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Originally Posted by Uma
Oh wanchain this is fantastic that you did this for me! Thank you!
Could I ask you one more favour? I am really curious about this artists' beautiful paintings of the 28 "Generals" here: link
His name is Dai Dun Bang 戴敦邦
I've looked everywhere to find stories that go with these. There must be some folklore about them. Or are they in a temple? Do you know of anything? |
The stories that you are looking for, are very elusive, if they do exist. I searched in Chinese. The search results typically don't talk about the 28 characters, but more so the four directions they belong in, and the astrological meaning and prediction value, etc.
Of the few search results that talk individually about the generals, they only describe them, like "shaped like a rooftop, has three stars, corresponds to late autumn, can be used to predict current year favorability of construction/earth-moving activities (so people worship this general when they need to break the ground), etc." That's for the general of Alpha Aquarii, by the way. So it's not a story; it's a description.
So I wondered why that is, that it doesn't give a historical account of the characters. Then I realized, this is a deep rooted Chinese value. Most Chinese are very practical, they care only about what serves them. So that should explain why you didn't find much information on the characters.
Yes, the 28 generals can be found in Taoist temples, because they are guardian generals, believed to have the ability to guard people/temples. But they are invoked not individually but collectively as the four directions/animals, if guarding or protection is needed.
If you want to find the stories about them, perhaps you would need to dig up historical literature. The generals came about as people assigned certain characteristics to each constellation, based on the characteristics of the constellation. I am not sure if these generals were real people, or mythological. I just know that they are
personalization of the constellation.