Ｔｈｅ?。祝铮恚幔睢。椋睢。簦瑁濉。停铮铮?/h1>
2008-04-21 03:23:26ＨＵＯＪＩＡＮＹＩＮＧ
CHINA TODAY 2008年1期
ＨＵＯ?。剩桑粒危伲桑危?/p>
AS they watch the bright moon gradually disappear, villagers shout, “The Celestial Dog is eating the moon!” and race home to fetch the nearest acoustic implement to hand. The entire village then takes to the streets and makes as big a commotion as possible – setting off firecrackers, beating drums and gongs, and banging pots and pans – until the moon completely reemerges. This authentic Chinese scenario at times of the moons eclipse was commonplace not that long ago.
The legend in which this ritual originates is that of a savage dog escaped from hell and at large in the heavens. Its prey was the Jade Emperor but, unable to get at this well-protected sovereign, itran instead after the sun and the moon. The hell-hound was intent upon eating whichever of the two it first caught, and plunging both Heaven and Earth into darkness. Fortunately the dog had a weakness – a fear of noise that forced it to regurgitate the orb. But it was tenacious in its evil intent. Despite being foiled by valiant mortal efforts, it renews its pursuit of the sun and the moon year after year. It is this imaginative explanation for solar and lunar eclipses that has rendered the moon mortal protection throughout millennia.
Chinese ancients knew that the sun and the moon bring light to the earth; it was why they combined the characters representing the sun and the moon into the compound character meaning “l(fā)ight.” But the sun and the moon had significance beyond their illuminative function. Within the ancient philosophy of Tao, the sun is yang (bright, iridescent and male) and the moon is yin (dark, formless and female). The two combine to create all living things. Chinese ancients worshiped the sun and the moon as the sources of life. But Chinese literature and folklore evidence a much greater veneration for the moon than for the sun. This is due not only to the moons romantic lucidity and serenity, as celebrated in song and poetry, but also to the legendary beauty believed to dwell on it.
Fly Me to the Moon
– and Back
Chinese ancients dreamt up myths about flying to the moon more than two millennia ago. That best known features a beautiful young woman named Change. She succeeded in being the first human being to set foot on the moon, but failed in her efforts to return to Earth.
The background to this legend is the remote past, when ten suns rose and shone simultaneously in the heavens. Their pitiless rays made the earth a living hell for humankind: rivers dried up, crops and vegetation withered and perished, and mortals died of thirst. A purported witch engaged to subdue the suns was scorched to death. Eventually Houyi, a celestial archer and representative of the Heavenly Court on Earth, came forward and took action. Incensed at the human misery wrought by these ten suns, Houyi defied the heavenly mandate merely to disperse them. Instead he placed ten arrows in his quiver and began purposefully to shoot each one down. Fortunately, one of the arrows was stolen, forcing him to leave a single sun in the heavens. Houyis disobedience caused his permanent banishmentfrom the Heavenly Kingdom, but made him a hero on Earth.
Houyi earned his living from teaching archery and hunting. Among his manystudent archers was a malevolent named Pang Meng.Before long Houyi met and married the lovely, charming Change. While he taught his celestial archery skills, she kept house. They lived a happy life.
Houyi loved Change so desperately that he sought a means for them to be together throughout eternity. With this quest in mind, he set out on the perilous journey to visit the Queen Mother of the West, possessor of the elixir of life, at her home in the Kunlun Mountains. Houyi met with extraordinary difficulties, overcoming trials by fire and water, before finally arriving at his mountainous destination. The Queen, appreciative of what Houyi had done for humankind and sympathetic to his plight, gave him two elixir pills. One was sufficient to bestow eternal life; swallowing both could transform a mortal into a celestial being and resident of Heaven.
Houyi went home and happily handed the pills over to his beloved Change. The evil Pang Meng, however, was eavesdropping, and learned of their secret. When Houyi took his students out hunting on the 15th day of the eighth moon, Pang Meng stayed behind on a pretext. After the others had left, Pang Meng went to Change and commanded her to give him the pills, threatening her with his sword. In desperation, Change swallowed the pills. She immediately floated up and out of the window, flying upward through the skies until she landed on the moon.
When he heard what had happened, Houyi went searching for Pang Meng, vowing to kill him, but the villain had fled. The archer looked desperately to the heavens, calling his wifes name in anguish. He soon saw Changes slender figure silhouetted against the bright full moon. Houyi bid his servants set up a table laden with fruits and sweetmeats in the rear garden where Change loved to sit, in the vain hope that she would join him there. In the years that followed, local villagers, knowing that Change had became a fairy of the moon, set up a ritual table similarly laden on each 15th day of the eighth month. There they prayed to benevolent Change for her blessing.
