China's traditional fairy tale image

Kuafu in the daytime is a fairy tale of the ancient Han nationality in China, which comes from Shan Hai Jing Overseas North Jing.

According to legend, in the era of the Yellow Emperor, a leader of the Kuafu family wanted to pick the sun and put it in people's hearts, so they began to live day by day. When you are thirsty, you will drink all the Yellow River and Weishui, and prepare to drink the water from the great lakes (or seas) in the north. He died of thirst on the road in a daze. His walking stick became Deng Lin and a peach blossom garden; His body became Mount Kuafu.

Story character

Kua Fu

Legend has it that Kuafu is the leader of a Kuafu family on Mount Emei. He is a big man with infinite strength. In order to find out the influence of the sun on crops all year round, so that people can make rational use of the sun and be familiar with the laws of nature, Kuafu took a peach stick to measure the sun shadow from east to west to determine the four seasons, and then marked the water level of the highest flood from the rising traces of the Yellow River and Weihe River, which can provide reference for crop planting. As for why you are holding a peach stick, it may be that the ancients were superstitious, in order to avoid evil spirits. Speaking, Kuafu should be the originator of agricultural scientists in China. He arrived in the west of Lingbao City from east to west, and later died here.

works appreciation

theme

The theme of Kuafu Day by Day is that ancient ancestors tried to transcend the shackles of limited life and longed for eternal life.

Kuafu is a huge god, which is rare in the ancient culture of China. This seems to show that our ancestors have realized the difficulty and importance of catching up with and surpassing time, and thus endowed Kuafu with great strength. As for the specific reasons of Kuafu's daily life, it is recorded in Shan Hai Jing Overseas North Jing that "faith was born after the earth, and faith was born in Kuafu", which can reveal the essential reasons of Kuafu's daily life. In the ancient culture of China, Hou Di was a ghost town and a place for the dead. This leads to a reasonable inference that "Kuafu is located in the nether world in the ancient concept of China, and Kuafu is a giant in the nether world".

Kuafu is more likely to feel the oppression of life by time than ordinary people, and his fear of death and desire for eternal life are naturally much stronger than ordinary people.

And "the only way to transcend death is to walk with the sun, leave the limited dead sea and join the infinite universe."

Therefore, the oppression from time, the fear from death and the eternal desire for life are the root causes of Kuafu's increasingly "overreaching". In fact, the so-called "beyond Kuafu's power" not only shows that human natural life can't break the shackles of limited time in the end, but also reflects the spirit of "knowing what it can't do" in China culture embodied in Kuafu. Therefore, although Kuafu finally failed, he is still a hero in the eyes of future generations, and he is still admired and loved by people after thousands of years.

On the surface, Kuafu's daily failure is due to lack of water and thirst, but the real reason is not so. You should know that time has a painful side to life, but it is also an indispensable and inseparable factor in life. As Engels said, "the basic forms of all existence are space and time, and the existence outside time and the existence outside space are also ridiculous things." Heidegger defined man as "existence" and thought that "the meaning of existence is timeliness". Time is the state of human existence. Once time is abandoned, the existence of human life will also be abandoned.

Kuafu's failure shows that it is impossible for human beings to compete with time directly. Because the fear of death and the eternal temptation are too strong, people hope to fight against time and death indirectly from other channels. Thus, the "longevity tree" appeared.

Kuafu has more and more crutches. Regarding "Deng Lin", Bi Yuanyun notes: "Deng Lin is also a peach forest, and Deng is similar to Tao." "Shan Hai Jing Zhongshan Jing" also records the cloud: "The mountain of Kuafu has a peach forest in the north." "Shan Hai Jing Overseas North Jing" said that Bo (boasted) his father's country, "Climbing the forest in the east, there are two trees."

In China culture, "peach" has a special meaning. Tao Yuanming's "Peach Blossom Garden" makes "Taoyuan" a symbol of paradise on earth without life troubles, and the fruit-"peach" symbolizes the extension of life length-longevity. Kuafu couldn't extend the absolute length of life because he couldn't go beyond time, but his wish eventually turned into a peach grove, which helped human beings to increase the density of life by enjoying (eating peaches), thus extending the length of life relatively. In this sense, Kuafu realized his wish.

