The Relationship between Man and God in The Journey to the West and the Comparison between Man and God in Ancient Greek Myths and Legends

There are essential differences between China's gods and Greek gods: China's gods were "made by mortals", and many of them were originally acquired by mortals and even wild animals through cultivation. Greek gods are definitely related by blood: mother Gaia gave birth to father Uranus, both of them gave birth to Titan gods, and kronos sickle seized the throne and created the world. Then Zeus betrayed his father, who swallowed up his children and began the era of the gods. Mortals are promoted to constellations at most. I have never heard of mortals becoming gods. Don't talk about God, even those who can do great things are mostly demigods: not to mention Poerxiusi, Hercules, Jason and other well-known heroes, even those wise kings or celebrities have something to do with God, such as Ladamantis, Aeacus, Minos (the prototype of the three giants of the underworld among saints). Contrary to the Greek gods, The Journey to the West mentioned that even the Jade Emperor was mortal. It took many years (since I was a child, after 1,750 robberies, it took 129,600 years each time, because the fruit of the realm has already become a god) to get my present position through cultivation. This was mentioned by the Buddha when he smiled and proposed to replace the Jade Emperor in the Heavenly Palace.

That is to say, although there is an absolute gap in the abilities of man and god in the two systems, there is no absolute gap in the "variety" between the gods and men in China, and the gap between the gods and men in Greece is so great because of the different varieties.

This difference also leads to a huge difference in the way the gods exist: there are few orthodox gods in Greece, only a dozen on Olympus, and even Hades, who commands the underworld, does not exist. Most of the others are Titan gods and smaller gods, such as Pan and Muse. China's gods, not to mention the rich myths, all mentioned a very complicated system in The Journey to the West: every region on the earth has its own place of mountain gods, and the dragon king is responsible for the waters: from the four seas dragon king to the well dragon king and the river dragon king. The relationship between dragons in Journey to the West is very interesting. Careful study can lead to a complex genealogy, and everything encountered has more or less influence. For example, at the beginning of the story, King Jinghe was beheaded in a rage, and his wife took her son Xiaolong to see his younger brother, the West Sea Dragon King. Later, Xiaolong captured the Heishui River. Although the West Sea Dragon King knew it, he didn't care, because it was his nephew, and he was distressed that he was a fatherless child. After that, Geelong arrested Tang Priest. Obviously, the four dragon kings are all his uncles, but he only invited the West Sea Dragon King. Digression) The hierarchical positions in heaven are also very complicated. There are three clean-ups, then five parties and five emperors, and then officials from all walks of life, from first-class officials to mediocre people. Management is also very detailed. For example, the Monkey King always checks the "autograph book" every time he asks if anyone has made trouble. In addition, it also mentioned many unmanaged existence, such as Zhenwu Emperor, overseas Sanqing and so on. The Zhenyuan Daxian of Wuzhuangguan is called "the ancestor of the earth fairy", which shows that there is another system. There are not many systematic descriptions of Buddhism. I think it should be that Sakyamuni Buddha and most of his disciples are in the Leiyin Temple near Tianzhu State in Hezhou, and Xi Niu and Bodhisattvas are all over the place, such as the Ji Ling Bodhisattva in Little Sumi Mountain; Guanyin Bodhisattva is in Putuo Mountain in the South China Sea; The earth treasure bodhisattva is in the underworld and so on.

There are some differences in the underworld: in Greek mythology, people were taken away by the god of death Danatos (in one myth, Danatos was tricked by Sisyphus, so that no one died on earth and was released, causing chaos). After crossing the Styx River by Ka Rong, he was examined by the above-mentioned three judges, and the good people entered the Elysee Palace Garden (the pure land of bliss), and the evil people went to hell. China, on the other hand, is black and white. According to the book of life and death, Yamaraja, the Tenth Hall and the judge tried him, and he entered the reincarnation. The wicked enter three evil ways, and the good enter human nature and even heaven or heaven. This paragraph seems to be beside the point. sorry

In the interaction with human beings, the Greek gods are also very different from the China gods in The Journey to the West.

Greek gods often participate in human activities, such as the Trojan War, and the gods directly participate in gang activities. Even Ares, the god of war, came directly to help Troy and was wounded by the Greek Coalition forces with the help of Athena. Finally, the Trojan horse plan of the Greek Coalition forces was also implemented in the name of Athena. Even the Helen incident, the fuse of the war, was caused by the bribery of referee Paris by the three goddesses Bimei. After the war, the victorious Greek Coalition forces were punished by heaven for angering Apollo. Odysseus suffered a lot on his way home because he hurt Poseidon's son. It can be seen from these stories that the Greek gods can intervene in human affairs at will.

