Ma Wang's pile of silk paintings reveals the secret of the image of the "Chang'e" toad, why is it related to the toad?
The Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin wrote in the poem "Chang'e":"Chang'e should repent of stealing the elixir, and the blue sea and blue sky are night and night"Chang'e in the poem is a common character in ancient Chinese mythology. He is usually the embodiment of beauty and holiness.
However, this is not the case with Chang'e unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tomb. How can the Moon Fairy in the painting excavated from the Mawangdui Han Tomb be a frog, which is very different from the Chang'e fairy in the consciousness of the Chinese?
Chang'e is the wife of Hou Yi, who was rewarded with the elixir of life by the Queen Mother of the West for shooting the sun. Hou Yi handed over the elixir of life to his wife for safekeeping, and made an appointment for the two to take the medicine together on a certain day, but Chang'e knew that Hou Yi's apprentice Peng Meng seized the opportunity and was ready to steal the medicine, so in order to prevent Peng Meng from succeeding, she could only take the medicine herself. In this way, Chang'e ascended to the Moon Palace and lived there for a long time. Hou Yi loved his wife very much, and every year on August 15, he held a banquet for Chang'e.
This is one of the better Chinese legends and myths about Chang'e. Another not-so-good legend is that Chang'e took advantage of Hou Yi's absence to steal the elixir given to Hou Yi by the Queen Mother of the West, but after eating the elixir, her body became uncontrollable and flew directly to the moon, unable to get out of the Moon Palace for the rest of her life. Not only that, after Chang'e came to the Moon Palace, she became a leper **, and insisted on drinking elixir every day.
The earliest record of Chang'e's flight to the moon can be found in Huainanzi:"The frog protects the moon and is the spirit of the moon"。Frogs have many symbolic meanings in ancient times, such as gathering wealth, attracting wealth, town house, warding off evil spirits, prosperous wealth, etc., and"The Golden Frog House is prosperous"It is said that the shop beckons wealth, and now many shops are decorated with frogs, which shows that frog fortune is common sense in ancient and modern times. In addition,"Frog Palace Laurel"It is also said by ancient scholars that the predecessors planted trees and the descendants enjoyed the shade.
In 1971, the Mawangdui Han Tomb was discovered by chance, and Hou Liang of the Hunan Provincial Museum immediately went to check it out, and experts unanimously confirmed that the tomb must be a annealed cave tomb. As the archaeological excavations deepened, archaeologists found the well-preserved body of the tomb owner. After X-ray exposure, an even more surprising discovery emerged: the internal organs of the tomb owner were also well preserved. As the archaeological work continued, the identity of the tomb's owner gradually emerged. The owner of the tomb is a woman named Xin Chai, who lived in the Western Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago and died of gallstones and coronary heart disease.
Many of the artifacts found in the excavations of the ancient tombs are very rare, such as the "Fifty-two Sick Prescription Silk Book", which is the oldest prescription book ever found in China. But what shocked the world the most was the preservation of the bodies. When the body was found, the hair was still there,** smooth and elastic,** and some of the joints were still moving freely, so the public could not realize that it was a corpse from more than 2,000 years ago. In addition to the well-preserved corpses, other items such as seasonal clothing, bamboo mats and rings, and a copper lotus root soup pot were preserved in the tomb.
In addition to the above items, a national treasure was also unearthed in the tomb of Mrs. Xin Chai - plain clothes, which fully reflected the high level of social clothing production at that time, and archaeologists at that time once said that if this dress was folded, a box of matches would be enough.
There is another one in the tomb"t"Glyph silk painting, also known as"No clothes"、"Flying clothes", which is said to help the tomb owner fly to the sky after death, was common in funeral rituals in the Han Dynasty"Transformative ribbons"。It was also common in Han Dynasty funeral rituals"Pedestal", also known as:"The Conjuring", depicting the living environment of the owner of the tomb. Its function is to summon spirits, so that the spirits of the deceased will rush to see the prayer flags and not be left alone.
The painting on the tomb of Mrs. Xin Chai is 1.5 meters long, and the content can be divided into three parts: heaven, earth and underground. The Heavenly Court section depicts the Heavenly Gate, the Guardian Leopard, and the Heavenly Court Gatekeeper Shakti. The monster in the middle is pulling the rope and ringing the bell, which means the sound of **. It is flanked by flying kites, cranes, the sun and hibiscus trees. On the left side of the upper part are the goddess holding the moon, the moon, the jade rabbit, and a frog with a mouth for the reishi. The upper ** is the candle dragon, the eyes of the candle dragon are open during the day and closed at night.
The human part of the picture is composed of two parts: the upper and lower parts. In the upper part, larks shade the sky and invite birds to welcome the dead. In the middle is Lady Xin Chu and her entourage, receiving the guidance of angels. Below is a leopard embracing the ascent path. Overall, the whole silk painting is very luxurious, and the animals in the painting are all kinds of auspicious animals, blessing the deceased to go to Elisha or reach the divine realm after death.
There is also a woman sitting on a dragon and a frog sitting next to a crescent moon. Many people believe that frogs represent ugliness, and the legendary Chang'e is compared to a frog, supposedly to condemn Chang'e for stealing the elixir of life. Archaeologists believe that the painting reflects the power of Mrs. Xin Chai, as the woman seated on the dragon in the painting is clearly Xin Chai, and the dragon can worship Xin Chai as its mount, which illustrates Xin Chai's ambition.
The silk painting in the Mawangdui Han tomb is a portrayal of the spiritual world of Mrs. Xin Chai, and the beauty on the moon is a frog, which is related to the story of Chang'e running to the moon in the early Han Dynasty, when Chang'e's image was a frog.