Tsao Fu

Tsao Fu , in ancient Chinese Mythology, was an exceptionally skilled charioteer, who is said to have lived around 950

The Chinese tell the story of the Emperor Mu Wang, who was determined to visit paradise. He wanted to taste the peaches of immortality there. He found a very brave charioteer named Tsao Fu, who drove eight amazing horses with great skill. Tsao Fu was afraid of nothing—he carried the emperor across the Earth and into the heavens. The emperor finally reached Mount K’uen Lun and tasted the peaches of immortality. His brave charioteer Tsao Fu was carried up to the stars, where both he and his eight horses can be seen among the stars of the constellation . The star Zeta Cephei is specifically named after him.

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Tianlong

In Chinese mythology, Tianlong or Tien-long are the celestial who pull the chariots of the gods and guard their palaces. There is also a Chinese system of Martial Arts known as Tianlong Dao which has schools throughout North America and Asia.

Tiangou

The tiāngoǔ is a legendary creature from China. It resembles a dog, or a meteor, and is thought to eat the sun during an eclipse. It gave its name to the ''tengu'' of Japan.

South Pointing Chariot

The South Pointing Chariot is widely regarded as one of the most complex geared mechanism of the ancient , and was continually used throughout the medieval period as well. It was supposedly invented sometime around 2600 BC in China by the Yellow Emperor Huang Di, yet the first valid historical version was created by Ma Jun of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms. The chariot is a two-wheeled vehicle, upon which is a pointing figure connected to the wheels by means of gearing. Through careful selection of wheel size, track and gear ratios, the figure atop the chariot will always point in the same direction, hence acting as a non-magnetic compass vehicle. Throughout history, many Chinese historical texts have mentioned the South Pointing Chariot, while some described in full detail the inner components and workings of the device.

Legend and history

Legend

Legend has it that Huang Di, credited as being the founder of the Chinese nation, lived in a magnificent palace in the Kunlun Mountains.

There was also at this time another tribal leader, Chi You, who was skilled at making weapons and waging war. He attacked the tribe of Yan Di, driving them into the lands of Huang Di. Huang Di was angered by this and went to war with Yan Di, initially suffering several defeats. At some stage in the fighting, Chi You conjured up a thick fog to confound Huang Di's men, however the South Pointing Chariot was used to find their way, and they were ultimately victorious.

History

Despite legend, it was recorded in the ''Sanguo Zhi'' that the 3rd century mechanical engineer Ma Jun from the Kingdom of Wei was the inventor of the South Pointing Chariot . After being mocked by Permanent Counsellor Caotang Long and the Cavalry General Qin Lang that he could not reproduce what they deemed a non-historical and nonsensical pursuit, Ma Jun retorted "Empty arguments with words cannot compare with a test which will show practical results". After inventing the device and proving those who were doubtful wrong, he was praised by many, including his contemporary Fu Xuan, a noted poet of his age.

After Ma Jun, the South Pointing Chariot was re-invented by Zu Chongzhi , after the details of its instructions had been lost temporarily in China. During the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty the South Pointing Chariot was combined with another mechanical wheeled vehicle, the distance-measuring odometer.

Historical texts for the South Pointing Chariot

Earliest sources

The South Pointing Chariot, a differential mechanical-geared wheeled vehicle used to discern the southern cardinal direction , was given a brief description by Ma's contemporary Fu Xuan. The contemporary 3rd century source of the ''Weilüe'', written by Yuan Huan also described the South Pointing Chariot of Ma Jun.





cquote|These vehicles, constructed as they had been by barbarian workmen, did not function particularly well. Though called south-pointing carriages, they very often did not point true, and had to negotiate curves step by step, with the help of someone inside to adjust the machinery. The ingenious man from Fanyang, Zi Zu Chongzhi frequently said, therefore, that a new south-pointing carriage ought to be constructed. So towards the close of the Sheng-Ming reign period the emperor , during the premiership of the Prince of Qi, commissioned to make one, and when it was completed it was tested by Wang Seng-qian, military governor of Tanyang, and Liu Hsiu, president of the Board of Censors. The workmanship was excellent, and although the carriage was twisted and turned in a hundred directions, the hand never failed to point to the south. Under the Jin, moreover, there had also been a south pointing ship. In fact, the first known source to describe stories of its legendary use during the Zhou period was the ''Gu Jin Zhu'' book of Cui Bao , written soon after the Three Kingdoms era. Cui Bao also wrote that the intricate details of construction for the device were once written in the ''Shang Fang Gu Shi'' , but the book was lost by his time. This was followed up by several more chariot devices built in 666 AD as well.





