The Cultural Source of Jingchu Culture

Chu culture is a culture with its own characteristics created by Chu people in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (involving the Yangtze River, Hanjiang River and Huaihe River Basin) during the Zhou Dynasty. During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, people in the Central Plains called southerners in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River Man Jing, Chu people or Jingchu, and the Book of Songs also mentioned "attacking Yanwu and Jingchu". Zhou Chengwang made Xiong Yi, the leader of Jingchu tribe, Zi Chu in Danyang, Jingshan, marking the beginning of Chu history. At first, Chu was in a low position among the vassal States, and its control area was very small. In the late Western Zhou Dynasty, Chu gradually became powerful, and through constant wars, it gradually controlled the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and became one of the "five tyrants in the Spring and Autumn Period".

Archaeologists have discovered a large number of cultural relics in the Spring and Autumn Period, such as unique sites and tombs, which shows that by the Spring and Autumn Period, a Chu cultural system with Jingchu nationality as the main body and Chu State as the center has been formed. In the Warring States period, Chu continued to expand, occupying most of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, controlling parts of Henan, Sichuan and Guizhou today, and became the most extensive regime among the "Seven Heroes of the Warring States". With the development of Chu and Jingchu nationalities from weak to strong, Chu culture has experienced a process of emergence, development, dissemination and exchange and integration with newly conquered regional culture.

According to documents, from the beginning of the feudal city of Danyang to the demise of the Qin Dynasty, there were more than 270 towns in * *, and about 50 sites of Chu culture were discovered and announced by archaeology. There are Chu Ji Cheng Nan in Jiangling, Chu Cheng in Jijiahu in Dangyang, Deng Cheng in Xiangyang, Wang Chucheng in Yunmeng and Wang Cheng in Daye. In Hubei, there are Longcheng in Xichuan, Wangchucheng in Xinyang, Chencheng in Huaiyang and Hunan. Most of these sites were built in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and some sites were not abandoned until the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Some of them are used as capitals, some as other capitals, some as counties and cities, and some as military fortresses. Chu tombs are widely distributed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Lingnan and Sichuan Basin. The number of tombs excavated far exceeds that of other countries in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. It is estimated that more than 5,000 graves have been excavated in Hubei and Hunan alone. Many Chu tombs are well-preserved, and a large number of exquisite and rich funerary objects have been unearthed, such as silk paintings and calligraphy unearthed from Changsha ammunition depot, silk fabrics unearthed from Mashan in Jiangling, pottery, bronzes, weapons, chariots and horses, lacquer wood, bamboo slips, wooden slips and various jade articles and stone tools unearthed from Chu tombs in various places. Archaeological excavation of Chu cultural sites and Chu tombs plays an extremely important role in understanding and understanding the face of Chu culture. In the material culture of Chu, it should include agriculture, handicrafts, commerce, currency, cities and transportation. In agriculture, it is mainly reflected in the invention and use of various farm tools, the construction and development of water conservancy projects, the expansion of cultivated land and the development of food crops and agricultural and sideline products. Chu is a big country in south china agriculture, with advanced iron farm tools and developed water conservancy, which are two major characteristics of Chu's agriculture. "Chu world powers also. ..... The place is five thousand Li, one million pieces of armor, a thousand chariots and horses, and ten years of millet. This overlord's capital is also "the strategy of the Warring States is to make a strategy for us", which is a historical public opinion and reflects the fruitful achievements of agricultural development in Chu. The handicraft industry of Chu has made brilliant achievements, mainly in bronze ware, cast iron, silk weaving, lacquerware, bamboo and wood products, architecture, shipbuilding and branch line manufacturing. Among them, lacquerware industry and silk weaving industry are the most prominent, which can be said to have reached the peak of the productivity level in the ancient world at that time, and its unearthed objects have been dumped by the world so far. Chu has always attached importance to commerce, so its commercial achievements are outstanding. Its products are not only exported to all parts of the country, but also to Central Asia and Southeast Asia. With the expansion of commodity circulation, money has also developed greatly. Besides copper coins, there are also gold and silver coins.

