Some terracotta figurines with tall shapes and strange shapes are often unearthed in the Tang tombs, which are usually called "tomb beasts", or "tomb gods", and some people call them "heavenly king figurines" and "warrior figurines". These names were given by people according to their function or image, and were not found in Tang Dynasty documents.
Town tomb figurines
At the beginning of the 20th century, the large-scale town tomb figurines in the Tang tombs attracted the attention of scholars. Mr. Luo Zhenyu was the first to associate the common tomb beasts in Tang tombs with the "Fang Xiang clan" in the literature, and later archaeological discoveries proved this understanding wrong. After 1949, Mr. Wang Qufei pointed out in the article "Four Gods, Scarves, and High Buns" (Archaeological Newsletter, No. 5, 1956) that the tomb beast may be the "four gods" commonly found in Tang Dynasty literature (the four gods of the Han Dynasty refer to the Vermilion Bird, Xuanwu, Qinglong, and White Tiger). He believes that "the burial of the four gods as a Ming vessel was very popular in the Tang Dynasty and also has a long history. But what exactly are the four gods, according to the above materials, it should have the following three conditions: first, it is commonly used in ordinary tombs; second, they are taller than the other characters; Thirdly, it has certain 'god' characteristics in its shape and is different from ordinary figurines.
Among all the Tang tomb excavations, only the so-called 'town tomb beasts' and 'town tomb figurines' meet these three items. Generally, there are two 'town tomb beasts' and two 'town tomb figurines' in the Tang tomb. 'Tomb Beast' is in the shape of a beast's head, a human head, with many long wings on its arms, horns on its head, and many monsters under its feet, which are generally placed at the entrance of the tomb, facing each other on the left and right, facing the envy road. The 'town tomb figurines' are in the shape of heavenly kings, and they are placed behind the two 'town tomb beasts'. These four things are a group of their own, and they should be the four gods of 'dangyuan, dangye, Zuming, and the axis of the earth'. Later, the inscription pottery pieces unearthed from the Sancai kiln site of Liquanfang, Chang'an and the inscription "Zuming" inscription town tomb unearthed from the Tang tomb of the brick factory in Kangdian Town, Gongyi, Henan Province proved Mr. Wang Qufei's speculation.
After that, Mr. Xu Pingfang, according to the records of the "Secret Burial Sutra of the Yuan Mausoleum of the Great Han Dynasty" written in the Jin and Yuan dynasties, in the article "The System of "Ming Weapon Shensha" and "Tomb Ritual" in the Tombs of the Tang and Song Dynasties - Reading the Secret Burial Sutra of the Tomb of the Great Han Dynasty ("Archaeology", No. 2, 1963), also compared the "Dangyuan and Dangye" in the "Tang Liudian" and "General Dictionary" and other documents to the warrior Tianwang figurines, and "Zusi, Zuming, Tianguan, and the earth axis in the Song and Yuan tombs are what kind of Ming weapons, I dare not speculate." Hao Hongxing et al. in the article "The Tomb Divine System in the Tang Tomb of the Central Plains" ("Chinese Archaeology", No. 4, 2000) verified that the tomb beast is "dangyuan, dangye", the warrior figurines are "earth axis", and the civil and military figurines are "Zuming", which is obviously inconsistent with archaeological findings, so it is not very convincing. At present, the understanding that the four gods are two warrior warrior figurines and two tomb beasts has basically been recognized by the academic community.
What are the four gods of the Han Dynasty?
Although the four gods refer to the Tomb Beast and the Celestial King Warriors, the name of each one does not seem to be certain. If the warrior king figurines are compared to "dang yuan, dang ye", then the two tomb beasts should be "Zu Ming, the earth axis". However, according to later documents, such as the "History of the Song Dynasty" and the "Secret Burial Sutra of the Yuan Tomb of the Great Han Dynasty", the combination of this set of gods and monsters is "Dangyuan, Dangye, Zusi, Zuming, Tianguan, and Earth Axis". According to the "Secret Burial Sutra of the Original Mausoleum of the Great Han Dynasty", it is recorded: "Tianguan has two meridian lands, and the axis of the earth has two Anmao unitary lands." The meridian land is the north and south ends, and the meridian land is the east and west sides. According to the inscription of the tomb of Haikangyuan, Bai Bin and other scholars identified the double-headed dragon figurines unearthed from Tang tombs in Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Liaoning, Hunan and other places as the "axis of the earth" in the literature.
If according to the record of volume 23 of the "Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty", the four gods in the Tang Dynasty burial goods are "dangyuan, dangye, zuming, and earth axis", then one of the tomb beasts is the "earth axis". That is to say, in the Song Dynasty, the image of the "earth axis" evolved from a crouching beast to a double-headed dragon in the Yuan Dynasty, which is too big a change to be convincing. After careful comparison and consideration, I think it should be caused by the miswriting and error of the "Tang Liudian". From a literal point of view, "dangyuan" and "dangye" are opposite, "Zusi" and "Zuming" correspond, the structure is very consistent, and the correspondence between "earth axis" and "Tianguan" is also logical. Because the "Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty" was not promulgated after it was written, it was not published until the Yuanfeng (1078~1085) period of the Song Dynasty, and the book was widely circulated, so it is possible that it fell off, was mistaken, or even added to the concept of the Song Dynasty in the process of copying. That is to say, the four gods in the Tang tomb should be "Dangyuan, Dangye, Zusi, and Zuming", which refer to the warrior heavenly king figurines and the tomb beast respectively.
