As far back as the Warring States period
People built a set
Quite a complete cosmic system?
That's when it's already on the structure of the human body
With accurate cognition
It is even possible to restore one according to the existing text
God-like Da Vinci masterpiece
A diagram of the human body in Vitruvius?
July 2008
Tsinghua University is in Tibet
About 2500 precious Warring States Bamboo Jane
It is for "Tsinghua Jane"
Since 2010
In Mr. Li Xueqin and Mr. Huang Dekuan.'
Successively led
Tsinghua Jane's collation results
Published at a rate of one series a year
December 16
"Tsinghua Jane" re-published the latest research results
In a long Warring States Bamboo Book called "Five Ages"
Hiding the "fierce material" that refreshes cognition
Let's find out!
Bamboo sketch plate of the Five Ages
The ancients' cosmology was beyond previous understanding
The eleventh series contains a long document, entitled The Five Ages, which contains 126 extant janes (originally 130), which contain an estimated 4450 words. Professor Huang Dekuan, director of the Research and Protection Center for Excavated Documents at Tsinghua University, said that if the damaged part is added, the document is estimated to be nearly 5,000 words, which is equivalent to the "Tao Te Ching" and is one of the largest excavated Warring States bamboo books ever seen.
"This brief article is magnificent in structure and rich in content." Huang Dekuan said that the "Five Ages" uses the flooding of the world, the loss of moral power, and the chaos of governance as the background, telling the story of the "Later Emperor" who rectified the order by revising the five eras (that is, the day, moon, star, chen, and year), and established a set of logical and rigorous theoretical systems, "many contents are unheard of."
"For example, the ancient Chinese people's understanding of astronomy has greatly exceeded our previous understanding." Jia Lianxiang, an associate professor at tsinghua university's Center for Excavated Documents Research and Conservation, said that in the past, ancient books and diagrams left by the ancients were two-dimensional, but the concept of "liuhe" that appeared in the "Five Ages" has described a three-dimensional space.
Jia Lianxiang said that there is a complete set of cosmic space concepts in the "Five Ages", which are "heaven", "earth", "four wildernesses", "four clouds", "four pillars" and "four dimensions". Among them, heaven, earth, and the four wildernesses are also called "liuhe". "He" should take the meaning of "hewei", "hexa" can be understood as a hexahedron, representing the overall space of the universe. "Four pillars" refers to the four positive directions of the heavens; "four pillars" are the pillars that play the role of inheriting the heavens, and should be located in the four corners of the universe; "four dimensions" in the pre-Qin period should be the exclusive term for the direction of the sky, used to represent the celestial sphere.
There is also a big difference between the twenty-eight houses in the Five Ages and the twenty-eight houses that are common in later generations. For example, the "Five Ages" uses "big horn" instead of "kang", "jianxing" without "fighting", "cutting" without "觜巂", and "wolf" and "arc" without "well" and "ghost", which are also different in the order of stars.
And Zeng Guo, who belonged to Chu land with the Five Ages, has used the twenty-eight lodges that are basically the same as in later generations, which reflects that even in chu during the Warring States period, the circulation of the twenty-eight lodges was diverse. This is of great significance for the study of the formation and early circulation of the Twenty-Eight Houses, and provides important documentary materials for the study of the history of pre-Qin astronomy. Shi Xiaoli, associate professor of the Center for Unearthed Literature Research and Conservation at Tsinghua University, said.
Tsinghua Jane after the initial cleanup
The "Encyclopedia" of the Warring States Period
There is a very unique place in the "Five Ages", that is, the combination of the "Five Ages" system and the human body shows the ancestors' understanding of the human body structure. "It is written that there are thirty gods who, in addition to the five virtues of the master, can also control a part of the human body." Jia Lianxiang said that this should not be a coincidence, "but reflect the accurate understanding of the human body structure at that time."
The Five Ages also combine the human body with numerical calculations to establish a scale. The brief text describes the basic ways and principles of determining the scale - the martial, stomping, and stepping are all units of length established by the foot (lower limb), and the fist, support, hand, ruler, and seek are the units of length established by the hand (upper limb), and call this method "standard bowing degree". "In the West, feet mean both 'foot' and 'foot'. In terms of using the human body to construct scales, the Thinking of China and the West is similar. He explained.
"Judging from the entire content of the Five Ages, its 'base' or the literature taken from it should have been equipped with multiple schemas. This part of the human body can be seen as a description of a schema and derives the relevant laws. Jia Lianxiang once deduced the "Celestial Chronicle Map" and "Human Body Diagram" based on some of the contents, and the "Human Body Diagram" deduced was similar to Da Vinci's famous work "Vitruvius Man".
