Chapter 28 Section 2 The Two Departments of Wonderland

The purpose of immortality in mythology is to ascend to heaven. Since the appearance of so-called immortals in the Qin and Han Dynasties, the fairyland is no longer the sky, but the earth.At that time, it was recognized that there were two major series of fairyland: one was the Kunlun Mountains in the west, and the other was the Penglai Mountains in the east. Kunlun, that is, Kunlun Mountain, also known as Kunlun Xu, Kunlun Hill or Yushan.Geographically, the Kunlun Mountains start from the east of the Pamirs in the west, traverse Xinjiang and Tibet, and extend to Qinghai, with a total length of about 2,500 kilometers.The western Kunlun in ancient mythology is the combination of the name of Kunlun in geography before the Han Dynasty and the legendary Kunlun.

There is a process for Kunlun to change from a mythical world to a fairyland.For example, the "Three Classics of the West" says that Kunlun is the capital of the Emperor of Heaven on earth. In addition to being guarded by the god Lu Wu with a nine-tailed tiger body, there is also a beast with four horns that looks like a sheep. , can eat people.The bird on it looks like a bee, but is as big as a mandarin duck.There is a tree with yellow flowers and red fruits. The fruit tastes like plums and is seedless. It is called Shatang, and it can resist water without drowning.This is obviously a weird mythical world.

It is also Kunlun, but in "Huainanzi Topography Training", it is a different scene: ...Kunlun... There is Zengcheng Jiuchong (a city with one floor higher than the floor), which is 1114 steps two feet six inches high.There is Muhe on it, which is repaired five times.Zhuyushu, Xuanshu, and Immortal Tree are in the west, Shatang Langgan is in the east, Crimson Tree (red jade tree) is in the south, and Bishu and Yaoshu are in the north.There are four hundred and forty doors next to it.The door is four miles away, the inside is nine pure, and the pureness is five feet.There are nine wells next to it, and Yuheng (the device for receiving the elixir) maintains its northwest corner.The north gate is opened to accept the wind of Buzhou.Qinggong (a palace occupying an hectare of land), Xuanshi (a room decorated with jade), County Garden, Liangfeng, and Fantong are among the Helu in Kunlun.The pool in the sparse garden is soaked in yellow water (suspected to be spring water), and the yellow water returns to its original state in three weeks. It is red water (red water), and people who drink it will not die.

Everything needed in the fairy world can be found here, such as the immortal tree, the immortal medicine, the immortal water and so on.The decoration uses jade as the basic material, and there are no traces of exotic animals, which is purely an ideal fairyland.It is said that the early immortals did not need to practice, as long as they ate some of the above immortal things, they could achieve the goal of immortality.Legend has it that what the Yellow Emperor ate was a kind of boiling jade paste, which transformed him from a mythical hero into a leader of the fairy world.Kunlun is no longer comparable to the past, it seems to be the hometown of immortals.

The legendary Kunlun is tall and big, it is the pole in the center, and it is also the pillar connecting the heaven and the earth. If the immortal still wants to go to the sky, this is an excellent resting place.Kunlun is also the source of the Yellow River, and the Yellow River is the mother river. Out of this worship mentality, the ancients transformed Kunlun from a sacred mountain to a fairy mountain. Penglai became the legendary fairy mountain. It appeared after Kunlun. It is purely a product of the belief in immortals that emerged after the Qin and Han Dynasties. It is already very artificial, and it is the harbinger of the formation of Taoism.The core of the idea of ​​immortality is immortality, which originated from mythological thinking, and the formal formation of immortals and fairy tales is in a class society.Throughout the 2,000-year history of fairy tales, it is both related to mythology and later distinguished.

The earliest gods in the God Realm were animals, not humans.The prototype of immortals is human.Immortals are the idealization of human beings, and fairyland is an ideal stage of life, centered around human activities and desires.Animals cannot directly become immortals, they must undergo long-term cultivation, first become spirits, then become adults, and finally have the possibility of becoming immortals.If unexpected setbacks are encountered in the middle, all previous efforts may be wasted. So, why did the wind of becoming a fairy rise in the Qin and Han Dynasties.This is related to the wars in the pre-Qin period.During the Warring States Period, everyone wanted to unify China. The wars continued, and people’s lives were not guaranteed. They longed for a fairyland beyond the dust and vulgarity. Fairyland.After the unification of Qin and Han, in order to enjoy a comfortable life forever, the supreme ruler hoped for a long life, preferably immortality, so a fanatical belief in immortals was aroused from top to bottom.The alchemists transformed from sorcerers, some of them were intellectuals who made great contributions to culture at that time, and some of them did not hesitate to cater to the supreme ruler for their own fame and fortune, and publicized the rumored Penglai, Abbot, and Yingzhou on the sea. It is the "Three Immortals Mountain" in the East, and there is also the saying of "Five Gods Mountain", which are collectively called the Penglai Wonderland in the East.At the end of the Warring States Period, King Qiwei, King Qixuan and King Yanzhao, as well as Emperor Qin Shihuang and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty all sent people to search for Penglai Fairyland, but none of them actually arrived. Resist, return halfway.It can be seen that the so-called fairy mountains are really illusory, and they are made up by those alchemists.

Among them was Xu Fu, a native of Qi, who wrote a letter to Qin Shihuang and went to the sea to seek immortality.In the twenty-eighth year of Qin Shihuang (219 BC), thousands of boys and girls were brought, and a lot of money was spent, but there was no result, and they simply left and never returned.Where did Xu Fu go?People in China and Japan say that he went to Japan, and some legends describe Xu Fu as fleeing the tyranny of Qin Shihuang and traveling across the ocean.After arriving in Japan, he used the seeds and farm tools he brought with him to spread Chinese farming techniques in Japan, and was honored by the Japanese folk as "Simin Geng Shen" and "Si Yao Shen".Legend has it that there are three places in Japan called Horai, namely Mount Fuji, Owari Guore Tamiya and Kumano.There is Xu Fu's tomb in Kumano.The original meaning of "Fuji" in Japanese contains the meaning of "immortality".The legend of Xu Fu's journey to the east has a wide range of influences in Japan and Southeast Asia.Of course, whether Xu Fu really went to Dongdu, and whether Dongdu can lead thousands of boys and girls is an academic question.Chinese and foreign scholars are discussing.

After the rise of the Eastern Fairyland, it gradually replaced the Western Kunlun and became the eternal hometown of immortals.When folks mention fairyland, they know more about Penglai and less about Kunlun.Among the emperors of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Xianmi specially built an artificial Taiye Pool in the Ganquan Palace of the imperial palace, on which there are rumored fairy mountains such as Penglai, which cost a lot of money.