wangwu Mountain, and the wonderful thing is that in front of this Taoist temple, ginkgo biloba and Bodhi coexist. As we all know, Taoists advocate the unity of heaven and man, the pursuit of immortality, eternal with the sun and moon, ginkgo tree longevity and mountain qi, which are respected and respected by Taoists and regarded as auspicious things. The Bodhi Tree, on the other hand, is the place where Shakyamuni meditated and became a Buddha. The classic verse of the Six Patriarchs Huineng, "Bodhi is not a tree, nor is the mirror a platform; there is nothing in the original, what does it mean to stir up dust" also tells us the origin of Bodhi and the Buddha. The simultaneous existence of Bodhi and Ginkgo in front of the Taoist Temple is the result of the competition between the two schools of Buddhism and Taoism in that year, and they were fused.
BeimengHe, Jiyuan City
3. Key characters White Snake and Green Snake
There is a river called The North Python River in the north of Jiyuan City, my hometown is near the North Python River, and there is a river in the south of the city called the South Python River. North Python River is a stone bottom river, every dry period, it will reveal a gray and white river stone of the riverbed, from a distance it looks like a huge white python in the Jiyuan land, until today, the north python river out of the mountain and the middle and lower reaches of the bank are also located on the upper and lower two "white stream villages", are named because of the river. Therefore, the North Python River is also known as the White Python River.
Scenery of the reservoir at the mouth of the Yihe River
In the 1950s and 1960s, the famous Yinqin Ji Python was a major project with the same name as the Hongqi Canal. Nan Boa River is a mud bottom river, so far, its middle bank there is also a village called "Mud River Head", every dry season, the South Python River is exposed to a riverbed of grass, more like a green snake in Jiyuan land, so the South Python River is also known as the Blue Python River. Everyone knows that the python is a giant snake that has grown for many years, and the white python and the green python are the prototypes of the white snake and the green snake.
Jiyuan South Python River
Can't sea without white snakes. In "The Legend of the White Snake", the white lady's nemesis is called Fahai. Fahai was a Tang Dynasty native, commonly known as Pei Wende, historically known as "Pei Toutuo", and was the son of Pei Xiu, the Tang Dynasty prime minister who lived in The village of Pei in Jiyuan in history. There is a Xu surname living near Pei Village, and now Xi Xu, Dong Xu, and Da Xu can all be used as left evidence.
The famous Pei village in Jiyuan is the hometown of The Tang Dynasty Prime Minister Pei Xiu (father of Fahai).
5. Key locations West Lake, Golden Mountain Temple
Jiyuan now also has West Lake Village, in Lilin Town. "West Lake Night Rain" is one of the nine scenic spots in Jiyuan.
According to legend, historically, this area was a large lake, that is, the West Lake, which later dried up, which corresponds to the sayings of "water flooding the golden mountain" and "west lake water drying". Moreover, the Jiyuan folk have the saying that "the Fengxian Temple was built and the West Lake Temple was trapped", which is said to suppress the Northern Python, and the Taoists established the Fengxian Temple (which is still well preserved), and the West Lake later dried up.
Where is the Temple of the Golden Mount? It is said that there was once a temple in Jiyuan called Jinshan Temple, but later there was none, but I still heard the old people mention it. In other words, mengzhou, which is only twenty kilometers away from Jiyuan city, has a fairly famous Jinshan Temple built in the Tang Dynasty.
Mengzhou Jinshan Temple
Mengzhou is located in the south of Jiyuan, the terrain is lower than Jiyuan, from this distance and terrain, it is possible to flood Jinshan. In fact, the Golden Mountain Temple cannot be used as major evidence for the story of the "White Snake", because according to statistics, there are more than 20 Golden Mountain Temples nationwide, all over Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Sichuan and other provinces.
6. About the title of Xu Xian
Xu Xian, certainly not his real name, his name is Xu Hanwen. The Jiyuan people have a habit of calling the level of Chinese medicine Langzhong "Xian'er". What "Zhang Xian'er", "Wang Xian'er", "Yang Xian'er", this habit has been passed down to the present. Therefore, it is natural to call Langzhong "Xu Xian'er" to Langzhong surnamed Xu.
7. Cultural inheritance factors
Another very important factor in cultural inheritance is that in the long-term development of China, the names of temples, villages, etc. are based. A large number of titles such as "Southern Python", "North Python", "Baijian", "Xian'er", "West Lake Village", "Fahai" and so on are most likely related to the original relationship with the White Snake Tradition, and cannot appear out of thin air. Just like the place names of Jiyuan , " Imperial Driving " and " Tun Jun " , it was because the emperor had once driven the imperial chariot and the Tun Army to that place.
8. About a big regret Leifeng Tower
Many people also mentioned that there is no key place in Jiyuan's story, Leifeng Pagoda. In the end, whether Jiyuan still needs literature census and field research. If there ever has been, it is even stronger evidence. Even if not, it is very normal, because the origin of this story may not have been Leifeng Pagoda, and it is likely that Feng Menglong integrated the Southern Leifeng Pagoda into the story when he created it.
So on the basis of the above evidence, we boldly imagine that the story may be like this:
Pei Wende, the son of Pei Xiu, the chancellor of the Tang Dynasty, that is, Fahai, had just entered buddhism and understood some strange things. One rainy day, I met Xu Xian, a well-known doctor in Jiyuan who was hurrying around the West Lake, and after hearing that his umbrella was sent by two kind girls he had just met, he lied to him: "Now that it is raining so much, if there is any girl outside, she must have met a snake demon, and I will exorcise it for you." Therefore, this matter spread more and more widely in the land of Jiyuan, what west lake met, two snake demons, Fahai practice exorcism of demons, and so on, the more it spread more and more evil.
After many generations of oral tradition and long-term accumulation of history, it has become a legend of the gods and ghosts of Jiyuan.
Later, due to frequent wars and so on, there were two large-scale migrations of the population in history, and the People of Jiyuan went to the south, and the story was also brought to the south.
Map of ancient population migration
In the Ming Dynasty, Feng Menglong, who was struggling to find materials for literary and artistic creation, overheard this story, and was overjoyed, because he was not familiar with the Jiyuan in the north, he integrated the scenery of the south into the story of the white snake, forming the popular white snake legend. After being filmed into a TV series and vigorously publicized in Hangzhou, it finally became a cultural business card of Hangzhou.
After more than a thousand years, the West Lake of Jiyuan has dried up, and the pure Jiyuan people are gone, so the story of the grafted Jiyuan White Snake is unknown.
Then again, since there is so much evidence in the story of the "White Snake" that can be explained to be in Jiyuan, there should be some people who continue to go deeper, go through Jiyuan's literature, local chronicles, celebrity biographies, travelogues of the times, etc., plus field visits, to examine it well. If there is really more powerful evidence, it will be the blessing of Jiyuan and the luck of Henan. And this article, just the wisdom of the vast number of netizens combined together, plus my own analysis, aimed at arguing. If I can play a little role in throwing bricks and stones, I will be satisfied.
About the Author:
Shang Fangchao, male, born in 1989, a native of Jiyuan, Henan, is a doctoral candidate at Henan University.
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