The eight immortals that have been inherited for thousands of years in the land of China have crossed the sea, which is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and is known to women and children. Especially among them, Lu Dongbin, as the core figure of the Eight Immortals, is highly respected by the Quanzhen Sect, and his Taoist temples are all over the country.
However, the existence of Lu Dongbin has always caused many speculations.
In 1959, the Soviet-aided Three Gorges Reservoir project was launched, and the water level was expected to rise to 350 meters above sea level, which could mean that the Yongle Palace on the north bank of the Yellow River would be submerged.
In order to protect the precious cultural relics, ** decided to relocate the Yongle Palace as a whole. However, the relocation project had just begun, and an unexpected thing happened. A peculiar stone tablet engraved with "The Tomb of Lu Chunyang of the Tang Dynasty" suddenly appeared, and these seven words made the experts present ecstatic.
As we all know, Lu Dongbin is called a pure Yangzi and attained Taoism in the nearby Jiufeng Mountain. Could it be that this will unveil the mysterious place of the immortals? Regarding Lu Dongbin, he is the only real person in history among the Eight Immortals, and his name is a household name, even children know the saying "dog bites Lu Dongbin".
So, who is he? How did he ascend to the immortal throne as a mortal and become the object of public worship and worship?
The story of Lu Dongbin has been passed down for a long time, and his life story has attracted much attention. The earliest record can be found in the Taiping Huanyu Ji in the early Song Dynasty, in which it is stated that he was a descendant of Lu Wei, a servant of the Tang Rite Department, but he did not succeed in taking the imperial examination in the late Tang Dynasty.
However, after an in-depth study of the Complete Biography of the Immortals and the Lü Family Ride in Xin'an, Henan, we find that Lü Wei was actually Lü Dongbin's grandfather, and his father's name was Lü Rang, who was a jinshi in the tenth year of Yuanhe.
According to the Book of Tang, Lü Wei was born in 759 A.D., and Lü Rang was the fourth child in the family, he had five sons, and Lü Dongbin was his third son. Therefore, we can infer that Lü Dongbin was born after about 810 AD.
Lu Dongbin was born in a scholarly family, and he took the way of a gentleman as his teacher when he was a teenager, so the legend of him was dressed in white and carrying a long sword. However, Lu Dongbin was not a diligent and studious person, and when he was young, he failed many imperial examinations, and then gave up his officialdom career, armed with a long sword, traveled all over the world, and went through famous mountains and rivers.
On the way, he met a Taoist priest Zhong Liquan, and after his call, Lu Dongbin decided to devote himself to Taoism and practice immortal law. At the age of 50, Lu Dongbin lived in seclusion with his family in Zhongnan Mountain, he was proficient in swordsmanship, and knew medicine well, often used his knowledge to help others, and was kind and charitable all his life, and received countless favors from him.
In gratitude for his kindness, the local people built an ancestral hall called "Lu Gong Ancestral Hall". Lu Dongbin has also made great achievements on the road of Taoism, he loves refining pills, and believes that through the furnace of heaven and earth and the tripod of creation, he can reconcile medicines and match yin and yang, so as to achieve the goal of immortality.
His Dan Dao ideas were spread by Taoism, he had many fans in the Taoist community, and more and more people began to believe in Lu Dongbin, so he was known as the founder of the Danding faction.
His image was also mythologized and became a god in people's hearts.
After Kublai Khan seized the Central Plains in the Yuan Dynasty, his first task was to stabilize his rule, and after learning that the Taoist Lü Dongbin lineage was widely spread among the people, he planned to use religion and Lü Dongbin's influence.
The successive emperors of the Yuan Dynasty built Taoist temples throughout the country, promoted the status of Lu Dongbin, and named him the Emperor of Fuyou and the Heavenly Respect of Miaodao, so that the image of Lu Dongbin was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and many literati also used this as the material to create a large number of stories.
However, for thousands of years, tomb robbers searched for Lü Dongbin's tomb, but each time they failed. It wasn't until 1959, when the Yongle Palace relocation project was launched, that a tombstone caught people's attention.
1.China's Yellow River governance problem, after thousands of years, is known as the "tomb of immortals". According to statistics, in the more than 3,000 years before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Yellow River burst nearly 1,600 times and diverted its course more than 20 times, causing tens of millions of ancestors to leave their homes.
