First of all, I would like to thank my colleague and friend, Professor Yu Xinzhong, a famous scholar and deputy dean of the School of History of Nankai University, for introducing me to his hometown, the beautiful Lin'an Changhua, Zhejiang. He said that there is a "National Stone Culture Forum" activity here, and I myself am engaged in the art of calligraphy and painting, and I also want to study such a place related to calligraphy and painting.
The title that Mr. Sihai gave me was "Culture of Traditional Chinese Studies and Culture of Printing Studies", which is a very good topic, but it is still a bit big for me. Because of the time relationship, I just want to talk about my own experience from a small aspect to give you a report.
Although he had never been in contact with Changhua before, he still liked chicken blood stone very much. Today, I will start with my surname "Zhu", I think that the "Zhu" character as a color is red, and has some relationship with chicken blood stone. Many of the teachers here are engaged in calligraphy, I have written two words here, on the left is the Zhu surname of "Zhu", composition, etc., everyone will know when you look at it, this is a yi character, a wooden word has a point in the middle, this is a referential word. In our calligraphy and philology, we all pay attention to a theory of six books: this is the pictogram, the finger, the will, the shape, the sound, the false loan, the transfer of notes, and the six methods of creating characters. Let's look at this "Zhu" character, a big tree has a trunk and branches and roots, and the point in the middle is the trunk, so this "Zhu" word ah refers to the plant of a tree, the original meaning is the trunk of the tree. When I traced the origin of the Zhu surname, because I wanted to interpret this Zhu character, I noticed that in the oracle bone and the golden text, the "Zhu" glyph was used. However, in the Jin text, the character "Zhu" is also used as the "鼄" glyph, that is, the glyph on the right, the shape of the work, the isoform, from the Zhu Congyi, note that it is not from the turtle. "Weasel" is the "spider" of spiders. Therefore, when tracing the origin of the Zhu surname, some people say that this spider is the object of the totem worship of the Zhu surname, I think this is nonsense, very unscientific. Because it is not the source of the word "Zhu", but its flow.
But why is there such a "鼄" word? What is the relationship between the words "Zhu" and "鼄" (spider)? Not only these two words, the word related to "Zhu", in addition to the animal '鼄' (spider), but also the plant's "plant", there is also a mineral 硃沙 "硃". In the past, few people thought about the relationship between these words. Aren't they all shape-and-sound words? Several different morphological characters formed on the basis of the finger word "Zhu" are just pronounced "Zhu" sounds, and have no relationship in the meaning of the words. Not really.
In philology, there is a theory called "right text theory", that is, some sound words with the same shape next to the sound, and the sound marks on the right (the general shape sound word is the left shape and right sound sign), which not only has the effect of pronunciation, but also expresses a certain meaning. This phenomenon is the so-called phonological sound signs and expressions. Some morphological words with the same sound marks are often the same, similar or related in word meaning. For example, the famous examples are "戔", "戔" person Xiao Ye, and the shape and sound characters derived from "戔" also have small meanings, such as "淺" for small water, "money" for small cloth, "牋" for small wood, "practice" for small steps, "cheap" for small prices, "rao" for small banquets, etc., which is "right text". These "strains", "鼄", "spiders", and "硃", which use "Zhu" as the sound symbol, are in line with such a "right text", that is, the meaning is related. There is evidence that the word "Zhu" has a red extended meaning in addition to its original meaning (plant, i.e. tree trunk). The words "鼄", "spider", "硃", "絑" and so on are derived from "Zhu", but at the same time they are all related to the red meaning of "Zhu". Of course, this is not exactly my own original invention, and now a scholar also holds this.
In the twenty-ninth series of the famous paleography journal "Paleography Research", a paper by the Chinese-American scholar Chen Guangyu was published, "From "Sand" to "Bu 䊷". His view is that the mineral arsenic has evolved from animal spiders, especially red spiders. Connecting plant "strains" with animals "spiders" with the mineral "Zhu" (arsenic) is a relatively new research achievement by Chen Guangyu. For this explanation, I personally have some reservations, and I don't fully agree, for example, the meaning of "Zhu" has a red word that may begin with the "weasel" spider. But Mr. Chen's connection of this mineral arsenic with plants and animal spiders makes sense, is a good idea, and there is a lot of scientific evidence.
This is some of the fossils that we often see, the fossils of cinnabar. Moreover, some information can also be consulted in history, and in the past, the ancestors also had a history of using insects to make pigments. A kind of carmine that we know is made from a kind of cochineal worm, which has been made in Europe for thousands of years. Similarly, there is a red spider, also called cotton red spider, red all over, bright red in color, about half a millimeter in length, belonging to the spider-shaped order, the English name is tetranychus cinnabarinus, which translates to the scientific name of the sand leaf mite, because cinnabar means arsenic. So people also use cinnabar to call this insect by its name, call it cinnabar worm. This red insect critter can also be used to make pigments.
So, combined with the above materials, including Professor Chen's research ideas, I personally speculate: our chicken blood stone may be made of such a red spider, after a long historical time, especially under some geological changes and disasters, such as earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions, or magma eruptions, etc., the red spiders in a certain area were killed in a large area, so a large number of red corpses were soaked in the soil, and finally formed fossils, becoming the beautiful chicken blood stones that we can now appreciate bright red.
Because just a few leaders and teachers have talked about the history and culture of we want to develop the history and culture of chicken blood stone, including tracing its early history and origin, our secretary said that it is necessary not only to examine its present life, but also to trace its past life. I think that my speculation may also provide you with a way of thinking, a way of exploring the source of chicken blood stone. Whether it is right or wrong, I dare not be self-exclusive. This is also what I have thought about repeatedly on the way here, providing it to everyone for criticism and correction.
Thank you!
Zhu Yanmin is a famous contemporary scholar and calligrapher. Male, born in 1964, from Junxian County, Henan, stage name Zhu Zhen, no. Mei Hair Gong, Zhai No. Ice Vinegar Zhai, Huai Dai Tang, Hou Su Xuan. He is currently a professor at the School of History of Nankai University, a doctoral supervisor, the vice president of the China Yinshang Culture Research Association, an adjunct professor of the Institute of Chinese Painting Law of Peking University, a member of the Chinese Calligraphers Association, a member of the Academic Committee of the Tianjin Calligraphers Association, and the president of the Tianjin Sinology Research Association.
Calligraphy traces back to Yin Qi Zhou Ming, The Emperor of The Lower Emperor Wei Jin Zhong Wang, dashing and elegant, elegant and elegant, many times in Zhengzhou, Tianjin, Hebi, Anyang and other places to hold personal book exhibitions, calligraphy works have won many awards and been collected by well-known universities and museums at home and abroad.
His main research areas are: oracle bone science (paleography), yin ruin archaeology and the history of yin shang social life, and the history of calligraphy and art.
His books include "The Origin, Migration and Development of the Shang People", "Exploration of the Capital City of Yin Ruins", "Wu Shi Chongguang - A Hundred Years of The Discovery of the Oracle Bones of Yin Ruins", "Archaeological Excavations and Oracle Bone Research of Yin Ruins", "Culture and Concept of Shang Dynasty Society", "Warring States Culture and Art", "Knowledge and Appreciation of Yang Lian", "Exploration of Oracle Bone Calligraphy", etc.
He has published nearly 100 papers in academic journals such as "Historical Research", "Chinese Historical Research", "Archaeology", "Literature, History and Philosophy" and so on. In recent years, he has been invited to give lectures Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and other places.