Everyone who has watched "Journey to the West" knows that the Monkey King was once named the Heavenly Court Bi Ma Wen by the Jade Emperor. In the fourth chapter of the book, "The Official Seal of Bi Ma Xin He Foot Famous Note Qi Heavenly Will Not Be Peaceful" mentions: "The Jade Emperor Xuanwen selected the martial arts to select Xianqing, and looked at the few official positions there, and Sun Wukong removed the award. Turning to the side, Wuqu Xingjun said: "In the Heavenly Palace, there are many officials in all palaces and halls, all parties and everywhere, but the Imperial Horse Supervisor lacks a main hall steward. The Jade Emperor said, "Just get rid of him and be a Bi Ma Wen." The courtiers were called Shant, and he only sang a big song upwards. ”
So is "Bi Ma Wen" really an official position?
The real "Bi Ma Wen" in history
In fact, in ancient China, there were really monkeys kept in stables.
This comes from an allusion to "a dead horse as a live horse doctor".
It is recorded in the Jin Book Guo Pu Biography that a big official named Zhao Gu in the Jin Dynasty had a horse, tall and strong, handsome and abnormal, and Zhao Gu usually cherished it very much. One day, Guo Pu came to see Zhao Gu, and happened to hear that his friend's beloved horse had just died, and Zhao Gu was very sad about it and didn't want to see anyone. Guo Pu told Zhao Gu that he only needed to do some specific actions to have a chance to save the horse, and although Zhao Gu was initially skeptical, he decided to give it a try after Guo Pu's repeated insistence. Guo Pu found twenty or thirty strong men, traveled thirty miles east with a long pole, and struck all the way, capturing a macaque in the mountains and forests. He brought the macaque to the dead horse, and the macaque blew on the horse's nose. After a while, the horse jumped up and grazed as usual.
Later Wei Jia Siyi's "Qi Min Technique" contains, "The ancients raised horses often tied macaques in the horse workshop, so that the horses were not afraid, and they avoided evil and eliminated all kinds of diseases. It is also recorded in Zhao Nanxing's "Collection of Official Documents of Zhao Zhongyi" and Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" of Ming Dynasty: "It is a macaque in the stable to get rid of horse disease".
Because the macaque is lively by nature, it jumps up and down in the stable, which can prevent the stable horse from being lazy and sleepy, so that it can maintain a certain amount of activity, be physically strong, and suffer less disease. Due to their small size, macaques can sit smoothly on horseback, and some people use macaques to tame fierce horses. People call this kind of monkey horse monkey, and the literati call it the stable monkey, and the Northern Song Dynasty poet Mei Yaochen wrote a poem entitled "Yongyang Gaopin Stable Monkey", the first sentence is the cloud: "Taste and smell the Qiji, avoid the evil macaque." ”
"Journey to the West" is based on the prototype of the macaque who can dispel the horse plague described in the ancient books, and the author skillfully uses humorous and witty tones to turn the homonym of the three words "Bi Ma Wen" into the official position of "Bi Ma Wen".
There are two different interpretations of the meaning of the term "Bimawin":
Explanation of Horse Plague Avoidance: There is a theory that "Bi Ma Wen" is a homonym for "horse plague avoidance", which reflects the ancient people's understanding that monkeys were able to prevent horse plague. This knowledge may be based on practical experience or folklore, such as feeding horses with monkey urine mixed with horse urine in the hope of preventing disease.
Explanation of mockery: Another view is that "Bi Ma Wen" is a mockery of the Monkey King by the Jade Emperor. Despite Sun Wukong's high ability and status, he was assigned to manage such low-level affairs as the stable, showing that his status in the heavenly realm was not high.