In 1953, through the unremitting efforts of the leaders of the water conservancy department, the construction project of Sanmenxia Reservoir was listed as one of the 156 Soviet-aided construction projects. 2.According to historical records, in the more than 3,000 years before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Yellow River flooded nearly 1,600 times and diverted its course more than 20 times, displacing tens of millions of people.
Under the active promotion of the leaders of the water conservancy department, the construction project of Sanmenxia Reservoir was included in one of the projects aided by the Soviet Union, which became an important step in solving the problem of the Yellow River.
The Sanmenxia Reservoir is intelligently designed, and the depth and length of the Sandao Gorge are large enough to hold 16.2 billion cubic meters of water. According to the plan, the total length of the dam is 7132 meters, up to 106 meters, once the reservoir reaches its maximum capacity, the water level will reach 350 meters, which means that the residents and cultural relics in the flood area will need to be relocated.
Yongle Palace, also known as Da Chunyang Wanshou Palace, is located at the southwest end of Ruicheng County, only ten kilometers from the Yellow River, and happens to be included in the flood discharge area demarcated by the Yellow Committee. This huge wooden complex was built in the Yuan Dynasty and took a hundred years to complete.
Although more than 600 years have passed, the building and frescoes are still well preserved.
The central axis of Yongle Palace is more than 500 meters long, and there are five ancient buildings distributed along the line. Among them, although the palace gate was added in the Qing Dynasty, the rest of the buildings reflect the obvious architectural style of the Song and Yuan dynasties, such as the huge dougong and the volley eaves.
This is of great value for the study of ancient Chinese traditional architecture. In addition, there are more than 960 square meters of murals of the Yuan Dynasty in Yongle Palace. In these murals, the clothes and belts of the immortals flutter, as if moving in the wind, the brushstrokes are fine, even if there are many figures, but everyone's expression is different, there is no sense of homogeneity, which can be called a rare masterpiece in the world.
In order to protect these precious cultural relics, ** personally instructed the relocation.
In 1959, the government allocated 2 million yuan for the relocation and protection of cultural relics, and hundreds of experts and students in cultural relics restoration, architecture, and painting gathered from all over the country to the Yellow River to devote themselves to this great project.
However, shortly after the project began, they encountered a shocking incident. In the northwest corner of Yongle Palace, several migrant workers found a strange cemetery and an inexplicable stone tablet during the excavation, which surprised everyone present and also caused heated discussions and conjectures in the historical research community.
In this incident, a migrant worker stuck a hard stone with a shovel while excavating, and after some effort, they found that it was not an ordinary stone, but a cracked tombstone.
This discovery aroused great interest from everyone, and they came to watch it one after another. The occurrence of this event made the relocation project of Yongle Palace more mysterious and interesting, and also gave people a deeper understanding and understanding of ancient Chinese history and culture.
Young and curious, the migrant workers at the scene excavated a tombstone, and after cleaning up the wet soil, they found seven big characters - "The Tomb of Lu Chunyang of the Tang Dynasty".
This may be an ancient tomb, so who is "Lu Chunyang"? A migrant worker invited an expert in the protection of cultural relics who was studying the dougong of the Yuan Dynasty to the site.
Experts were shocked to learn that it was the cemetery of "Lu Chunyang", and it was from the Tang Dynasty, isn't this the legendary immortal tomb?
According to expert research, the well-known Lu Dongbin, who called himself Chunyangzi, also known as Chunyang Ancestor, has now been confirmed to have died in the Tang Dynasty. Lu Dongbin is the founder of Taoism Quanzhen Sect, and Yongle Palace, as the birthplace of Quanzhen Religion, not only enshrines the statue of Sanqing God, but also has a pure yang hall dedicated to placing its statue.
A series of questions swirl in the minds of experts about the relationship between the tombstone and Lu Dongbin, and whether the construction of Yongle Palace is related to this. In order to find out the truth, he quickly applied to the Shanxi Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics, requesting an excavation of the tomb of Yongle Palace.
The Cultural Relics Bureau attaches great importance to this matter and immediately dispatched professional and technical personnel to assist. Since there were no excavators at that time, all archaeological work had to be excavated bit by bit by experts and workers.
After several days of investigation, they found that the area of this tomb was not large, only ten acres at most, and it did not look like the treatment that an ancestor should have. However, when they opened the chamber, everyone was disappointed.
The burial chamber is north-south-facing, and the space is very narrow, with only a decaying pine coffin inside. Through the coffin, two dry skeletons can be seen, the male on the left and the female on the right, both lying upright.
