Luo Zhenyu is the first scholar in the history of Chinese oracle osteology to study oracle bones (6)

Luo Zhenyu

From the research notes written by Luo Zhenyu when he first saw the oracle bone in 1901 to the publication of the monograph "Yin Shang Zhenbu Character Examination" in 1910, they all focused on the three aspects of "examination history", "correct name" and "Bufa". As a rigorous scholar, he does not easily express his opinion without having enough information to prove the hypothesis he has put forward. Mr. Sun Yirang was one of the most accomplished masters of divination in the late Qing Dynasty, and he made important contributions to the interpretation of the oracle bones, but unfortunately, in the case of insufficient data mastery, he wrote two works, "Qiwen Example" and "Mingyuan", which did not solve the fundamental problems and left many regrets. Wang Guowei believes: "Sun's "Mingyuan" also quite adjudicates the oracle bone script, but the "Qiwen Example" is based on the "Iron Cloud Hidden Turtle", so its statement is not arbitrary. It is precisely because the oracle bone rubbings he has seen are limited, and he has not seen the actual oracle bones, the space for comparative analysis is small, and some key words are wrongly interpreted, so he cannot draw correct conclusions." Mr. Chen Mengjia once pointed out: "Because he did not recognize the character of Wang, he did not know that Bu Ci was the Bu Ci of the Yin Royal Family, so zu yi, zu ding, zu xin, zu jia were listed in the first volume 21-22... The name of Nan Geng is not necessarily the name of Zu Yi, Zu Xin, and Zu Ding in the Yin BenJi, but can be the name of the subjects of the Yin Dynasty. It is a sigh of relief. This is probably one of the reasons why Luo Zhenyu thought that he "failed to analyze Ao Yin". Luo Zhenyu, as mentioned above, has been working hard to collect oracle bones and various takumotos from many parties, and finally collected as many as 30,000 oracle bones. Not only did he publish the "Before and After Compilation of the Yin Ruins Book Deed", "Yin Ruins Book Deed Jinghua", "Iron Cloud Hidden Turtle Yu", but also collected a large number of bronzes excavated from the Yin Ruins and other materials, and finally completed the "Yin Ruins Book Deed Examination Interpretation", an epoch-making work in the history of Chinese oracle osteology.

The first edition of the Book of Yin Xu was first published in 1915 and is divided into eight chapters, one capital, two emperors, three names, four place names, five characters, six bu ci, seven ritual systems, and eight bu fa. Although four chapters have been added to the chapters compared to the "Yin Shang Zhenbu Character Examination", its basic idea is consistent with the "Yin Shang Zhenbu Character Examination", but on this basis, it has been deleted, and a large number of new materials have been added, and the interpretation text has reached more than 540 words. As Mr. Wu Haokun and others pointed out: Luo Zhenyu "in 1915 also wrote the "Yin Shang Shu Qi Examination", most of which was supplemented and rewritten according to the "Yin Shang Zhenbu Character Examination". Of course, his method of interpreting the oracle bone script is still used in the Notes on the Book of the Staff, but it is clearer at this time and theoretically expounded. Luo Zhenyu summed up in the preface to the "Examination of the Book of Yin": "From xu shu to the golden text, from the golden text to the peeping book deed, the poor change, gradually returned." It was through this method that Luo Zhenyu released some important characters in the oracle bone, including the character "Wang", and on this basis, explored the history of the Shang Dynasty and the Bufa.

Through the above analysis, we think that Luo Zhenyu's oracle bone research should start from the first time he saw the oracle bone in 1901 and wrote the earliest research notes. Because at this time, he had initially formed the basic ideas of using oracle bones to prove history, examine the source of writing, and explore the bufa, and gradually revised and improved through the "Yin Shang Zhenbu Script Examination" in 1910 and the "Yin Xu Shu Deed Examination" in 1915, which ran through the whole process. At this point, it should be pointed out that the newly discovered notes on the oracle bone in the manuscript of the "Record of the Staff" can prove that Luo Zhenyu was not absent from the first decade in the history of oracle bone research, and it should also be proved that Luo Zhenyu was the first person to study oracle bones.