Judging from the unearthed situation, all the known pre-Qin gold and silver coins belong to Chu. There are many cities in Chu, and land and water transportation extend in all directions. All this belongs to the basic content of Chu people's material culture, which shows the courage and wisdom of Chu people to "quickly master the power of nature and create a' second nature' for themselves"? Gorky? . "Second Nature" is the material culture created by Chu people in the long-term struggle. Material culture can be found not only in documentary records, but also in archaeological excavations. Because there are so many cultural relics unearthed in Chu after 1960s and 1970s, some scholars put forward "Chu culture in the archaeological sense" and "the archaeological cultural relics mainly reflect material culture"? The idea of Zhang's editor-in-chief Chu Culture Annals. Cultural relics are actually the crystallization of cultural activities, which not only reflects the material and cultural achievements of Chu people, but also reflects their spiritual and cultural outlook. The two are inseparable. The name "Chuci" originated from the Western Han Dynasty. It has two meanings: first, the name of poetic style refers to a poetic carrier created by Chu poets such as Qu Yuan at the end of the Warring States period on the basis of Chu folk languages and folk songs; The second is the name of the poetry collection. The works of Qu Yuan, Song Yu and others, and the simulated works of later generations were collected by Liu Xiang in the Western Han Dynasty and named Chu Ci. As Qu Yuan is the pioneer of Chu Ci, his works are the most representative in both quality and quantity. All the Chu Ci mentioned by later generations are Qu Yuan's masterpiece Li Sao, and they are often referred to as "Sao" or "Li Sao".

The emergence of Chu Ci is inseparable from the unique folk customs of Chu. In Jianghan water town, folk witchcraft prevails, and local customs still worship songs and dances, which is different from Chu folk songs in the Central Plains and has been circulating in this area for a long time. These factors are the basis of Chu Ci. The Book of Songs is a collection of folk songs from the early Zhou Dynasty to the mid-Spring and Autumn Period. Although it has been widely collected for more than 500 years, there are almost no folk songs of Chu (probably because Chu has always been regarded as a barbarian by the Central Plains Dynasty, and Chu dialect is difficult to be accepted by the Central Plains people). ), but only from the few Chu Ci preserved in the ancient books of all parties, its connotation is rich, its narrative lyric is extremely romantic, and its influence on Chu Ci is far-reaching. Chu Ci is regarded as the source of China's romantic literature, which has a more direct influence on later Han Fu. "Writing Chu language, Chu sound, gathering Chu land and making famous Chu utensils", together with other Chu culture essences, has built a magnificent and peculiar Chu culture.

Jingchu culture is an important part of Chinese national culture, with a long history, extensive and profound, distinctive regional characteristics and great economic and cultural development value.