In The Journey to the West, there has never been any direct intervention by God or Bodhisattva. Even if you intervene, it is done by subordinates or mounts. Try to avoid the influence on others. For example, Manjusri Bodhisattva becomes a walking monk and lends it to Wuji (attention! ! Manjusri Bodhisattva can become its prototype at any time, or cast spells at once. Then let his mount, the green lion, throw the king into the well for three years, and the lion himself became the king of the country. It looked like revenge, but after three years, with the help of the Monkey King, the king came back to life and regained the throne. In three years, the green lion not only managed the country in order, but also did not rape the concubines (castrated and unable to be tried). In other words, these three years in the water are just the result of his three days in the water. After the cause and effect, he should still be alive, and he should be king when it is time to be king. If this is a Greek myth, it will be killed by an angry god. Of course, it is not an example that no one has offended God and received direct revenge: the wise princess Fengxian heard the news that the black sheep had done bad things during the sacrifice and overturned the altar in a rage. As a result, the jade emperor, who was preparing to enjoy the tribute at this time, felt insulted. In a great anger, it never rained again in Fengxian County. To sum up, Shenhua in Journey to the West has the ability and power to directly punish and influence mortals, but most gods and bodhisattvas do not directly participate in it, but what goes around comes around. What goes around comes around! ! ! This is a very important concept of Buddhism! ! ! Is this the difference between Buddhism and Taoism in The Journey to the West? I don't know. )

In Greek mythology, the gods, especially Zeus, like to make love on earth, and many women are even his descendants. Although he often changes in the process of pursuing (chasing Europa is becoming a cow; When chasing Rita, she turned into a goose, and even when chasing her sister Hera, she turned into an injured animal and got into Hera's arms. In addition, she became Jin Yu, a woman's husband and so on. In addition to convenience and attraction, ordinary people can't hide his real body, and a large part of it is hidden from Hera. His misdeeds are so many that Hera (peace, marriage, childbirth, etc.) with a clear position. ), giving many people the impression that her main job is to catch rape. And most gods have their own half-blood children. In other words, in Greek mythology, the combination of god and man is normal.

In this respect, Chinese immortals should have more moral integrity. In China's mythology, thinking of the lower bound is a felony (if Zeus is in China, the mountain above him will reach Guanghan Palace). Most of the gods who mentioned children were left behind before they became gods, such as King Li Jing of Tota and King Nezha, but he also had a little daughter with a girl's braid. As for Buddhist figures, Mahayana Buddhism originally advocated abstinence, except that Bodhisattva Pilan had a son, the Pleiades, and made no mention of getting married and having children. God and the son of life, except Erlang God, didn't mention anyone else (his mother, the jade emperor's sister were all crushed under Taoshan because of thinking of worldly pleasures, and Yang Jian Jr. split the mountain to save his mother). Not to mention God and man, even the free love between God and God is very limited. In the Huang Paoguai Incident, it was mentioned that the Kuimu Wolf, one of the twenty-eight nights, fell in love with a heavenly palace maid, but dared not be together directly. Maid-in-waiting was reborn first, and then Kuimu Wolf descended to become Huang Paoguai, and they were married for more than ten years. Fate ended, the child died, and the Kuimu Wolf was lightly punished (showing the stove to the old gentleman in Taishang, he was reinstated soon, and later helped the master and apprentice several times. Here is a question. Is this different from the lower bound of thinking and thinking? Why is the punishment so light? And after he was sent to see the stove, Jinjiao and Yinjiao, who were originally responsible for watching the stove, were the next opponents of the four men, and these two not only waited with portraits of Tang Priest and his mentor, but also brought all the treasures of the old man except Jin Gangzhuo, didn't they? ), the result of the maid-in-waiting I don't know. There are Pig Bajie, the commander-in-chief of the Tianpeng, the commander-in-chief of the Galaxy Water Army, who molested the fairy in the dress (Chang 'e is a general term for a fairy in Journey to the West, not the wife of Hou Yi who ran to the moon, please pay attention), who was beaten out of the sky and threw a boar fetus, which was worse than starting all over again, but still kept his memory and treasures (rake is a good thing, five parties and five emperors, Sanqing, Liu Ding Liu Jia and so on).

It can be seen that the love between man and god in marriage and love, and the god China in Journey to the West and the god of ancient Greece are diametrically opposed, which should be the difference between the feudal ethics of China and the freedom of ancient Greece.

