What is Shi Gandang? Why not explain?

"Shi Gandang", also known as "Taishan Shi Gandang", "Stone General" and "Stone God", is called Tunkou by Sichuanese and is a common architectural custom in China. Usually, a stone tablet is erected on the outer wall of the gate of the house, or at the corner of the street, at the intersection of the bridge, at the ferry crossing of the city gate, etc. Some of them are embedded in buildings, and the word "Shi Gandang" is engraved on tablets or books. Folk beliefs have three functions: one is to ward off evil spirits, the other is to kill ghosts, and the third is to eliminate disasters. And in Shandong area, the old custom also has this stone tablet's magical power of "ruling people at night", so it is also called "Dr. Shi" (Yue's Tea Fragrant House Notes, Volume 10).

When did the custom of carving "Shi Gandang" begin and where did the power of "Shi Gandang" town to ward off evil spirits come from? There has been a lot of debate.

According to folklore, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, every magistrate who sat in the lobby of xuwen county, Guangdong, died in office within three months. In the early years of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, a new magistrate was afraid of making the same mistake before he took office. He specially invited Mr. Feng Shui to investigate, only to know that the shadow of a pagoda in the county was falling on the case of the county magistrate, who died because he could not bear its pressure. Mr. Feng Shui thinks that the pagoda is no higher than the five mountains, and only Mount Tai is among them. Only the stones of Mount Tai dare to resist its shadow. After hearing this, the magistrate of a county sent someone to invite a piece of Taishan stone, which was engraved with the five Chinese characters "Taishan Shi Gandang" and stood in front of the county hall, and then printed it before taking office. Since then, the sudden death of the county magistrate has never happened in xuwen county. After the anecdote spread, people carved the "Taishan Shi Gandang" stone tablet at the door and stood in the street to ward off evil spirits. If you can't afford to go to Mount Tai to ask for a stone, you can find a stone on the spot, as long as it is engraved with "Mount Tai Shi Gandang" or "Shi Gandang".

There is also a legend that when Hua Tuo, a famous doctor from the Three Kingdoms, went to Mount Tai to collect herbs, he brought back a Taishan stone with the words "Mount Tai is the top of the mountain, and all ghosts rest in peace". When the wizard posed as a ghost to harm him, he raised Taishan stone to defeat him. People heard that Hua Tuo used Taishan stone to kill ghosts and demons, so he went to the mountain to quarry stones, chiseled out the words "Taishan stone is dry" and erected it on the wall of the house to ward off evil spirits.

There are many similar stories in Taian, Shandong and the whole country. Folklorists summed it up as "Mount Tai is full of magical power", and the folk belief hidden in the depths of the "Shi Gandang" phenomenon is actually the worship of Mount Tai by the ancients.

Another view holds that "Shi Gandang" is a real person, and the folk custom of carving ghosts in Shibei Town stems from his worship. However, under the same viewpoint, there are different opinions. In addition to fantasy folklore, there are several kinds of literati who only resort to words. For example, according to Yang Mingxinmin's Yuan Zhu Ji Shi, the custom of erecting "Shi Gan Dang" began in the Five Dynasties. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Shi Jingtang was summoned by Emperor Tang Chengdi in Weizhou. In case of any accident, his Ministry would recommend a samurai named Shi Gan Dang with a hammer on his sleeve. Sure enough, Emperor Yu had already set an ambush to kill Shi Jingtang. Shi Gandang bravely defended the Lord and died in battle, but he bought time for Liu Zhiyuan to come and meet him. Since then, Shi Gandang has won the respect of the people with the reputation of "turning evil into good fortune and saving danger". Therefore, future generations will carve their ambitions on stones and write their surnames on stones to defend the residents. The book proves that this statement is true, and it also records a seven-rhythm poem inscribed by later generations in the stone carving Shi Gandang: "A was a military attache in those days to protect the residents of the town. Defend the fork in the road, bury the mud and paint the battlefield. Copper pillars with purple plugs, Yumen conservative red dust. Heroes come and go without asking each other, but they all see heroes come and go. " In order to find out whether it is true or not, the Chu people in Qing Dynasty specially consulted the History of the New Five Dynasties, and found that the warrior who died in battle was named Shi. But he also agreed that Shi Gan was the prototype of "Shi Gandang", and concluded that "he should be the brave man, or he should be the brave man" (Jian Xuan Ji).

However, it has been pointed out that the so-called custom of carving "Shi Gandang" originated from the Five Dynasties is not worth refuting, based on an anecdote told by Wang Xiangzhi in the Song Dynasty in Volume IV of Lu Bei Zhi: During the Qing Dynasty in Song Renzong, Putian County ordered Zhang Qian to rebuild the county government and dug up an inscription: "Shi Gandang, town ghost, disaster suppression; Official wealth, people health; Strong wind and education, courtesy and music. In the fifth year of Tang Dali, the county magistrate Zheng Ya wrote. " Therefore, the carved stone of "Shi Gandang" appeared at least in the Dali period of the Tang Dynasty, and the custom at that time was to bury it underground, which can be confirmed by the description of "burying mud and painting a hundred battles" in the poem quoted by Yuan Zhuji's surname.

