Math And History: The Study On The Legend Of Dayu

Dayu, as the saint king of ancient China, occupies the supreme status in traditional ancient history of China. He is a legend character combined by human and god. What is more important, Dayu spirit and culture due to him have a immeasurable effect on the formation process of Chinese civilization, on the political awareness of feudal state, on the lower-level life of the common people, and on the aesthetic culture of literature and art. Dayu legend has already become the study focus of many subjects.The study on Dayu legend has some relation on not only the study of Xia culture, but the early civilization of Chinese. The myth concept and myth narration in Dayu legend play a model role on the mysteriousness of Chinese traditional culture, and a prototypical role on the narration of later culture.Dayu legend not only contains historical factors, but also mythical factors and has legend colors. As a narration, it not only presents a non-logical character of non-narration, but also owns a character of prototypical saint narration. In terms of this, the current paper has done three aspects of reading towards Dayu legend.First, historical research——the historical factors of Dayu legend.Second, myth reading——the mythology factors.Third, culture interpretation——the evolutionary development of Dayu legend.At the same time, the new research paradime about myth legend is forming. The research method simply relying on literature review is turning to the narration and study on cultural text. The narration on cultural text includs words narration, picture narration and object narration. The new mythology historical perspective of reinterpretation on the prototypical coding of Dayu legend has an advantage of integrating literature, history, philosophy, the science of religion and cultural anthropology. The content of each chapter is presented as follows.In the first chapter, the research object is the traditional Chinese ancient history family tree, in which the evolution of Yu's position is narrated, pointing that the unified bloodline represented by Dixi is unreliable, but it is a historical consciousness, as well as the intellectuals'processing and transforming towards ancient history and legend. Although it is not the real presentation of history, it represents the historical idea at the time. According the legend about Yu recorded by the unearthed new document, the legend about Dayu should be reconsidered, because some of Yigupai's ideas had presented some obvious mistakes and shortcomings, and Sui Gong Xu, as a bronze ware in the middle of Western Zhou Dynasty, had proved that Dayu legend had been treated as a legend since the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, or even earlier. The divinity of Yu is added by later generations based on the original historical facts.In the second chapter, on the bases of sorting out predecessors'understanding towards the origin of Xia Yu race, we analyzed the relationship between Yu and the Northwest, pointing out some key points. That is, Xia race might originate from the Northwest, and the major activity of Yu's early part of life is in the south of Jin, and Xia race moved into the west of Yu, and established its capital in Yang city to avoid Shang Jun, and then, the political center of Xia dynasty is arround the west of Yu until the perish of Xia dynasty, and after that, Xia race retreated towards the northwest through the south of Jin, and when they retreated at the center of Han, one branch of Xia race came into Shudi, therefore, the trace of Yu in Shudi must be taken by the adherents of Xia dynasty. Under this historical background, we give a new explanation on the legend of Yu is born in Shiniu, holding that it is unbelievable, and it is the transformation of the fairy tale Yu is born from the stone; Stone is the idol of Xia Race, and with the adherents of Xia dynasty moving into Si Chuan, the legend of Yu is born from the stone also come into Chuan Shu, and mixed together with the legend of Big Stone, and when this legend passed to Wenchuan Shiniu, it was changed into Yu is born in Shiniu.The third chapter is about Xia race's totem. Totemism, created by the western scholars, has its complicated and special aspect in China's the early part of ancient historical culture, so it should be treated cautiously to avoid the preference of Pan totem. Therefore, in terms of some miraculous phenomenon in ancient legend, we should analyze its culture implication, and in tracing the origin of china traditional culture, we analyze its way of being given its different kinds of cultural factors, such as, faith meaning, religious value and mythology imagination, and sort out its evolutionary line. In this premise, only when each cultural factors represented by Xia race's totem have been traced and analyzed is this research meaningful. Xia has special faith towards bear, and the legend of Gun and Yu changing to be bear reflects the ancient people's original philosophical idea that different things can mutually changed, and that Xiu Ji, Yu's mother, can be pregnant after eating Job's tears is the best representation of plant as a ceremony and representation of rebirth. Moreover, the ancient people belive that all things on earth have their spirits, and because the stone was given the peproductive competence and has the role of high yielding, the legend exists that Yu was born from stone and Qi Mu stone. Further more, the derivation of dragon is multicomponent, and it is the symbol of the mixing of Hu and Yi culture.In the fourth chapter, Dayu controlling water is an important content in Dayu legend and the related questions have no final answers until today. Yu Gong must be formed after the warring states, but the original bluesprint must be formed in the early west Zhou or even earlier. So during the process of spreading, it was continually added the trace of each time. In terms of the relationship between Yu and Jiuzhou, we believe that Yu could just control water according to the already formed concept of Jiuzhou, because he had no ability to divide Jiuzhou. According to Sui Gongxu's epigraphy and the early recorded literatures, we hold that Yu controlling water is for Futu, and the so called Dayu controlling water is actually a kind of misinterpretation towards Dayu's merit, for futu is Dayu's real aim and main merit. At last, under the background of Tianming concept, we study the question in terms of the relationship between Yu and Hong Fan Jiu Chou.In the fifth chapter, in the legend of Dayu's conquesting, Yu gradually built his reputation, strengthened Xia race's power and eventually became the head of the people in the world through continually conquesting. In the legend of Yu conquesting Gong Gong, Yang Kuan's idea that Gun is just Gong Gong is worth of being further discussed. We have analyzed one by one all the similarities between Gun and Gong Gong pointed out by Yang kuan, and jumped to the conclusion that his idea is false, for Gun and Gong Gong should belong to two different races. When Yu conquested San Miao, a strange astronomical phenomenon happened, that is, the sun appeared in the night instead of the day. According to the modern astronomy, that day might happened at Yu's time, and that Yu became the head just because of his conquesting You Miao. The legend of Yu conquesting You Hu reflects that Yu tribe was developing towards the east, and was stopped by You Hu located near Zheng Zhou. You Hu tribe conquested You Xia tribe located to the west of Luo Yang, but failed, then Xia race's sphere of influence was enlarged. That Yu killed Fang Feng symbolized that Yu had become the head of the people in the whole world.In the sixth chapter, the legend of Yu merrying Tu Shannv, Yu meeting the feudal princes, Yu casting nine Ding and Yu's morality are the objects of our research, and the related questions are sorted out and given a certain interpretation.