"Five Ages" Shinji Human Body PushIng Diagram (Jia Lianxiang Pushing Drawing)
In the Five Ages, the property of mountains and rivers is also controlled by gods. Interestingly, as a local ruler, "Ōkawa" is in charge of "water", and Jian Wen records that the treasures in the water are "beads, turtles, and elephants". "'Elephant' refers to ivory, but the belief that ivory is a product of water is quite different from what we know now, which may reflect the fact that the environment and animal habits of the time and place where the author of the Five Ages lived were very different from today." Jia Lianxiang said.
In addition, there is also a surprising saying in the "Five Ages" - "The Yellow Emperor has a son Yue Xuanyou", which also refreshes our cognition.
"Previously, there were many theories about the origin of Xuan You, and the Five Ages said that Xuan You was the son of the Yellow Emperor, which we had never seen before and had never expected. However, a detailed historical review can still find some clues to this statement. Cheng Hao, associate professor of the Center for Research and Protection of Excavated Documents at Tsinghua University, said, "There is a saying in the "History" that 'Father Youpan, the Yellow Emperor waded through the river', and everyone did not understand its exact meaning before. Now it seems that the legend of the son of the Yellow Emperor in the Five Ages, especially the son of the Yellow Emperor, and the rebellion of the soldier after becoming an adult, was still circulated in the Han Dynasty. ”
"The content of the Five Ages is vast and profound, and it is not an exaggeration to call it the 'encyclopedia' of the Warring States period from today's perspective." Jia Lianxiang sighed.
The fusion of science and humanities
To sort out ancient books, it is necessary to compare and study word by word, and to determine the content of the books according to the logic of the context by consulting a large number of documents. Therefore, the speed of tsinghua's compilation results once a year is very rare in the academic circles, but the research team still hopes to take out the results as soon as possible and publish them to the public for sharing, because these documents are of great significance for understanding the social culture and ideological concepts at that time.
Mr. Huang Dekuan (front row, third from right) and team members
"Warring States literature, including the Five Ages, places special emphasis on the concepts of astronomical calendars and solar terms, because these were 'core technologies' for ancient times and could be directly used to guide agricultural production. Rulers and intellectuals must have this knowledge in order to govern the country. Cheng Hao said, "Judging from the Five Ages, people were in the process of exploring science at that time. ”
"Except that the Arithmetic Table may be a direct natural science tool, in other contents of Tsinghua Jian, scientific thought has always been integrated with social governance. The Five Classics shows even more that china's early science and technology and ideas, science and humanities are intertwined, and there is no pure science. I think this provides something worth exploring for the study of the history of Science and Technology and the history of ideas in China, including why China did not produce modern science. Huang Dekuan said. Therefore, he believes that tsinghua jane's collation results should be "out of the circle".
In fact, the previous discovery of the "Arithmetic Table" was "out of the circle". The "Arithmetic Table" is a very special shape of 21 bamboo janes in Tsinghua Jane, of which 20 bamboo janes have round holes at the upper end and have numbers written according to certain rules; a single jane has 20 round holes from top to bottom, and there are remnants of ribbons in the holes.
In 2010, Tsinghua University invited domestic experts in the history of mathematics to identify this batch of bamboo janes. Experts believe that "these 21 bamboo sticks not only have numerical characteristics, but also have arithmetic function, which is a practical operation table", so it is recommended to name it "Calculation Table". The "Arithmetic Table" is the earliest surviving mathematical literature in China and is a precious historical material for the study of ancient Chinese mathematics.
Expert Appraisal of Tsinghua Jane
Before the official publication of the "Calculation Table", Yang Zhenning learned about the relevant content and expressed great interest. Liu Guozhong, a professor at tsinghua university's Center for Unearthed Literature Research and Protection, remembers, "Once, Mr. Yang told me, can you print a copy of the photo of the "Arithmetic Table" to me, and I want to paste it in front of my bed. ”
Since then, Tsinghua University has held a special academic seminar on "Arithmetic Table", inviting scholars from various fields to participate and jointly uncover the mysteries hidden in bamboo jane. In 2017, the Arithmetic Table was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the earliest decimal multiplication table. Its degree of "out of the circle" even researchers have called "unexpected".
In April 2017, Tsinghua Jian's "Arithmetic Table" was certified by Guinness World Records
The fourth from the left is Mr. Li Xueqin
The collation work of Tsinghua Jane also needs the assistance of scientific and technological means. Jia Lianxiang, who majored in fine arts, used the latest image collection and processing methods to extract the text on the bamboo strip and take clear original images, which was convenient for other scholars and the public to compare, study and use. The technology has also been patented. In this regard, Tsinghua Jane's collation research also needs exchanges and cooperation.
"Our idea is to sort out the Tsinghua simplified text and publish the results to the public as soon as possible." Tsinghua Jane's research is not a research team, nor can it be completed by a generation. We hope that scholars in more fields, including scholars in the history of science and technology, will pay attention to and study Tsinghua Jane, and jointly excavate the treasures in Tsinghua Jane. Huang Dekuan said.