Chu culture and Jingchu culture belong to the same concept, and both refer to the cultural entities and forms created by Chu people and Chu State and precipitated for a long time. What we are talking about here is the same concept, because there is no distinction between Jing and Chu in history. Jing, Chu or Jingchu, as a specific title, has been used for more than three thousand years. For example, "Poetry, Shang Fu, Yanwu" said: "Wei daughter Jingchu lives in the south of the Yangtze River." This is the collective name of "Jingchu", where Jing is in front and Chu is behind. The chronicles of bamboo books say: "In the sixteenth year of Wang Zhao, Jing Chu cut." Here is the collective name, Chu is in front and Jing is behind. According to Chunqiu, Duke Zhuang of Lu (693-66 1) used to be called Jing, but since the first year (659-627) it was renamed Chu. From this point of view, Jing or Chu, Jing and Chu or together, mean the same thing, and there seems to be no big difference. To the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xu Shen explained the classics in Shuo Wen Jie Zi: "Chu Mu also follows the sound of punishment." Chu Shi: "The leaves of a bush are a Ye Jing." In this way, Jingshan, Jingchu, Jingzhou and Jingchu were unified and formed a systematic and complete concept. Therefore, in the Tang and Song Dynasties, Confucius said in Justice in the Spring and Autumn Period and Zuo Zhuan: "Jing and Chu are two, so I think the country name is also two." Shen Kuo's "Meng Qian Bi Tan" also said: "Jing is Chu, and Chu is also an alias." At this point, Jingchu has become an established practice, and it has become a unique title of Chu nationality, Chu state and Jingchu area. Of course, there are other sayings in history, such as the legend of Mao in the Book of Songs and Shang Dynasty: "Jingchu is also the Chu State of Jingzhou." Another example is Yan Shigu's note in Han Gao Di Ji: "Qin Zhuang's surname is Chu, so it was changed." But no matter what kind of statement, Jingchu has already merged into one, and it will never be completely separated. As a culture created by Chu people, it has been passed down in Jingchu for a long time, and it is of course called Chu culture or Jingchu culture. It is obviously unscientific to think that Chu culture refers exclusively to Chu culture and Jingchu culture refers to Jingchu regional culture from ancient times to the present, that is, it refers to Chu culture and all the time and space cultures here. Culture is inherited, its origin is changing, and it is a trickle. Although Chu is dead, culture is not dead. Today, we trace the source, observe its flow, examine its flow, explore its source, study Jingchu culture from the perspective of time and space, and strive to serve the construction of modern civilization. This conforms to the requirements of historical materialism, but it cannot be said that this is Jingchu culture itself. Chu culture or Jingchu culture is an independent cultural form, with its own connotation and attributes, and its interdependent and interactive scientific system. We can't call the culture of any period in Jingchu area Chu culture or Jingchu culture.

The connotation of Chu culture or Jingchu culture can be summarized from the angle that everyone is used to accepting, which can include material culture, spiritual culture, social system culture, folk culture and so on. This generalization only lists the contents of Jingchu culture, and never studies the essential implication of Jingchu culture from the perspective of culturology.

