Asking Heaven for a Thousand Years of Sigh - The History of Qu Yuan's "Heavenly Question"

Original title: Asking Heaven for a Thousand Years of Sigh (Theme)

——History in Qu Yuan's "Heavenly Questions" (subtitle)

This year is a harvest year for China's aerospace industry. China's planetary exploration project was named the "Tianwen series", and with the smooth landing of "Tianwen-1" on Mars, China has also taken an important step on the road to exploring planets.

Many people know that the name "Tianwen" originated from Qu Yuan's poem "Tianwen". However, few people understand the meaning of the poem's content and the little-known historical allusions behind it. In fact, the story of "Tianwen" is far more than a poem, and Qu Yuan's "Tianwen" has aroused the world's interest in exploring the unknown since its birth. What "Tianwen" represents is the sigh of a thousand years of Chinese's pursuit of the mysteries of the universe, and the unremitting efforts of thousands of years to explore the infinite distance.

More than 100 problems reconstruct history

"Tianwen" was originally a long poem written by qu Yuan, a poet of the Chu state during the Warring States period. The whole poem is nearly 2,000 words, every four words are a sentence, almost every sentence is questioning or sighing about the mysteries of history and nature, and more than a hundred questions are raised, so it is called "heavenly question".

So, what exactly does Heaven Ask say? Why did Qu Yuan ask so many questions? Scholar Lin Geng believes that "Tianwen" presents ancient history, not only the palm of Xia Shang Zhou, but also the writing of ancient Chinese civilization and legends from this point of view. "Tianwen" does provide a lot of vivid historical materials, but it is not only to write history, but also to lament the rise and fall of history and think about the laws of the universe.

At the beginning of the "Heavenly Question", it is written: "At the beginning of the ancient times, who preached it?" The upper and lower are not formed, why should they be examined? "It's a question with the implication of ultimate thinking. Nowadays, people are familiar with the myth of Pangu's pioneering world, but this myth was first formed in the Three Kingdoms period, and Qu Yuan lived in the era, and there was no mythical image of Pangu, so his imagination of the birth of the world was obviously very different from that of later generations. However, in "Heavenly Questions", Qu Yuan also believes that when the heavens and the earth first opened, they were chaotic, but there was no specific god to create the world.

Next is the history of Xia Shang Zhou, and Qu Yuan has raised many questions, some with the meaning of "reinterpreting" history. For example, for the image of the carp before Dayu Zhishui, Qu Yuan said, "Where is the carp camp?" What did Yu do? Based on the comparison of the success or failure of Cang and Dayu in controlling the flood, the necessary questions and reflections were made. In the past, it was always easy for people to take the success of the successful person for granted, but they were dismissive of the failure of the loser, but Qu Yuan's idea was not so simple, he had to ask the reason behind it, which was the spirit of a seeker.

Some of the contents presented by Qu Yuan in "Tianwen" have considerable historical value. When talking about the history of the Xia Dynasty, "Tianwen" mentions the story of the Shaofu Kingdom and the Fall of the Xia Dynasty. Even when talking about how absurd the last monarch of the Xia Dynasty was, he did not forget to ask a question of "Sister Huan He Wanton", it seems that as early as Qu Yuan's time, Mei Xi (another name is called Mei Xi) was regarded as a female color of the country, and like the Shang King's concubine, she was saddled with the name of the ancients. As for the truth of history, I am afraid that it is difficult for future generations to know for sure.

After that, it is a history that is relatively close to Qu Yuan. For example, in the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Zhao's southern expedition, King Mu's westward march, and the Eastern Zhou Dynasty's Battle of Wu-Chu. Some of these histories have left enough suspense for posterity because of the long time and lack of historical materials, and they have also attracted the thinking and questioning of literati and sages such as Qu Yuan.

Up and down The narrative is grand

Qu Yuan exudes a strong spirit of exploring the unknown in "Heavenly Questions". Although everyone has curiosity, there are not many people who are really willing to think about serious propositions, and Qu Yuan is such a person who can think deeply. Although his entry point is not research thinking, he has the spirit of questioning and reflection that a researcher should have.

