First we need to understand what a dragon is.
In the history of the survival and continuation of the Chinese nation, the figure of the dragon has been with him and influenced the culture and development of the Chinese nation with its unique spiritual power, and has been revered as a symbol of the Chinese nation. However, with its inconclusive image and confused life experience, the dragon is always shrouded in a strange and mysterious color.
So, what is a dragon? For thousands of years, there have been many different opinions, but I don’t know which one is right. It is generally believed that it is a product that does not exist and is imagined by people.
In his work "Fuxi Kao", Mr. Wen Yiduo believed that it took the snake as the main body and accepted the four legs of an animal, the hair of a horse, the tail of a mane, the horns of a deer, the claws of a dog, the scales and whiskers of a fish, and mixed into one.
Such an inappropriate monster is difficult to find in nature. However, in the oracle bone inscriptions and pre-Qin documents of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, records about dragons are common. The dragon's own face has been tested in all dynasties. Most of them think it is a snake or a python, and there are also sayings of Yangtze alligator, pig or horse.
Recent biologists in my country have demonstrated that dragons have existed as a living thing. It is believed that in ancient China, there was indeed such a terrifying and therefore awesome giant reptile. This is the giant crocodile called "Gulf Crocodile" in modern biological taxonomy. It is said that a small number of bay crocodiles still live in parts of Southeast Asia.
is this mysterious and terrifying monster, but it is respected by our nation as its ancestor. Today, people still regard themselves as the "successor of the dragon".
The records about dragons in ancient books are mixed with half, and they are drawn to later generations of a social life picture where people and dragons are difficult to separate and people and dragons are mixed. "Youyang Zazu·Nuogao Records" says: "Hebo faces with two dragons." "Huainanzi·Fallen Shape" says: "There is a god in Lei Ze, and the dragon's body is a human head, and the belly is buzzing." "Zhongshan Jing" says: "All the Shouyang Mountains come from the Shoushan to Bing Mountain, and from nine mountains to 267 miles, the spirits are all dragon bodies and human faces."
The "gods", "gods and man" and "heroes" in ancient legends are mostly human-headed snake bodies or human-headed dragon bodies. " Stone Refining the Sky ", "Loess Become a Man" Nuwa , the Emperor of Heaven Fuxi of the East, the Pangu of "Creating the World", and Gonggong, Xiangliu , Erwei, Zhulong , Drum, etc., are all huge dragons and snakes. Huangdi may also be for this morphology.
" Mountains and Seas " describes a world of dragons and snakes. Nuwa and Fuxi are the ancestors of the legendary Chinese nation and the creator of infinite power, so they are admired by later generations.
In ancient times, the so-called "Nuwa and Fuxi brothers and sisters got married and reproduced humans. Therefore, in Han stone carvings and brick paintings, you can often see the mating pictures of Fuxi and Nuwa with human heads and snakes.
In modern times, the genealogy of the "Genealogy of Saints" collected by Confucius descendants also has dragon and phoenix patterns printed on it, which means that we are indeed descendants of the dragon.
In fact, the dragon is the totem of the ancestors of China. At the end of our country's clan society, the totems worshipped by the tribes include phoenixes, fish, turtles, snakes, bears, pipas, xiu, tigers, celestial turtles, etc. After a long period of merger, the tribe formed two totem groups (i.e., the Xia clan and the Yin clan). The dragon and phoenix, as totem flags, ran side by side in the early history, with each showing charm. Then, the two major tribes marked by "dragon" and "phoenix" are united from war and unification from opposition. Images such as "human face and bird body, and two red snakes" are the new patterns after the war and unification. The image of dragon and snake has added wings and wings, becoming a mixture of birds and beasts, and is the new totem of the Union tribe.
The image of dragon has been constantly evolving in the historical process. Its original form is a snake animal crawling on the ground without horns and feet, but it has human heads and becomes a magical thing. As the ancient Chinese clan, dominated by snake totem, continued to win in tribal wars, the snake totem gradually evolved from a snake to a dragon while absorbing other totems. When a unified feudal empire appeared on the land of China, the five-clawed claws that danced their limbs also appeared. It can also circle left and right, fly clouds and fog, and its posture has the expression of looking up at the past and present, looking forward to the future, full of primitive vitality and sacredness.
Later, the dragon became a symbol of imperial power, and its image became even more arrogant and majestic, giving people an indescribable sense of fear and becoming the most sage of the feudal dynasty.
dragon plays an inexhaustible influence in the entire history of Chinese cultural development and has become an important feature of the national culture of the motherland.