After this initial description of Yan Su's device, the text continues to describe the work of Wu Deren, who crafted a wheeled device that would combine the odometer and South Pointing Chariot:



cquote|The body of the south-pointing carriage was 11.15 ft. , 9.5 ft. wide, and 10.9 ft. deep. The carriage wheels were 5.7 ft. in diameter, the carriage pole 10.5 ft. long, and the carriage body in two stories, upper and lower. In the middle was placed a partition. Above there stood a figure of a ''xian'' holding a rod, on the left and right were tortoises and s, one each on either side, and four figures of boys each holding a tassel. In the upper story there were at the four corners trip-mechanisms, and also 13 horizontal wheels, each 1.85 ft. in diameter, 5.55 ft. in circumference, with 32 teeth at intervals of 1.8 inches apart. A central shaft, mounted on the partition, pierced downwards. Joseph Williamson used a differential for correcting the equation of time for a clock that displayed both mean and solar time. Even then, the differential was not fully appreciated in Europe until James White emphasized its importance and provided details for it in his ''Century of Inventions'' .

How it works

The South Pointing Chariot is a mechanical compass that transports a direction, given by the pointer, along the path it travels. The differential in the gear system integrates the difference in wheel rotation between the two wheels and thus detects the rotation of the base of the chariot. The mechanism compensates this rotation by rotating the pointer in the opposite direction.

Mathematically the device approximates parallel transport along the path it travels. In the Euclidean plane, the device performs parallel transport. On a curved surface it only approximates parallel transport. In the limit where the distance between the wheels tends to zero, the approximation becomes exact.

The chariot can be used to detect straight lines or geodesics. A path on a surface the chariot travels along is a geodesic if and only if the pointer does not rotate with respect to the base of the chariot.

Timeline

The South Pointing Chariot has been invented and reinvented at many times throughout Chinese history. Below is a partial timeline of the major events;

Where they can be seen

While none of the historic South Pointing Chariots remain, full sized replicas can be found.

The History Museum in Beijing, China holds a replica based on the mechanism of Yen Su .
The National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan holds a replica based on the Lanchester mechanism of 1932.

Shisa

Shīsā is a traditional decoration, often found in pairs, resembling a cross between a lion and a dog, from Okinawa mythology. Many people put a pair of shisa on their rooftops or flanking the gates to their houses. Shisa are wards, believed to protect from various evils. When found in pairs, the shisa on the left traditionally has a closed mouth, and the one on the right an open mouth. The open mouth to ward off evil spirits, and the closed mouth to keep good spirits in.

Originally pairs like these were called "shisa and guardian dogs": the right with its mouth opened is the guardian, the left with its mouth closed is the shisa . Some people believe that one is male and the other is female, and provide various justifications for which is which; for example, "the female has her mouth shut as she should" or "the male has his mouth shut to hold in all the family's good fortune".

The shisa, like the , is a variation of the guardian lions from China . The shisaa, or lion dog, is an Okinawan cultural artifact. In typology, they might be also be classified as gargoyle beasts. They are traditionally used to ward off evil spirits.

Shisa legend

When a certain emissary to China returned from one of his voyages to the court at Shuri Castle, he brought with him as a gift for the king a necklace decorated with a small figurine of a ''shisa''-dog. The king found it charming and wore it underneath his clothes. Now it happened that at the Port bay, the village of Madanbashi was often terrorized by a who ate the villagers and destroyed their property. One day, the King was visiting the village, and one of these attacks happened; all the people ran and hid. The local '''' had been told in a dream to instruct the king when he visited to stand on the beach and lift up his figurine towards the dragon; she sent the boy, Chiga, to tell him the message. He faced the monster with the figurine held high, and immediately a giant roar sounded all through the village, a roar so deep and powerful that it even shook the dragon. A massive boulder then fell from heaven and crushed the dragon's tail. He couldn't move, and eventually died. This boulder and the dragon's body became covered with plants and surrounded by trees, and can still be seen today. It is the "Gana-mui Woods" near Naha Ohashi bridge. The townspeople built a large stone ''shisa'' to protect it from the dragon's spirit and other threats.

Great Stone Shisa at Tomimori

At Tomimori Village near in the far southern part of Okinawa, there were often many fires. The people of the area sought out Saiouzui, a Feng Shui master, to ask him why there were so many fires. He believed they were because of the power of the nearby Mt. Yaese, and suggested that the townspeople build a stone shisa to face the mountain. They did so, and thus have protected their village from fire ever since.

Popular culture

The 1974 tokusatsu kaiju film ''Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla'' features a giant shisa monster called King Shisa , who was awakened from its ancient slumber in Okinawa to help Godzilla destroy his mechanical doppelg?nger, Mechagodzilla. This monster was later used in as one of the monsters that were controlled by the Xilians.

