What is Shi Gandang? Would it be better to have a picture to explain?
"Shi Gandang" is also known as "Taishan Shi Gandang", "General Stone", "Stone God", etc. Sichuan people call it Tunkou, which is a common architectural custom in our country. Usually, a stone tablet is erected next to the outer wall of the house, or at the entrance of streets, alleys, bridges, city gates, ferry crossings, etc. Some are also embedded in buildings. The words "Shi Gandang" are either written or engraved on the tablet. . It is believed to have three functions: one is to ward off evil spirits, the other is to suppress ghosts, and the third is to remove bad luck. In the Shandong area, in old fashion, this stone tablet had the magical power of "being able to visit people at night to heal their illnesses", so it was also called "Doctor Shi" (Volume 10 of "Cha Xiang Shi Cong Chao" by Yu Yue of the Qing Dynasty).
When did the custom of engraving "Shi Gandang" begin, and where did the power of "Shi Gandang" to suppress ghosts and ward off evil come from? There have always been many debates.
According to folklore, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, all county magistrates who sat in the office of Xuwen County, Guangdong died in office within three months. In the early years of Kangxi's reign in the Qing Dynasty, a new county magistrate was afraid of making the same mistake before he took office. He specially asked a Feng Shui master to investigate. It turned out that the shadow of a pagoda in the county was falling on the county magistrate's public case. The successive county magistrates could not bear its influence. Death from stress. Mr. Feng Shui believes that the pagoda is no higher than the Five Mountains. Among the five mountains, Mount Tai is the only one. Only the stones of Mount Tai dare to withstand its shadow. After hearing this, the county magistrate hurriedly sent for a piece of Taishan stone, engraved with the five characters "Taishan stone dare to be made", and erected it in front of the lobby of the county government, and then received the seal and took office. Since then, Xuwen County has never had a county magistrate die suddenly before taking office. After the anecdote spread, people began to carve "Taishan Shi Gandang" stone tablets and build them at their doorsteps and set them up in the streets to ward off evil spirits. If you don't have the conditions to go to Mount Tai to ask for a stone, you can find a stone strip on the spot. As long as it is engraved with "Taishan Shi Gandang" or "Shi Gandang", it will also work.
There is also a legend that when Hua Tuo, a famous doctor during the Three Kingdoms period, went to Mount Tai to collect medicine, he brought back a piece of Mount Tai stone with the words "Mountain Tai presses the top, and all ghosts will rest in peace". When the shaman pretended to be a ghost and came to harm him, he used the Taishan Stone to defeat him. The people heard that Hua Tuo could use Taishan stone to ward off demons, so they went to the mountain to quarry the stone, chiseled it with the words "Taishan stone is a must" and erected it on the wall of his house to ward off evil spirits.
There are many similar stories in Tai'an, Shandong and across the country. Folklorists summarize this as "the theory that Mount Tai stones are rich in divine power". The folk beliefs hidden deep in the phenomenon of "Shi Gandang" are actually the ancients' worship of Mount Tai.
There is another view that "Shi Gandang" is actually a real person, and the folk custom of erecting stone tablets to ward off ghosts originated from his admiration for him. However, there are different opinions on the same point of view. Apart from folk legends with a fantasy color, there are several types that scholars resort to in words. For example, according to Yang Xinmin's "Surname Yuan Zhuji" of the Ming Dynasty, the custom of erecting "Shi Gandang" should have started in the Five Dynasties: In the late Tang Dynasty, Shi Jingtang, the governor of Hedong Province, accepted the summons of Emperor Min of the Tang Dynasty in Weizhou. To prevent any unexpected events, his general Liu Zhiyuan recommended him A warrior named Shi Gandang followed him in with a hammer in his sleeve. Sure enough, Emperor Min had set up an ambush on his left and right to kill Shi Jingtang. Shi Ganshi bravely defended his master and died in a fight, but it bought time for Liu Zhiyuan to lead his troops to respond. From then on, Shi Gandang won the respect of the people with his reputation and deeds of "turning danger into good luck, and guarding against insult and danger". "Therefore, future generations will carve their aspirations and write their surnames on stones at strategic points on bridges and roads to protect the residents." To prove that this statement is true, the book also quoted a seven-line poem written by later generations about the stone carving "Shi Gandang": "In the past, the armor was a military minister, calming the world and protecting the residents. He defended the three forks of the road and buried hundreds of muds. Fighting body. Bronze pillars accompany the purple wall, and the jade gate guards the old mortal world. Don't ask about the heroes who come and go." In order to find out whether this matter is true, Chu Renhuo of the Qing Dynasty specifically checked the "New Five Dynasties". History", it turned out that the warrior who died in the fight was named Shi Gan. But he also agreed that Shi Gan was the prototype of "Shi Gandang" and concluded that "the person who is called Dang may be the only one who is brave enough to bear the brunt" ("Jianhu Collection").
However, some people point out that the so-called custom of engraving "Shi Gandang" originated from the Five Dynasties is not worth refuting. It is based on an incident mentioned by Song Wang Xiangzhi in the fourth volume of "Yudi Stele Records" Anecdote: During the Qingli period of Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty, Zhang Wei, the magistrate of Putian County, rebuilt the county government office and excavated a stone tablet. The inscription said: "The stone can be used to suppress hundreds of ghosts and suppress disasters; officials are prosperous and the people are healthy; customs and education are flourishing, and rituals and music are flourishing." "The record of the county magistrate Zheng Ya in the fifth year of Dali of the Tang Dynasty" It can be seen that the "Shi Gandang" carved stone has appeared at least in the Dali period of the Tang Dynasty, and the custom at that time was to bury it underground. This can be said. This is corroborated with the description of "the body buried in mud and hundreds of battles" quoted in the poem "Surname Yuan Zhuji".
