Guan Yu: The History and Imagination of Being Enchanted by Everyman: Reasons for the Formation of Guan Yu's Belief Culture

Guan Yu: The History and Imagination of Being Enchanted by Everyman: Reasons for the Formation of Guan Yu's Belief Culture

Thinking about Clothing Valley?

If you live in Lingnan area, you will find that people who are good at doing business, whether in Hong Kong, Guangzhou or Chaoshan area, especially in Chaoshan area, will set up a goddess of mercy in their respective stores; If you watch films made in Hong Kong, whether it is the underworld or the police, Guan Yu is the person they will worship. Why can Guan Yu eat all the people from all walks of life and be worshipped by them? Or you may say, not only Lingnan, but all the land of China, we all worship Brother Guan. As far away as the overseas Chinese world!

Yes, we generally think that it is Guan Er who has been loyal and brave all his life, and his honesty and reputation are naturally respected in the world. This is a good thing, but in history, is there a systematic statement about Guan Yu's belief to explain the reasons for Guan Yu's worship? The answer is naturally yes, and Hu Xiaowei, a researcher at China Academy of Social Sciences, is an authority in this field. Meaning? Or would you say that this is not the old woman selling melons and boasting? If China people say that China people have emotional elements, then there are experts in this field abroad to study the reasons for Guan Yu's worship, and that is Professor Tian Hai, a Dutch sinologist. Recently, his new work "Guan Yu: History and Imagination of Being Enchanted by Everything" is more objective, explaining and studying why Guan Yu is worshipped by people at all times and in all countries from the perspective of the world.

There are nine chapters in this book. The author explains the reasons why the worship of Guan Yu spread and influenced the present and future from the dimension of time. Among them, the first chapter is the part between god and man. The author explains that this book is not only a study of Guan Yu's belief itself, but also a study of how oral culture can maintain its great influence in a world where words are becoming more and more important. Generally speaking, we know Guan Yu from Romance of the Three Kingdoms and History of the Three Kingdoms, but in fact, before the publication of the two works, the author believes that Guan Yu's belief has been popular in the north since the late 1th century and the early 11th century.

In the part of protecting the devil in the second chapter, it is said that the early popularity of Guan Yu's belief is related to the Buddhist concept of karma. After Guan Yu's death, he appeared as an evil ghost, and was initially enlightened by Buddhism and became the Buddhist Galactic God. How did this statement come from? It turns out that in the 18th year of Zhenyuan in Tang Dezong (AD 82), it was decided that Zhi Yi had a dream, which enabled Guan Gong and his son to learn from the past, convert to Buddhism, and contribute to the creation of yuquan temple. Therefore, Guan Gong's role as the demon protector of Kuan Lan is due to his wisdom. Therefore, it shows the development of yuquan temple, which later became the old Dojo where Guan Yunchang first became a Buddhist guardian. It also answers the reason why Guan Yu's Buddhist status makes Guan Yu's influence less than yuquan temple's influence theory. This also shows that the author has been spreading folk oral culture, which makes Guan Yu's worship culture gradually warm up.

since Buddhism has Guan Yu, the Kuan ti god, it seems that Taoism does not suffer, so in the third chapter, Daoism is involved in solving the state and exorcising evil spirits. For example, the author of this chapter studies the story of Guan Yu's removal of jiao in Taoism from Huizong period in the Northern Song Dynasty, and illustrates the important role played by Guan Yu's theory of the spread process of belief in Guan Yu through the story of Guan Yu's defeat of Xiaolong or imaginary things. Among them, there are pictures in the book, which vividly illustrate the image of Guan Gong in Taoist ceremonies. And in the 12th century, Guan Yu's story of being a heavenly teacher to suppress evil spirits and destroying Chiyou made him become an exorcist who was also enshrined as the second God of Sichuan. Therefore, with the promotion of Taoism and Song Huizong, Guan Yu's influence spread further and further.