And created a' second nature' Gorky language for himself. "The second nature" is the material culture created by the Chu people in the long struggle. Material culture can be found not only in documentary records, but also in archaeological excavations. Since a large number of cultural relics were unearthed in Chu after 1960s and 1970s, some scholars put forward the concepts of "Chu culture in archaeological sense" and "archaeological cultural relics mainly embody material culture", and Zhang compiled the concept of "Chu culture annals". Cultural relics are actually the crystallization of cultural activities, which not only reflects the material and cultural achievements of Chu people, but also reflects their spiritual and cultural outlook. The two are inseparable. In the integration of diverse Chinese culture, Jingchu culture has been shining since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. From Yin Jifu, who advocated "beginning of life, things have rules", to Liang Ji, who advocated "adult first, then committed to God"; From helping Gou Jian, the King of Yue, to Qu Yuan, who "does good for the people and kills the pests for the people"; From Laozi and Zhuangzi, who advocated "the power of the South", to Xun Kuang, who gave orders for Chu Lanling twice and retired to Lanling writing in his later years; The profound wisdom of generations of philosophers has enriched the tree of Jingchu culture. The way of thinking expressed by Jingchu culture also has unique personality charm in China culture. The philosophical wisdom of Jingchu culture is first embodied in its great inclusiveness. The school of Taoist historians has a far-reaching influence on the development of Chu culture, with Laozi and Zhuangzi's philosophy as its representative. The spirit of equality and tolerance of Taoism profoundly influenced the spirit of Chu culture. Laozi's Tao Te Ching reveals that tolerance is the premise of justice and the mentality closest to the laws of nature. Zhuangzi repeatedly demonstrated the size, and through the comparison between the big and the small, the limited and the infinite, he overcame the subjective one-sidedness of "one person, one tune". He affirmed that a hundred schools of thought contend that "each has its own strengths and uses it from time to time." This tolerant attitude has made the first characteristic of Chu culture. As Liu, a famous modern literary historian, pointed out in "On the Differences between North and South Literature": "The land of Jingchu is isolated in the south, so the book of Laozi is extensive and profound. However, Zhuang and Liezhe inherited it, which has profound meaning, obscure meaning, and is also a text, vertical and then reverse, real and virtual, strange and ridiculous, unfathomable. Qu Zizhi's prose, with a plaintive voice, is aimed at, Mu Lingxiu, Fang Cao Jia Ren, Wu Yu and Ya Jie Zhi, which symbolizes the contrast of two narrative trips to the South, but it is absurd and bizarre, which is similar to Zhuang and Lie. The characteristics of Zhuang Sao, such as fantastic ideas, absurd rhetoric and great changes, are not only the reflection of the natural environment of Chuanze, Jianghan and Chu, but also the embodiment of the cultural tolerance consciousness of "people and gods are mixed, things can't be square" (under Chu Yu). The second characteristic of Jingchu's philosophy is that it emphasizes righteousness and is good at thinking. Whether it is the Laozi and Zhuangzi School in the pre-Qin period, the Jingzhou New School in the Han Dynasty, the Hubei Buddhism from the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, or the Jianghan New School in modern times, its academic characteristics are philosophical and speculative, with outstanding speculative nature. In the cultural division between North and South, Taoism, which originated in Xiaoxiang, Jianghan, with Zeguo as its main geographical feature, shows the characteristics of advocating nothingness, being lively and enterprising, "generally abandoning the world, ignoring the universe, giving priority to nature, and taking humility as the Sect". They learn to "study the time between man and nature", and deeply discuss the universal spirit of "Heaven and earth coexist with me, and everything is in harmony with me", which embodies the consciousness of man as great as heaven and earth, and has a broad vision of harmony with things and harmony between man and nature. Therefore, some scholars regard pre-Qin Taoism as the representative of "philosophical breakthrough" in China Axis era, and show the speculative characteristics of Chu culture spirit. As the essence of Chu culture, Taoist philosophy is also speculative in understanding the two philosophical categories of "being" and "being". Taoism's distinction between temporary "things" and eternal "Tao" is not only different from other philosophers of the times, but also comparable to the philosophical theory of ancient Greece, and more abstract and speculative than Plato's distinction between ideal world and perceptual world. This speculative philosophical thinking mode of Taoism has a lot to do with the spiritual belief of Chu people. In the eyes of many critics, the "Eastern Emperor Taiyi" in Nine Songs of the Chu Dynasty is the Taiyi that Lao Dan liked, and it is the "first year" of Laozi's "Tao is often nameless" and "I strongly call myself big", which is worshipped by Chu people. What Laozi did was to conceptualize "Taiyi" abstractly. If we restore the soil created by Laozi's philosophy in this way, then the significance of Laozi's philosophy is at best in the transitional stage from mythical thinking to theoretical thinking and from primitive thinking to philosophical thinking. Therefore, we should see that Laozi abstracted Tao from the concrete representation of mythical thinking and abstracted the "One God", which is of pioneering significance to China's philosophy. The third characteristic of Jingchu philosophy is whether it is qualitative or not.

