This is an ancient temple made of stone.
"Although I don't have much research on ancient architecture, this stone temple seems to have been built in the Sui and Tang Dynasties." Yue Cen was pushed by Ke Xun to the entrance of the temple. The beam of sunlight penetrated into the temple, and there was a stone sacrifice standing inside. The altar, but the place for the statue is empty.
The ancient temple shaded by trees is really weird. Ke Xun was about to go in and have a look at it by himself, when he heard Yue Cen say, "Let's go in and have a look." There seemed to be no fear in his voice.
It is no wonder that the painting push originally selected Yue Cen for the painting. This person is really a rare "painting talent".
There is no real temple gate in this temple, only a stone tablet with indistinct writing stands not far from the gate. Even if the two of them go in together, there shouldn't be any danger. In other words, even if there is any danger that Ke Xun goes in alone, with the strength of Yue Cen in a wheelchair, I'm afraid he won't be able to help.
Instead of looking ahead, let's go together.
The temple is very shady, the sun shines through the darkness, and there are countless light and dust dancing in the bright place.
There is a stone platform behind the altar used for sacrifice, which should obviously be the place where the statue of the god is enshrined, but it is not known who this god is.
Yue Cen turned the wheel of his wheelchair with his hand and observed around the temple. At this time, his eyes stayed on the stone platforms on both sides of the altar.
Ke Xun also noticed the stone platforms on both sides: "The stone platform in the center is used to worship gods, so what are the stone platforms on both sides for?"
"It should also be used to worship gods." Yue Cen said.
Ke Xun only went to temples when he was a child, and recalled carefully, it seems that some temples were indeed furnished like this: "That means, this temple worships more than one god?"
"I think there are at least five, or even seven." Yue Cen guessed based on the size of the stone platform.
"But, why are these statues empty? Where have all the gods gone?" Ke Xun thought to himself after entering a lot of paintings, and he also saw such as Lijia Village Paper Figure, Tongzilou Resentful Ghost, Oak Mountain Research Institute ghost, etc. The ghosts, but seldom deal with the gods.
"This is probably the situation in the temple, let's go out and talk about it." Yue Cen turned his wheelchair and planned to leave the temple first.
Ke Xun followed and pushed Yue Cen out of the temple gate. When he was talking in the temple just now, there was a heavy echo, as if his words were repeated by someone, which was unsettling.
It was still the familiar natural scenery outside, and the two stopped temporarily under a big tree next to the temple.
"Xiao Ke, have you met immortals in your previous paintings?" Yue Cen asked.
"I met once, a god of good and evil. When we painted, we finally saw the good face of that god." Ke Xun was talking about the black corpse sky in Faith.
Yue Cen listened to Ke Xun's brief talk about the painting "Faith", and for a moment felt that there was no similarity with the world the two were currently living in: "We found this place because of the moss, but the stone platform in the temple is not similar. And the stone steps under the eaves are dry, and no trace of moss has been found."
Ke Xun tried to come up with an idea: "When we first came here, we watched a shadow puppet show "The Rat Marry a Girl". At that time, your legs were not very comfortable. After dawn, you found that your legs were petrified and moss grew. , came here all the way to find the source of the moss, and found this temple. The temple is empty, and the granary we saw just now is also empty. The granary is empty because the food in it has been eaten up by the mice; the temple is empty. Sora, why, where have the gods gone? Is there any connection between these gods and 'a mouse marrying a daughter'?"
Yue Cen has been listening carefully to Ke Xun's words, some inspiration flashes in his heart, but there is no sufficient basis.
At this time, I heard Ke Xun say: "Sacrificing a mouse? Didn't you just say that 'a mouse marrying a daughter' is actually a folk activity of worshiping a mouse? The sacrifice of a mouse should also be a kind of sacrifice, right? Could it be that the worship here is actually a kind of sacrifice? Yes… "
mouse
This statement made both of them uncomfortable.
Yue Cen said: "Although I haven't figured out the reason for this, I still have a certain understanding of traditional New Years and customs. I have never heard of this kind of sacrifice method. It is really unconventional."
Ke Xun also thought that what he just said was a bit absurd. If this painting is absurd, it would make sense, but it is based on traditional New Year paintings, so it should still be based on traditional Chinese New Year customs.
"Sister Cen, let's go take a look at that big stone tablet. Although the handwriting is blurry, you can still see some strokes." Ke Xun pushed Yue Cen to the temple gate again.
This stele is very high, almost blocking the temple gate. Because of its age, there are many deep cracks on the stele, and many characters on it are unrecognizable.
It can be seen from the arrangement of the words that the above seems to be a poem with four characters and one sentence.
"It's a four-character poem." Yue Cen recognized it carefully, and could see that there seemed to be a word "Xian" in the last sentence.
"Four-character poem, what is the meaning of this poem?" Ke Xun also recognized the character "Yi". Although the font is complicated, this character can be said to be the most complete character on the entire stele.
"Four-character poetry is the earliest poetry genre in ancient my country. The Book of Songs is dominated by four-character poems. Moving on, four-character poems can be seen in ancient songs and "Book of Changes"." Yue Cen's eyes Sweeping every word on the stone tablet, but I can be sure that there are only four or five words.
"Wei", "Ding", "Zunyi", "Ling", "Xian".