Dragon flying and phoenix dancing is the main content of ancient totem culture. In the era of totem, hundreds of beasts danced. The primitive tribes danced wildly in the rhythm of the storm, with snakes as dragons as dragons and birds as phoenixes. The totem dance they danced was the earliest primitive song and dance, but it was mostly witchcraft, and it was not until feudal society that it became a literary and artistic dance.
With the progress and development of society, the content of Chinese culture is becoming increasingly rich and deepening, and the power of dragons and phoenixes covering it has become abstract. In the "White Stop Dance" of the Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, a beautiful girl raised her long sleeves and danced gracefully, "with her gentle and calm, wandering like a dragon." This rotating dance pose implies the posture of a dragon swimming, and the totem image of a human being playing the dragon and phoenix was gradually replaced by the girl's dragon swimming dance pose.
There are records of flying dragons in ancient music. "Lüshi Chunqiu·Ancient Music Chapter" says: "Emperor Zhuanxu... Only when the heaven is united, the wind is correct, and its sound is as bright as the clanging sound. Emperor Zhuanxu likes his sound, so he ordered the flying dragon to make music, and to imitate the sound of the eight winds..." The dragon flows and winds, showing an extraordinary sound.
cursive in the prosperous Tang Dynasty was obviously affected by the flying dragon and flying phoenix. The elastic and vibrant brush lines are rigid, round and vigorous, just like the traces of a dragon and a phoenix flying by. The so-called "blackened Zhang Su" means that the cursive script of Zhang Xu and Huaisu dares to change the ancient style, showing a strange posture and a unique style that has been passed down for thousands of years. Everything is like a flying dragon wielding a phoenix playing with the clouds, relaxing and relaxing. The agile cursive script flies like the harmonious phoenix and phoenix and the return of the dragon in the nine heavens.
Painting is reflected in the most dragon and phoenix patterns in carvings and architecture. The sculptures and paintings of ground buildings in the Han Dynasty were common in the sculptures and paintings of "the dragon soared", "the five dragons competed with wings", "the nine-headed head of the human emperor", "Fuxi scaled body", and "Nuwa snake body", forming a colorful and romantic artistic world of "mythology-history-reality three-mixed colorful and romantic art world." The royal palaces, pavilions, courtyards, jade steles built in the past dynasties, as well as caissons, ceilings, emperor clothes and utensils of some ancient buildings, are numerous and patterned with the image of a dragon.
Famous historical relics related to the image of the dragon include: Panlong on the Huabiao of Tiananmen Square; Nine Dragon Walls in the Forbidden City and the North Sea; Cloud Dragon Stone Columns in the Confucius Temple in Qufu ; Panlong Stone Carvings on Zhaozhou Bridge in the Sui Dynasty, etc.
Two silk paintings of the Warring States Chu tomb (character of the Dragon and Kui Feng) discovered in Changsha are the earliest paintings to express dragons. The silk paintings of the Western Han Dynasty tomb of Mawangdui also prominently express the images of Zhulong and Yinglong.
The bronze ancient mirrors from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period have mostly decorated themed with embroidered clouds, algae, dragons and phoenix patterns.
In the art of beauty, the silk dragon in front of the snow river return boat picture painted by Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty, Zhao Ji, is engraved with silk dragons at the beginning, with a bright color combination, which is a treasure in the shape of a dragon.
The images of these dragons are either vivid in shape or majestic in spirit. Some are floating and circling over the waves, while others are flying and roaming among the sea of clouds, rising and falling, and swimming freely. It is worth noting that the image of the dragon is always majestic. Like Chen Rong's painting dragon, he often acts as a posture of rising into the air due to the changes of the storm. The Panyun Dragon Stone Column, as big as the Dacheng Hall of the Confucius Temple, is lifelike. The dragon, as small as the ink painting and carving of the Cizhou kiln bottle, is also a powerful and powerful image. This flying posture becomes an abstract line with unique aesthetic characteristics in the plastic arts.
In ancient documents such as the Book of Songs, there are descriptions such as "like flying like a flying place" and "making a temple wing". The earliest buildings in my country have already had the artistic effect of stretching like wings and flying four bodies.
The Great Wall, which modern people see as miraculous, winding among the mountains and ridges, is like an extremely huge flying dragon, as if extending towards eternal space.
The large roof buildings in China would have caused a sense of depression and dullness, but they were broken by the curves of the roof and the slightly raised eaves that looked dynamic and light.For example, "The long bridge lies on the waves, like a swimming dragon"; "The corridor is back and the eaves are pecking high", the strong dynamic of ancient buildings undoubtedly comes from the inspiration of the flying dragon's posture.
The influence of dragon on Chinese literary works was the first to have the most influence on folk literature creation in primitive myths. These ancient myths are full of dragon and snake images similar to Fuxi and Nuwa snake bodies and human heads, giving them a strong romantic color. It has always influenced the literary creation of later generations.