Its negativity is manifested in two levels. The first level of negation is a breakthrough to the existing or recognized norms. This is manifested in the profound criticism of the pre-Qin Taoism on the tradition of rites and music since three generations. Laozi called etiquette "the thinnest letter is the worst disaster", and Zhuangzi criticized benevolence and righteousness in many ways, which is quite different from the traditional cognition of contemporary philosophers. Of course, it is not surprising that the theory of negation only stays in words, but the actual negation shows the power of certain cultural self-confidence. In the attitude towards the ritual and music culture of the Central Plains, Chu culture has both primitive ignorance of the Central Plains culture and conscious confrontation with the mainstream culture of the Central Plains. In the eyes of people who have infiltrated the etiquette and music civilization of the Central Plains for a long time, the Chu people do not agree, they are just "ignorant barbarians". In political life, the Chu people also consciously erected the banner of "barbarism" to counter the criticism of Zhou Tianzi with "I am beautiful, I don't need the name of China". However, this behavior, which dares to deny the bondage of etiquette and law in the Central Plains with its own will, shows an innovative spirit of bold breakthrough and bold negation. In Laozi and Zhuangzi's thought, the second level of negative thinking is the affirmation of the role of "nothing". In the eyes of ordinary people, "nothingness" means nothing, extinction and denial of existence. Even among the wise men in ancient Greece, "nothingness" is inconceivable. However, Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi have a unique vision. They found the limitation of "being" from "nothing". "Being" is the other half of the world and half of the role played by "being". Laozi revealed this truth with the example of "learning without observing" in life. He pointed out that "30 spokes * * * a hub, when it is not there, there is a car; Think of it as a device, which is useful when there is nothing; Chisel households for houses, when there is no room, there is room for use; Therefore, it is beneficial and useless. " In the debate between Zhuangzi and Hui Shi about big bottles and bottles, Hui Shi saw their instrumental value of being "big and useless, and everyone let it go", while Zhuangzi saw the self-purpose of "useless" people. Therefore, Zhuangzi expressed the principle of aesthetic subjectivity that only the aesthetic eyes can see beauty in "A Happy Journey". He said: "Deaf people have nothing to do with the concept of articles, and deaf people have nothing to do with the sound of bells and drums. Are you deaf or blind? Husband knows. " Indeed, the limitations of the body will make us lose our perception of beauty; Mental defects will make us lose our understanding of Tao, which is like the separation of sparrows in the canopy and Kunpeng in Wan Li. Therefore, the negative thinking characteristics in Chu culture can be summarized not only by simple criticism and simple abandonment of reality, but also by negation of things, which is a kind of negation of negation and a creative display higher than the contemporary thinking level. It is generally believed that there are two phenomena in culture. One is "materialization", that is, various material products in culture; The first is the phenomenon of "humanization", that is, the human spirit and its products. The first phenomenon is actually a kind of "humanization" phenomenon, because material products are created by people and are the objectification of human power. People create culture, and culture also creates people. Understanding and grasping the interaction between culture and people and the relationship between life and death is a very important modern perspective to examine cultural values. What best reflects the cultural characteristics of Jingchu and its efforts is the true portrayal of the relationship between this culture and people.

Through the efforts of several generations of monarchs and people, Chu has achieved the hegemonic position of "Chu is thousands of miles away, drinking horses from the Yellow River and winning the Central Plains". However, at first, it was just a small country sealed in a wild land by the Zhou Dynasty under the discriminatory policy. Xiong Yi's people farmed in the backcountry between Suishan and Jingshan, and lived a simple life. The starting point of brilliant Chu culture is in this narrow world. The spirit of "Blue Path" not only created rich material civilization for Chu, but also brought great wealth of "civilization education". In the process of accumulating cultural experience and intelligence, cultural psychology and quality are constantly improving, and people and their spirit always play an active role in it. Under the influence of the pioneering spirit of "paving the way for the mountains to open up wasteland", the difficulties and obstacles of ancestors' labor and the magic of skills often amaze future generations. The precipitation and accumulation of cultural psychology and quality it brings is endless, and it is updated day by day, forming a national cultural spirit that no force can destroy. In-depth study of The Road of Blue wisp can not only deepen the consciousness of the cultural value theory of "people-oriented", but also make an investigation from the perspective of humanistic spirit, including the significance of cultural psychology and cultural quality, which can better promote Jingchu culture to release new glory. On the fertile soil of the Chinese nation's overall culture, regional culture is like a group of beautiful flowers, and cultural traditions are excavated and publicized all over the provinces. Modern cultural value theory calls for and pursues cultural individuality and unique character. Throughout China's 5,000-year history, the spirit of China culture can be summed up in two sentences: "striving for self-improvement" and "valuing morality". These two points are outstanding in Jingchu culture, and the representative figure is Qu Yuan. "Self-improvement" is generally reflected in the founding of the country. With the consolidation and development of political power, especially when the material conditions are greatly improved, slackness will arise and the country will decline. "Decadence has no beginning, freshness has an end", which is the general trend. The uniqueness of Jingchu culture lies in that it not only "strives for self-improvement" at the time of the founding of the People's Republic of China, but also thrives on the ancestors of Chu at the time of national subjugation. When Qu Yuan was young, he was deeply trusted by Chu Huaiwang. Later, although he was harmed by traitors, he could not leave his homeland even when he was in exile, and he threw himself into the Miluo River in grief and indignation. After Qu Yuan's death, countless ancestors of Chu had this unique spiritual and cultural temperament, which made "Qin destroyed the six countries, and the four sides complained and Chu was angry." Although the three clans are bound to destroy the Qin Dynasty, the sentimental people in the rivers and lakes attach importance to the sound of Chu "(Lu Xun's language). Qu Yuan's literature, philosophy and his life-long struggle ideals also reflect the characteristics of Jingchu culture. He is rooted in the local area, integrating Confucianism, Taoism and law in Qilu, especially his strong people-oriented thought and strong personality and emotional quality of caring for the country and the people, which makes this patriotic poet unique and unique, and becomes the most representative figure of Chu national spirit. In the 2400 years after Qu Yuan's death, countless romantic figures appeared in Jingchu. Their emotional attachment to their homeland and their cultural spirit of lifelong struggle in  should be further studied as a uniqueness of Jingchu culture.

