Why are ancient tombstones carried by tortoises?

The stone carving shaped like a tortoise underneath the monument is not a tortoise but named Bi Xi (bixi), also known as Ba Xi. It can be seen carrying the stone tablet on its back in palaces, shrines and mausoleums all over the world.

Legend has it that among the nine sons of the dragon, Bi Xi is the eldest and good at carrying heavy weight. In the ancient times, Bi Xi used to carry three mountains and five mountains and make waves in rivers, lakes and seas. Later, he was subdued by Tai Yu when he was treating the water. He obeyed the command of Tai Yu, pushed the mountains and dug the ditches, dredged the rivers and contributed to the treatment of the water.

After the flood was cured, Da Yu was worried that Gui Tuo Tuo would go around again, so he brought a huge stone tablet with the achievements of Gui Tuo in curing the water and asked him to carry it.

Bi Xi is very similar to the tortoise but there is a difference when you take a closer look at it. Bi Xi has a row of teeth while the tortoise does not. There are also differences in the number and shape of the armor pieces on its back armor and that of the tortoise. Bi Xi, also known as Stone Tortoise, is a symbol of longevity and good fortune.

The sacred tortoise that carried tombstones in ancient times was Ba Xi. In the Chinese legend of the ancient times, Ba Xia used to carry three mountains and five hills on his back to make waves. He was later subdued by Xia Yu, for whom he made a lot of achievements. After the success of water treatment, Xia Yu took its merits and let it carry itself, so most of the stone monuments in China were carried by it.

Extended information:

Archaeological significance:

1. The image of the primitive dragon, in the Ancient times has spread beyond the domain through the migration of communities and inter-ethnic cultural exchanges. The ancient Indian Buddhist scriptures contain many stories of dragon kings and dragon ladies. However, the concept of dragon was actually imported from ancient China. From the depiction of the dragon in the Buddhist scriptures, the dragon is also the eldest of the serpent genus. In the Treatise on Good Sight, Volume 1.7, "The dragon is long-bodied and footless." Clearly the original dragon and serpent proper.

2. Han people tasted the snake and the dragon linked to see, because from the physical point of view, the snake and the dragon is very similar, in the twelve genera, Chinese folk called the snake for "small dragon", also known as snake shed (snake skin) for "dragon skin", Yixing area has a proverbial cloud: "into a dragon, or snake belly born" Hunan ballads have "South snake skin on the dragon" lyrics.

3. "The Records of the Grand Historian" and "Book of Han" in the account of Liu Bang drunkenly chopped a white snake, and later compiled for the Red Emperor Zi killed the White Emperor Zi's story. The "emperor son" was of course a dragon, but his true form was a snake. If there were no folklore passed down through the ages to rely on psychologically, would Liu Bang have been able to fool the people with such nonsense?

4. From the above, we can conclude that in ancient times, the snake and the dragon were one and the same, the snake was the dragon and the dragon was the snake. And because of the "dragon, the length of the worm; Lin, the length of the caterpillar; phoenix, the length of the feather worm; turtle, the length of the worm." So in folklore, the combination of snake and turtle is often replaced by the combination of dragon and turtle.

From this, it can be concluded that Bi Xi has evolved from the original tortoise shape (xuanwu) to the dragon's head in the shape of a tortoise, which is the image of xuanwu that has been widely circulated in Chinese folklore.