The Tale of Yao Tian and Yao
November 20th 2008 04:37
The Tale of Yao
Tian and Yao
Tian and Yao
This is a strange tale about Chinese characters and how three simple characters and words can have a history and story from DEEP TIME.
tian yao yao
Behold the illo. The first character is Tian and below two characters both pronounced YAO
I first came across YAO mistaking it for tian as part of another character.
Tian and Yao in small print can look very similar in regular script kai shu .
They share the same radical standing man with outspread arms.
Tian however means heaven or open sky and in the older scripts of Chinese is clearly a person standing under the sky's canopy arms spread out.
Yao however has a a SLANTING Top stroke. In seal script this is a curve almost sagging over to one side. Modern dicitonaries refer to it as meaning young or to laugh and one commentary I have read says it is a (yong) man with head bent back because he is laughing . But why is he or perhaps she laughing wildly practically in convulsions?
The final character Yao Radical woman Yao gives us a clue. Yao menas supernatural being and magic. The magic referred to is the shamanism of ancient China before Taoism or Confucianism. Modern dicitionaries often render Yao Dao literally Spirit or magic way as "Black Magic" in English.
I rather suspect the original young person was convulsed not with laughter but from spirit possession in a shamanistic ritual? The sort of ritual involving mediums that I have read still occurs in outlying places and temples in Malaysia and Taiwan.
Given that many mediums and shamans cross dress as the opposite sex for certain rituals or in everyday life to show they have "two" spirits this would explain magic being written as a woman next to a man moving strangely?
I welcome comments from any Asian readers who have access to more and better reference books than me. You can on whether some readers have like me confused tian and yao in smallprint or what YAO means to you ?
Enjoy!
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