In ancient China, the stars in the sky were divided into seven star zones, namely "Three Walls" and "Four Elephants". The so-called "wall" is the "city wall". "Three Walls" is the "Wei Zi Wall", symbolizing the palace; "Taiweiyuan" symbolizes the administrative organization; The "sky wall" symbolizes the bustling market. These three walls are arranged in a triangle around Polaris. There are four elephants around the three walls: East Black Dragon, West White Tiger, South Suzaku and North Xuanwu. That is to say, the stars in the east are like dragons, the stars in the west are like tigers, the stars in the south are like big birds, and the stars in the north are like turtles and snakes. As the earth revolves around the sun, the stars in the sky change with the seasons. Every evening at the turn of winter and spring, the black dragon appears; At the turn of spring and summer, Xuanwu rose; At the turn of summer and autumn, white tigers emerge; At the turn of autumn and winter, Suzaku rises.
Oriental green dragon
Suzaku, Xuanwu (black tortoise snake, martial arts means tortoise snake), Qinglong and Baihu respectively represent 28 places in the four directions, and the dragon is the seven places in the East-the horn, the clang, the bian, the room, the heart, the tail and the dustpan. These seven places are all very dragon-shaped. As can be seen from their meanings, horns are the horns of dragons, and clanging is dragons.
There is still a part of the dragon's heart, which some people call' fire', which is related to sunny and rainy days, and because Qinglong is a wood, it is also the age of Jupiter. After the rise of Taoism, these four spirits were also given names to facilitate human beings to call them. Qinglong is called Meng Zhang, White Tiger is called prison soldier, Suzaku is called Lingguang, and Xuanwu is called Zhiming. In many dynasties, emperors took Qinglong as their national title, such as Wei Mingdi in the Three Kingdoms, and there were also records that the Xia Dynasty belonged to the Mude Dynasty, so he had'.
On the second day of the second month of the lunar calendar, people call it "February 2, the dragon rises", which symbolizes the return of spring to the earth and the revival of everything. At the same time, spring is slowly coming to the world, the rain is increasing, the earth is turning green, and spring ploughing begins from south to north. There is a folk proverb: "On February 2, the dragon looks up, the big warehouse is full, and the small warehouse flows." In short, the second day of February is designated as "Spring Festival".
The white tiger in the west is the god of war.
White tiger is also the god of war and war. White tiger has many magical powers, such as avoiding evil, avoiding disasters, praying and punishing evil, promoting good, making a fortune and getting married. And it is one of the four spirits, and of course it is also changed from the stars. Among these 28 stars, there are 7 in the west: osmium, building, stomach, ang, bi, Gou and Shen. Therefore, it is the representative of the west, and its whiteness is due to the west. The five elements belong to gold and the color is white. So it is called white tiger not because it is white, but because it comes from five elements.
In addition to the four spirits in Taoism, including dragons and white tigers, and even when Feng Shui masters explore cemeteries, the terrain protruding from the left and right sides in front of the terrain can be used as burial rooms, which have unique titles, called Zuo Qinglong and Right White Tiger, to take the meaning of their guards, and also have the same decoration in the court. The left and right pillars are painted with dragons and white tigers to suppress evil spirits. After the rise of Taoism, dragon and tiger were borrowed as Taoist alchemy terms, meaning "lead, mercury, fire, water, yin and yang" and so on. Taoist alchemy is divided into two parts: internal alchemy and external alchemy (I'm not sure). As far as Yin-Yang and Five Elements are concerned, Inner Dan means that dragons are born in fire, so the cloud' dragons are born in fire', while tigers are born in ridges and ridges belong to water, so the cloud' tigers are born in water'. After the two elements are combined, one yin and one yang are mutual.
Another way of saying this is that sex belongs to wood, and wood represents the East. In divination, it is an earthquake, so it is a dragon. Love belongs to gold, gold represents the west, and the hexagrams are exchanged, which is golden white, so it is called white tiger. Gold can crush wood, so feelings are more harmful. If we use the true meaning of 28 to make it one, then it will be seamless, and the dragon and tiger will change from crouching tiger to Dan. In the human body, the liver is the dragon and the kidney is the tiger, while the external Dan still takes the meaning of yin and yang, with the dragon as the lead and the tiger as the mercury.
In the eyes of the ancients, the tiger is a terrible thing and a respectable thing. The terrible thing is that it will eat people and animals. Respectably, it can ward off evil spirits because of its great power. In some ancient books, such as the Eastern Han Dynasty. Ying Shao's "Common Customs". Sacrificial ceremony:' draw a tiger on the door, ghosts dare not enter',' tiger, penis, the length of all animals is also. Can resist sharpness and eat ghosts. Today, people have to burn tiger skin to drink after they die. Beating its paws can also cure evil. This is also a fact. "The ancients also thought that the white tiger was an auspicious feeling:' Virtue is a hundred birds and beasts.'
The original West Star gods were bears and owls, and later, because of the totem of the ancient Qiang people, when bears became dragons. When the Yellow Emperor developed eastward, the dragon totem was brought to the east and merged with the' Oriental Black Dragon Constellation', and Zhu Bird became the new home of the celestial phoenix totem when the south was unified, and eventually became a' dragon and phoenix' because of the integration of the two tribes. As an ancient totem, it is the East Phoenix and the West Dragon, and as an astrology, it is the East Black Dragon and the West Zhu Bird. After the Zhou Dynasty, the feudal system was formally established, and the five elements thought also became mature. The astronomical phenomena were re-divided, and the Zhu bird was placed in the south, where it was sacrificed with Zhu Rong Vulcan. The west worships the white tiger. In the tribal struggle and migration, the dragon in the northwest moved eastward, the phoenix in the east moved southward, and the tiger in the south moved northward, showing a great conceptual movement throughout the country. By the Han dynasty, the concept of five elements had become a unified thought, and with Xuanwu, the' God of the Four Sides' was completed.
In ancient times, historical records recorded. The book' Black Dragon in the East Palace, Zhu Bird in the South Palace, Fairy Pool in the West Palace, Gong Beixuan Wu' in the Tiangong is not a white tiger, but a salty water pool. Salty pond is the star of staple food. Mainly in autumn, because the grain is harvested in autumn, it is released in autumn. But it's not an animal. How can it be combined with dragons, birds and turtles into four spirits? In "Justice":' Xianchi Samsung is in the five cars, the sky is south, and the fish and birds are there? "Oh, yes," so the Song Dynasty questioned:' Black Dragon, Zhu Bird, Xuanwu, seven nights are all concerned. As for Xianchi, don't be a star and stay away from 28 nights. There is another explanation for the salty pool, which is where the sun bathes. In Huainanzi. Astronomy:' What day is it? D valley, bathed in salty pool and brushed in fusang, is called morning light. It can be seen that Xianchi was originally regarded as the sunrise place by Qiang people. Xianchi is also an alkali lake, which should be Minshan area or Shantou Lake in Qinghai. It can be proved that the astrology worshipped by primitive people does not have the concept of dragon and white tiger. In the Book of Rites. The so-called "Li Yun": "Returning to the dragon in the face of the wind is called the Four Spirits." Replace the salty pool that does not belong to animals with Kirin. Later generations have the habit of four spirits, four elephants and four tigers.
Because the White Tiger is a god of war and a magic axe, many brave generals are said to be the stars of the White Tiger, such as Luo Cheng and Xue and his son in the Tang Dynasty. In addition, the white tiger was absorbed and released by Taoism, deified and became the keeper of various temples.