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Five Grains

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This article is about the five grain crops important to China. For the five grain crops that cause leavening at Passover, see Five species of grain.
Zao Jun the Kitchen God to whom Wǔgǔ offerings are made in some traditions.

The Five Grains or Cereals (traditional Chinese: 五穀; simplified Chinese: 五谷; pinyin: Wǔ Gǔ) are a set of five farmed crops that were important in ancient China. In modern Chinese wǔgǔ refers to rice, wheat, foxtail millet, proso millet and soybeans.[1][2] It is also used as term for all grain crops in general.[3]

History

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The earliest usage of the term "five grains" is found in the Analects and does not list which grains it refers to.[3] The first lists of the five grains appear in the Han dynasty.[3] The Classic of Rites lists soybeans (菽), wheat (麥), proso millet (黍), foxtail millet (稷) and hemp (麻).[4] Zheng Xuan in his commentary on The Rites of Zhou has rice (稻) instead of hemp.[4] Millet, beans, and wheat were widely recognized as part of the five grains and the debate was mainly about the inclusion of hemp or rice.[5][6][7] Rice was not commonly cultivated in northern China while hemp was more commonly used as fiber for clothing, although its seeds could be used for oil.[3][5][6] In modern Chinese, Wugu includes rice instead of hemp.[1][2]

Mencius writes that Houji taught the people to cultivate the five grains.[8][9] Lu Jia in his book Xin Yu attributes the creation of the five grains to the mythological emperor Shennong.[10][11] Similarly, a version of the Epic of Darkness also attributes Shennong with creating the five grains.[10] The Huangdi Neijing, written by the Yellow Emperor according to Chinese mythology, lists rice, adzuki beans, wheat, soybeans, and proso millet as the "five grains," along with the "five fruits," "five vegetables," and "five livestock."[12][13] The development of agriculture in China in general has been attributed to various mythological figures, including Houji, Shennong, and the Yellow Emperor.[14][10][8]

The traditional Chinese concept of five grains was later assimilated by Chinese Buddhists and Taoists such as the Tang-era monk Daoxuan, who combined traditional Chinese and Buddhist classifications of plants and animals in his Ritual of Measuring and Handling Light and Heavy Property in which he lists five categories of grains including those mentioned in Buddhist and Chinese texts.[12]

Holiness

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The sense of holiness or sacredness regarding the Five Grains proceeds from their traditional ascription to the saintly rulers credited with creating China's civilization. They were seen not merely as five crops chosen from many options but as the source permitting agrarian society and civilization itself. "Squandering the Five Grains" was seen as a sin worthy of torment in Diyu, the Chinese hell.[citation needed]

As the position of emperor was seen as an embodiment of this society, one's behavior towards the Five Grains could take on political meaning: as a protest against the overthrow of the Shang dynasty by the Zhou, Boyi and Shuqi ostentatiously refused to eat the Five Grains. Such rejections of the grains for political reasons underwent a complex development into the concept of bigu, the esoteric Taoist practice of achieving immortality by avoiding certain foods.[citation needed]

Archaeology

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Main article: History of agriculture in China

In northern China, the Nanzhuangtou culture on the middle Yellow River around Hebei (c. 8500-7700 BC) had grinding tools. The Xinglongwa culture in eastern Inner Mongolia (c. 6200-5400 BC) ate millet, possibly from agriculture. The Dadiwan culture along the upper Yellow River (c. 5800-5400 BC) also ate millet. By the Yangshao culture (c. 5000-3000 BC), the peoples of the Yellow River were growing millet extensively, along with some barley, rice, and vegetables; wove hemp and silk, which indicates some form of sericulture; but may have been limited to migratory slash and burn farming methods. The Longshan culture (c. 3000-2000 BC) displays more advanced sericulture and definite cities.[citation needed]

In southern China, the Pengtoushan culture on the Yangtze River (c. 7500-6100 BC) has left rice farming tools at some locations, though not at the type site. The Hemudu culture around Hangzhou Bay south of the Yangtze (c. 5000-4500 BC) certainly cultivated rice. The various people (such as the Baiyue) who succeeded in these areas were later conquered and culturally assimilated by the northern Chinese dynasties during the historical period.[citation needed]

