The carriage of the Jade Emperor - another story of the Big Dipper

The most popular religion in Taiwan is Taoism. There are many Taoist gods. The common ones, such as Mazu and Guan Gong, are one of the Taoist gods. However, among the Taoist gods, there is a leader with the highest status, called the Jade Emperor.

To put it simply, he is the emperor in the sky. The gods we usually see in temples, whether they are Duke Tudi, Chitose, and generals, are actually just subordinates of the Jade Emperor. The gods such as a certain prince, a certain general, a certain king, a certain queen, etc., in fact, these are only official names, and these gods actually have an immediate superior, the Jade Emperor.

Usually we see these gods in the temple and there are many smaller gods around them, which may be their spouses, apprentices, subordinates, children, etc. Then there are door gods who care for the door at the door, and tiger gods who are pets and guards under the table. , outside the door there will be the land master who is the housekeeper, and the general battalion serving as the security guard.

If even ordinary gods need these many people to serve, then of course the emperor in the sky needs more people to take care of them.

The ancient Chinese applied this idea to celestial phenomena, so that the immobile North Star became the symbol of the Jade Emperor, and all the stars that circled around him became the subordinates of the Jade Emperor, and most Taoist gods also Most of them have their own stars, unless they are younger gods, such as Mazu, because the stars in the sky have been used up, so there are no stars of their own. Otherwise, in ancient times, these stars all represented gods, and there were even stars that represented toilets and garbage pushers. oh! .

However, because the rotation axis of the earth is not fixed and will not change, so there is precession movement, so the North Star will actually change, and the true north facing the rotation axis will move slowly, so the aiming star will actually change, Therefore, the North Star we see now is actually the concubine of the emperor in the ancient Chinese star map.

The emperor star that the ancients thought was located in the constellation Ursa Minor was the same as the North Star about 3,000 years ago. It is now called the North Pole II. It can also be seen from this that the Chinese star map culture began to take shape about 3,000 years ago. The North Star in Babylonian, Egyptian or Greek mythology refers to the right axis of the Draco constellation. The Egyptian pyramids were built against the right axis, and this was the North Star from 4,500 to 6,000 years ago. You can also see the ancient degree of different civilizations from here, and obviously everyone noticed that the North Star does not move in the sky, and they all used it to help determine the orientation.

Now the North Star has been replaced, and now all the stars are revolving around the Jade Emperor's eldest wife, and the Jade Emperor himself can only stay by the side. But ah! In fact, the North Star will always be replaced. In another thousand years, the position of the North Star will go from the current Ursa Minor to the young guard of Cepheus by eight!

Because the place under the control of the Jade Emperor is very large, he also has a special carriage when he goes out, and this carriage is nothing but the Big Dipper.

In fact, the dou character of the Big Dipper originally means "car bucket", which refers to the part behind the carriage that carries people. Like the place where trucks carry goods now, we also call it the car bucket. The part of the handle of the Big Dipper is just the chariot used to wrap the horse, and the emperor star in ancient times was located above the chariot, and it looked like the emperor was traveling in a carriage.

Although we often use ladle to describe the shape of the Big Dipper, in fact, many civilizations in ancient times regarded the Big Dipper as a carriage! In addition to China, many countries in the Middle East also looked at it this way in ancient times!

Treating the Big Dipper as a carriage is just enough to allow the Jade Emperor to tour the world in a year. After all, the Big Dipper is right around the North Star and is used as a tool for identifying seasons in various civilizations in the northern hemisphere. For example, the handle faces south. It refers to the arrival of summer, which is a very practical seasonal indicator. Some people even put this phenomenon into the song of star recognition! For example, the first two lines of the song in spring are "The spring breeze sends warmth to learn to recognize the stars, and the Beidou high-hanging handle points to the east." Relying on the horizon", except for the winter, the stargazing secrets of the other three seasons are the first to mention the Big Dipper. You can imagine how important this is.

And when it comes to the carriage, you may be wondering, where did the horse go? This is actually quite interesting, we will continue next time!

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In fact, some stories of Beidou's fighting are considered to be wine fights. In short, the ancient Central Plains area of small countries killed each other, so myths and stories are mixed, and the hybrid of theologies is of course very popular. The more interesting ones are Western countries (referring to the west of the Arabian Peninsula). Most of the theogony of the gods has been abdicated or incorporated into the way of kinship, but the East (referring to the east of India) is mostly handled by the size of the official position (the same is true of Buddhism inherited from Brahman), in short, it is a strong class type.

Although I don’t know what the primitive religious type of the Aryans is, in short, this difference is very obvious, and it also affects the entire social culture. Whether it is religion or society in the East, classism is far more serious than that in the West. No matter how you claim to be equal, The same, because it is cultural.