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The history and cultural spirit of the Qinhan Primary School Character Book

author:Bright Net

Author: MENG Zhen (Associate Professor, Research Center for Folk Classics and Characters, Beijing Normal University, Research Center for Chinese Character Collation and Standardization)

China has a long tradition of literacy education and "book in the same text", and the primary school character books of the pre-Qin and Han dynasties are the product of this tradition. Primary school is called primary education, because it is mainly based on literacy and "six books", so the Han people also call philology primary school. The earliest calligraphy in history is the "Shi Shu Chapter" of the middle and late Western Zhou Dynasty, which is said to have been written by King Xuan of Zhou, Shi Taishi, written in the Great Seal, as a four-word rhyme, a total of fifteen chapters. Mr. Huang Dekuan and Chen Bingxin pointed out that there were at least two Chinese character sorting activities during the Zhou and Qin dynasties, the first occurring in the middle and late Western Zhou to the Spring and Autumn Period, and the second occurring during the Qin Shi Huang period. The "Shi Shu Chapter" was the product of the first "book with text", and in the second large-scale "book with text" movement, the "Cangjie Chapter" that had a far-reaching influence on Qin and Han Primary School appeared.

The Book of Han and Yiwenzhi combs through the history of the Qin Chinese character book in detail. Li Si used the small seal to unify the text, composing seven chapters of the Cangjie Chapter, Zhao Gao composing the six chapters of the "Calendar Chapter", and Taishi Ling Hu Mujing ("Shuo Wen Shu" zuo Wu) composing the seven chapters of the "Erudite Chapter", all written in xiao seals, as a sample of the unified script of the Qin Dynasty. In the early Han Dynasty, the "Luli Scholar" merged the three parts of "Cangjie", "Ye Li" and "Erudite" as literacy books at that time, collectively known as "Cangjie Chapters". The Cangjie Chapters of the Qin Dynasty were written in small seals, and the newly formed three-in-one version should also be small seals, which is the basic source of the small seal glyphs of the Shuowen. At the same time, the fragments of the "Cangjie Chapter" that have been unearthed so far are all Lishu, indicating that it has undergone "Lihua" transliteration in the process of circulation. The Han Dynasty's Cangjie Chapter is a sentence with four words, and the interval rhymes, with six crosses as a chapter and fifty-five chapters, a total of 3300 words, of which there are slightly repetitive zigzags. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, a large number of Chinese characters have been divided into characters, and the scope of word collection in character books has also been continuously expanded. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Sima Xiangru composed the "Fan General Chapter", adding the closing characters of the Cangjie Chapter, without repeating the zigzag. In addition, when Emperor Yuan of Han made Huang Men Ling Shi You's "Urgent Article", and when Emperor Han Cheng was emperor, he would be the master Li Chang's "Yuan Shang Chapter", which did not exceed the scope of the "Cangjie Chapter". In the early years of the HanPing Emperor, under the impetus of Wang Mang and Liu Xin, the Western Han Dynasty organized a large-scale collection and collation of writings, and hundreds of "tong small scholars" gathered in Chang'an to study the script, which can be called the first national philology conference in Chinese history. On the basis of extensive search for glyphs and characters, Yang Xiong composed the "Commentary on TheOry", which was eighty-nine chapters, and expanded the "Cangjie Chapter" into 5340 words that were not repeated. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, Ban Gu added thirteen chapters to the "Commentaries", adding 780 words, a total of 102 chapters, 6120 words, calling himself "a little prepared in the Book of the Six Arts". After that, Jia Qu composed the "Shu Xi Chapter", and the Sui Shu Jing Shu Zhi referred to it together with the "Cangjie Chapter" and the "Xun Shu Chapter" as "Three Cangs". According to Duan Yujie's statistics, the "Huan Xi Chapter" increased the number of characters in the two Chinese character books to 7380 characters. On the basis of the previous generation of character books, Xu Shen "learned from people, as for the small and large", further collected the chinese character forms of different sources and different periods, carefully selected and "sealed" them, expanded the "Shuowen" into 9353 characters (the current book is 9431 characters), analyzed the glyphs, explained the meaning of the characters, and identified the character sounds, and established a Chinese character system with the head as the hub, becoming the master of the Qin Chinese character book.

