Two stories or legends about lotus

1. A long time ago, there was an old man named Zhang who made a living by fishing. I don’t have a wife, I just raised a son who is one year old. That day, the old man came to fish again. Suddenly, he saw flowers rising straight up the river. Soon a bamboo tube appeared, and the cry of a child came from inside.

Old man Zhang hurriedly threw down the fishing net and fished out the bamboo tube. He carefully opened the bamboo tube and saw a very cute baby girl inside. He picked up a son and a daughter, and he couldn't be happier.

From then on, the eldest sister-in-law of the East family gave me hugs and the second aunt of the West family nursed them, and the two children grew up before they knew it. When they were seventeen or eighteen years old, the brother and sister looked so good! Especially the younger sister, her face was like a lotus flower emerging from the water, and her sweet voice could sing songs even a lark could not compare with. It turns out that the baby girl is the Lotus Fairy. Because she did something wrong, the Jade Emperor punished her to be reborn in the human world.

One day, the Lotus Fairy suddenly said to Old Man Zhang: "Dad, I am leaving you. Brother, you have to take good care of our dad." The two men didn't know why she said this.

At midnight, heavenly soldiers and generals came down to urge them, all holding gleaming swords and guns in their hands. Hehua couldn't bear to disturb her father and brother, so she quietly left the house. I came to the clear pool in front of the door, washed my face and left. She thought of Old Man Zhang's kindness in raising her, and burst into tears. The tears dripped into the water, and a lotus flower grew immediately. She bit her finger, wrote a few words on the handkerchief, threw it away and left with the heavenly soldiers and generals.

At dawn, Old Man Zhang got up and could not find his daughter. This made the two men very anxious. They hurried to look outside the door and saw that the clear pond was full of lotus flowers and a handkerchief was placed by the water. After looking for someone to think about it, I realized that it was the Lotus Fairy who came down to earth to express her kindness to old man Zhang in the future. If old man Zhang misses him, he can go to the door and see the lotus.

2. At the junction of the northern end of Chenghai County and Raoping County, there is a Lotus Mountain with an altitude of more than 500 meters, with five towering peaks shaped like lotus flowers. There is an Xianweng Temple on the top of the mountain. Every year on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, the folk custom of "dreams come true" is popular here.

According to legend, the immortals in this temple can tell people their dreams and predict their fate. The Double Ninth Festival coincides with the birthday of the Immortal, and it is said that this day is the most effective for "realizing dreams". On the eve of the Double Ninth Festival, faithful men and women from all over the country bring incense and candles as offerings and climb the Lotus Mountain to divine their dreams and make their wishes come true.

Those who climb mountains to realize their dreams must be sincere and sincere in order to receive good dreams. Starting from the first day of the ninth lunar month, people should abstain from eating meat and vegetables, stop having sex, and purify themselves; before climbing a mountain on the eighth day of September, they must purify their bodies with well water and pomegranate branches, and wear new clothes. After climbing a mountain to worship the immortal, you need to sleep outdoors on the big rocks or on the hillside outside the temple that night. When you fall asleep, you will receive dreams from the immortal. When you get up in the morning, you will thank the immortal and return.

Dream omens are one of people’s original beliefs and are regarded as predictions before things happen or as a result. However, Chaoshan people have a very unique view of dreams. They often regard the scenes shown in dreams as riddles, like guessing riddles, and the predicted results need to be explained differently like the answers to riddles. For example, dreaming about picking up gold, silver, treasures and other things on the road is considered a bad thing; on the contrary, stepping on a lot of feces in a dream is considered to be a good thing.

Due to the dominance of this mentality, these faithful men and women go to Xianweng Temple to realize their dreams. No matter what they dream about, they will make good guesses. The ineffectiveness is attributed to the lack of sincerity in the heart, thus making this folk custom popular for a long time.