Celestial Solitude
Other tales featuring companions for this lonely lunar fairy followed that of Changes flight to the moon.
The Jade Rabbit was Changes best friend. There are various versions of the myth in which the rabbit appears, but there is no variance on its being sent to Guanghan Palace to alleviate Changes sorrowful solitude. The rabbit kept busy each day, pestling medicinal materials in efforts to concoct a magic pill that could enable Change to return to Earth. Despite its unstinting efforts, however, the rabbit neversucceeded.
Wu Gang was the other human resident of the lunar palace. Tales of him were not heard until the Tang Dynasty some 1,000 years ago, when Taoism became popular in China. Legend has it that a sweet-scented osmanthus tree grew on the moon. It was 1,500 meters tall and had a magic self-healing ability. There lived on Earth a woodman named Wu Gang, obsessed with the magic powers of Taoism. Too lazy to become a master of necromancy through devoted self-cultivation, he sought shortcuts. Wu Gangs insincerity offended the Almighty, who sent him to the moon telling him, “You will attain magic powers once you fell the sweet-scented osmanthus tree.” Day after day, Wu Gang wielded his ax, but the cleaving scars disappeared seconds after each stroke. Wu Gang continued his labors day after day. In the meantime, however, he mastered the skill of making mellow sweet-scented osmanthus wine.
The toad, to Chinese ancients, was an auspicious symbol of longevity and good fortune. It is another creature associated with Change that features in the earliest brief account of her flight to the moon. In this instance Change was the daughter of an emperor and wife to Houyi. Seeking eternal life as a celestial, she stole the pills of immortality from the Queen Mother of the West and swallowedboth. When Change arrived at her lunar palace she was transformed into a toad as punishment for her theft. This is a version seldom heard, as it is generally preferred to portray Change as virtuous as well as beautiful. A toad features in an amended version of the tale, but as a friend to Change in her lonely lunar vigil. It is honored in folk literature as the “Golden Toad.”
These tales were eventually woven into a folk moon scenario: the magnificent but deserted Guanghan Palace occupied by the languishing Change, opportunistic woodman Wu Gang, assiduous pharmacist rabbit, and a toad that simply frolics around.
Mid-Autumn Festival
The origins of the Mid-Autum festival on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month are in the folklore around Changes mythical moon flight. In some places it was also known as the Eighth Moon, or Reunion, Festival, second in importance only to the Spring Festival, or Lunar New Year. These colorful celebrations went on through the night and included an outdoor ritual honoring the Moon Goddess, or Change. Children dressed in adult clothing, and the entire family prayed for their sons some day to “pluck the laurel branch from the Toad Palace”(in other words, pass the imperial examination), and for their daughters to grow to be as beautiful and charming as Change.
The reunion dinner was a main component of this festival. Each family prepared a dessert called “tuanyuan,” or “reunion.” It comprised round cakes embossed with images of the moon, the osmanthus tree or the rabbit, that were filled with sugar, sesame seeds, sweet-scented osmanthus and nut kernels. They varied in size, sometimes as large as a foot in diameter. Offerings to the moon in addition to these round cakes included fruits and green soybean pods for the Jade Rabbit, a character regarded with particular affection by residents of Beijing.
The Jade Rabbit, popularly known in Beijing as “Turye,” or “Grandpa Rabbit,” commands a folklore all its own. Legend tells of a year when the plague hit Beijing, claiming the lives of many people. Change was so anxious that she sent the Jade Rabbit to Earth to stamp it out. The rabbit halted the epidemic by dosing the afflictedwith pills it had concocted. In gratitude, locals made clay figurines of a rabbits body with a human head. As the Jade Rabbit had the power to appear either as a man or woman at will, the figurines were fashioned in both genders. They were also clad in colorful costumes because, as legend has it, the Jade Rabbit borrowed clothes when treating the ill in order to avoid alarming them and their family members with its whiteness, white being the conventional Chinese color of mourning. On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, rabbit figurines, in sizes varying from a few centimeters to a meter tall, would be placed on ritual tables as icons for worship. When the festival was over, they were given to children as toys. The moon and rabbit worship ritual has more or less vanished, but rabbit figurines survive as folk art.
The myth of Change demonstrates that flying to the moon has been a Chinese dream since ancient times. The successful orbit of Change I, Chinas first lunar probe, in October 2007, and the steady progress of the Change Project suggest that before too long Change really will land on the moon – and return to earth as well.