The scale of the Qin Chinese character book has been expanding, from the Cangjie Chapter to the Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字), which reflects the historical law of Chinese characters that the pre-Qin and Han dynasties continued to differentiate and create characters. Its collection method has also developed from a literate reading of rhyming short sentences to a "primary school" monograph that integrates the phonetic system of Chinese characters. This historic leap is inseparable from the core concept of The Qin and Han script norms, and is also deeply influenced by the Qin and Han classics, thus forming a unique cultural spirit.

The Qin Chinese character book is the product of the "book with text" policy, and its core concept lies in norms and order. "Norms" are embodied in the unity of the form and meaning of Chinese characters, which is closely related to the idea of correct names since the pre-Qin Dynasty. Taking the Cangjie Chapter as an example, although its seal text no longer exists, there are still Qin seals in the Qin carved stones in Taishan, Langya and other places. During the Warring States period, the script was heterogeneous, and the rationale and use of Chinese characters were quite confusing, and the Qin seal was a highly unified writing system. On the whole, Qin Seal fixed the writing method of the side, determined the position of the side, abolished the allogeneic heterogeneity, unified the writing strokes, and realized the perfection of the configuration system and the optimization of individual characters. The Cangjie Chapter is the beginning of the Qin and Han Primary Schools, and the structural rules of the Small Seal Character System it preserves and the criteria for selecting glyphs have a fundamental impact on the Two Han Primary Schools, especially on the Shuowen. "Order" is embodied in the collation of the Chinese character system, and the compilation of early character books contains the indiscriminate covetousness of the head, showing a simple understanding of the Chinese character system. In the "Cangjie Chapter", the Chinese characters with similar and related meanings have been arranged in one place, such as the "Cangjie Chapter" of Peking University Jian from the "Wood" of "Pine Cypress Bridge, Tongzi Du Yang, Du Yang, Du Di Peach Plum, And Tang Xing Yu Sang", which although mixed with the words "鬱" and "棗", it can still reflect the indiscriminate use of the headguidal method. By the time of Shi You's "Urgent Article", the classification concept of Chinese characters was more mature. He clearly proposed that "separate departments do not live in miscellaneous toilets", which means a conscious sense of clustering, and set a precedent for "separate departments to live in separate households, not mixed toilets" in the "Shuowen Shu". Due to the unity of the shape and meaning of Chinese characters, many of the same kind of things have the same head, so there is an arrangement that attributes the same characters to the head of the part. For example, the sentence "Grain County officials bring gold and silver" is followed by 33 words such as "silver, iron, cone, kettle, forging, casting" and so on. In the neat division of objects, a new model of clustering Chinese characters with radical categories has emerged. As Mr. Zhang Shunhui said, "It is an indispensable contribution to editing, especially in the separate departments, and the division of Xu Shen's "Explanation of Words" is the first of the characters." It can be said that under the concept of norms and order, the Qin Chinese character book not only has the function of literacy education, but also opens its own path of learning, physics and chemistry, laying the academic characteristics of the traditional "primary school" that pays attention to the unity of form and meaning and pursues systematic organization.