The understanding of more and more people is also the proper meaning of the topic of modern cultural value, that is, the awareness of cultural competition. In the history of our country, the mutual integration and trade-off between cultures in different regions actually contains the factors of competition, because without competition, there would be no cultural development. The spiritual characteristics of Jingchu culture show strong competitiveness in the history of national cultural development. In addition to the enterprising spirit of "learning from others", the open spirit of "learning from others" and the patriotic spirit of "cherishing one's homeland", its innovative spirit of "making a blockbuster, making a success without making a sound" has played a positive role in the development of cultural competitiveness, which not only makes Chu in a wild place. No matter how the times change, this spirit will never go out of date. If you have it all the time, you will be invincible in any competition.

Lock embroidery pattern on silk fabric

The inheritance of national spirit develops with the progress of the times. The "era" of "the road to nowhere" can pass, but if this entrepreneurial spirit is to be passed down, it must be embodied in the new era through new creation, from which we can understand, excavate and absorb the spirit of never going out of date. Exploring and carrying forward the national cultural tradition must not be regarded as an unchanging crystal condensed by history, but a task once and for all. The importance of national culture lies in its "lens" function. Through it, we can know the world, select, evaluate and combine information from the external environment, and naturally form the belief and inheritance of our national culture. It is not in line with the law of cultural development and is not conducive to the construction of competitive consciousness of contemporary culture to regard excellent traditional culture as the past tense without paying attention to it, or just boasting about how long the history of cultural inheritance is, without any other actions.

The competition in today's world mainly refers to the competition of comprehensive national strength among various nation-states in the international society, and in this process, in addition to important factors in various aspects and their interaction, culture can sometimes win or lose. A noteworthy problem in the current cultural competition is the combination of traditional culture and modern civilization, especially how to make excellent traditional culture a useful and effective resource for modern economic, political and cultural construction. For the use of resources, we should strive to build the brand of traditional culture, but also pay attention to vigorously casting the national cultural spirit, and the development of this cultural spirit should learn from others. Therefore, based on Jingchu culture, integrating China's national culture and drawing lessons from the world's advanced culture has become the perspective of contemporary traditional culture research. In this sense, the study of Jingchu culture is promising. First, the entrepreneurial spirit of "Blue Road";

Second, the open spirit of "getting rich and returning to summer";

Third, the innovative spirit of "blockbuster";

Fourth, the patriotic spirit of "deep-rooted and difficult to migrate";

Fifth, the harmonious spirit of "stopping the war and using it".