ＨＵＯ?。剩桑粒危伲桑危?/p>
AS they watch the bright moon gradually disappear, villagers shout, “The Celestial Dog is eating the moon!” and race home to fetch the nearest acoustic implement to hand. The entire village then takes to the streets and makes as big a commotion as possible – setting off firecrackers, beating drums and gongs, and banging pots and pans – until the moon completely reemerges. This authentic Chinese scenario at times of the moons eclipse was commonplace not that long ago.
The legend in which this ritual originates is that of a savage dog escaped from hell and at large in the heavens. Its prey was the Jade Emperor but, unable to get at this well-protected sovereign, itran instead after the sun and the moon. The hell-hound was intent upon eating whichever of the two it first caught, and plunging both Heaven and Earth into darkness. Fortunately the dog had a weakness – a fear of noise that forced it to regurgitate the orb. But it was tenacious in its evil intent. Despite being foiled by valiant mortal efforts, it renews its pursuit of the sun and the moon year after year. It is this imaginative explanation for solar and lunar eclipses that has rendered the moon mortal protection throughout millennia.
Chinese ancients knew that the sun and the moon bring light to the earth; it was why they combined the characters representing the sun and the moon into the compound character meaning “l(fā)ight.” But the sun and the moon had significance beyond their illuminative function. Within the ancient philosophy of Tao, the sun is yang (bright, iridescent and male) and the moon is yin (dark, formless and female). The two combine to create all living things. Chinese ancients worshiped the sun and the moon as the sources of life. But Chinese literature and folklore evidence a much greater veneration for the moon than for the sun. This is due not only to the moons romantic lucidity and serenity, as celebrated in song and poetry, but also to the legendary beauty believed to dwell on it.
Fly Me to the Moon
– and Back
Chinese ancients dreamt up myths about flying to the moon more than two millennia ago. That best known features a beautiful young woman named Change. She succeeded in being the first human being to set foot on the moon, but failed in her efforts to return to Earth.
The background to this legend is the remote past, when ten suns rose and shone simultaneously in the heavens. Their pitiless rays made the earth a living hell for humankind: rivers dried up, crops and vegetation withered and perished, and mortals died of thirst. A purported witch engaged to subdue the suns was scorched to death. Eventually Houyi, a celestial archer and representative of the Heavenly Court on Earth, came forward and took action. Incensed at the human misery wrought by these ten suns, Houyi defied the heavenly mandate merely to disperse them. Instead he placed ten arrows in his quiver and began purposefully to shoot each one down. Fortunately, one of the arrows was stolen, forcing him to leave a single sun in the heavens. Houyis disobedience caused his permanent banishmentfrom the Heavenly Kingdom, but made him a hero on Earth.
Houyi earned his living from teaching archery and hunting. Among his manystudent archers was a malevolent named Pang Meng.Before long Houyi met and married the lovely, charming Change. While he taught his celestial archery skills, she kept house. They lived a happy life.
Houyi loved Change so desperately that he sought a means for them to be together throughout eternity. With this quest in mind, he set out on the perilous journey to visit the Queen Mother of the West, possessor of the elixir of life, at her home in the Kunlun Mountains. Houyi met with extraordinary difficulties, overcoming trials by fire and water, before finally arriving at his mountainous destination. The Queen, appreciative of what Houyi had done for humankind and sympathetic to his plight, gave him two elixir pills. One was sufficient to bestow eternal life; swallowing both could transform a mortal into a celestial being and resident of Heaven.
Houyi went home and happily handed the pills over to his beloved Change. The evil Pang Meng, however, was eavesdropping, and learned of their secret. When Houyi took his students out hunting on the 15th day of the eighth moon, Pang Meng stayed behind on a pretext. After the others had left, Pang Meng went to Change and commanded her to give him the pills, threatening her with his sword. In desperation, Change swallowed the pills. She immediately floated up and out of the window, flying upward through the skies until she landed on the moon.
When he heard what had happened, Houyi went searching for Pang Meng, vowing to kill him, but the villain had fled. The archer looked desperately to the heavens, calling his wifes name in anguish. He soon saw Changes slender figure silhouetted against the bright full moon. Houyi bid his servants set up a table laden with fruits and sweetmeats in the rear garden where Change loved to sit, in the vain hope that she would join him there. In the years that followed, local villagers, knowing that Change had became a fairy of the moon, set up a ritual table similarly laden on each 15th day of the eighth month. There they prayed to benevolent Change for her blessing.
