The Chinese Zodiac Culture 4- Rabbit symbol
The Chinese Zodiac not only integrates ordinary creatures into Chinese life, but its natural habits are endowed with many cultural meanings, from animals to gods, and receive respect and worship. Only the combination of natural creatures and cultural gods can form a complete impression of zodiac animals. Let’s go to learn more about rabbit生肖兔(sheng xiao tu).
The legend of Chang'e running to the moon originates from the "Huainan son. Watching the Ming training". Chang'e is accompanied by a jade rabbit in the middle of the month. The rabbit is the symbol of the moon. "Spring and autumn transportation Dou Shu" said: "if the line loses Yao light, the moon rises a rabbit". "Yuefu Poetry Collection" has a poem "white rabbit often kneels and makes medicine, toad nine". Fu Xuan of the Jin Dynasty chanted in "imitating heaven's question": "what's in the middle of the month? White rabbit makes medicine."
The ancients believed that there were rabbits in the middle of the month. Some said that the shadow of the moon was like a rabbit, that the moon and the rabbit were Yin, and that the rabbit nose had a sense of gap and the round lack of the moon. [23] Wen Yiduo verified that the essence of taking rabbits as the moon began in the Han Dynasty, became toads in the Pre-Qin Dynasty, and then became toads and rabbits. the stone of Han Dynasty paintings in Jiaxiang, Shandong Province includes jade rabbit and Toad making medicine together, and the silk paintings unearthed in Mawangdui also include toad rabbit and moon. By the Jin Dynasty, the rabbit had represented the moon alone.
In the north, there is a marriage custom letter of "snake dish rabbit, must be rich". The folk paper-cut "snake dish rabbit", in which the head of the snake is opposite to the head of the rabbit, and the body of the snake surrounds the body of the rabbit. "Snake dish rabbit" is sometimes used in funeral customs. According to Ye Sheng's Diary of Shuidong in the Ming Dynasty, people were competing for the cemetery of snake and rabbit in the north of Juyongguan at that time.