Statue of Hercules
Hello everyone, I'm Lantai.
Today, Lantai would like to introduce you to an interesting knowledge related to Buddhism.
What's the fun stuff?
Everyone knows that in "Journey to the West", the "Monkey King" Sun Wukong was recruited by the heavenly court twice, and the first time he was named Bi Ma Wen; And when Sun Wukong later learned that Bi Ma Wen was a horse breeder, he returned to Huaguo Mountain in a rage and raised the anti-flag.
Of course, this is a fictional plot of Mr. Shi Nai'an.
However, in the history of the development of Buddhism, there is really a figure like the "Monkey King", who was originally the son of the "God King" and the savior of mankind, but he was "adopted" by Buddhism as the guardian of the Buddha.
Moreover, according to Buddhist sources, the true identity of the Buddha's guardian is only the Yaksha god in the heavenly realm.
The Forbidden City has a statue of Vajrapani
And the Yaksha originally meant "quick ghost", "light and fast", "brave and healthy". The male Yaksha is varied, sometimes depicted as a swift, terrifying samurai, and sometimes depicted as a dwarf with a droopy belly.
This is really far from his "identity" as the son of the original "God King" and the savior of mankind.
It's really a realistic version of "Bi Ma Wen".
He is Hercules, the god of Hercules in ancient Greece, and also the Vajrapani Bodhisattva in Buddhist mythology, the guard around the Buddha.
Hercules in film and television dramas
01、
Hercules is a hero in ancient Greece and Roman mythology with a clear image and role.
In Greece mythology, he was the son of Zeus, the "god-king", and the beautiful Alcmone, and was known as a "half-man and half-god".
According to legend, Hera, the wife of Zeus, was very jealous of Alcmene and once sent two poisonous snakes to poison Hercules, who was still in infancy, but she did not expect that these two poisonous snakes were pinched to death by Hercules, who was less than a month old.
In the process of becoming a god, he completed twelve difficult tasks, and at the same time, he also conquered many ancient and dangerous primordial forces in the process, so he is also known as the benefactor who "made mankind safe in the world".
Hercules, on the other hand, is depicted as a warrior wearing a lion's head helmet and holding a club.
Hercules who pinched the viper to death with his bare hands
The reason why he carried the lion's head was because his first task was to fight an invulnerable lion, and finally succeeded in strangling it, skinning it and draping it over his body, and the lion's head became his helmet.
Hercules had an extremely high status and popularity in Greece mythology.
Roman emperors, such as Commodus and Maximian, often referred to themselves as Hercules; And the whole territory of Rome also set off the cult of Hercules.
Thus, the image of Hercules wearing a lion helmet and holding a club appears on thousands of Greece and Roman vases, frescoes, coins, copper, stone statues and even ornaments.
Because of the subtle differences in the depiction of Hercules in each era, archaeologists can judge the identity and even the era of the remnant from the posture of the remnant.
So, how did such a mythical figure, who was so well-known in the Greece and even Roman world, go from being a savior to becoming the Buddha's bodyguard?
Alexander the Great
02、
Speaking of which, the Macedonian king Alexander the Great is to blame for this.
Of course, this is just a joke.
However, Hercules, the "Greece god", did spread to Central Asia and the region east of Central Asia through Alexander's crusade.
The reason why Alexander the Great was keen to spread Hercules, the "Greece god", was because Alexander the Great and his family believed that their family was the descendants of Hercules.
This is not surprising.
The aristocrats of Greece and Rome often identified themselves as ancestors of their families as legendary gods or heroes.
For example, the famous Caesar publicly advertised that his family was the descendant of Venus, the "god of beauty".
Coins issued by Alexander the Great
In order to highlight that he is a descendant of Hercules, and even that he is Hercules' apostle in the world, Alexander the Great not only consciously imitated Hercules' dress, but also portrayed himself as a Hercules wearing a lionskin hat in his coins and engravings.
Alexander the Great's crusades greatly affected the Kushan, Bactria and Scythian kingdoms in the Middle East.
The nobles of these kings followed Alexander the Great's example and dressed themselves as Hercules, and they also followed Alexander the Great's example by carving their lionskins on coins and stone carvings.
The Gandhara region, located in India and northwest, is located at the crossroads of cultural exchanges between Eurasia and the India subcontinent, and the region was not only ruled by the Scythians, Greece colonists, and the Sabbatical and Kushan kingdoms, but also culturally and artistically influenced by these foreign conquerors, very "Greece".
Naturally, Buddhism in the Gandhara region is also included here.
A Buddhist shrine excavated at the site of the Hada Buddhist Temple in Afghanistan
Hercules, the ancient Greece god Hercules, was also in the Gandhara region, gradually changing from the "savior of mankind" to the guard of the Buddha, and the stick in his hand also became the Buddhist vajra.
With the spread of Buddhism to the east, Hercules, the "Vajrapani Bodhisattva", was also introduced to the inland areas of East Asia.
Although the further east, the less Greece characteristics of the "Vajrapani" Hercules are in shape, some shadows of "Greece" can still be vaguely seen.
Statue of Hercules in Cave 13 of Yungang Grottoes
The image of Hercules, the "Vajrapani Bodhisattva", also appears in the Yungang Grottoes, although there are almost no traces of Greece on the shape, but his club and lion belt and claw helmet, complete or scattered, are still very eye-catchingly preserved.
During the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui and Tang dynasties, which were deeply influenced by Buddhist culture, many great nobles put samurai figurines wearing lionskin hats and clubs in their tombs as their bodyguards after death.
Hercules became the "guard" of Nyorai
03、
If it were not for the increasingly frequent cultural exchanges between China and the West in the past fifty years and the continuous unearthing of new cultural relics, I believe no one would have thought that the warrior figurines wearing lionskin hats and holding clubs popular in the tombs of Tang Dynasty nobles would have originated from Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean region, thousands of miles away.
Hercules became a Vajrapani Bodhisattva, and then became a bodyguard figurine in the tomb of the Sui and Tang nobles, which can probably be used as a footnote to the cultural exchange between the East and the West for thousands of years.
END
Resources:
Xing Yitian, "Heracles in the East", in Rong Xinjiang and Li Xiaocong, eds., History of Sino-Foreign Relations: New Historical Materials and New Issues, Science Press;
Li Song, "A Brief Discussion on the Images of Early Chinese Heavenly Kings and Their Western Sources", Chang'an Art and Religious Civilization, Zhonghua Book Company;