Celestial Solitude
Other tales featuring companions for this lonely lunar fairy followed that of Changes flight to the moon.
The Jade Rabbit was Changes best friend. There are various versions of the myth in which the rabbit appears, but there is no variance on its being sent to Guanghan Palace to alleviate Changes sorrowful solitude. The rabbit kept busy each day, pestling medicinal materials in efforts to concoct a magic pill that could enable Change to return to Earth. Despite its unstinting efforts, however, the rabbit neversucceeded.
Wu Gang was the other human resident of the lunar palace. Tales of him were not heard until the Tang Dynasty some 1,000 years ago, when Taoism became popular in China. Legend has it that a sweet-scented osmanthus tree grew on the moon. It was 1,500 meters tall and had a magic self-healing ability. There lived on Earth a woodman named Wu Gang, obsessed with the magic powers of Taoism. Too lazy to become a master of necromancy through devoted self-cultivation, he sought shortcuts. Wu Gangs insincerity offended the Almighty, who sent him to the moon telling him, “You will attain magic powers once you fell the sweet-scented osmanthus tree.” Day after day, Wu Gang wielded his ax, but the cleaving scars disappeared seconds after each stroke. Wu Gang continued his labors day after day. In the meantime, however, he mastered the skill of making mellow sweet-scented osmanthus wine.
The toad, to Chinese ancients, was an auspicious symbol of longevity and good fortune. It is another creature associated with Change that features in the earliest brief account of her flight to the moon. In this instance Change was the daughter of an emperor and wife to Houyi. Seeking eternal life as a celestial, she stole the pills of immortality from the Queen Mother of the West and swallowedboth. When Change arrived at her lunar palace she was transformed into a toad as punishment for her theft. This is a version seldom heard, as it is generally preferred to portray Change as virtuous as well as beautiful. A toad features in an amended version of the tale, but as a friend to Change in her lonely lunar vigil. It is honored in folk literature as the “Golden Toad.”
These tales were eventually woven into a folk moon scenario: the magnificent but deserted Guanghan Palace occupied by the languishing Change, opportunistic woodman Wu Gang, assiduous pharmacist rabbit, and a toad that simply frolics around.
Mid-Autumn Festival
The origins of the Mid-Autum festival on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month are in the folklore around Changes mythical moon flight. In some places it was also known as the Eighth Moon, or Reunion, Festival, second in importance only to the Spring Festival, or Lunar New Year. These colorful celebrations went on through the night and included an outdoor ritual honoring the Moon Goddess, or Change. Children dressed in adult clothing, and the entire family prayed for their sons some day to “pluck the laurel branch from the Toad Palace”(in other words, pass the imperial examination), and for their daughters to grow to be as beautiful and charming as Change.
The reunion dinner was a main component of this festival. Each family prepared a dessert called “tuanyuan,” or “reunion.” It comprised round cakes embossed with images of the moon, the osmanthus tree or the rabbit, that were filled with sugar, sesame seeds, sweet-scented osmanthus and nut kernels. They varied in size, sometimes as large as a foot in diameter. Offerings to the moon in addition to these round cakes included fruits and green soybean pods for the Jade Rabbit, a character regarded with particular affection by residents of Beijing.
The Jade Rabbit, popularly known in Beijing as “Turye,” or “Grandpa Rabbit,” commands a folklore all its own. Legend tells of a year when the plague hit Beijing, claiming the lives of many people. Change was so anxious that she sent the Jade Rabbit to Earth to stamp it out. The rabbit halted the epidemic by dosing the afflictedwith pills it had concocted. In gratitude, locals made clay figurines of a rabbits body with a human head. As the Jade Rabbit had the power to appear either as a man or woman at will, the figurines were fashioned in both genders. They were also clad in colorful costumes because, as legend has it, the Jade Rabbit borrowed clothes when treating the ill in order to avoid alarming them and their family members with its whiteness, white being the conventional Chinese color of mourning. On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, rabbit figurines, in sizes varying from a few centimeters to a meter tall, would be placed on ritual tables as icons for worship. When the festival was over, they were given to children as toys. The moon and rabbit worship ritual has more or less vanished, but rabbit figurines survive as folk art.
The myth of Change demonstrates that flying to the moon has been a Chinese dream since ancient times. The successful orbit of Change I, Chinas first lunar probe, in October 2007, and the steady progress of the Change Project suggest that before too long Change really will land on the moon – and return to earth as well.
