A Study On The Symbiotic Relation Between Sun Crow And Toad In Stone Relief Of Han Dynasty In Nanyang

In Han Dynasty, people feel reluctant to leave the world and also want to continue to enjoy the pleasure of living in the world, which results in prevalence of lavish burial in society. And a variety of thoughts and beliefs are intermingled, with the philosophy of"Immortal Soul",the theory of "Nature and Man in One",Yin and Yang awareness of Han Dynasty, theology of divination and the worship of gods of sun and moon as the footstone, constituting the magnificence of stone relief of Han Dynasty. The evolution and development of bird and frog images can be seen from the ancient totem consciousness, to life worship in the State of Chu, and then to the profound art form of portrait of Han Dynasty, and thought of symbiosis between sun and moon derived from bird and frog images appears as early as in Pottery Age and is applied to artistic modeling.In the stone relief of Han Dynsasty, sun crow and toad represent the sun and moon in heaven though the verisimilar image and smooth line. The sun and the moon in astronomical phenomena have the closest relation with human beings, so that people harbor various imagination and emotion to them and thus depict three-legged golden crow in the sun and toad in the moon which avoids the monotonous expression of sun and moon images and gives them the vitality of life. Meanwhile, since sun crow in sun and toad in moon contain ample spiritual content and social information, the sun and the moon display the real astronomical phenomena and also are the tool of ascending immortals in human imagination. Considering the alternation of sun and moon and the circulation of life and death, the ancients are in the search for a harmonious order in which all things coexist, sun and moon keep the symbiotic relation, everything have a beginning and an end,and thereafter the world maintains a harmonious state.This paper first analyzed the symbiotic relation between sun crow and toad in stone relief of Han Dynasty based on the thoughts in Han Dynasty like Nature and Men in One and concept of burial ritual. Secondly, it compared the evolution of sun crow and toad in different historical stages and traced the wonderful and natural state of harmonious coexistence between Chinese ancestors and animals. Then,the images of sun crow and toad in stone relief of Han Dynasty in Nanyang were compared with those in other areas to spotlight the unique characteristics of the four main stone relief regions and highlight the humanistic value of the symbiosis image of sun crow and toad in Nanyang area.Finally, the paper explained image connotation of symbiosis images of sun crow and toad in portrait of Han Dynasty in Nanyang to deepen the study on the symbiotic relation between them. The paper was based on the social thought of Han Dynasty, combined with the collected literature, looked beyond the surface of image by the method of iconology so as to study the characteristics of the times when the sun crow and toad were born and the artistic connotation of their symbiosis. This paper discussed the birth and development of sun crow and toad and their symbiotic relation,as well as the symbolic meaning of sun crow and toad images in stone relief of Han Dynasty in Nanyang. The innovations of this paper are the discussion of connotation of symbiotic relation between sun crow and toad in stone relief of Han Dynasty coupled with their different positions in tomb and the surrounding decoration, and comparison of different symbolic meaning between them and the previous bird and frog images.