妖怪的诞生——《山海经》中的灵异动物

The Birth of Demons:Spiritual Animals in the“Classic of Mountains and Seas”

传统文化和民间信仰中的妖怪观念源远流长。本来意义上的妖、怪,往往跟灾异联系在一起,指的是一些会引发灾难性后果的怪异事物和反常现象。《山海经》中记载了数十种一旦出现就会发生天灾人祸的灵异性动物,即体现了此种原初的妖怪观念。《山海经》的此类灵异记载,是先民在长期防灾救灾实践中积累的经验知识,反映了动物行为与自然灾害之间的生态相关性。但这种知识一旦脱离其经验基础,被纳入天人感应和灾异学说的语境,与之相关的动物即被赋予超出其自然本性的神通,从而变成了真正意义上的妖怪。

The concept of demons in traditional culture and folk beliefs is rooted in deep history.Original demons,which are often associated with catastrophes,refer to some weird things and anomalies that can lead to catastrophic consequences.The Classic of Mountains and Seas records dozens of spiritual animals that will cause natural and human disasters once they appear,which reflects this original concept of demons.This paper argues that such supernatural records are actually the empirical knowledge accumulated by ancient Chinese in their long-term disaster prevention and relief practice,reflecting the ecological correlation between animal behavior and natural disasters.However,once this knowledge is separated from its empirical basis and incorporated into the context of the doctrines of heaven-human telepathy and divine catastrophe,the relevant animals are given supernatural powers beyond their natural properties and become demons in the true sense of the term.