The Pokémon Growlithe and its evolution Arcanine are based on the shisa.

The Digimon Seasarmon is based on a shisa, along with Chatsuramon.

, a Japanese professional wrestler hailing from Okinawa, uses the and Super Shisa. He also has a young protegé named Shisa Boy and once formed a team with King Shisa .

Megaman ZX Advent have two Shisa based Pseudoroids, Argoyle and Urgoyle, They work as a pair when fighting and become a playable form after being defeated.

In the game The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the talking boat, has a head on the front of the boat resembling a Shisa.

The from Jackie Chan Adventures has a Shisa-like face.

Two variations on the Shisa, in this case referred to as and or Foo Creatures, are featured in the first edition Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual II.

In the game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES, there is a Shisa Persona, although its name is spelt as "Shiisaa."

In the PlayStation 2 game Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2, the aeon Yojimbo had a shisaa, Daigoro, as his companion. Yuna gains a similar shisaa, Kogoro, as her animal partner with the Trainer dressphere.

Bibliography

*Chizue, Sesoko. Legends of Okinawa. First publication, Okinawa, 1969.

Shen (Chinese religion)

Shen is a keyword in Chinese philosophy, Chinese religion, and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Pronunciation

''Shén'' is the Modern Chinese standard Mandarin pronunciation of 神 "spirit; god, deity; spiritual, supernatural; etc". Reconstructions of ''shén'' in Middle Chinese include ''d?'jěn'' , ''?i?n'' , ''?in'' , and ''zyin'' . Reconstructions of ''shén'' in Old Chinese include *''djěn'' , *''zdjien'' , *''djin'' , *''Ljin'' , and *''m-lin'' .

Although the etymological origin of ''shen'' is uncertain, Schuessler notes a possible Sino-Tibetan etymology; compare Chepang ''gli?h'' "spirit of humans".

Chinese ''shen'' 神 "spirit; etc." is a loanword in East Asian languages. The ''Kanji'' 神 is pronounced ''shin'' or ''jin'' in ''On'yomi'' , and ''kami'' , ''kō'' , or ''tamashii'' in '''' . The ''Hanja'' 神 is pronounced ''sin'' .

The ''Zihui'' dictionary notes that 神 had a special pronunciation ''shēn'' in the name Shen Shu 神荼, one of two "gods of the Eastern Sea", along with Yu Lu 鬱壘.

Semantics

''Shen'' 神's polysemous meanings developed diachronically over three millennia. The ''Hanyu dazidian'', an authoritative historical dictionary, distinguishes one meaning for ''shēn'' 神 "Name of a deity " and eleven meanings for ''shén'' 神, translated below.
# Celestial gods/spirits of stories/legends, namely, the creator of the myriad things in heaven and earth and the supreme being.
# Spirit; mind, mental faculties; consciousness. Like: concentrated attention; tire the mind; concentrate one's energy and attention.
# Expression, demeanor; consciousness, state of mind.
# Portrait, portraiture.
# Magical, supernatural, miraculous; mysterious, abstruse. Like: ability to divine the unknown, amazing foresight; highly skilled doctor; genius, masterpiece.
# Esteem, respect; valuable, precious.
# Rule, govern, administer.
# Cautious, careful, circumspect.
# Display, arrange, exhibit.
# Dialect. 1. Dignity, distinction. 2. Entrancement, ecstasy. 3. Clever, intelligent.
# Surname, family name.

This dictionary entry for ''shen'' lists early usage examples, and many of these 11 meanings were well attested prior to the Han Dynasty. Chinese classic texts use ''shen'' in meanings 1 "spirit; god", 2 "spirit, mind; attention", 3 "expression; state of mind", 5 "supernatural", and meaning 6 "esteem". The earliest examples of meaning 4 "portrait" are in Song Dynasty texts. Meanings 7-9 first occur in early Chinese dictionaries; the ''Erya'' defines ''shen'' in meanings 7 "govern" and 8 "cautious" , and the ''Guangya'' defines meaning 9 "display". Meaning 10 gives three usages in Chinese dialects . Meaning 11 "a surname" is exemplified in Shennong , the culture hero and inventor of agriculture in Chinese mythology.