The spirit of exploration in "Heavenly Question" not only has a strong desire to ask about the mysteries of the universe and history, but also has a strong imagination, or a grand way of thinking, which we do not pay enough attention to. If a literati in a certain era can put themselves in the coordinates of history, not only understand the world from the "visible things" in front of them and around them, but also integrate themselves into the clues of time in ancient and modern times and even in the future, this is by no means an ordinary thing.

A similar thinking existed in the later Sima Qian, who recounted in the "Records of History" a grand structure of Chinese history starting from the Yellow Emperor, from xia shang zhou to qin and han, which was a complete context that was incorporated into the community. Qu Yuan was in the hinterland of Chu culture, although he was far away from the Central Plains at that time, he did not have a cultural marginal concept, but had a fairly clear understanding of the mainstream narrative threads of Chinese history. Later generations often praised Qu Yuan for having a sense of family and country, not only because of his loyalty and love for the Chu state, but also because he had a rare concept of the overall narrative of Chinese history at that time, which made Qu Yuan not become a defender of a certain regional culture, but had a stronger initiative of "historical grand narrative".

This overall sense of historical narrative makes Qu Yuan's view of history not limited to Chudi, but to view the past from a broader historical space. For example, the story of King Zhao's Southern Expedition is quite strange even in ancient times. The "History of Zhou Benji" does not record this history in detail: "King Kang pawn, Zi Zhao King Flawed. At the time of King Zhao, the king's way was slightly lacking. King Zhao did not return from his southern tour and died on the river. His pawns do not go to the court, and they do not hide it. The record of the "Spring and Autumn of the Lü Dynasty" is more detailed, and even names and surnames: "Prince Zhou Zhao will march on Jing, and Xin Yu is long and powerful, and he is the right of the king." "Xin Yujing here, also recorded as Xin Youjing, is a person with great strength, and is also an eyewitness to the incident of the southern conquest of the King of Lu.

According to relevant historical data, the situation at that time was roughly like this: When King Zhou Zhao's southern expedition to Jingchu was on the river, he fell into the water due to the rupture of the rubber boat, and although Xin Yujing could swim, by the time he fished people up in the water, King Zhao had no breath. There is even folklore that the people in the Jingchu area deliberately offered boats glued with glue in order to resist the southern expedition of the Zhou people, and when King Zhao and his party came to the Han River by boat, the glue dissolved in water, and the above "King Zhao's southern expedition did not return" occurred.

In "Heavenly Questions", Qu Yuan asked: "Zhao Hou Chengyou, Nan tu ye di." What is the only profit, the white pheasant? The "white pheasant" here is usually considered to be a white pheasant, and Qu Yuan here is a rhetorical question: What good can King Zhao's southern expedition do, is it to meet the white pheasant?

Obviously, Qu Yuan did not think that the Chu people were responsible for the death of King Zhao, and this kind of questioning of history and the pursuit of the truth is not uncommon in "Heavenly Questions". More importantly, Qu Yuan did not look at history from the perspective of Chu Di, but had a more macroscopic sense of history. The Chu people had long been regarded as outliers by the "orthodoxy" of the Central Plains, and later the monarchs of the Chu state often acted in a transgressive manner, but in the early Zhou Dynasty, they did not directly challenge the authority of the Zhou king. Although Qu Yuan was critical of King Zhao's southern expedition, his view of history fits with the "orthodox" narrative, acknowledging the legitimacy of King Zhao's rule, even though at the time Chu was not fully under the actual control of King Zhou. The concept of viewing the story of King Zhao according to the historical narrative of Zhou rather than Chu is no different from that of historical documents such as the Later Records of History, which is the embodiment of Qu Yuan's more grand view of history.

