Guardians of the Night Sky
According to ancient Chinese astronomy, the sky was divided into four quadrants, each quadrant representing a season of the year. These quadrants are then each divided into 28 different segments, called "seishuku". The quadrants themselves are associated with colored animal deities that serve as guardians. These are Suzaku the Red Bird, Seiryu the Blue Dragon, Genbu the Black Tortoise or Warrior, and Byakko the White Tiger. The unique circular formation of the quadrants and constellations has many different explanations. One is based off of an ancient Chinese creation myth about a goddess (Nu Kwa) who had, in the course of a divine war with rival deities damaged one of the "pillars" holding up the sky, causing water to pour from it onto the land and the horizon to become lopsided. In order to stabalize things, she rebuilt the square-like "pillar" using colored stones that shone in the night sky, and placed four guardians in each corner of it, in order to keep it from collapsing. Another explanation concentrates more on the "time" application of the Four Gods formation. The moon's orbit was used by the ancient Chinese to measure the passing of seasons, each season represented by a guardian in the sky. It was believed that the moon passed one of the constellations ("seishuku") every few days, and that it took the passing of all 28 constellations to complete a full orbit of the moon, and therefore of all the seasons. Each season was thus represented by the four guardian deities mentioned before.
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The Universe of Four Gods
Fantasy(c) Fushigi Yuugi - The Mysterious Play While reading "The Universe of the Four Gods", best friends Miaka and Yui are mysteriously transported into a strange world full of magic and unfamiliar faces. As if their arrival was determined by fate, Miaka...