If this is the case, what happened to the "Shi Gandang" on the "Dali" stele? Chen Jiru, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, proposed an explanation in "Qun Sui Lu": He was a member of the previous dynasty. A warrior of the Five Dynasties, Shi Gan admired his reputation and gave himself a name similar to his.
Some people pointed out that the so-called "Shi Gandang" is neither the fifth generation Shi Gan nor the warrior of a certain dynasty he named himself because of his admiration, but the general name of a family. The basis for this theory is that the three characters "Shi Gandang" originated from the first volume of "Jijiuzhang" written by Shiyou in the Western Han Dynasty. This book is similar to the "Thousand Character Essay" and "Hundred Family Surnames" of later generations. It is a literacy textbook for schoolchildren to learn. , the book arranges many common surnames in rhyme form, all of which are followed by fictitious names, such as "Song Yannian, Zheng Zifang, Wei Yishou, Shi Buchang", "Zhu Jiaobian, Kong Heshang, Shi Menghu, Shi Gandang" and so on. Yan Shigu, a native of the Tang Dynasty, once commented on this book, and the note "Shi Gandang" in it said: "There are Shi Que, Shi Mai, and Shi Ai in Wei, and there are stones in Zheng, all of the Shi family. There are Shi Su in Zhou Dynasty, and there are many kinds of stones in Qi. Later, the people of the Ming family "dare to be worthy" and said that they are invincible." Later generations understood that the Shi family was invincible and dared to be evil, and embodied this family endowment on a stone tablet, so they established the custom of "Shi Gandang". of formation. It can be seen that this custom started after Yan Shigu in the late Sui Dynasty and early Tang Dynasty. It should be no problem to say that there were already stone carvings of "Shi Gandang to suppress hundreds of ghosts" during the reign of Emperor Daizong.
Modern scholars have more explanations about the origin of the "Shi Gandang" custom. Some people think that it originated from a Taoist belief in stone gods: the basis for the concept that Taishan stones have divine power is the Taishan God of Dongyue Great Emperor who Taoists respect as the master of hell; and "Shi Gandang" is regarded as a real hero. It is the reflection of the traditional concept of "immortal soul" in folk beliefs. Therefore, it is more appropriate to attribute "Shi Gandang" to a mixture of nature worship and hero worship in folk customs.
Some people also believe that a piece of stone can produce strong magical power, which can be traced back to primitive humans' worship of stones. The ancestors who experienced the Paleolithic Age and the Neolithic Age lived in caves and caves and relied on stone tools and weapons to obtain food. Therefore, they appreciated, loved and worshiped stones from the bottom of their hearts, and gradually regarded stones as spiritual and capable of being dispelled. A sacred object that brings disaster and blessing. In fact, the theory that stones can suppress evil appeared as early as the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties. "Huainan Wanbi Shu" by Liu An of the Han Dynasty said: "If stones are placed in the corners of the house, the ghosts will be incompetent and there will be no harm." Yu Xin of the Northern Zhou Dynasty's "Xiaoyuan Fu" said: "The house should be buried with stones." Wu Zhaoyi annotated Zong Mao's "Jingchu" of the Southern Dynasties "The Records of the Year" says: "On the dusk of October, I dig the corner of the house and bury big stones to build a house." These customs should be the origin of the appearance of "Shi Gandang" in later generations.
Some people also pointed out that regarding stones as wards off evil spirits, especially the use of huge stones as house-holding objects, is closely related to the ancient worship of huge stones, and is also based on the method of throwing stones to attack ghosts in witchcraft. This kind of witchcraft is recorded in the Qin Slips "Rishu·Jie Pian". Burying stones in the ground or inserting them into the ground to suppress evil spirits is another form of this magic, which has been popular since the Qin and Han Dynasties. In the Tang Dynasty, someone who read "Ji Jiu Zhang" suddenly had an inspiration and connected the "stone" in "Shi Gandang" in the book with the stone that suppresses evil, and borrowed this resounding name to call the stone used to suppress evil. The stone tablet was built and recognized by the public, so it became more and more widely known and continued to be used. As for the later name "Taishan Stone Gandang", it was intended to emphasize that this stone was a sacred stone from Mount Tai, the lord of the Five Sacred Mountains, further enhancing its deterrent power against ghosts and evil spirits. Based on this, the origin of the custom of "Shi Gandang" can be traced back to the pre-Qin Dynasty.
Some people pointed out that it is good to regard the ancestors' huge stone worship as the origin of "Shi Gandang", but it is not accurate to only use "spiritual stones". The essence of the so-called boulder worship is genital worship. In form, it can be divided into vulva (rock cave) worship and male root (stone pillar) worship. It is commonly believed that stone pillars can ward off ghosts and evil spirits. This is actually a variant of masculine worship, which means that its ferocious appearance and mysterious connotation scare away ghosts. In the old days, some villages inhabited by ethnic minorities often had natural stone pillars standing at the entrances, which served to guard houses and ward off evil spirits. The Han people's custom of using stone strips and stone tablets to guard houses and ward off evil spirits was similar to this in its original concept.
The various high opinions of the ancients and present sages have probably exhausted the information on "Shi Gandang". Interested readers may wish to trace the origins of this topic on which everyone has different opinions. discussion.