Chenghai people have always passed down the folk tale of "finding a needle in a haystack" as a story about how to realize the dream of Xianweng Temple. It is said that in the Xinmao year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1711), Chen Chunying, a talented scholar in Suwandu, Chengyi, was about to take the provincial examination. He was afraid that he would not meet his talent, so he went to the Xianweng Temple on the Double Ninth Festival to realize his dream. "Looking for a needle in a haystack."

When Chunying woke up, she thought about it again and again. She was disappointed and depressed, and wanted to change her mind and not go for the test. As the term of study was approaching, the scholars all thought that Chunying had learned a lot and it would be a pity to miss the opportunity, so they invited him to go with them, but Chunying had to reluctantly go.

When you go to a provincial capital to take an exam, you will inevitably have to pack your luggage. When his virtuous wife was mending his clothes, she asked Chunying to fetch the needle inserted in the door leaf. This needle happened to be inserted into the word "sea" in the door couplets "Han Chao" and "Su Hai". He suddenly understood the immortal's sign and jumped up with joy and said: "Good omen, good omen!"

This year, Chen Chunying really fell in love with Xie Yuan. Since then, countless people have climbed to Lotus Mountain during the Double Ninth Festival to realize their dreams. Extended information

There are many types of lotus, which are divided into two categories: ornamental and edible. It is native to tropical and temperate regions of Asia and has been cultivated in China as early as the Zhou Dynasty. The lotus is full of treasures. The lotus root and lotus seeds are edible. The lotus seeds, rhizomes, lotus nodes, lotus leaves, flowers and seed germs can all be used as medicine. His character of being able to emerge from the mud without being stained has always been praised by the world.

“The lotus leaves touching the sky are infinitely green, and the lotus flowers reflecting the sun are uniquely red” is a true portrayal of the beauty of the lotus. The noble character of the lotus, which is "straight in the middle and straight to the outside, neither creeping nor branching, coming out of the mud but not stained, washing the clear ripples without being evil", has always been one of the themes of poetry and painting by poets and writers throughout the ages.

Lotus is a perennial aquatic herb; the rhizome is transverse, thick, with enlarged internodes, many longitudinal ventilation pores, constricted nodes, black scale leaves on the upper part, and whisker-like adventitious roots on the lower part.

The leaves are round, shield-shaped, 25-90 cm in diameter, the surface is dark green, covered with waxy white powder, the back is gray-green, the entire edge is slightly wavy, the upper surface is smooth, with white powder, and the lower leaf veins start from the center It shoots out and has 1-2 forked branches; the petiole is thick, cylindrical, 1-2 meters long, hollow, with scattered small spines on the outside.

The pedicel and petiole are equal or slightly longer, and have scattered small spines; the petiole is cylindrical and densely covered with barbs.

The flowers are solitary on the top of the pedicel, high above the water surface. The flower diameter is 10-20 cm, beautiful and fragrant. There are single, double, double and double flower shapes; the flower color is white. , pink, deep red, lavender, yellow or intermediate colors, etc.; lotus leaves are oblong, oval to obovate, 5-10 cm long, 3-5 cm wide, gradually getting smaller from outside to inside, sometimes turning into stamens, with a rounded apex. Or slightly pointed, with many stamens.

The pistil is free and buried in an inverted cone-shaped spongy receptacle. The surface of the receptacle has many scattered honeycomb-like holes. After fertilization, it gradually expands and is called a lotus. A small nut (lotus seed) grows in each hole. ; The anthers are strip-shaped, the filaments are slender, and they are borne under the receptacle; the style is very short, and the stigma is radiant; the receptacle (lotus chamber) is 5-10 cm in diameter.

The nuts are oval or ovate, 1.8-2.5 cm long, the peel is textured, hard, and dark brown when ripe; the seeds (lotus seeds) are ovate or oval, 1.2-1.7 cm long, and the testa is red. or white. The flowering period is from June to September, opening in the morning and closing in the evening. The fruiting period is from August to October. There are many varieties of lotus cultivars, which can be divided into three systems: lotus root, seed lotus and flower lotus according to different uses.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Lotus