The carved pottery pieces unearthed from the Sancai kiln site of Liquanfang in Chang'an
Gongyi Kangdian Town Brick Factory Tang Tomb unearthed ink book "Zu Ming" titled town tomb beast
Celestial Closure and Earthly Axis
"Dangyuan, Dangye, Zusi, Zuming" all refer to, so what is "Tianguan and Earth's Axis"? Since "Tianguan" and "Earth's Axis" are common in Song Dynasty literature, we might as well broaden our vision to the Song Dynasty. In Taoist books, there are often records of "Tianguan and Earth Axis", such as the "Taishang Said Xuantian Great Sage Zhenwu Ben Chuan Shen Mantra Wonderful Sutra" included in the "Taiping Jinghe School · Yuwen" Volume 6: "The True Monarch receives the Yuan Shi Fu Shen Guang Bao Shu, rules the Tianding, and collects the Tianguan and the Earth Axis. The two demon kings suddenly saw that they were like turtles, and their shapes changed. A giant snake appears, and its shape changes three times". The "Legend of the Miracle" is called "Turtle, the Pass of Heaven, the Snake, and the Earth's Axis", and the Tianguan Earth's Axis is also called "Water and Fire". According to the "Xianjian" record: at that time, the six demon kings of water, fire, drought, locust, plague and demon harmed the world, and the Jade Emperor edicted Xuanwu to unify the golden armor god and fight in the field of Dongyin, "Emperor Xuan was sent to stomp his feet, gold armor Xuanrobe, soap black flag, battle sword" (this is the standard statue of Zhenwu), in which the two demons are separated from the two qi, turned into a turtle and giant snake, Xuanwu trampled it under his feet, and was finally surrendered.
Later, when the meritorious deeds were rewarded, the giant snake was named the Tianguan Taixuan Fire Spirit, the Destiny Yin General, and the Red Spirit Zun God, and the Canggui was the Earth Axis Taixuan Water Spirit, Yuyang General, and the Black Spirit Zun God. Books such as "Youyang Miscellaneous", "Lingying Ji", "Yunlu Manjian" and other books say that the turtle and snake are the disguise of Zhenwu, and the turtle and snake in the Song Dynasty have begun to be trampled under the feet of Zhenwu who turned into a human body. The turtle snake is also known as the two generals of water and fire, is an important attendant of the Emperor Zhenwu, in this regard, Song Jing in the "Wudang Mountain Xuantian God God System Overview" ("Yunyang Higher Normal College Journal" 2008 5 issue) in the article, according to the Wudang Mountain Taoist stele data has been in-depth research, here is not repeated. The turtle and snake are called "Tianguan and Earth Axis", which is very common in the Kanyu books after the Song and Yuan Dynasties, such as "Shaking the Dragon Sutra": "Tianguan and Earth Axis are greeted on both sides, and different stone turtles and snakes go everywhere". The image of "Tianguan and Earth's Axis" that we are looking for is actually the pottery turtle and pottery snake that are common in Song tombs. In earlier reports, the terracotta turtle figurines were mostly made as "turtle-shaped figurines", and some pottery turtles and terracotta snake figurines were also considered to be components of the basalt.
In fact, according to the three-color turtles and snakes of the Song Tomb of Chenjiaying in Hanzhong and the three-colored turtles and snakes of the Penggao Tomb in Yangxian County, Shaanxi Province, these figurines have no traces of mutilation or combination, and should be specially made in a single piece. These pottery turtles and pottery snakes are the original shape of "Tianguan, the axis of the earth", the human head snake figurine, the double-headed dragon figurines may be a variant of the axis of the earth, the woodblock print of the Xixia tomb in the western suburbs of Wuwei Forest Farm "Tianguan" is the image of a male waiter, because it is incomplete, it can not be identified, it may be the out-of-phase or disguised of "Tianguan".
The left is the brick carving of the land axis of the tomb of Haikang Yuan in Guangdong; On the right is the Song Dynasty two-headed snake figurine
All in all, the record of the four gods in the "Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty" may be false, and it is very likely that the "ancestral thought" was taken off after Zu Ming, and in order to make up for the four gods, the "earth axis" had to be added later. I think the four gods in the Tang Tomb refer to "Dangyuan, Dangye, Zusi, and Zuming", which are the warrior warriors and tomb beasts. "Tianguan and Earth's Axis" may be a new tomb artifact in the Song Dynasty, and its image is a common turtle and snake.
(The author is an associate researcher at Suzhou Museum)
Source: Popular Archaeology, June 2015