Research on the Human-animal God Images of Shanhai Ching

摘要

Shanhai Ching is an important ancient book of the pre-Qin Period, where the God images not only provide important literature material for researchers to understand the early religious thought, but also provide intuitive picture evidence. The human-animal is the second stage of the development of the God image, as compared with the whole beast God image that belongs to the more advanced god image created by the Chinese ancients and reflected the humane tendency of God. Based on the relevant text analysis, it can be found that the human-animal god image has the characters of both the man and the animals, which is mainly the combination of different parts of the body of man and beasts, and the number of which in Shanhai Ching is rich. This god images are originated from different animals, such as the snake, the dragon, the bird and the fish, etc. This is the embodiment of the primitive totem worship psychology, which reflects the rising status of human. The primitive people had different feelings towards different animals. After all, through the related God image's text content in Shanhai Ching, researchers not only can have deep contact with the image of God, but also can find the development track of the Chinese mythology. It is thus very important to study the origin of mythology.