Related to this is a broader historical horizon, and even those historical and geographical customs that are far away from the traditional Central Plains are within the scope of Qu Yuan's concerns. For example, the story of Mu Wang's westward journey was given a certain mythological and legendary color in ancient times, and Qu Yuan also mentioned it in the "Heavenly Question": "Mu Wang Qiaomei, what is Zhou Liu? Why should you ask for anything in the world? Qu Yuan was very romantic and imaginative, but he also had to question King Mu's purpose of exploring distant places: Why did King Mu of Zhou travel around the world? What wish does he want to fulfill? The Zhou Dynasty has an ancient book "Biography of Mu Tianzi", which records the whereabouts and observations of King Mu of Zhou in more detail, but some of its contents are between history and mythology, and many names and place names are difficult to verify, which also increases the mystery of King Mu's story. At least Qu Yuan had realized the unusualness of this matter in his time, and put King Zhao's southern expedition and King Mu's westward journey together in the "Heavenly Question", which was indeed very intriguing.

Go forward and follow up to ask tiandao

Throughout the history of Chinese civilization, in fact, the people who became interested in "heaven" were by no means Qu Yuan alone, and in ancient times, people's understanding and interpretation of "heaven" actually reflected the world outlook of ancient ancestors.

"Heaven" is first and foremost a natural thing. Before Qu Yuan, there were already countless ancestors looking up at the sky, and the natural landscapes they saw were almost indistinguishable from those of later generations. After all, compared with the changes in the traces of human civilization, the natural changes in heaven and earth are extremely slow, and the changes over thousands of years are almost negligible. Judging from the simple cognition of human beings, "heaven" was originally a pure natural thing, whether it was the sun, moon, stars or wind, rain, thunder and lightning, it was a existence completely detached from human behavior.

However, over time, the ethicalization of natural things has become a major trend. Dr. Zhao Hao regards this process as an "ethical temperament" in "The Spirit of the Ethical Temperament of 'Heaven'", believing that "the temperament of 'Heaven' as the spiritual phenomenon of 'Heaven's' righteousness, it is the unity of the image and essence of 'Heaven'... 'Heaven' ultimately moves towards the ethical spirit in the process of logic and history." It's a process of mindset shifting.

Qu Yuan regards "heaven" as a carrier of various mysterious questions in "Heavenly Questions", and explores the many mysteries in nature and history through "asking heaven". This is a process of ethicalization of natural things, in which each "asking the heavens" also shows a unique cultural temperament. Qu Yuan's temperament is mysterious, lonely and profound, while the temperament of some "asking the heavens" is rebellious.

For example, in the late Shang Dynasty, Wu Yi, the "History of Yin Benji" records the shang king's "shooting heaven": "Emperor Wu Yi has no way, for the puppet, called the god of heaven." With it, it is a good thing. The gods are invincible, but they are humiliated. For the leather sac, fill the blood, shoot it, and shoot it, and shoot the heavens. Wu Yi hunted between the rivers and Wei, thunderstormed, and Wu Yi was shocked to death. In addition, King Song Kang also has the story of "shooting the sky": "The blood is filled with Wei Nang, the county shoots it, and the fate is shot at the sky." However, later generations believe that "shooting the sky" is a rhetorical expression, because the "shooting the sky" person has been punished and unpredictable, especially after the concept of "heavenly induction" has become the mainstream, the disrespectful posture of the "shooting sky" person has been emphasized. In fact, this also reflects the attitude of the ancients to "heaven": if you do not respect "heaven", you will be punished by "heaven", and even pay the price of life for it, even the emperor is no exception.

From this, we can see that in the eyes of the ancients, "heaven" is not just a natural thing, but also a kind of existence that is ethicalized and spiritually temperamental. Qu Yuan's "asking the heavens" posture, although there is a questioning side, is more like obtaining answers to certain questions through "asking the heavens", attributing all the problems to the knowledge framework spread out on the "heavens", which is actually a manifestation of the sense of awe for the "heavens". While exploring the mysteries of the universe and the history of humanity, this concept has always existed without destroying the isomorphic relationship between man and "heaven"—not only in Qu Yuan's "asking the heavens", but also in the respect for natural things in the scientific exploration of later generations. (Simon Wong)