The term "Tianlong Babu" comes from Buddhist scriptures.Many Mahayana Buddhist scriptures narrate that when the Buddha preached to Bodhisattvas and monks, eight dragons and eight divisions often participated in listening to the Dharma.For example, "Lotus Sutra Devadatta Pin": "The eight divisions of heaven and dragon, human and non-human, all see the dragon girl becoming a Buddha from afar." "Non-humans" are sentient beings that look like human beings but are not actually human beings. The "Dragon Babu" are all "non-human", including eight kinds of Shinto monsters, because they are headed by "Heaven" and "Dragon", so they are called "Dragon Babu".Eight divisions, one day, two dragons, three yakshas, ​​four gandharvas, five asuras, six garudas, seven kinnaras, and eight mahurakas.

"Heaven" refers to the gods.In Buddhism, the status of gods is not supreme, but they can enjoy greater and longer-lasting blessings than humans.Buddhism believes that all things are impermanent, and gods will die after their lifespan ends.Before the god of death, there are five symptoms: greasy clothes, withered flowers on the head, filthy body, sweating under the armpits, and unhappy seat (the fifth symptom is "separation of jade girls"), which is the so-called "Five declines of heaven and man" is the greatest sorrow of the gods.Indra is the leader of the gods.

"Dragon" refers to the dragon god.The dragons in Buddhist scriptures are roughly the same as the dragons in Chinese legends, but they have no feet. Sometimes boa constrictors are also called dragons.In fact, Chinese people's concepts of dragons and dragon kings are partly derived from Buddhist scriptures.There are five dragon kings, seven dragon kings, eight dragon kings and so on in Buddhist scriptures.Ancient Indians respected dragons very much, and believed that dragons were the strongest creatures in the water, and elephants were the strongest creatures on land. Therefore, people with high morals respected them as "dragon elephants", such as "Dragon elephants from the West", that is Refers to the eminent people and monks from the West.The ancient Indians believed that rain was caused by dragons taking water from the sea and pouring it down on the world.The Chinese also accepted this statement, and the calendars indicated how many dragons fetched water, indicating the amount of rainfall this year.Among the dragon kings, there is one named Shaguluo Dragon King. When he was eight years old, his young daughter went to the Vulture Mountain, which Sakyamuni said, and turned into a male body. The body cannot become a Buddha, but if a woman wants to become a Buddha, she must first turn into a man).When she became a Buddha, she was seen by people and the eight divisions of heaven and dragon.

"Yaksha" is a kind of ghost and god in Buddhist scriptures, and there are nouns such as "Eight Generals of Yasha" and "Sixteen Generals of Yasha". The original meaning of "Yasha" is a god who can eat ghosts, and it also means agility, bravery, lightness, and secrets. "Vimalakirti Sutra" note: "It says: 'There are three kinds of yakshas: first, on the ground, second, in the void, and third, celestial yakshas.'" Now when we talk about "yakshas", they all refer to evil spirits.But in the Buddhist scriptures, there are many yakshas that are good, and the task of the eight generals of yakshas is to "protect the world of all living beings".

"Gandharva" is a god who does not eat wine and meat, but only seeks aroma as nourishment. He is one of the gods of music who serve Di Shi, and his body emits a strong aroma. "Gandharva" means "unpredictable" in Sanskrit, the magician is also called "Gandharva", and the mirage is called "Gandharva City".Both aroma and music are ethereal, elusive. The "Asura" kind of god is very special, the male is extremely ugly, while the female is extremely beautiful.King Ashura often leads his troops to fight with Emperor Shi, because Asura has beautiful women but no delicious food, and Emperor Shi has delicious food but no beautiful women. They are jealous and rob each other. Every time there is a fierce battle, the world is always turned upside down.We often call the large battlefield that has been bombed and corpses strewn all over the place the "Sura Field", which is where it comes from.As a result of the battle, King Asura is often defeated.Once after a big defeat, he went up to the world and had nowhere to escape, so he transformed into the silk hole of the lotus root.King Ashura is irritable, stubborn and jealous.Sakyamuni preached the "four foundations of mindfulness", and King Ashura also preached "five foundations of mindfulness"; Sakyamuni said "thirty-seven levels of Taoism", and King Ashura added one more level, saying "three Eighteen items".Most of the myths and stories in Buddhist scriptures are metaphors.King Ashura has great power and great ability, but he likes to do things like "I don't believe in evil" and "the world is in chaos, the more chaos the better".Asura is also very suspicious. "Great Wisdom Theory Volume Thirty-Five": "Asura's heart is not correct, he often doubts about the Buddha, saying that the Buddha helps the sky. The Buddha said 'five groups', saying that there are six groups, It is not to say one thing; if you say 'four truths', you mean there are five truths, and you don't talk about one thing." "Five beings" are "five aggregates", and five aggregates and four truths are the basic concepts in Buddhism.Asura listened to the Buddha's teaching, suspected that the Buddha was partial to Di Shi, and deliberately said less.From the point of view of "Six Paths of Reincarnation", heaven is the divine way, higher than human beings, and the other seven divisions are similar to Asura, with supernatural powers, and the situation is between human beings and animals.