From Qu Song , Li Bai to Guo Moruo 's poetry creation; from the Tang Dynasty legend "Liu Yi" and Wu Chengen's " Journey to the West " to Lu Xun's "New Story" and other novels such as "Complete the Sky" and "Li Water" in Lu Xun's "New Story", the figure of the dragon and its performance did not disappear as time passed.
In "Chu Ci", the artistic atmosphere and realm of "humans and gods are mixed, vast and deserted, strange and strange, and numerous beasts" is full of primitive vitality and wildness, which is the direct continuation of the dragon and phoenix culture.
Li Bai's poems, which are open-minded, inherited the style of Li Sao, and evoked the sound of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, bringing the peak of ancient Chinese romantic literature.
The image and posture of the dragon even inspired the artistic thinking of ancient Chinese writers. The conceptual state from stillness to motion described in " Wenxin Diaolong " is to seek inspiration and inspire strange fantasies to achieve the figurative thinking state of "visiting thousands of miles" and "stretching the colors of the wind and clouds".
The various expressions of dragons in literature and art frozen and reflect the national artistic style, aesthetic taste and group mentality formed in a unique cultural environment. The masculine beauty it embodies is innocence and wildness, and lasts for a long time.
The aesthetic value of the dragon's image is the most important thing is the noble beauty with Chinese characteristics, specifically, the beauty of flying. It evolved from a snake crawling on the ground to a flying dragon and a swimming dragon flying in the sky or cruising on the sea. The beauty of flying freely and upwards it shows is worthy of appreciation and appreciation.
In the poems of Qu Yuan "Eight Dragons Wanyan" and "Search up and down", in the terrifying cursive script of Zhang Xu's continuous writing and terrifying, in the rapid and intense dance steps of "Qin King Breaking the Formation Dance", and in the swordsmanship performance of Gongsun's carrying wind and lightning.
Chinese paintings have the meaning of dancing like dragons and phoenixes, turning the shape into flying lines, focusing on the flow of lines. In addition, Chinese painting does not focus on observing the objects drawn from a fixed angle and conducting perspective, but instead flows like a flying dragon, floating up and down, looking thousands of miles away. Grasp the internal rhythm of nature and organize the entire landscape into a vivid artistic picture. Carving does not pay attention to three-dimensionality, but rather to flowing lines. Architectural art has the quality of reflecting the overall deep structure of culture. When observing ancient Chinese architecture, it is easy to find an important feature of it, namely the "beauty of flying". Not only the decoration inside the building, but also the entire building image, strives to express a dynamic. This is the role of the large arc eaves unique to Chinese architecture.
Dragon and snake are initially symbols of yang softness, " Book of Songs·Xiao Ya " says, "The Snake is a woman's auspiciousness." The dragon and snake later became yang Xiang, which was related to the appearance of the phoenix. The combination of dragon and phoenix originates from the merger of the Totem Tribe. The Phoenix tribe was defeated by the Dragon and Snake tribe during the battle, and the Phoenix tribe became the Dragon. Qi was born for Jian Di to swallow swallow eggs. He was called "Xuanwang" in the hymn of Shang people's ancestor worship (Xuannuan is the original form of a phoenix), and should be the ancestor of the phoenix. But in later historical records, the Xuan King was demoted from the leader to the subordinate.
The dragon and phoenix once again combined on a large scale. After the Shang tribe Kxia, the Shang attacked west from the eastern part of the Yellow River Basin and occupied the Central Plains. When the Shang Dynasty destroyed Xia, the banner of the Xia dragon clan should have changed, and the dragon became a phoenix. However, in the royal family's heavy weapon, the dragon did not replace the dragon pattern. Instead, in the process of integrating with the powerful Xia culture, the phoenix became the companion of the dragon. Although dragons and phoenixes are compared in the future, phoenixes can only be in a vassal position. In this way, the dragon is the yang and the phoenix is the yin. The dragon gradually becomes "masculine", and the phoenix is the opposite. Since then, the image of the dragon has become increasingly majestic, full of masculinity, and has become a symbol of strength and authority.
Originally, the image of dragon and phoenix was created by the people, but as feudal ruler was increasingly strengthened, the dragon was brought into the palace, and the supreme ruler regarded himself as the "true dragon emperor". By the Qing Dynasty, the dragon and phoenix were even dominated by the royal family, and from then on, the people had no chance to have dragon and phoenix.
However, dragons and phoenixes are still representatives of the Chinese nation. For thousands of years, people have danced dragon lanterns, flew dragon zithers, rowed dragon boats, and made arts and crafts with dragons and phoenixes as the themes. Among the people, beautiful and moving myths such as "Ride the Dragon and Fast Son-in-law" and "Liu Yi's Letter" are also widely circulated among the people.