The Chinese language has many of ''shen''. For instance, it is compounded with ''tian'' 天 "sky; heaven; nature; god" in ''tianshen'' 天神 "celestial spirits; heavenly gods; deities; ", with ''shan'' 山 "mountain" in ''shanshen'' 山神 "mountain spirit", and ''hua'' 話 "speech; talk; saying; story" in ''shenhua'' 神話 "mythology; myth; fairy tale". Several ''shen'' "spirit; god" compounds use names for other supernatural beings, for example, ''ling'' 靈 "spirit; soul" in ''shenling'' 神靈 "gods; spirits, various deities", ''qi'' 祇 "earth spirit" in ''shenqi'' 神祇 "celestial and terrestrial spirits", ''xian'' 仙 "Xian , transcendent" in ''shenxian'' 神仙 "spirits and immortals; divine immortal", ''guai'' 怪 "spirit; devil; monster" in ''shenguai'' 神怪 "spirits and demons; gods and spirits", and ''gui'' 鬼 "ghost, goblin; demon, devil" in ''guishen'' 鬼神 "ghosts and spirits; supernatural beings".

Wing-Tsit Chan distinguishes four philosophical meanings of this ''guishen'': "spiritual beings", "ancestors", "gods and demons", and "positive and negative spiritual forces".
In ancient times ''shen'' usually refers to heavenly beings while ''kuei'' refers to spirits of deceased human beings. In later-day sacrifices, ''kuei-shen'' together refers to ancestors. In popular religions ''shen'' means gods and demons . In Neo-Confucianism ''kuai-shen'' may refer to all these three categories but more often than not the term refers to the activity of the material force . Chang Tsai's dictum, "The negative spirit and positive spirit are the spontaneous activity of the two material forces ," has become the generally accepted definition.

The primary meaning of ''shen'' is translatable as English "spirit, spirits, Spirit, spiritual beings; celestial spirits; ancestral spirits" or "god, gods, God; deity, deities, supernatural beings", etc. ''Shen'' is sometimes loosely translated as "soul", but Chinese distinguishes ''hun'' 魂 "spiritual soul" and ''po'' 魄 "physical soul". Instead of struggling to translate ''shen'' 神, it can be transliterated as a loanword. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines ''shen'', "In Chinese philosophy: a god, person of supernatural power, or the spirit of a dead person."

''Shen'' plays a central role in Christian translational disputes over Chinese terms for God. Among the early Chinese "god; God" names, ''shangdi'' 上帝 or ''di'' was the Shang term, ''tian'' 天 was the Zhou term, and ''shen'' was a later usage . Modern terms for "God" include ''shangdi'', ''zhu'' 主, ''tianzhu'' 天主 , and ''shen'' 神 .

Graphics

The character 神 for ''shen'' exemplifies the most common class in Chinese character classification: ''xíngshēngzì'' 形聲字 "pictophonetic compounds, semantic-phonetic compounds", which combine a that roughly indicates meaning and a phonetic that roughly indicates pronunciation. In this case, 神 combines the "altar/worship radical" 礻or 示 and a phonetic of ''shēn'' 申 "9th Earthly Branch; extend, stretch; prolong, repeat". Compare this phonetic element differentiated with the "person radical" in ''shen'' 伸 "stretch", the "silk radical" in ''shen'' 紳 "official's sash", the "mouth radical" in ''shen'' 呻 "chant, drone", the "stone radical" in ''shen'' 砷 "arsenic", the "earth radical" in ''kun'' 坤 "soil", and the "big radical" in ''yan'' 奄 "cover".

Chinese ''shen'' 申 "extend" was anciently a phonetic loan character for ''shen'' 神 "spirit". The Mawangdui Silk Texts include two copies of the Dao De Jing and the "A Text" writes ''shen'' interchangeably as 申and 神: "If one oversees all under heaven in accord with the Way, demons have no spirit. It is not that the demons have no spirit, but that their spirits do not harm people." . The ''Shuowen Jiezi'' defines ''shen'' 申 as ''shen'' 神 and says that in the 7th lunar month when ''yin'' forces increase, bodies ''shenshu'' 申束 "bind up".

The earliest written forms of ''shen'' 神 "spirit; god" occur in Zhou Dynasty Bronzeware script and Qin Dynasty Seal script characters . Although 神 has not been identified in Shang Dynasty Oracle bone script records, the phonetic'' shen'' 申 has. Paleographers interpret the Oracle script of 申 as a pictograph of a "lightning bolt". This was graphically differentiated between ''dian'' 電 "lightening; electricity" with the "cloud radical" and ''shen'' 神 with the "worship radical", semantically suggesting both "lightning" and "spirits" coming down from the heavens.

Shaohao

Shaohao is credited by some as being one of the of ancient mythology.

The son of the Yellow Emperor Huang Di, Shaohao is the leader of the Yi people, where he shifted their capital to Shandong Qufu. Ruling for eighty-four years, he is succeeded by his nephew Zhuanxu.

Shaohao's tomb, which is in the form of a large pyramid, is in present-day Jiuxian village, east of Qufu, Shandong province.