Another difference is that Greek gods have a clear position. You can find it if you want. For example, Hercules and Elpe (Orphee) both lived in the underworld, one to catch the three-headed dog Sai burroughs and the other to bring back his dead wife. In order to get the golden apple, Hercules also found Atlas, the giant Titan. Think about it, anyone who supports the sky can find it on foot. The God of Justice obviously lives on Mount Olympus. The immortals and bodhisattvas in The Journey to the West are hard to find even if there is a Dojo on earth, let alone in heaven and hell. In order to learn from fairies, the Monkey King not only traveled across the ocean but also learned to speak human words-how long does it take for a monkey to learn a whole set of language and manners? As for heaven, you can't go up casually even if you have the ability. What is said in Journey to the West is not that a nine-lion "nine-spirit sage" went to heaven. Even the Monkey King worked as Bi Marvin and Monkey King inexplicably, and never heard of mortals going in. As for hell, mortals can't go unless their lives are over or the Yan has something to find (there is no such example in The Journey to the West). This also leads to an interesting phenomenon. Except Tianzhu and Datang, all the earthly countries in The Journey to the West are fictional (all the places speak Chinese, and the architectural pattern and customs are similar to those of Datang, so you can write about that place if you like: similar to Chang 'an), and the four continents are not the real world pattern, and the distance between China and India is far from 108,000 miles. On the other hand, Greek mythology takes place in real places: where Zeus grew up, Aphrodite landed in Na Pianhai (near Cyprus), the entrance to the underworld, the battlefield between the gods and Titan, and so on. This may be because Greece is located in the Mediterranean Sea, and it is easy to reach Apennine Peninsula, North Africa and West Asia, while Greek mythology is mainly produced to explain natural phenomena (such as the origin of constellations) and its evolution from history (Trojan War, etc.). ); The eastern and southern parts of China are oceans, grasslands and tundra in the north, deserts in the northwest and plateau mountains in the west, which are relatively closed geographically. Greek mythology may also reflect the radius of activity of the ancient Greeks. For example, after theseus killed Medusa, he came back from far away, petrified the sea monsters on the road and saved the Ethiopian princess Andrew Meida. Unlike Greek mythology, which has the attributes mentioned above, Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West is just a story that combines the works of predecessors and its own originality, and adds a lot of metaphors.

Ps Although The Journey to the West is one of the four classical novels, it cannot represent the myth of China. There are many background stories that have been tampered with and attached. For example, everyone is familiar with the story of Nezha: Nezha killed the third prince of the Dragon King, and the Dragon King flooded Chentangguan in revenge. Nezha committed suicide to protect the people. Later, his master Taiyi saved him and brought him back to life, becoming the incarnation of Lotus. In The Journey to the West, after Tang Chenguan was flooded, it was different: the company commander Li Jing forced Nezha to death for the people, and it was the Buddha who saved Nezha with lotus flowers. Nezha thinks that Excavate didn't give me my body, and he is not my father. So he decided to take revenge on Li Jing. It was the Buddha who gave Li Jing a glass tower with a Buddha statue on it for him to hold. Nezha saw the Buddha statue, afraid to start work. Under the mediation of Buddha, the two talents became father and son again. Even after the father and son became gods, Li Tianwang felt powerless when he saw that Nezha had no tower in his hand. This paragraph is about eighty-two or three times when dealing with the essence of golden nose and white hair mouse.

The image of Guanyin Bodhisattva fish basket Guanyin originally originated from an incarnation of Bodhisattva and turned into an allusion for fishermen to enlighten the people in the East China Sea. In The Journey to the West, before he disguised himself as a bodhisattva, he made up a bamboo basket to surrender the image of goldfish essence as "king of love", which was recorded by local villagers and greatly appreciated.

As for fighting Buddha and meritorious Buddha, they are the real names of Buddhists and have nothing to do with the Monkey King and Master Xuanzang.

Buddhists and Bodhisattvas have only compassion in Buddhism, but in The Journey to the West, there are many scenes of "Buddha's great anger", "Bodhisattva's curse" and "Bodhisattva's anger". Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have no gender, and only incarnations will appear as men and women. In The Journey to the West, Guanyin Bodhisattva became a woman who needed makeup to go out like an ordinary woman. The Monkey King also secretly scolded, "She should have no husband!" Taoist immortals also have many gaffes in the Journey to the West: Xiao Laojun, one of the Three Qing Dynasties, as the highest figure, is very petty. He not only retaliated against the Monkey King, but also reminded the children that "the thief who stole Dan came again" as soon as he saw him.

The Journey to the West modified the Buddhist and Taoist systems in China for stories and metaphors. After careful scrutiny, we can draw some well-founded conclusions, such as "Immortal Bodhisattva will eat people" and "Immortal Bodhisattva monster is a compilation problem". Therefore, it should be distinguished from the Chinese religious system.

Pps forgot one thing. The gods in both places will send some messages to mortals. Greek gods use mediums and so on, and China gods generally hold dreams. In The Journey to the West's description, immortals often appear as saints after their incarnations are achieved, scaring a group of mortals to kowtow and pray from the king to Shu Ren, which is quite similar to the Greek gods.

Rory talked a lot and digressed. I'm sorry