The people disdain to "climb the dragon and the phoenix" that have become aristocratic dragon and the phoenix. The secular dragon and the aristocratic dragon represent the exploited class and oppressors, with a clear opposition, which can be said to be a powerful proof that Lenin's discourse on two cultural statements about each nation.
Dragon and Phoenix culture is the embodiment of our Chinese nation, and the dragon has had a long-standing influence in China's political, cultural and social life. Dragon and phoenix play an important role in shaping and cultivating national character. They themselves condense and embody the great spirit of the Chinese nation to strive for progress, be strong and tenacious.
Dragon contains the qualities of wisdom and courage. The heroes of the Chinese nation in ancient times were all given the appearance of a dragon. Such as Pangu, who created the world, Fuxi, who created all things, Nuwa, who refined stones and repaired the sky, Huangdi, who unified the Central Plains, Xia Yu, who controlled floods and water, Zhu Rong, and other fire battle experts. These heroes who are transformed into dragons have a fierce and resolute appearance, and are vigorous and energetic, which is a kind of praise of strength! Later, Laozi was compared to the dragon, Confucius was a phoenix, and Zhuge Liang was a phoenix, and Pang Tong was a phoenix. This is a commendation for their extraordinary talents and courage.
The dynamics and dynamics of the dragon stimulate the vitality and creativity of the Chinese nation. The dragon's posture of soaring and lofty expression seemed to gather people's tall minds and positive spirits.
In the era when the dragon was totem, people respected it in order to obtain the shade and blessing of the ancestors and gods. Later, with the development of productivity, people broke free from the childish totem culture and used the various qualities given to the dragon as the standard for tempering themselves. The folk dragon boat race is people reflecting the spirit of strength and strength. In Chinese vocabulary, most of the things that involve dragons also contain this spirit. Such as "the dragon soars and tigers leap", "the dragons and tigers lively", "like dragons and dragons" and so on.
Dragon embodies man’s ideal of conquering nature. People who have experienced various natural disasters have pursued a magical power to defeat nature since ancient times. So there was a legend that Yinglong helped Yu control the flood. However, this kind of god did not exist. People's prayers for the gods could not prevent disasters from happening, and human abilities were increasingly strengthened in the development and progress of society. In this way, we dare to get rid of the mercy of the gods, put the dragon on the opposite side of mankind, and call on the heroes who descend and capture the dragon. During this period, there were legends such as Du Yu fighting against the evil dragon and controlling the water, marrying the dragon girl as his wife, Li Bing fighting against the dragon god, Erlang locking the evil dragon, etc. This fully demonstrates the belief in overcoming natural disasters and the spirit of daring to fight against nature.
At present, we have realized our dream of leaping through space to explore the universe and the moon. However, this dream has existed in ancient times. The legend of riding a dragon to ascend to the sky from one aspect shows the ancients' broad and vast cosmic consciousness and pioneering and exploration spirit.
"Zhouyi" says in the "Cici": "Essence is objects, and wandering souls are changes." It vividly describes the tool for driving the ascension of a person or soul to heaven as a flying dragon. Nuwa "riding on a thunder cart, patting Yinglong,... climbing to the nine heavens"; there is a record of Huangdi ascending to heaven by riding a dragon in "Records of the Grand Historian: Fengshan Book".
While the dragon is given various strengths and majesty, it is also regarded as a mascot that can bring happiness to people. The so-called "dragon and phoenix show good fortune", there are countless things named after dragons.Dragon-like festivals include "The Dragon Rises Head on the Second Month"; Dragon-like Place Names include Longshan County, Longjing County, Longnan County, Longjiang County, Longli County, Longli County, Jiulong County, Longquan County, Longmen County, etc.; Dragon-playing includes "Dragon-Phoenix Match", "Dragon-Phoenix Marriage", "Dragon-Horse Marriage", "Meeting Dragon-Ending Officials", "Dragon-Boarding Dragon-Powering", "Nine Dragon Cup", "Dragon-Powering Palace", "Dragon-Phoenix Pavilion", etc.; there are more dragons in buildings, such as the roofs, doors and windows, ceilings, beams and pillars, steps, and railings of the Forbidden City in Beijing, and wood-carved dragons, copper dragons, iron dragons, golden dragons, jade dragons, pottery dragons, glass dragons, stone carving dragons, painted dragons, etc.
The reason why dragons have become symbols of the Chinese nation is because they have a relatively complete expression of the character and spirit of our nation. This spirit of wisdom, perseverance, courage, vitality, creativity and courage to conquer nature, and constantly explore and explore has been passed down for thousands of years and has been prosperous and has become a huge driving force for our ancient nation to be reborn.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-