The Thirty-Six Heavenly Gangs and the Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends come from "Water Margin", one of the four famous classics in ancient China. It has been passed down to this day and has also been made into film and television dramas, which has a profound influence on modern people. The heroes of Liangshan, the thirty-six Tiangang and the seventy-two evil spirits gathered together to unify the country. Today I will decipher the specific meaning of the Thirty-Six Heavenly Gangs and the Seventy-Two Earthly Evils in "Water Margin".
What do the Thirty-six Tiangang and the Seventy-two Earthly Evils mean? They have a strong Taoist color.
In "Water Margin", 108 heroes are divided into "Thirty-six" "Yuan Tiangang" and "Seventy-two Disha", the sum of 36 and 72 is exactly 108, which has obvious traditional Taoist color. Taoism believes that there are 36 Tiangang stars in the Big Dipper cluster, and each Tiangang star has a god, collectively called the "Thirty-six Tiangang stars"; there are also 72 earth evil stars in the Big Dipper cluster, and each earth evil star also has a god, collectively called the "Seven Evil Stars". Twelve Earthly Evils".
Thirty-six and seventy-two: magical numbers with the idea of ??Five Elements Feng Shui
"36" and "72" are two mysterious numbers in ancient Chinese traditional culture. Numbers frequently appear in various situations: there are 36 strategies in "The Art of War"; there are 36 moves in traditional martial arts routines; there are 36 scenes in the Royal Garden Summer Resort; Confucius had three thousand disciples and 72 sages; it is said that Liu Bang's left There are 72 black moles on his legs; Chi You has 72 brothers; as the saying goes: "Seventy-two lines, the best person will be the best"; and there are also the well-known 72 transformations of Sun Wukong. In addition, people also like to use 36 and 72 to describe beautiful scenery. For example, Wuyi Mountain is said to have 36 peaks, and Huangshan, Hengshan, and Songshan are said to have 72 peaks. It seems that the two numbers "36" and "72" occupy a special position in our country's traditional culture.
“36” is the sum of six and six multiplied, and “six” is an auspicious number advocated by ancient Chinese. In the Book of Changes, each hexagram has six lines, and the sounds have six rhythms. In ancient times, there were six officials, and there were six relatives in the family. After Qin Shihuang unified the country, "the number is based on six", hats are six inches tall, cars are six feet long, six horses are used to drive, etc. "Water Margin" originally had 36 generals, so Song Jiang said: "Sixty-six flying geese are connected to eighty-nine."
"72" as a mysterious number originated from the thought of the Five Elements. In the Five Elements Concept, a year is divided into five directions: east, west, south, north, and middle. The 360 ??days in a year are divided into 72 periods, with each period having 5 days. Mr. Wen Yiduo specially wrote the article "Seventy-Two" for research on this issue. He pointed out: "'Seventy-Two' is the fifth fraction of 360 days in a year, and this book evolved from the thought of the Five Elements. A term... it is a symbol of cultural activities." It can be seen that 72 is the basic calculation number in the ancient calendar, which is closely related to social production and life, and therefore has a profound impact on people's concept of quantity.