The Outlook of Holding a Bird Sacred In Ancient China

Abstract

In previous studies on the origin of the Feng, it has often been compared to the real peacock, or the bird of paradise, or else considered as an imaginary product ; in contrast. however, its religious meanings have never been actually dealt with. The author presumes that the Feng could exist only in one's imagination and believes that it is a created bird to reveal distinctly and strongly its religious worth. In other words, it is a created animal to symbolize a bird's sacredness, that is, the symbol of the bird. The Feng has feathers of five colors, is a very huge creature and has a crown-shaped tuft of feathers on its head ; it lives in the center of the world, and so on. These are the various shapes and characteristics of the Feng as described in the oracle-bone inscriptions and ancient documentary records. These ancient writings seem to indicate the sacredness of the Feng when the author refers to the other holy creatures who are similar in shapes and characteristics. The attributes of the Feng are that it has a character like the god of wind, fire, and sun ; while the other birds mentioned above are very similar in character. This seems to manifest the fact that the sacred characters of the birds have been symbolized in the Feng. Thus, the Feng as fabricated by the ancient Chinese people happens to be so similar in appearance to the real birds, such as the peacock or the bird of paradise, that it has been presumed that these kinds of birds gradually began to be known as the Feng subsequently. Furthermore, through the ancient documentary records the actual states in which the bird has been considered to be the sacred creature with the varions aspects of its religious meanings, are classified and arranged in the following seven items as follows : (1) The bird is offered up to a deity as a sarifice ; (2) it has the power to exorcise evil spirits ; (3) it is used in divination ; (4) it acts as messenger of the gods ; (5) a human soul can be transformed into the form of the bird ; (6) the god can also be transformed into the form of the bird ; (7) its feathers have a power to cast a spell.