Qinhan Primary School is more closely related to the study of the Two Han Classics. It is generally believed that primary schools originate from ancient scriptures, but in fact, the relationship between the two is more complicated, and it has undergone a process of "homology-independence-confluence". Both primary school and ancient classics originated from pre-Qin Confucianism, and the key figure was Xunzi. The primary school is the product of "book and text", Li Si is a disciple of Xun Qing, and his writing normative ideas are quite influenced by Xunzi thought. At the same time, Xunzi was also the forerunner of ancient scriptural studies, and mao poems and Zuo Zhuan were all passed on by him. Although the two can be traced back to the same source, the early primary schools did have their own origins. Whether it is Sima Xiangru, Shi You, Li Chang, Ye Li, or Yang Xiong, none of them are in the scriptural tradition. The Western Han Dynasty primary school students can do many gifts, similar to each other, Yang Xiong are all words to everyone - if you want to "lay out the collection of texts, body and material writing", you must first master a large number of Chinese characters. Western Han classicists rarely do anything about endowment, which is probably not because Jingsheng disdains the carving of articles, but because his literacy is limited and difficult to lay out. The Book of Han records that Emperor Wu of Han made Li Yannian a lieutenant and asked Sima Xiangru and dozens of others to compose poems. The Book of History and Music says: "He has ascended to the throne so far, and has made nineteen chapters, ordering Li Yannian to be the one who is in the order of his voice, and worships him as a lieutenant of the co-law." The people who have learned the scriptures cannot know their own words, but they all gather the five classics and study and read them together, but they can inform them of their meaning, the text of Dorya. The "nineteen chapters" in the "Records of History", that is, the "poetic endowment" of the "Book of Han", are similar to the endowment, and the words are broad, and it is necessary to gather the Five Classics doctorate to read through, which shows the difference in the study style between primary school students and scribes. Since the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, primary schools have gradually merged with ancient literature and classics, which is inseparable from the academic characteristics of the latter's "Through The Classics Exposition". During the reign of Emperor Xuan of Han, Zhang Chang was educated by the Cangjie as an ancient scholar, which was the beginning of the primary school for the absorption of ancient literature and scripture. During the reign of Emperor Ping of Han, Liu Xin used Wang Mang's political influence to promote ancient chinese classics, setting off a huge movement of classics, including the grand situation of "recruiting hundreds of primary scholars in the world, and each order is recorded in the court", which also reflects the convergence trend of the two. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the integration of primary schools and ancient literature and classics became increasingly close, and the ancient writers of the Eastern Han Dynasty, such as Sangqin, Du Lin, Wei Hong, Xu Zhu, Jia Kui, and others, were also through primary schools, and their words were mostly quoted by the Shuowen. The ancient scholars of the Eastern Han Dynasty have carried out in-depth discussions on the "Six Books", and the existing "Six Books" of the three families of Ban Gu, Zheng Zhong, and Xu Shen are all ancient scriptural studies. At the same time, the ancient writers of the Eastern Han Dynasty were many good at doing gifts, and Zhang Heng, Ban Gu, and Ma Rong all had works that were handed down from generation to generation, which was in stark contrast to the phenomenon that the Western Han Dynasty classicists were rarely able to do gifts. All these things, as Lu Zhishang said in the book, "The ancient literature and science fighting, close to the truth, and disgusted with the customs, descended to the primary school", the two have been integrated seamlessly. Because of this, primary schools are not simply literate learning, but connect Chinese characters with Chinese, Chinese characters and classical interpretations, and become an important part of the sutra tradition.

All in all, the Qin Chinese character book has its own development context, and it is also a product of the academic background of Qin and Han thought. The ShuowenShu says: "The one who covers the writings is the basis of righteousness and the beginning of the royal government." "As the peak of the Qin Chinese character book, the Shuowen represents the cultural spirit of the Qin Chinese character book. On the one hand, "book and text" is the cultural foundation of the great unified dynasty, and the calligraphy also contains the majesty of the Qin and Han ancients to establish a system and include all things. On the one hand, Chinese characters have the function of seeking meaning according to shape, and the language and cultural information they carry are an important reference for interpreting the meaning of the scriptures, and the character book points to the vast classical world. Understanding the Qin Chinese character book in the overall vision of "Wang Zheng" and "Jingyi", we can see that it is based on literacy and beyond literacy, and finally forms a humanistic classic represented by "Shuowen" and becomes the basic composition of China's excellent traditional culture.

Guangming Daily ( 2022.08.27 11th edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily

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