Chapter 1,438 The ancestor of man is also the ancestor of dragon
The Jade Pig Dragon was named by the archaeological community, but it just looks a bit like a dragon.
As for what it was called at the time, no one knows now.
Some people call this kind of cultural relic Jade Pig Bear, which shows that it is quite different from the legendary dragon.
Among the dragons unearthed from archeology and classical records, the closest thing to our modern dragons is the dragon-shaped jade pendant from the Warring States Period.
The dragon with the dragon-shaped jade pendant is very close to the dragon in our impression, whether in terms of body structure or size.
For example, the Warring States Period dragon and phoenix pendants on the booth below, the dragon patterns on these jade pendants are the real Chinese dragons.
These are jade pendants, they are flat, they are just withered.
Of course, it only looks like a dragon from a certain angle. If you look at it from another angle, it's just a line.
Before the Warring States Period, some cultural relics with the image of dragons were unearthed, mainly jade carvings.
But it looks quite different from the dragon in our impression.
This can also show that the dragons in artistic works gradually change with the changes of the times.
The dragon in our impression comes from relatively recent classical records.
So the closer you get to the back, the closer the image of the dragon is to the image in our imagination.
In modern times, due to the development of carving technology, the image of dragons has become more and more abundant and delicate.
But from the development of this field, no change in the identity of the dragon can be seen.
We can only draw this conclusion: dragons have entered people's lives since ancient times, and in the process of historical development, the artistic image has become more and more perfect.
If we look at another field, it is the written record of dragons.
The following sentences are excerpted from the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
Their deities have the body of a bird and the head of a dragon.
Their deities have the body of a dragon and the head of a bird.
All their gods have dragon bodies and human faces.
His son called it Gu, which looks like a human face and a dragon body.
A baby that has been born for many days looks like a keel and may have acne.
The divine plan was used to hide it, it looks like a human body but has the head of a dragon.
Their deities have the body of a horse and the head of a dragon.
In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the image of a dragon has never been directly written.
Sentences like the ones above all use dragons as metaphors.
The dragon head means that the head looks like a dragon, and the dragon body means that the body looks like a dragon.
We know that when writing articles, in order to explain the problem clearly, we often use metaphors with common things.
For example, if I tell you that Bull Terrier looks like Sun Honglei, then you will have a certain impression.
If I tell you that she looks like Zhao Sanwa, you won't have any impression because you don't know who Zhao Sanwa is.
This shows that dragons were relatively common animals at that time.
Even when it comes to dragon bones, there is no description of what a dragon bone looks like in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
This shows that he concluded in his heart that people who read the Classic of Mountains and Seas knew what a dragon bone looked like.
All this shows that dragons were a very common animal at that time, so there was no need to describe their appearance using flower blades and bones (pen and ink).
The characters in the Classic of Mountains and Seas era were carved on animal bones with knives, which is called bone inscriptions.
In the Classic of Mountains and Seas era, since the dragon was a common animal, was it a domestic animal or a wild beast?
The Classic of Mountains and Seas has also revealed it to us. Here are a few excerpts.
Zhurong in the south has the body of a beast and the face of a human, riding two dragons.
In the field of great joy, Queen Xia Qi danced for nine generations and rode two dragons.
To the west, there is a snake in the left ear, riding on two dragons.
The Eastern Jumang has a bird body and a human face, riding on two dragons.
The face of Frozen Yi is riding on two dragons.
Beyond the southwest sea, south of Chishui and west of quicksand, there are two green snakes with human ears riding on two dragons.
Without exception, they are all used as means of transportation, just like Lao Tzu's green ox and Guan Yunchang's red rabbit.
And they all travel by two dragons, no one travels by one.
However, the Classic of Mountains and Seas does not say whether these dragons are flying or crawling. We generally understand them to be flying around in the air.
This shows that in the Classic of Mountains and Seas era, dragons, a common domestic animal, were mainly used as mounts.
They cannot grow freely in the barren mountains like the nine-tailed fox, and occasionally find someone to eat.
You can't be like the Ba snake who eats an elephant when it's hungry and eats it for three years.
Their role is equivalent to that of cattle and horses, and their status is very low.
After the Classic of Mountains and Seas, including Shangshu, The Analects of Confucius and other books that had a major impact on China, there was no mention of the word dragon.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, only Xunzi mentioned dragons in an article: "The world is dangerous and dangerous, and there is a fear of losing the world's heroes. The dragon is a grasshopper, and the owl is a phoenix."
It wasn't until the Historical Records came out that dragons were mentioned again.
And what we are talking about is the last two dragons of China.
There are two dragons descended from heaven, both male and female. Kong Jia cannot eat them, so he has not gained the title of Bolong.
After the decline of Tao and Tang Dynasties, Liu Lei followed him and studied with Huan Long clan to serve Kong Jia.
The surname given by Kong Jia was Yulong, after receiving the title of Shewei.
The female dragon dies to feed the summer queen.
The general meaning is that two dragons came to the court of the Xia Dynasty, and King Kong Jia of Xia found a man to tame the dragons and let the dragons serve him.
Later, one of the dragons died, and Kong Jia ate it.
Although they are the last two dragons, their status has fallen into the abyss. Not only do they have to serve people, but people also have to eat its flesh.
This kind of creature that lived in ancient times became extinct in tragedy.
As mentioned before, although dragons became extinct during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, their images have always appeared in jade carvings, and people have not forgotten them.
In particular, this image became more and more sacred, and eventually became a very respected animal.
The word animal is used here temporarily, but in fact the word god can also be used.
By the Qin Dynasty, the dragon's status had risen to the highest position.
That is, Qin Shihuang was called Zulong. Please note that it was others who called Qinshihuang Zulong, not him who called himself that.
Qin Shihuang's own understanding of the ancestral dragon is "the ancestor of people", that is, people are called ancestral dragons after they die.
Of course, this specifically refers to after the death of the emperor.
From then on, the dragon became the symbol of the emperor.
When historians record the birth of an emperor, they often make up a plot.
The main thing is that the dragon sent the seeds into the body of the emperor's mother, giving the emperor's father a cuckold that is known to the world.
The emperor's seat was decorated with dragons, his bed was decorated with dragons, and his clothes were decorated with dragons. Dragon face, dragon heart, and dragon strategy have also become the emperor's special words.
Because the emperor represents heaven and manages the world, and the emperor himself is a dragon, the common people have formed a homage to the dragon.
At this time, the dragon truly became the totem of the Chinese nation.
At this stage, there were very rich images of dragons, whether written records, paintings, or sculptures.
Chen Wenzhe remembered a magical sculpture, which seemed to be called Zeng Hou Yi Jian Drum Base, with many dragon heads on it.
People start counting from different places, and the number of dragons they count is different. Sometimes there are 108 dragons, and there are also 118, 128, and 132 dragons.
This may be the ultimate level of dragon art, and the image of the dragon is still evolving.
Evolved in people's imagination, because as animals, dragons are actually extinct.