中国古代神话故事的植物文化内涵

On Cultural Connotations of Plants in Ancient Chinese Mythological Stories

近年来西方学界自觉兴起的植物批评思潮,引发了人们对植物生命和植物伦理的思考与关注。从植物批评的视角考察中国古代神话故事,旨在重新思考人类世界与植物世界之间的关系。中国古代神话中的植物故事大致可以分为三类,即植物兆示故事、人变植物故事和植物变人故事。其中,植物兆示故事和人变植物故事皆传递出一种积极的、正能量的植物文化,读者从中看到的不仅是植物与人类之间同根相连的生命关系,也看到人类对植物死而复生的神性生命的向往与渴望;而植物变人故事传递的则多半是消极的、负能量的植物文化,尤其是那些动辄毁坏古树的除妖去魅文化。这几种植物文化现象在当今社会依然存在。因此,如何在敬畏生命的"生命"成分中添入"植物"二字,应该成为当下中国生态文明建设的一道绿色命题。

In recent years,the autonomously emerging trend of critical plant studies in Western academic circles has generated people’s thinking about and attention to plant life and plant ethics.A study of ancient Chinese mythology from the perspective of critical plant studies may help us rethink the relationship between humans and plants.The stories concerning plants in ancient Chinese mythology may be roughly classified into three categories,namely,plants as omens,humans turning into plants,and plants turning into humans.Among these,both plants-as-omens stories and humans-turn-into-plants stories convey a plant culture indicating positive energy,since by reading them readers may be edified not only about the life relationship between plants and humans,but also about humans’longing for the divine life that only the die-and-resurrect plants have.Plants-turn-into-humans stories,on the other hand,are mostly a plant culture showing negative energy,and this is especially true in the cultural phenomena of de-demonization manifested in destroying ancient trees.It must be pointed out that these kinds of phenomena of plant culture still exist in our society today.It therefore should be a green proposition to integrate the"plant"element into"life"when we talk about"reverence for life",which is of great significance for fulfilling the vision of building China’ecological civilization.