A visitor watches a bronze tree at the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, May 28, 2005.
Recently, more peculiar artifacts have been unearthed at the Sichuan Sanxingdui cultural site, shocking the world once again. One of them is a bronze tree, which archaeologists believe matches perfectly with the “Fusang tree” described in the ancient Chinese book “Shanhaijing”, making the ancient mythology more realistic and challenging to atheism.
The bronze sacred tree matches the mythical “Fusang tree
The No. 3 bronze sacred tree unearthed from the Sanxingdui site made its debut recently, only to see the three main trunks in twist shape above the bronze tree base, rotating and growing upward, with the bronze branches on the trunk stretching to the side. At the top of the tree, there stood three human-headed bird-bodied idols with spreading tails and high tail plumes.
On top of the bronze pedestal of Bronze Tree No. 3, the three main trunks form a twist and grow upward in a rotating pattern. (Video screenshot)
At the top of the tree stand three statues of gods with human heads and bird bodies, with their tails stretched out and tail plumes high. (Video screenshot)
The bronze sacred tree No. 3, which is about 1.1 meters tall, had been unearthed in 1986 but never restored, and experts are now beginning work on its restoration. Archaeologists involved in the excavation believe that the shape of the tree is very much in line with the ancient mythological “Fusang tree” in which the sun resides.
The No. 1 bronze tree, which was excavated at the same time as the No. 3 bronze tree, was exhibited in the Sanxingdui Museum many years ago and is a treasure of the town. The 3.96-meter-tall No. 1 bronze tree is also very similar to the Fusang tree.
The No. 1 bronze sacred tree consists of a tree base and a trunk, and is divided into three layers, each with three branches, making a total of nine branches, each with a sacred bird standing on it. Each branch has a sacred bird standing on it. There are nine sacred birds on nine branches. There is also an upside-down dragon on the trunk of the tree, as if it had fallen from the sky.
Bronze Tree No. 1 is one of the treasures of the Sanxingdui Museum. (Xiyuwei/Wikipedia)
According to the “Shanhaijing – Overseas Eastern Classic”, “there is Fusang on Tanggu, the tenth day of the bath, in the north of Mochi, living in the water, there is a large wood, nine days in the lower branch, a day in the upper branch.”
It means that there is a Fusang tree growing in this place of Tanggu, and ten suns are perched on this tree, one sun is just coming back, another sun is getting up and going out, and all ten suns are carried by the Golden Crow. This fits well with the bronze divine tree with nine divine birds, because the one at the top went out to work.
It is also written in the Shanhaijing – The Great Wilderness East Sutra: “There are Fu Mu on the Tang Valley, one is said to arrive and one is said to go out, both are carried on the crows.” According to historical records, the Han Dynasty literary scholar Dongfang Shuo described the Fusang tree in “The Ten Continents of the Sea” in this way: “The tree is named Fusang because it grows with two roots and leans on each other.”
The bronze sacred tree unearthed at Sanxingdui reminds people that the mythological stories described in the Shanhaijing may not be the so-called legends, but perhaps really something that existed in history, which is why these artifacts are preserved.
The human-faced, bird-bodied deity on the bronze sacred tree also appears in the Shanhaijing, and it is recorded in the Overseas East Sutra, “Jumang in the east, with a bird body and human face, riding on two dragons.” Jumang is the god of spring and is in charge of the rooting and sprouting of trees. According to some ancient Qin texts, the area from the rising to the setting of the sun was in the hands of Jumang.
In fact, the excavation of the Sanxingdui site began as early as 1986, when more than 1,700 pieces of bronze and jade artifacts were unearthed. However, the high level of craftsmanship and the civilization displayed by these artifacts posed no small challenge to people’s notion of atheism.
Chinese Communist Party officials stopped the excavations in 1986 until March 20 this year, when they restarted the excavation of six ritual pits at Sanxingdui on a large scale.
The Legend of the Fusang Tree and the Sun
There is a legend of the Fusang tree and the sun to share with you. It is written in the Shanhaijing: “Beyond the East Sea, between the Ganquan, there is the country of Xixi and. There was a woman named Xihe, the wife of Di Jun, who was born for ten days and often bathed in the Gan Yuan.” The story is that there was a woman named Xixihe in the country of Xixihe, who was the wife of Di Jun and gave birth to ten suns.
