Why is Nezha called “eight armed Nezha”? Nezha’s brother is not Jin Zha or Mu Zha? Interested readers can take a look with Xiaobian.
At first glance, this topic is very puzzling. Isn’t Nezha three headed and six armed? When did he have two more arms? What does the eight armed Nezha City mean? In fact, the eight armed Nezha city refers to our capital Beijing, but this is actually very difficult to understand. I don’t know why Beijing is also called the eight armed Nezha city? What is the meaning of eight armed Nezha city and what is its connection with Beijing? Let’s unveil the secrets today.
“Going westward from the Shenwu gate, there is a well on the North Bank of the moat. It is said that the well is open, and the chief eunuch has the right. In the early Qing Dynasty, some people advocated that the well should be destroyed. Feng Jianjia said:” this well can not be destroyed. Beijing is the city of three headed and six armed Nezha (now commonly known as Nezha). The navel of this Nezha is also. If a person has no navel, he will lose his physiology. “Because it is sealed with a large stone.”
This is the record left by the eunuch Xin Xiuming in the memory of the old eunuch at the end of the Qing Dynasty. In the 28th year of Guangxu (1902 AD), he was castrated into the palace in the name of Zhang Xianlu. He was 23 years old. Xinxiuming is the name of Taoism. Because of his culture (he failed in the tests of fame, water master school, and Taiyuan hospital), and his successful cultivation, he was called “immortal Zhang” in the palace. The old eunuch’s memories records many details of the Qing palace, and it is difficult to distinguish the true from the false.
This record shows that by the end of the Qing Dynasty, the legend that “old Beijing was the city of eight armed Nezha (one said it was six armed)” had been widely accepted. In the 1950s, Mr. Jin Shoushen, a famous scholar, completed the legend of Beijing, which further refined the legend. Most of the oral legends today are based on this, but there are many mistakes in this theory.
Due to the popularity of the animated film “the birth of Nezha’s demon child”, Nezha has become the focus of attention. It is worth noting that in ancient legends, Nezha was the most deformed and had the most doubts. Take the source as an example, there are statements about India, Iran, Egypt, etc. as for where they were born, there are statements about Yibin, Sichuan, Jiangyou, Tianjin, chentangzhuang, Nanyang, Henan, etc.
In the face of numerous disputes, what should old Beijing, as the “eight armed Nezha city”, say?
Nezha’s brother is Erlang God
Nezha was written as Nezha before the Ming Dynasty, which originated from the Sanskrit Nata. It is generally believed that Nezha came from India. He is the ghost king with three sides and eight arms (one says six arms) in Buddhism. He is the third son of one of the four great heavenly kings, the vishan Heavenly King (sometimes also known as the Duowen heavenly king).
It is said that the vishan heavenly king had 91 sons, only the second son Dujian (the prototype of Erlang God) and the third son Nezha (it is also said that Nezha is the nephew of Dujian) are more famous.
There are two translation problems here: first, the word “door” of vishan heavenly king was added by the Chinese translator, which caused misunderstanding among future generations; Secondly, Nezha’s name is difficult to read because ancient Chinese is divided into “Wen Du” and “Bai Du”. The former is commonly used by scholars, while the latter is popular in the market. The two pronunciations are different. The word “Wen Du” for Nezha is similar to Sanskrit, and the word “Bai Du” is very awkward.
Nezha’s Chinese records appeared in the Tang Dynasty, and had not been recorded before. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, Nezha’s name was also recorded as Nezha guvara, narojiupo, naqiaoju, naqiaoju, and Na Zhi. However, his story overlapped with later Legends:
First of all, Nezha did pick the meat and return it to his parents. That is to say, “Prince NACHA returns the flesh to his mother, the bone to his father, and then shows himself, using his great magic power to speak for his parents”, but this is an active act, not a forced one. Second, three heads and six arms. Third, the image of teenagers. According to the records of Zheng Chuhui in the Tang Dynasty, “the lawyer of daoxuan (i.e. Shi daoxuan) tried to walk in the road at night, but when he stumbled, some people took him for granted. When he saw a young man, he asked,” who is the disciple? “The young man said:” a certain special person, Prince Pisha and Prince Nezha also. “Fourth, he liked to compete with the dragon. That is, it is believed that “the people of Asura and all the people of heaven and dragon” can resist the drought and flood.
The early image is evil child
According to the research of scholars, “in the Northern Song Dynasty and before the Northern Song Dynasty, the basic image of Nezha was the ferocious Yaksha God”.
According to the ritual of protecting the Dharma with the army of the northern pishantian King written by Bu Kong in the Tang Dynasty, “at that time, Prince Nezha held a halberd in his hand and saw the four sides with evil eyes.” “Those who have bad intentions and kill their hearts will also hit their heads with a diamond stick.”
In the painting of the Buddha King going to Nezha in cave 146 of Dunhuang, there is a picture of a boy. Most scholars believe that it is Nezha. Its shape is “big head, bull eyes, broad nose facing the sky, naked upper body, bulging belly, wearing a collar and bracelet, and holding both hands high in worship.”.
