东汉荧惑图像考

ON YINGHUO (MARS) IMAGES OF THE EASTERN HAN DYNASTY

秦以降,日月与五星一直被视为神祇而受祠祭。《汉书?郊祀志》曰:“及秦并天下,令祠官所常奉天地名山大川鬼神可得而序也。……而雍有日、月、参、辰、南北斗、荧惑、太白、岁星、填星、辰星、二十八宿、风伯、雨师,……百有馀庙。”可知秦统一后,在关中建祠立庙祭祀日月星辰等神祇。尽管西汉早期国家祭典未承袭秦制的五星之祀,但五星神格化现象见于马王堆帛书《五星占》〔1〕。《汉书?郊祀志》记西汉宣帝时期,“立岁星、辰星、太白、荧惑、南斗祠于长安城旁”,西汉末年王莽奏请“分群神以类相从为五部,兆天坠之别神”,其中祭祀“炎帝赤灵祝融及荧惑星、南宿南宫于南郊兆”。荧惑是从属赤帝的神祇,故秦汉至唐宋间,荧惑在历代王朝的国家祭祀中多被纳入南方系统的神祇而得受崇祀[2].

On the^Me-towers?pictorial stones of the burials and shrines of the Eastern Horn Dynasty,there exict depicitions of a double-headed human face monster figure.This specialshaped motif is distributed in present-day Shandong,Jiangsu,Anhui,Henan,and Shanxi,1 8 cases of them have been found to date.Among them,the one seen in the Shrine No.1 at Hanwang Township in Xuzhou had two men seated on the back;in the past,scholars have interpreted its name in the inscription as“Rongcheng荣成”and explained this monster figure as the archaic legendary character“Rongcheng容成”which was widely accepted by the academic community.However,the author of this paper believes that this inscription should be interpreted as“Yinghuo荧或”and this monster figure would be that of i“Yinghuo荧惑”(glimmering mysterious[star])”一the planet Mars.The posture of the two heads back-toback just reflected the unsteady and fluttering characteristics of Mars;this type of figure also appeared in the celestial map of the ceiling stone of a pictorial stone tomb of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Nanyang,which matches the context for the Mars to exist.Furthermore?this paper pointed out that the Yinghuo-monster with a child standing on its back coincides with the“Yinghuo Hypothesis”about the origination of the children’s folk rhymes of China.In ancient times,there was the legend that Fengbo(Earl of Wind),the spirit of Yinghuo-M ars,taught the children to sing the children^folk rhymes as a game.The spreading of this legend would be related to the popularity of the^Wuxing(Five Elements)w ideology during the Han Dynasty.In the past?when talking about the images of the five stellar deities in China,the academic community has always paid attention to the iconographical system influenced by external Buddhist culture.This essay may make up the blank of the understanding to the images of local-originated five stellar deities.