轴心时代华夏神话的重述与祛魅

Narrating and Disenchanting Chinese Mythology of the Axis Age

华夏轴心时代神话文化与理性文化构成互相渗透和影响的复合结构。理性文化价值观的核心构成是人类本位观,它渗透在先秦神话重述的各方面,悄然给神话的自然性祛魅。轴心时代重述的华夏神话,其神格由物格神为主转向物人混合格为主,帝由帝、天合一的自然主宰神为主转化为帝、祖合一的人类各族群祖神为主,都是人类意识渗透的标志,也是淡化和消除自然神秘性的过程。华夏神话重述中最重要的祛魅方式是历史化。神话的历史化也是神话世界的人类化。在历史化重述中,物格或物人混合格神转化成纯人格神,高高在上、充满异在性和神秘感的诸神转化为人类生活世界的主角,其言行成为人类经验、人性尺度可以理解和想象的对象。神话历史化重述中渗透了伦理化,华夏神话历史化重述过程中,突出地表达了以人判神的神人关系伦理、孝悌为核心的血缘宗法伦理、仁孝贤能的国家政治伦理、维护公正与秩序的国际关系伦理。这些都对中国后世政治与文化发展产生了深远影响。

Mythological culture and rational culture in Huaxia Axis era constitute a composite structure which permeates and influences each other.The core of rational cultural values is the concept of human standard,which permeates all aspects of the myth restatement in the pre-Qin period and quietly demystifies the nature of myth.In the Chinese mythology retold in the Axis era,the body of the God changed from the body of things to the mixed body of things and humans,and the kings changed from the God of nature to the ancestral God of all human groups.These are the signs of the infiltration of human consciousness,and also the process of diluting and eliminating the mystery of nature.The most important demystification method in the retelling of Chinese mythology is historicization.The historicization of myth is also the humanization of myth world.In the historical retelling,the things-body-god or the mixed body God of things and humans are transformed into a pure personified God,and the God who is high and full of alienation and mystery is transformed into the protagonist of the human life world,and his words and deeds become the objects that human experience and human scale can understand and imagine.The historical retelling of myth permeates ethics.In the process of the historical retelling of Chinese myth,it highlights the ethics of the relationship between God and man in which man judges God,the ethics of blood clan law with filial piety as the core,the national political ethics with benevolence,filial piety and meritocracy as the core,and the ethics of international relations with justice and order.All these have a profound impact on the political and cultural development of later generations of China.