"Garuda" is a big bird with various majestic and precious colors on its wings, and a large tumor on its head, which is a wish-fulfilling pearl.This bird sings in sorrow and feeds on dragons.According to the old story "Jingzhong Yue Zhuan", Yue Fei is the reincarnation of "Garuda" and Garuda is the Garuda.It eats one dragon king and five hundred little dragons every day.At the end of its life, the dragons vomited poison and couldn't eat any more, so they flew up and down seven times and flew to the top of the Vajra Wheel to die.Because it feeds on dragons (big poisonous snakes) all its life, it accumulates a lot of poisonous gas in its body, and when it is dying, it sends out poisonous gas and burns itself.After the body is burnt away, only one heart remains, which is the color of pure blue glaze.

"Kinnaruo" means "human beings are not human beings" in Sanskrit.He has the same shape as a human, but with a horn on his head, so he is called "human is not human". He is good at singing and dancing, and is the singing and dancing god of Emperor Shi. "Mahuraka" is a python god with a human body and a snake head. This novel is named after it, and it tells the stories of Song, Liao, Dali and other countries in the Northern Song Dynasty. During the Tang and Song dynasties, Dali was a small country located in the central part of Yunnan Province. It was a Buddhist country. The emperors believed in Buddhism and often gave up the throne to become monks. This is a very strange phenomenon in the history of our country.According to historical records, among the emperors of Dali, Emperor Shengde, Emperor Xiaode, Emperor Baoding, Emperor Xuanren, Emperor Zhenglian, and Emperor Shenzong all absconded as monks.The Southern Emperor Duan Huangye written in the book is the emperor of Dali Kingdom.The era before.The story of this book takes place in the years of Zhezong Yuanyou and Shaosheng in the Northern Song Dynasty, around 1094 AD.

The eight gods and monsters of Tianlong Babu have their own unique personalities and supernatural powers. Although they are sentient beings outside the human world, they also have the joys and sorrows of the world.There are no gods and ghosts in this novel, but this term is borrowed from Buddhist scriptures to symbolize some real-world characters, just like the mother Yasha Sun Erniang and Moyun Golden Wing Ou Peng in "Water Margin". Buddhism believes that everything in the world is impermanent, and throughout life (including heaven, humans, asuras, animals, evil spirits, and hells), unless you become an "Arhat", you will have the three poisons of "greed, anger, and ignorance" in your heart, and you will inevitably suffer from impermanence.The characters described in this book are all ordinary people (emotions such as happiness, anger, sadness, joy, love, evil, sadness, and sorrow are not unusual), and the historical events described in the book are roughly correct, with some characters being true and some being false, and the stories are fictional , The emotions of the characters strive to be true.However, many of the characters in the book have special martial arts or internal skills (many of which are surreal and impossible in real life), and have quite surreal encounters (some of them have very strange personalities), so the "Dragon Eight" "Bu" as the title of the book, emphasizing that this is not realistic, but a work of magical nature and unrestrained imagination (as is the case with many martial arts novels).

"Dragon and Eight Divisions" is originally mythical, and most of the Buddha's teachings used mythical figures as metaphors, which have a relatively abstract meaning.Abstraction is more extensive in content and includes a larger scope, unlike specific people and things that have specific references. The content of this book often involves Buddhism, but it is not a religious novel, and the main purpose is not to promote Buddhism.Because there are many characters in the book who believe in Buddhism, and there are monks who have become monks, the story must be brought to Buddhism.The meaning of Mahayana Buddhism is very broad, not only in the world, but also in the sky and the earth.It is hard to be a human being, but it is also hard to be a cow, a horse, a ghost, or a god.Mahayana Buddhism originally evolved from the "Public Department" of Indian Buddhism, which contains many original legends and beliefs of ancient Indian folk. Symbols often contain broader true meanings.