The ten suns lived in the East, where there was a big tree called Fusang, and the ten suns slept under the branches, and took turns to come out to do their duty in the sky and shine on the earth.
One time, they felt fun, so they came out together to patrol the sky, but brought disaster to mankind. The earth has a serious drought, the heat scorched the forest, drying the earth, dry grass and seedlings.
The ten suns almost melted the earth, and even the small animals in the forest had no way to live. People held their hands in pots to reach the dew drops on the leaves, but they evaporated before they could fall.
Da Yi shoots the sun (Photo: “The Heavenly Question” painted by Xiao Yun Cong in Qing Dynasty)
It is recorded in the “Shanhaijing” that ten suns appeared in the sky at the time of Yao, and Yi shot the tenth day, which fell in this place of Wajiao. The emperor of heaven gave Yi a red divine bow and white divine arrows, so that he could be born on earth and help the earth to remove all kinds of dangers and pass through dangers.
In order to save mankind, Hou Yi, the divine archer, advised the 10 suns not to appear in the sky together, but the suns ignored him. So Hou Yi opened his bow and arrow and shot at the suns in the sky. Only to see the sky appeared a burst of fire balls, 9 suns into a three-legged crows, fell down. Finally, there was only one sun left in the sky.
This sun saw 9 brothers were shot dead, he was really scared, so every day early from the East, gliding across the long sky, to the West to land. A little dare not be lazy, dare not slacken.
However, as the days went by, the sun began to be lazy again. Sometimes it plays in the big pool of Tanggu, late to the sky, and sometimes simply hide in the branches of the fusang tree, sleep, a series of ten days, half a month not to get up.
Whenever this time, the world becomes day and night, darkness. Flowers, trees and grains, do not get the sunlight, soon withered. The weather temperature dropped, very cold, human birds and animals frozen into a ball, it seems impossible to survive, so long, the world will be extinct, becoming a world of death without living things.
After the Emperor of Heaven knew this situation, he sent a great god named Yan Di to the East. He urged the sun to get up on time every day, and then drove the “six chi dragons”, that is, six dragons without horns pulling the “hanging chariot”, followed the sun, supervising it to finish the day’s journey on time.
Yandi, the sun god, he is dedicated to the management of the sun, because he and his management of the sun together in the east of heaven and earth, so people also call him “East King”.
The Emperor wears a green tunic and a white costume that covers his feet. In his left hand, he holds a branch of “Wakamu”, which was folded from the western sky. “Wakagi” is a light-emitting sacred wood, it has two uses, one is used as a whip to drive away the sun, so that it does not dare to lazy; second is whenever the sky clouds and dust dirt, obscuring the sun’s light, you can use “Wakagi” to wipe it clean, so that the sun from the new radiation out The original bright light.
In the right hand of the Emperor, he holds a huge recurve bow with a long, white, sharp arrow on the string, which is specially designed to suppress evil. The sun god Dongjun is also responsible for the safety of all beings.
Sunrise. (pixabay.com)
In order to make the sun wake up in time every morning, without delaying its work, the emperor also sent a special heavenly jade chicken, standing in the sun perched on the Fusang tree, the jade chicken is particularly beautiful, such as jade feathers, red claws and beak. Its call can be heard for more than a thousand miles, even the sea is stirred up a magnificent wave, surging.
The Jade Rooster starts to crow every morning at about 4:00 a.m. It cranks its neck and the chickens in the world follow, waking the sun from its sleep, while the Emperor drives his six chi dragons to drive the sun from Tanggu, then starts its day’s journey and fulfills its responsibilities. All the way to a big mountain in the west of China – the ’ Mountain, the sun set gracefully.
Behind the ’ Mountain, there is a big water pond named Meng Shui. After working all day, the sun can take a good bath in the Meng Shui pond painfully. The water in the Meng Shui pond is clear and transparent, sweet and fragrant, with a strange fragrance. After taking a bath, the sun rolls down into the water in the Yu Yuan.
The abyss is a bottomless abyss, leading to the eastern valley of Tang. The sun from the abyss along the secret tunnel in the water to quickly return to the soup valley, flying up to the top of the Fusang tree in a palace to rest. Until the next day, the jade rooster crows early in the morning, and then rises again to become a golden crow like the red sun, continue to complete the day’s work.
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