Xuanwu, one of the four spirits of heaven in China's ancient mythology, also known as tortoise and snake, originated from the worship of ancient stars. It refers to the fact that the twenty-eight lodges are divided into seven lodges of Xuanwu in the north among the four elephants according to the southeast and northwest, and it also represents Zhuan Xu in Hei Di, one of the five emperors. In the traditional culture of China, the four elephants refer to Qinglong, Baihu, Suzaku and Xuanwu, representing the four directions of east, west, north and south respectively. Xuanwu in the north is based on the Eight Diagrams, and the five elements dominate the water, symbolizing the old yin in the four elephants and the winter in the four seasons. Xuanwu is a kind of spiritual thing made up of turtles and snakes. The original intention of Xuanwu is Xuan Ming, and the ancient sounds of Wu and Ming are interlinked. Wu means black; Ghost means yin. At first, Xuan Ming described the tortoise divination: the tortoise's back is black, and the tortoise divination is to invite the tortoise to the underworld to ask questions first, bring back the answers and show them to the world in the form of divination. Therefore, the earliest Xuanwu is the tortoise. Judging from various records, Xuanwu prefers the image of a turtle, saying that it is a combination of a turtle and a snake, and the turtle has a long life and the snake is psychic. In ancient times, people interpreted Xuanwu in the following ways. "Xuanwu" means tortoise. Book of rites. In the Quli, the cloud says, "Line, before Zhu Bird and then Xuanwu. Xuanwu is a tortoise and snake. Hong Xingzu's supplementary note in "A Journey to the Songs of the South": "Xuanwu is called tortoise and snake. Located in the north, it is called Xuan. With scales, it is called martial arts. "Xuanwu" is a combination of snakes, turtles and snakes. Xuanwu originated from the worship of stars in ancient times. Since the pre-Qin period, it has been a god beast representing Zhuan Xu and the seven nights in the north, but in the Han Dynasty, the theory of five elements began to rise, and its symbolic meaning added nonyl and winter. Xuanwu is also the representative of the zodiac snake.
The four great beasts originated from ancient legends in China, namely Qinglong, Baihu, Suzaku and Xuanwu, which are the products of the combination of ancient mythology and astronomy. In ancient China, the stars in the sky were divided into seven star zones, namely "Three Walls" and "Four Elephants". The so-called "Wall" means the city wall, and the three Walls are arranged in a triangle around the Polaris. There are "four elephants" around the Three Walls: East black dragon, West White Tiger, South Suzaku and North Xuanwu. The ancient geography book "Three Auxiliary Huang Tu" Volume III: "black dragon, White Tiger, Suzaku, Xuanwu, the four spirits of the sky, are square." In ancient times, in order to observe the movements of the sun, moon and five stars (Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn), astronomers divided the astrology near the ecliptic into twenty-eight star zones, which were called twenty-eight nights. Then, according to the four directions of east, west, south and north, the twenty-eight stars are divided into four groups: seven in the East Qinglong, seven in the North Xuanwu, seven in the West White Tiger and seven in the South Suzaku. Among them, "Qinglong, Xuanwu, White Tiger and Suzaku" were called the Quartet gods by the ancients.
Historical rumor:
The earliest legend about the origin of Xuanwu comes from Xia Dynasty. According to legend, the father of Yu, the founder of the Xia Dynasty in China, was called "Gun", the word Xuan Ming, or Xuanwu, and helped Shun to control water before the famous Dayu did. Because it only uses plugging instead of dredging, it has not succeeded despite the help of the gods. Generally speaking, Gun is regarded as the incarnation of turtle, and Tu Shanshi, a member of Xia clan, thinks that snake is his ancestor. Legend has it that Xuanwu changed its name to Zhenwu to avoid the taboo of the ancestors of Zhao family. Song Zhenzong instructed his minions to carry out the myth that "the gobbledygook has fallen repeatedly". During this period, countless zhicao, Jiahe and Ruishou were offered all over the country, which set off a rare frenzy of worshipping Taoism. A few years later, under the pretence of dreaming that the man of God passed on the orders of the Jade Emperor, Zhenzong said that Emperor Xuanyuan was the ancestor of Zhao, thus creating Zhao Xuanlang, a "God-saving Emperor", and announcing the matter to the world, honoring the Yellow Emperor as the "Holy Father", honoring him as the "God-saving Emperor who lives for nine days" and the holy grandmother as the "Queen of Heaven in Yuan Dynasty". Since then, Taoism has another deity, Zhao Xuanlang, who is second only to the Jade Emperor.
In ancient times, great divine power was compared with the phenomenon of the sympathetic evolution of everything between Yin and Yang, and the divine power of reproduction was worshipped. The snake itself is a symbol of reproduction and reproduction. Xuanwu appears in the shape of tortoise and snake, which is regarded by the ancients as a symbol of male and female mating and reproduction. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, turtles and snakes were used to illustrate the coordination of yin and yang: "Guan Guan Sui dove is in the river continent. The beautiful and virtuous woman is a good spouse of a gentleman. Males are not alone, and females are not alone. Xuanwu tortoise and snake, correct the plate and help each other. After all, it's a matter of mutual concern.