The Idea of "Unity of Heaven and Humanity" in the Naxi "Ancient Song of Sacrifice to Heaven
This article examines the philosophy of "unity of Heaven and man" (天人合一) embedded in the Naxi Dongba pictographic scripture "Ancient Songs of Sacrifice to Heaven" (祭天古歌), a ceremonial hymn cycle compiled from Dongba ritual texts following the sequence of the sky-worship rite. Composed of nine translated pictographic chapters plus orally transmitted recitation verses, the work honors Heaven, Earth, and ancestral deities. The author argues this cosmological-philosophical outlook constitutes the orthodox core of ancient Naxi Dongba culture and an inseparable part of the ethnic spiritual tradition. A central theme analyzed is the "oviparous origin" (卵生说) cosmogony, in which all things and humanity originate from a divine egg created by Heaven and hatched by Earth, paralleled in the epic "Genesis" (创世纪) and even recorded in the Mu chieftain lineage genealogy—paralleling classical Han Chinese notions that "all things originate from Heaven."
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