For Nezha, the literati of the Song Dynasty had a lot of criticisms. Su Zhe then wrote a poem: “the king of heaven in the North has a crazy son. He only knows how to worship the Buddha but not his father. The Buddha knows that it is difficult to teach. The pagoda makes the father lift his left hand.” Confucianists attach great importance to filial piety, and do not accept the return of meat to parents. From the poem, the Song Dynasty has a pagoda suppression and other plots.
What makes people curious is that Nezha was clearly the son of the king of vishan. How did he become the son of Li Jing?
Li Jing, also known as pharmacist, was the founding General of the Tang Dynasty. He was Xiao Mian and Fu Gongyou in Nanping, destroyed the eastern Turks in the north, and destroyed the Tuyuhun in the West. He was regarded as the God of war. Therefore, the ancestral temples are all over the people, mainly responsible for the weather, insect disasters and diseases. In the Song Dynasty, people said: “Li Gong of the state of Wei, the assistant of the Tang Dynasty, the first of honor and virtue, the life is very strange, the death is a Ming God, and the reason is solid.”.
In the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907), the vishan heavenly king was also worshipped as the God of war. In the early days, it was only spread in the area of Khotan and belonged to the secret school. During the Anshi rebellion, the Tang army fled to the western regions. It is said that Dujian once appeared to protect the Tang Xuanzong who fled to Sichuan. After the Anshi rebellion, the Tang army returned to Chang’an and brought back the worship of vishan heavenly king. By the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the statues of vishan heavenly king had spread throughout the north.
How does Li Jing like to be a father
During the reign of emperor suzong of the Tang Dynasty, Li Jing was included in the temple of Wu and became one of the ten philosophers. In the Southern Song Dynasty, because of repeated oppression by the nomads, the imperial court longed for generals, and the people also contributed to the fire, so the image of Li Jing was fully deified. The images of Li Jing and Pishan Heavenly King gradually coincided.
According to the research of scholar sun Yimin, in the Yuan Dynasty, people mistakenly regarded Pishan as a place name. As soon as Li Jing became the general of vishan, some people further mistook vishan for visha palace. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Yang Jingxian wrote in Yang Donglai’s criticism of the journey to the West: “a million soldiers of heaven have always surrendered. In the north of jintagaopan Town, the four seas are well-known and surnamed, and the next king is Li Tianwang.”
If vishan is no longer regarded as a living creature, his son will naturally be “occupied” by Li Jing.
Nezha comes from Buddhist legend, but his master is Taiyi immortal. Later, when he wanted to kill his father, it was the Taoist priest who saved Li Jing. This involves another major change in the image of Nezha, which was completed in the Ming Dynasty.
According to the scholar Mr. Li Yihui, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, used religious superstition to establish his authority. When Zhu Di, the emperor of Yongle, even claimed to be the embodiment of Zhenwu. Emperor Zhenwu is the God of the north. Before that, he was not well known among the people. After Zhu Di usurped the throne, in order to correct his name, he dressed himself up as an image of “wholesale fighting dragon spring, sweeping away evil spirits on earth, and sitting in the Jinque to protect the gods in the world”.
In the atmosphere of advocating Taoism, the gods of other religions were also incorporated. By the middle of the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644), Emperor Jiajing was more superstitious and adopted Buddhism and Taoism. The confluence of the three religions became the mainstream of the times. The novels of gods and demons were also flourishing. The romance of gods was one of the representative works.
Economic development promotes Nezha equipment
As we all know, the romance of Fengshen is adapted from the Pinghua of the Yuan Dynasty, the Pinghua of the king of Wu attacking Zhou. The latter has more than 40000 characters and basically covers the main plot of the romance of Fengshen, but there is no story of Nezha. The relevant stories are grafted from the source of the three religions.
From the Yuan Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, there were three kinds of folk shrines that had the greatest influence: soshen Guangji (Yuan Dynasty), soshen Daquan (Ming Dynasty), and supplementary soshen Ji (Ming Dynasty). Nezha in the three religions source and flow search for God is a comprehensive version of various folk legends at that time, which is inevitably affected by the general atmosphere of the confluence of the three religions.
In the Ming Dynasty, Nezha also had a great change, that is, driven by the development of the commodity economy, the equipment was unprecedentedly upgraded.
In the Tang Dynasty, Nezha used a diamond stick and halberd; In Yuan zaju, Nezha had many weapons, but he mainly relied on Hydrangea to win. In the Ming Dynasty, Nezha’s main weapon became the “purple flame snake spear and fire pointed spear”, and the spear was the standard of the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty. In addition, Nezha also has a demon chopping sword. Since the Japanese invaders invaded, the Ming army has changed the sword into a sword, and the Yanling sword has become a standard weapon. Naturally, Nezha should also be equipped with one.