The cane Deng Lin is the persistent existence of Kuafu's belief, and Deng Lin is also an evergreen tree of human life. This is the eternal image that Kuafu, a tragic hero, conveyed to mankind through his actions of wasting his life. Kuafu crushed Deng Lin to death and raised him with "resin paste", which gained endless life and provided material for future generations to increase the density of life.

Kuafu made human beings obtain relative harmony and eternity in the relationship of life-time-life.

There are many myths and legends about "Fairy Mountain", "immortal tree", "immortal grass" and "immortal spring" in China ancient books. This itself has shown the limited life of ancient ancestors, their fear of death and their eternal desire and belief in life.

For Kuafu's "Day by Day", Tao Yuanming has a poem: "Kuafu's birthday ambition is to race against the day; Everything goes to Yu Garden, if there is no victory or defeat. The divine power is wonderful, not enough to pour the river. I sent the trace to Deng Lin, and the work is behind. " Tao Yuanming does not think that Kuafu is "overreaching" day by day, but regards it as a great ambition to fight against time. He thinks that Kuafu is failing day by day, but because "flogging Deng Lin" provides material information for future generations, it can relatively prolong the life length and achieve the purpose of fighting against limited life, so it is "success behind".

Ancestors' worship and fear of the sun and time constitute their psychological factors, thus affecting their views on life and life and death. Throughout this series of myths about the sun, we can see that the limited human life has a strong desire for eternity.

Ancient ancestors expressed their thoughts on life-time-life through myths such as fantasy, imagination and day by day: limited human life and strong yearning for eternal time. The limited individual life "enriches" the pain caused by the passage of time. Mankind has made unremitting efforts to pursue immortality.

Story source

Shan Hai Jing Overseas North Scene: Kuafu left Japan by car and entered Japan. If you are thirsty, you can drink water from the river. If the river is not enough, you can drink osawa in the north. Before he arrived, he died of thirst. Abandoned his staff and became Deng Lin.

Shan Hai Jing Wilderness East longitude: "In the northeast corner of wilderness, there is a mountain called fierce plough hill. Ying Long went out to the South Pole and killed Chiyou and Kuafu. "

Shan Hai Jing Huang Da Bei Jing: "In the desert, there is a mountain named Chengdu, which carries the sky. Some people named two yellow snakes Kuafu. After birth, faith was born, and faith was born for Kuafu. Kuafu overreached himself, trying to catch up with the Japanese scenery, and caught him in Yugu. You will drink the water from the river, but it is not enough. You will go to osawa, but you will die here before you arrive. Ying Long killed Chiyou and Kuafu, but he went to the south, so it was rainy in the south. "

Although the description of Kuafu in Shan Hai Jing is simple, there are two completely different accounts of Kuafu's death. One is that he died of thirst; Said he was killed by Ying Long. In the same book, there is such a contradictory statement. Guo Pu thought: "Death has no name, and it will happen at the touch of it, which shows that its change is unreasonable and immeasurable." Obviously, I can't understand this. Later scholars either thought that this was a mistake or that there were two Kuafu. In short, it is difficult to give a satisfactory answer.

Kuafu's Daily Motives and Kuafu's Death

From the point of view of later generations, Kuafu's pursuit of the sun is unreasonable, so Beiye Jing said that "Kuafu overreached himself". Obviously, this sentence "Kuafu overreached himself" is not included in the myth itself, but the author's own evaluation of Kuafu. Myth has an ancient inheritance, but by the time Shan Hai Jing was written, people could not understand Kuafu's daily motives.

For Kuafu's daily motivation, some contemporary scholars believe that it is the ancestors' pursuit of light. Kuafu is similar to Prometheus in ancient Greek mythology; Others think that Kuafu may be an ancient wizard, and every day is just a witchcraft ceremony. Kuafu died in a voodoo activity of praying for rain. Judging from the spreading characteristics of myth, the second explanation may be closer to the original intention of myth.