Seven copper coins were scattered on the female corpse, including four Kaiyuan Tongbao, two auspicious talisman Tongbao and one Tiansheng Tongbao, and a small clay pot was placed on the west side of the skull. Next to the leg bones of the male corpse is a three-color porcelain pillow.
There was nothing else in the tomb except these two bodies. The only exception to this is Lü Chunyang's tomb, which, unlike the others, is lavishly decorated, with a top of fine plaster and a checkered stone brick at the bottom.
The coffins of both men are painted with cloud dragon patterns, rendered in red and white. The stone piers inside the tomb are carved with intricate character stories.
What secrets are hidden in this very different burial chamber? In the double tomb, are there really the bones of Lu Dongbin? This has sparked a heated discussion in the academic community. The mystery of authenticity, is this humble double tomb related to the legendary head of the Eight Immortals, Lu Dongbin?
Many historians disagree on this issue for two reasons: First, not all the copper coins in the coffins came from the Tang Dynasty. Among these three copper coins, Kaiyuan Tongbao was issued earlier than the fourth year of Tang Gaozu Wude (621) and much earlier than Lü Dongbin's birthday, while Kaiyuan Tongbao and Xiangfu Tongbao were issued in the Northern Song Dynasty during the Zhenzong and Renzong eras, and the earliest issuance time was not until 1023 AD.
If Lu Dongbin lived to be 90 years old, it would be more than 100 years before these two currencies appeared.
Experts found that although the lid of the double coffin was damaged, the connection around it was intact, and there was no sign of secondary opening. It is speculated that the bones and copper coins should have been placed at the same time.
This suggests that the two bodies in the burial chamber are not of the same era. In addition, the form of joint burial of men and women is inconsistent with Taoist beliefs. It is rumored that although Lu Dongbin was suave, as the patriarch of the Quanzhen Sect, he was a self-contained and calm person, believing that desires and emotions would affect people's physical health.
Therefore, a cultivator should start by eliminating the seven emotions and six desires, abandoning the turbidity in the heart and concentrating on the essence and soul.
The Quanzhen Sect advocates abstinence from sexual desires, prohibits marriage, childbirth, drinking alcohol and eating meat, so Taoist celebrities such as Qiu Chuji and Wang Chongyang have no children. According to this point of view, Lü Dongbin's tomb should be a single tomb, and Lü Zu's tomb in Yongle Palace may be misinformation or secondary.
However, some scholars believe that the bones in the double tomb may be Lü Dongbin and his wife. Based on the records of "Yayan Miscellaneous", they believe that Lu Dongbin was ignited by Zhong Liquan after decades of marriage, and decided to cultivate and become an immortal, and he gave up his fame and wealth in the world when he was nearly half a hundred years old, and practiced with his wife in Jiufeng Mountain.
Jiufeng Mountain, located at the southern foot of the Zhongtiao Mountain Range in Ruicheng County, was once a place for cultivating and saving people. In order to commemorate these pioneers, the local people built the Lu Gong Temple near Yongle Town.
Therefore, the tombs of Lü Dongbin and his wife should be in Ruicheng County. This may also be the reason why Qiu Chuji chose to build Yongle Palace in this place. As a Taoist resort, Yongle Palace has been burning incense for thousands of years, and being able to rest here is enough to prove that their identity is extraordinary.
Moreover, when the Yongle Palace was built, the prestige of the Quanzhen Sect was flourishing, and its disciples had to be ordained to enter the temple, and there would be no situation where the husband and wife were buried together. Thus, it is clear that the husband and wife in this double tomb existed before the formation of the Quanzhen Religion.
With the development of Taoism, many tribes emerged during the Northern Song Dynasty. In the seventh year of Jin Dading (1167), Wang Chongyang founded the Quanzhen Sect, accepted Ma Danyang, Qiu Chuji and others as disciples, and set the rules of abstinence from sex.
After the Yuan Dynasty unified Jiangnan, the Quanzhen Sect enshrined Lü Dongbin as one of the five ancestors and built a hall to worship his gods.
Did the Quanzhen Taoist priests move their bones? Conspiracy theorists or Taoist people falsifying to solicit pilgrims? Are the rumored bones of Ma Yu and Sun Buji hidden? So far, the identity of the owner of the tomb has not been determined, which has led to speculation.
But whether it is true or not, the tomb of Lu Gongzu has become a signboard of the scenic spot, thousands of people worship, Yongle Palace has long been restored to its former style, tourists and believers are endless.