"planting culture"
According to the age of the existing ancient ginkgo trees in various places, the cultivation of ginkgo trees began as early as the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. In the Western Han Dynasty, Sima Xiangru wrote a poem "On Forest". In this poem, there is a saying,
In academic circles, it is generally believed that the word "Zhong Ping" in this sentence refers to Ginkgo biloba.
The word Ginkgo first appeared in the Tang Dynasty, "riding ginkgo leaves, giving flowers and hanging grapes horizontally", but whether the ginkgo in this poem refers to today's ginkgo tree remains to be verified. At present, scholars generally believe that ginkgo trees should still be called "Zhong Ping" in the Tang Dynasty. For example, Shen Quanqi, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, mentioned "Zhong Ping" in his poem Sleeping on Chessboard Ridge, saying that "Fang Chun is flat and green, and Zigui cries in the clear night".
In the Song Dynasty, Ginkgo biloba became a tribute, originally called Ginkgo biloba. According to Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica in Ming Dynasty,
"Ginkgo biloba, duck feet. Originated in Jiangnan, its leaves are like duck's feet, hence the name. In the early song dynasty, the tribute was changed to ginkgo, which was white because it looked like a small apricot. This name is ginkgo. " It can be seen from this record that in the Song Dynasty, because the leaves were like duck feet, they were called duck feet, because ginkgo became a tribute and was later changed to ginkgo. After becoming a tribute, Ginkgo biloba began to be widely planted.
With the extensive planting, people have a deeper understanding of the aesthetic value, economic value and medicinal value of ginkgo trees, such as medicinal value, which is recorded in Wang Jixian's Annotation of Shaoxing Materia Medica in the Southern Song Dynasty.
"The fruit of the world. It tastes bitter, sweet, flat and non-toxic. Only stir-fry or cook food, eat raw halberd. It is produced everywhere, but Yizhou is the best. In July and August, mining was very intense. It is named for its color like silver and shape like apricot. It is a kind of leaf like duck feet, also called duck feet. " In addition to medicinal value, its aesthetic value is also reflected in its exquisite and beautiful wood structure, which is a superior wood, as recorded in Compendium of Materia Medica.
"Its material is durable, and its texture is white and greasy. The artist can only call it when he takes the engraved stamp. " Generally speaking, ginkgo tree is a treasure, its fruit is edible, its leaves can be used as medicine, and its trunk can be used as wood. After thousands of years of development, ginkgo culture has gradually penetrated into people's lives.
Worship culture of "sacred tree"
We mentioned in the last article that Ginkgo biloba is also called Ginkgo biloba. In the myths and legends of China, Ginkgo biloba was once the sacred medicine of Fuxi Nuwa, so Ginkgo biloba became the object of worship. Even in some places, there are still ginkgo temples.
In addition, according to archaeological research, there are many stone carvings of ginkgo trees in China. In these stone carvings, we will find that the ancients had the custom of worshipping ginkgo trees.
The reason why people worship Ginkgo biloba as a sacred tree is mainly related to its longevity and vitality.
Generally speaking, the life span of ginkgo trees is quite long, even worse than that of conifers and cypresses. For example, the ancient ginkgo tree in Ding Lin Temple, Fulaishan, Taixian County, Shandong Province, is15.7m thick and over 3,000 years old. Because of this, people worship it as a sacred tree.
In ancient times, people planted ginkgo around some ancestral temples to express their hope for the prosperity of the sun.
Generally speaking, in ancient times, people regarded ginkgo trees as gods, so most of them were planted in houses, ancestral temples, sidewalks and even Confucius temples. Ginkgo trees were regarded as beautiful symbols.
Symbolic culture
As we all know, when ancient poets wrote and recited poems, they all used things to express their feelings and metaphors. For the ancient sacred tree "Ginkgo Tree", there are naturally poems about it.
1, a symbol of friendship.
"Goose feather to thousands of miles, life is important. Although there are hundreds of duck feet, they are really precious. "("Plum Sending Ginkgo ") We all know that in our traditional culture, goose feathers have the meaning of courtesy and affection, and there is also a feeling of caring for relatives and friends. In Ouyang Xiu's poems, Ginkgo biloba, that is, duck feet and goose feathers are juxtaposed, which shows that Ginkgo biloba is also a symbol of friendship between relatives and friends in ancient times. In addition, there are many such poems that juxtapose ginkgo with goose feathers, such as "What did I have last year? Duck feet were given to people far away. People are more expensive than goose feathers. ("Appreciating Uncle Yong's Ginkgo according to Rhyme")
2. A symbol of love.
Charm is not very graceful, you can be a slave first and then worship oranges. Who pities the Jianghu? Jade bone's ice muscles don't want to wither. Who is the ice lotus? Drunk, Ming Taizu relies too much on truth. The layman is really interested in breaking up and wants to sing two new flavors. The above text is from Li Qingzhao's Partridge and Ginkgo biloba. In this passage, Li Qingzhao hinted that she and her husband were far away from their homeland and fled to the south by picking double ginkgo. At the same time, she compared Double Ginkgo to a saint who is clean and pure and always keeps integrity, and to a lover who shares weal and woe and never gives up, giving Le Ginkgo a personalized charm and expressing herself and her husband.
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For ginkgo biloba, with the wisdom of working people, it is delicious food for people to enjoy. It's wood, which helps people build, and it's Chinese medicine, which helps people cure diseases. In the literati's pen, it has become a carrier of expressing feelings and a cultural image.
Of course, to sum up all this is the ginkgo culture in China. After thousands of years of historical changes, the cultural connotation of Ginkgo biloba is constantly enriched. It has long been deeply rooted in the cultural soil of the Chinese nation and has become an inseparable part of Chinese culture.