In addition, Nezha also carried gold bricks, which may have been a kind of currency in the transaction at that time; As for the wind fire wheel, it may be related to the popularity of firearms. In addition, after Nezha was reborn, he ate three fire dates before he became three heads and six arms. Similarly, in the romance of the gods, Lei Zhenzi ate red apricots and gave birth to two wings, while Yin Jiao ate beans to give birth. In the novels of the Ming Dynasty, exotic foods such as flat peaches and ginseng fruits appear, which may also reflect the prosperity of trade.
I always think of Nezha when there are floods
After being localized, Nezha was deeply loved by the people. He was called “marshal of Zhongtan”, “Luo Xian”, “marshal of Prince”, “Prince of Jade Emperor” and “Prince of Prince”. His image has become more and more popular. He mainly undertakes the functions of sending children, curing drought, exorcising demons, and curing diseases.
Mr. Jin Shoushen proposed that when Liu Ji and Yao Guangxiao planned Beijing City, they opened 11 doors, because the total of three heads, six arms and two feet was exactly 11. As for the internal correspondence, Mr. Jin’s recollection is not as detailed as the search for old Beijing by the British Arlington and others.
According to the latter records, the front gate is the head of Nezha, the Qipan street is the nose, the Zhonghua Gate is the mouth, the Shuangjing in the south of Qipan street is the eye, the Chongwen gate is the right shoulder, the Xuanwu Gate is the left shoulder, the Fucheng gate is the left hand, the white tower is the fire point gun, the Donghua gate and the Xihua gate are the hips, the Dongzhi gate and the Xizhi gate are the knee caps, the anding gate and the Desheng Gate are the feet (the two temples below are the wind and fire wheels), the red wall of the Forbidden City is the mixed sky silk, and the Meridian Gate is the heart, Shichahai is the bladder
The earliest written record seen so far comes from the Chinese myths and legends by the British Warner. It is said that when Zhu Di left Nanjing for Beijing, Liu Bowen awarded a brocade bag with the urban design scheme of old Beijing.
Mr. Chen Xuelin, a famous scholar who has deeply studied this issue, pointed out that there were many mistakes in Jin Shoushen’s Theory: there was no evidence that Liu Ji and Yao Guangxiao had worked together; In the Ming Dynasty, Beijing followed the pattern of the Yuan Dynasty; Yao Guangxiao died when the capital transfer of the Ming Dynasty was completed.
In fact, in the Yuan Dynasty, there was a legend that “old Beijing is the city of eight armed Nezha”. In the Ming Dynasty, the legend of the Yuan Dynasty was only passed down. Zhang Yu of the Yuan Dynasty wrote in the song under the chariot: “there are 11 gates around most of them, and the thatched earth is used to build the city of nazha.” The Yuan Dynasty said that the designer was Liu Bingzhong, while the Ming Dynasty said that the designers were Liu Ji and Yao Guangxiao.
When it comes to Nezha, it may be because ancient Beijing was known as the “Youzhou in the bitter sea”. There were many floods, and people expected the immortal who could clean up the dragon to appear.
Although he left his name, he did not leave the temple
He calls himself “eight armed Nezha city”, but Nezha’s status in Beijing is not high. In the Yuan Dynasty, grand celebrations were held in most cities in February every year, but after the Yuan Dynasty, the related activities disappeared.
Mr. Chen Xuelin found that there was a Nezha temple in old Beijing in the Qing Dynasty. It was in the southwest of xiannongtan, adjacent to Taoran Pavilion and Heilongtan (now Longtan Lake). It was not recorded in any books until the Republic of China, It said: “it was built in the reign of Emperor Qianlong. The real estate land is 10 mu and 0.6% and there are four houses. The management and use conditions are public venues. The temple has statues, two clay sticks, one iron stick, five stone tablets and one locust tree.”
Tae Dai will respect Nezha as his ancestor and build such a small temple. The sash line mainly produces “printed sash, Confucian sash, hook sash, skirt sash and knot”. It is said that Nezha was cut in half by Li Jing and had to be tied together with a ribbon, which proves that the product is solid. It is also said that Nezha’s Dragon tendons are taped and Li Jing’s armour is tied, indicating that the products of the tapering line are as tough as dragon tendons.
From the tombstone, Nezha temple was built in the 3rd year of Qianlong (1738). In the 40th year of Qianlong (1775), the industry was prosperous, and the tapestry company organized a large-scale product exhibition here. During the Jiaqing period, the industry seemed to have been depressed. As a result, some people in the industry who came to Beijing “were poor and could not help them to return home, and there was no place to settle, and the bones were left behind. It was a pity that they were good.” they also bought 14 mu of land as a charity garden to bury these people.
In 1946, an author wrote in the 147 pictorial that “[Nezha Temple] is only a small room. The temple is dedicated to the statue of Nezha, sitting with a gun, and the weather is quite vivid.” Later, in order to build Taoran Pavilion Park, Nezha temple was demolished. On the contrary, the legend of “eight armed Nezha city” has been preserved in more than 780000 legends in Beijing. Disclaimer: the above content is from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author. If your original copyright is infringed, please inform us, and we will delete the relevant content as soon as possible.
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