The most important title and the opening sentence of the poem are completely missing because of a horizontal crack on the surface of the tablet.
"If I had seen this poem before, I would have only guessed that it was a poem about ancient sacrifices, but since we started to study these things, I think this poem is definitely not that simple." Ke Xun's eyes fell on the most familiar ones. On the two characters - "wei" and "ding".
Earth dimension, Jiuding.
Is this poem related to the painting
Yue Cen was writing something in the palm of his hand with his fingers, and he was still chanting words. When the two came to this world, they had long since lost their bags, and the pen and paper were nowhere to be found.
Seeing that Yue Cen was no stranger to this poem, Ke Xun simply picked up a branch and squatted on the ground: "Sister Cen, tell me, I'll write it, if you don't know how to write, just tell me the strokes. composition."
Yue Cen was very impressed with Ke Xun's quick response: "I have seen this poem, but I can't say whether I can recite it completely. I once participated in the filming of a documentary about ancient customs, and it was used in it. I have read a set of Songs of Suburban Temple in the Tang Dynasty. This poem is the poem of welcoming the gods. It needs to be recited by the little actor who was in charge of reciting it at that time. I taught him to memorize it word by word."
Ke Xun didn't have time to sigh about the coincidence of this incident. At this time, he held a branch in his hand and said, "That's great, you come back and I'll write it!"
Yue Cen recited from memory: "Suburban Temple Songs, Wax Hundreds of Gods Movement, Welcome God."
Ke Xun: "'Spicy Gods'? Which 'spicy' is it?"
"Candle wax." When Yue Cen said this, he couldn't help but look at the scene in the temple again, as if he thought of something.
Ke Xun has finished writing this series of topics: "My words are ugly, you will take a look."
"The words are not ugly, it seems that they were written by an open-minded person," Yue Cen judged and continued to recite:
The eight waxes are open to sacrifice, and all things are worshipped together.
The uppermost heaven dimension, the lower the poor Kunji.
Ding Zu Liufen, Zun Yi recommended beauty.
There is a spirit and only one, and the hope is to stop.
After Yue Cen's prompting and correction, Ke Xun finally wrote down the poem completely.
The few words that can be recognized on the stele can also be determined according to the location. This four-character poem is exactly the "Suburban Temple Songs, Wax Hundreds of Gods, Yingshen" recited by Yue Cen.
"It seems that I judged a little bit earlier. In fact, there are eight gods enshrined in this temple." Yue Cen said.
"Eight? Could it be the 'Eight Wax' mentioned in this poem?" Ke Xun asked.
"Yes, this poem to welcome the gods begins with the eight wax gods, so there is a sentence at the beginning of 'the eight waxes open sacrifices, and all things are worshipped together'."
Ke Xun looked at the poem he wrote with branches on the ground, and sensitively found the two words that he cared about most before: "The 'dimensional' here is not the dimension of the earth, but the dimension of the sky, and the 'cauldron' here should be It is also something that holds sacrificial food.”
"Perhaps these two words appeared here by chance. In fact, the two sentences, 'Shangji Tianwei, Xiaqiongkunji', refer to all things in the world, which is exactly the same as the previous sentence 'All things are worshipped together'."
Ke Xun temporarily put aside the ultimate proposition of 'into the painting' and focused his attention: "Eight wax gods, which eight gods are they?"
Yue Cen frowned: "I may not say it completely, if Curator Hua came in..."
It's useless to say more, everything else is a false proposition.
Yue Cen tried to recall the contents of Bawa: "Bawa is an ancient deity related to agriculture in ancient times. The 'rat infestation' we mentioned before is actually under the control of Bawa. People worship Bawa, often just to pray. 'There are no insects in the fields, no rats in the warehouses, a bumper harvest of grains, and peace and contentment'. The eight wax gods are: Xian Shui; Si Shui; Nong; Maohu; Fang; Shuiyong; Insects."
Ke Xun: It sounds like all Chinese characters are spoken, why can't I understand a single word except 'cat tiger' and 'insect'
Ke Xun: "Well, is there one less? Sister Cen, did you say seven?"
Yue Cen: "Yes, there is another one. The literal is very complicated and difficult to understand. It's called 'Postal Watch'."
"What, what? What oil?"
"Postal watch," Yue Cen said again slowly, "these three words have their own meanings, 'you' refers to the farmhouse thatched hut, 'watch' refers to the field, and '繷' refers to the well There are further explanations about these three words in the collections written by the descendants of the Ming and Qing dynasties: the place where the mark is connected to the field is built as a post house, and the field is inhabited to supervise the cultivation, so it is called the post table."
"... , what later generations said is even more cloudy and foggy, which immortal is this?"
"The mention of 'Tian Fan' here refers to the officials who managed slave farming during the Western Zhou Dynasty in China, which is also referred to as the 'supervising farmer' by later generations."
Ke Xun finally understood 70% to 80%: "Speaking of which, the gods worshiped in ancient times were also very simple, there were officials who oversaw farming, insects, and cats and tigers. The cat meowing last night should not be ordinary. Cat, has the cat and tiger god appeared?"
"It's very possible." Yue Cen said.
"What kind of gods are Xianxi and Sixi you said before? These two are at the top of the list. They should be gods with higher status."
"Yes, I think these two should be the gods enshrined in the main shrine in the temple: Xianqi is Shennong; Siqi is Houji."