Kuafu in the story should be a tribe rather than a concrete and simple person (Kuafu may also be the name of a tribal leader). On the surface of the story, Kuafu felt worse every day, and then he was thirsty. What is the actual situation? May be just the opposite, Kuafu should be thirsty first, and then day by day. Many scholars believe that there must have been a very serious drought in the Kuafu era, just like the scene described in the story of Houyi shooting at the sun. As a tribe living on water, finding new water sources is the prerequisite for the survival of the tribe. So, Kuafu began a great migration to find water, but this migration was unsuccessful, and Kuafu (or his tribe) died on the way.

Migration must choose the direction, and the direction of the sun is the basis for their migration. From the description of the story, Kuafu came to Yugu at sunset, so they probably chose to move westward. Therefore, the so-called Kuafu's daily migration is actually Kuafu's migration according to the direction of sunset, and the purpose of migration is to find water. Therefore, in this sense, what Kuafu really pursues is not the sun, but the water. The explanation of Kuafu's death will further illustrate this view.

Kuafu died of thirst and was killed by Ying Long at the same time. This seemingly contradictory record has puzzled us for thousands of years. But after careful analysis, the two causes of death are not contradictory. It was Ying Long who killed Kuafu, and Ying Long was a subordinate of the Yellow Emperor. He is in charge of water. From Shan Hai Jing, "Ying Long killed Chiyou and Kuafu, but went to the south, so it was rainy in the south". It can be seen that Ying Long is rich in water resources, and Kuafu was killed by the man (or god) who controlled the water. Ying Long controlled the water source, and Kuafu couldn't get water, so he died of thirst. Of course, it can also be said that Ying Long killed Kuafu, and its real significance is that the Ying Long tribe defeated the Kuafu tribe. The first cause of death, Kuafu died of dehydration, and the second cause of death was that Ying Long made Kuafu dehydrate. The two are not contradictory.

According to Shan Hai Jing, Ying Long killed Chiyou first and then Kuafu. So, how did Ying Long kill Chiyou? Chiyou is a follower of Emperor Yan. There was a big battle between Huangdi and Chiyou in Zhuolu. "Shan Hai Jing Bei Da Huang" contains: "Chiyou and the Yellow Emperor fought. The Yellow Emperor ordered Ying Long to attack the wild land of Jizhou. Livestock in Ying Long drink water. Chiyou asked Fengbo Rain God to make a big storm. Emperor Huangdi said that the rain stopped and he killed Chiyou. " This is a very fierce battle, and the description in Shan Hai Jing is also very wonderful. Through this myth, we can see that Ying Long's fighting mode is "water storage", which is very interesting. "Water storage" is not a water attack, but to cut off the water source. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand how "water storage" is used in combat; Chiyou's response is "Please ask the rain god of Fengbo to create a big storm". It can be seen from the attack and defense of the two men that Chiyou can only solve the drinking water problem by begging for rain, so as to disintegrate Ying Long's attempt to "store water". Finally, the Yellow Emperor sent a goddess in the sky. Who is the goddess? Chiyou, the god of drought, passed through "a thousand miles of land without dripping water", so the rain of Chiyou stopped (the rain stopped), and Chiyou was finally defeated.

A soul-stirring battle gradually revealed its true colors, but it was just a competition for water resources: Ying Long stored water; Rainfall in Chiyou; Lead to drought and no rain; In the end, Chiyou lost without water. Therefore, Ying Long killed Chiyou and Chiyou died of thirst, just like Ying Long killed Kuafu and Kuafu, so Shan Hai Jing put two things together. At this point, Kuafu's cause of death has come to the bottom, while Kuafu's two causes of death are only different descriptions of the same event. Ying Long defeated Chiyou and Kuafu tribes in the same way. Looking back at Kuafu's daily stories, it is obvious that Kuafu should chase water, not the sun.