If so, what about the "Shi Gandang" on this "Dali" tablet? Chen Jiru, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty, put forward an explanation in the Record of the Flowers: He was a warrior of the previous dynasty, and Shi Gan of the Five Dynasties admired his reputation, so he gave himself a name similar to his.

It has also been pointed out that the so-called "Shi Gandang" is neither Shi Gan of the Five Dynasties nor a warrior of a certain dynasty named after admiring him, but the floorboard of a family. The basis of this statement is that the word "Shi Gandang" originated from the first volume of the Western Han Dynasty's Urgent Chapter. This book is similar to the later version with thousands of characters and hundreds of surnames. It is a literacy textbook that confuses children. Many common surnames are arranged in the form of verse, and they all have false names, such as "Song Yannian, Zheng Zifang, Wei Yishou and Minister Shi". In the Tang Dynasty, Yan Shigu commented on this book, among which the article Shi Gandang said: "Wei You Shijie, Shimai, Shixie and Youzheng Shizhi are all Shi's. Zhou has a stone speed, a stone in the same place, and then lives in the house. Dare to do it, what you say is invincible. " Later generations realized that the stone was invincible and dared to do evil, so they materialized this family gift on a stone tablet and formed the custom of carving "Shi Gandang". It can be seen that this custom began after Yan Shigu in the late Sui and early Tang Dynasties. It should be no problem to say that there was a stone carving of "Shi Gan was a town full of ghosts" in the Dali period.

Modern scholars have given more explanations to the origin of Shi Gandang customs. Some people think that it is a kind of stone god belief originated from Taoism: the so-called Taishan stone has the conceptual basis of divine power, that is, Taoism respects Mount Tai, the great god of Dongyue, and Mount Tai is the Lord of hell; Taking "Shi Gandang" as a real hero is a reflection of the traditional concept of "immortal soul" in folk beliefs. Therefore, it is more appropriate to attribute "Shi Gandang" to the mixture of nature worship and hero worship in folk customs.

Some people think that a stone can produce powerful magic, which can be traced back to the worship of stone by primitive humans. The ancestors who experienced the Paleolithic Age and Neolithic Age lived in caves and relied on stone tools and weapons to get food. Therefore, they sincerely appreciate, love and worship the stone, and gradually regard the stone as a spiritual sacred thing that can eliminate disasters and reduce happiness. In fact, as early as the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, the theory of killing evil by stones appeared. Ann's "Huainan Bay Wall Book" said: "Marbles are in the corner, then ghosts are powerless." Yu Xin's Xiao Yuan Fu in the Northern Zhou Dynasty says, "The town houses bury stones." Wu notes that the Chronicle of Jingchu in Zonggu of the Southern Dynasties says: "Dig the corner of the house at dusk in October and bury a big stone for the town house." These customs should be the origin of "Shi Gandang" in later generations.

It has also been pointed out that using stones as a spirit to ward off evil spirits, especially using huge stones as things in town houses, is closely related to the worship of huge stones in ancient times, and is also based on the method of throwing stones to kill ghosts in witchcraft recorded in the Book of Heaven in Qin bamboo slips. Burying or inserting stones into the ground to ward off evil spirits is another form of this spell, which has been popular since Qin and Han Dynasties. In the Tang Dynasty, I don't know who had a sudden inspiration after reading the urgent chapter, and linked the stone of "Shi Gan Dang" in the book with the stone of Zhen Shi, so they borrowed this resounding name to call the stone tablet used to kill evil spirits, which was recognized by the public and spread more and more widely and lasted forever. As for later being called "Shi Gandang of Mount Tai", it is intended to emphasize that this town stone is a sacred stone from Mount Tai, the statue of the Five Mountains, and further enhance its deterrence against ghosts. Accordingly, the origin of the custom of "eating sweetly" can be pushed back to the pre-Qin period.

It has also been pointed out that it is true that the ancestor's megalithic worship is the origin of "Shi Gandang", but it is not accurate to only aim at "Lingshi". The essence of the so-called megalithic worship is genital worship, and there are differences in form between the worship of vulva (cave) and the worship of male root (stone pillar). People generally believe that stone pillars can ward off evil spirits. In fact, they are a variant of male root worship, that is, they scare away ghosts with their fierce appearance and mysterious connotation. In the old society, natural stone pillars were often erected at the entrance of villages where some ethnic minorities lived together, which had the function of exorcising evil spirits. The custom of Han people making ghosts with stone tablets in town houses was similar in the original concept.

The ancient sages have probably exhausted the information about "Shi Gandang", and interested readers may wish to discuss this topic.