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Liu, Yang; Xi, Yang; Zhang, Fei; Wang, Zhenzhen; Wang, Can; Yu, Shiyong; Chen, Xuexiang (3 February 2023). "Charring-induced morphological changes of Chinese "Five Grains": An experimental study". Frontiers in Plant Science. 14. doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1063617. ISSN 1664-462X. PMC 9935936. PMID 36818853.
  2. ^ a b 李问渠 (2009). 中国文化常识全知道. 哈尔滨出版社. 目前，人们普遍将"稻、黍、稷、麦、豆"称为"五谷"。
  3. ^ a b c d 万国鼎 (1961). 五谷史话. 中华书局.
  4. ^ a b 孙机 (1991). 汉代物质文化资料图说: 中国历史博物馆丛书第二号. 文物出版社. p. 19.
  5. ^ a b 游修龄 (1999). "论黍和稷". 农史研究文集. 中国农业出版社. '五谷'是自从《孟子》以来古籍上经常提到的五种主要粮食作物。尽管"五谷的名称略有出入（一作稻、黍、稷、麦、菽，一作麻、黍、稷、麦、菽），只是稻和麻的不同，黍稷始终一样。
  6. ^ a b 王思明; 周红冰 (2019). "中国食物变迁之动因分析 — 以农业发展为视角". 江苏社会科学. 虽然水稻是南方地区的重要食物来源，但其在隋唐之前并没有获得全国性的食物认同。在先秦时期提出"五谷"的概念后，秦汉时期的经学家曾对"五谷"的具体分类进行了探讨。粟（稷）、菽、麦的 地位被广泛认同，而水稻则有时未能进入"五谷"行列。有学者就认为，"'五谷'的说法中，都有稷、菽和麦，至于麻、黍、稻之有无，应是粮食作物构成地区差异的反映"
  7. ^ Bretschneider, Emil (1892). Botanicon Sinicum: Notes on Chinese Botany from Native and Western Sources, Part 2. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. p. 137. They variously distinguish five, six or nine kinds of grain. The term wu ku or five kinds of grain seems to refer to the oldest classification of grain. It is attributed to the Emperor SHEN NUNG. The ancient commentators enumerated these five kinds as follows: 1.– tao, Rice. 2.– mai, comprising Wheat and Barley. 3.– tsi, Panicum miliaceum, the common Millet. 4.– shu, Panicum miliaceum, glutinous variety. 5.– shu, the Soy bean, Soja hispida. Some commentators have liang, Setaria italica, instead of tsi, others substitute ma, hemp, Cannabis sativa, for tuo, rice.
  8. ^ a b Jixu, Zhou (December 2006). "The Rise of Agricultural Civilization in China: The Disparity between Archeological Discovery and the Documentary Record and Its Explanation" (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers (175).
  9. ^ 孟子及其弟子公孙丑、万章等人. 滕文公上 (in Chinese). 后稷教民稼穡。樹藝五穀，五穀熟而民人育。
  10. ^ a b c Yang, Lihui; An, Deming (2005). Handbook of Chinese Mythology. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 192, 197. ISBN 157607806X.
  11. ^ 陆贾. 新语 (in Simplified Chinese). 民人食肉饮血，衣皮毛；至于神农，以为行虫走兽，难以养民，乃求可食之物，尝百草之实，察酸苦之味，教人食五谷
  12. ^ a b 陳懷宇 (September 2007). "初唐時期佛教動植物分類 : 道宣《量處輕重儀》研究之三". In 高田, 時雄 (ed.). 唐代宗教文化與制度. 京都大學21世紀COE"東亞世界人文信息學研究教育基地".
  13. ^ "藏氣法時論篇". 黃帝内經 – 素問 (in Chinese). 肝色青，宜食甘，粳米、牛肉、棗、葵皆甘。心色赤，宜食酸，小豆、犬肉、李、韭皆酸。肺色白，宜食苦，麥、羊肉、杏、薤皆苦。脾色黃，宜食鹹，大豆、豕肉、栗、藿皆鹹。腎色黑，宜食辛，黃黍、雞肉、桃、蔥皆辛。辛散，酸收，甘緩，苦堅，鹹耎。毒藥攻邪，五穀為養，五果為助，五畜為益，五菜為充，氣味合而服之，以補精益氣。
  14. ^ 戴逸; 龔書鐸 (2002). 中國通史學生彩圖版: 史前, 夏, 商, 西周 (in Chinese). 智能敎育出版社. p. 32. ISBN 978-962-8792-80-1.


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