In the fourth chapter, it will be the period when Guan Yu conquered China. This background development period was during the Hongwu period in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. The publication of Luo Guanzhong's masterpiece Romance of the Three Kingdoms successfully shaped the image of Guan Yu, a martial artist, from the narrative tradition, and began to conquer the hearts of people in China. In this chapter, the author explains the early evidence of Guan Gong's ancestral temple and the list of "Guan Di Temple built in the early days" in the table to illustrate the fact of conquering China.

When I come to the fifth chapter, I will focus on the story of how Guan Yu became a god in the drama industry to study the belief culture of molecular Guan Yu. Here, we know that Guan Yu's image is very distinct. It is him: "He is nine feet long and his beard is two feet long. If his face is heavy, his lips are covered with fat, and he looks handsome and majestic", plus the story of Guan Yu's war against Chiyou, plus "Three"

In the part of Chapter Six, it tells the story of how he was named the Rain God. It turned out that Guan Yu was reincarnated as a dragon in The Fairy Mirror of Past Dynasties, but this dragon did not listen to the jade emperor and made a rain for the people to fight drought. In addition, "Wu 'an Wang Zan" written by people in the Song Dynasty said that "the appearance of the temple is strict, and the title is king. I am Song, Si Yuyuan. This emphasizes that Guan Yu, who was reincarnated by the dragon, has the responsibility of being in charge of meteorology, and when Emperor Xiaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty added Guan Yu as the king of British aid, he was even more convinced that he was the title of Rain God. The reason why he became a god of wealth is because he is from Shanxi, and Xiezhou in Shanxi is a gathering place for salt merchants, who need to do business everywhere. In order to ensure the safety of life and property, it is most reliable for natural merchants to protect the gods with their hometown Guan Yu, so they have the title of God of Wealth.

In the seventh chapter, God of Sven, on the one hand, I know that Guan Yu's life is good in Zuo Zhuan, and on the other hand, I have gained a lot of portrayals of Guan Yu's characters in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Through this narrative text, Guan Yu, a military man, has become a Confucian messenger who is familiar with the Spring and Autumn Annals. At the same time, because he talked about the deeds of Guan Yu's Lingqian and Luan Shu, and there are also a series of stories to illustrate Guan Yu and Luan Shu in Now Fruit Record. So there was Guan Yu's image of Guan Yu not only holding the dragon crescent moon blade, but also holding the image of Guan Gong full of literati temperament in Spring and Autumn Annals.

It is worth noting that in the story about Guan Yu's Luan book. The author mentioned the Black Death in Guangzhou and Hong Kong in 1894, precisely because there was a charity meeting at that time, which spread Guan Gong's Luan book in the form of leaflets. Because the Luan book had medical advice, the people survived the plague, and naturally Guan Yu became the savior of Lingnan area, so it was natural to worship him.

In the eighth chapter, Wu Wei's ethics, that is to say, Guan Gong is a reflection on defending morality, that is, he directly punishes all those who break the oath of virtue, so that he has the bones to become the jade emperor, and naturally he has the saying of Guan Di. He has turned into a moral force that recognizes the goodness of human beings. As a male end, he corresponds to the female avalokitesvara, cares about human beings and is also deeply rooted in people's hearts. Naturally, it is the formation of Guan Yu belief that we say that we are respectful today.

Finally, in the summary and prospect part of Chapter 9, the story of Guan Yu's construction is told to legalize China's social values and explain the model of worship of gods. Starting from the evolution of Guan Yu's image in the past dynasties, this book, with rich details and rigorous argumentation, combines a large number of historical materials and relics, and even first-hand information obtained from field investigation, makes a detailed investigation of the cultural mechanism behind it, restores Guan Yu's original image, and clarifies the constantly changing new image of Guan Yu. Such research also combs the traditional culture and context of China, which particularly highlights the role of oral information interaction in image construction and communication. Taking Guan Yu as an example, the author radiates all kinds of civil society in past dynasties. This research on Guan Yu's belief provides a writing paradigm for studying the collective memory and religious imagination of imperial China, which is a milestone in this field.

Taking Guan Yu as an example, it also shows that apart from words, the oral culture of human beings maintains its great influence on human beliefs, thoughts and values. I don't know which door gods were posted at the door when your family posted couplets during the Spring Festival. Anyway, the door gods posted by the author every year are Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.