Who the hell is Zhong Kui? Ghosts? Or a god? What exactly is his origin?

Zhong Kui is a god who can kill ghosts and exorcise evil spirits in China folklore.

Most of what we know about Zhong Kui comes from plays and folk stories. According to the story "Zhong Kui Marries a Sister", he was a poor scholar in the Tang Dynasty. He read a lot of poems and books since he was a child, and his talent was outstanding. However, he is extremely ugly and does not have the charming and elegant temperament of a scholar. It is because of this ugly appearance that he was discriminated against in the imperial examination room. ?

Zhong Kui with extraordinary talent, all the way through, the palace exam. However, the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty could not tolerate Zhong Kui's ugliness. With a stroke of his pen, he jokingly cancelled his admission. Ten years of hard study at a cold window vanished in an instant. Zhong Kui, with a strong character, chose death.

Shortly after the unjust case in the examination room, Tang was seriously ill, and he was always harassed by imps in his dreams and couldn't sleep well. Late one night, he dreamed that a child sneaked into the palace, stole his beloved musical instrument and screamed in the palace. Just when he was upset, Tang suddenly saw a blue figure falling from the sky. Grab the child, tear it to pieces and swallow it.

Don woke up and the strange disease was cured. Recall that the man in blue in the dream is the ugly scholar Zhong Kui. So I asked the painter to draw a statue of Zhong Kui and hang it inside and outside the palace to ward off evil spirits and keep peace. From then on, Zhong Kui was famous for catching ghosts.

As early as the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Zhong Kui appeared. Zhong Kui's name probably comes from a famous wizard at that time. Some scholars have verified that there was a legend about the famous wizard Zhong You in the Shang Dynasty, that is, three or four thousand years ago. His best spell is asking for rain, and every time he comes forward to preside over the ceremony of asking for rain, it is the most effective, so people use his name to refer to the position of wizard. However, Zhong You and Zhong You have similar pronunciations, and were mistakenly recorded as Zhong You in the process of circulation. This is the origin of Zhong Kui.

Extended data:

According to records, Wu Daozi, a painter in the Tang Dynasty, was the first master who was good at Zhong Kui's painting. Although his painting of Zhong Kui has been lost, some people have seen it in the imperial palace of the Northern Song Dynasty. Guo, a connoisseur of the Northern Song Dynasty, described in detail the original statue of Zhong Kui he saw in Wu Daozi. Guo wrote in the sixth volume of Pictures and Experiences, Recent Situation:

"Yesterday, Wu Daozi drew Zhong Kui, wearing a blue shirt, with one foot and one waist and one hair, catching ghosts with his left hand and distinguishing ghosts with his right hand. The handwriting is thick and the painting is excellent. " ?

The blue word "blue shirt" is synonymous with "rags", which means rags, that is, rags. "Waist water" means that there is water on the belt, which is a wooden ritual vessel held by the minister when he goes to court. "shawl and hair" is an instrument to describe his Confucian identity and poverty. Judging from the description of Zhong Kui's paintings by Guo, an appraiser of calligraphy and painting in the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhong Kui is indeed an ugly scholar who was born in poverty. ?

This is the earliest existing portrait of Zhong Kui, and it is the work of Shi Ke, a figure painter of the Five Dynasties. Zhong Kui's image comes down in one continuous line, and he has always been a poor scholar.

Reference source: Baidu Encyclopedia-Zhong Kui (the god in China folklore)