大概自唐宋以來,在一些文人的詩詞歌詠中開始出現"日里金雞叫"的說法。此外,在一些唐宋以后的寺觀或墓室壁畫中,也開始將太陽中的"金烏"或"三足烏"繪成"金雞"或"三足雞"。自宋代以后,更有不少學者以陰陽之說或十二生肖的"卯兔"與"酉雞"的影像或投影……等說法來解釋日中的"雞"。結合傳世文獻與出土文獻等相關材料進行分析,以為日中有"雞"之說的出現,應是受到中國流傳久遠的"日中有烏"之說的影響。而日中有"烏"之說,實與早期原始初民以烏鳥的"暮去晨來"來解釋太陽的"朝出夕落"之現象的一種"神圣敘事"。然而,相關說法流傳到了后世,一方面或由于"烏"與"雞"的形象相近,在相關圖像的傳衍過程中,本即容易相混;另一方面則可能也與"日中有烏"之說的神圣性逐漸消失,人們遂以日常生活中隨處可見的"雞"來取代日中之"烏",而使得"金雞"成為新的太陽神禽。

According to the written records,ancient Chinese believed that there were"crows"or"crows with three legs"in the sun during the Warring States or early periods.This statement then spread to its adjacent countries,Korea and Japan,and influenced their creation myth.In the Tang and Song dynasties,the statement evolved into"golden chicken"or"chicken with three legs"and was found in poems,temples,tombs,or frescoes.After the Song dynasty,many scholars have tried to explain the image of"golden chicken in the sun".For example,Yin and Yangare born together,the years of rabbit and chicken are opposite,"the moon has rabbit"and"the sun has chicken",and the projective shadows of chicken and rabbit are in the sun and the moon.This article hopes to combine the written records and unearthed documents to suggest that the idea of"a chicken in the sun"should have been influenced by the saying of"a crow in the sun"circulating in China for a long time.The myth of"a crow in the sun"probably was from the similarity that crow and sun show themselves in the day and disappear during the night.The statement of"a chicken in the sun"may owe to the similarity in shape of"crow"and"chicken",which is easy to cause confusion in the process of image transmission.Another possibility of the symbol that "crow"switched to "chicken"may be the gradually disappeared sacredness of crow and the popularity of chicken.The public therefore replaced the"crow"with the common symbol"chicken".