Author: Wu Jigang (Associate Professor, College of Literature, Guizhou Normal University)
Inscription documents are words and patterns engraved on stone tablets. This document is written with a brush dipped in ink on the writing bearing materials such as bamboo, wood chips, leaves, stele stones or plant fiber paper. The relationship between them is worth exploring.
From the perspective of the historical stage of the development of the document, the inscription document is in the historical stage of forming a document written with a brush. The production process includes the two most important steps of calligraphy and engraving, the former is to dip the brush in cinnabar, according to the format of the written document, the already draft inscription manuscript, transcribed to the bounded stone slab. After that, the stone characters and paintings were engraved with a carving knife. Shu Dan embodies the characteristics of the written literature, and its calligraphy faithfully reflects the appearance of the calligraphy at that time, that is, the Han stele uses the Han Li, the Wei stele uses the Wei stele body, and since the Southern Dynasty, the transition from the Lishu to the Kaishu has been basically completed, to the Sui Stele, and the northern and southern calligraphy has been integrated, which has played a leading role in the Tang Dynasty calligraphy, and the Tang Stele is quite mature. The engraving reflects the characteristics of the engraved literature. However, the inscriptions are mainly in yin script, and the inscriptions are mostly in yang script.
Choi Hyun wrote an article and Liu Gongquan's book "Divine Strategy Military Monument" (partial) Information photo
From the perspective of form, the inscription is similar to the scroll, retaining the simplified policy system, that is, the overall use of vertical lines separated, like the type of rope weaving of the simple strategy; its writing line format, completely inherits the traditional simplified document downward left go format. From the perspective of proofreading symbols, inscriptions may contain proofreading symbols, such as "(Figure 1)" for heavy text symbols. The inverted correction symbol is "し", and the "Eight Qiong Room Golden Stone Correction" Yun: "Next to the word 'journal' is made 'し' shape, the Gaiwen system is 'looking for the place to publish the shape', and the mistaken invert is 'publication office'. "Derivative text, then add a "•" sign to the right of the derivative to indicate deletion. The text is engraved, and some are engraved with the symbol "く", and then engraved next to it. These scripts are the same.
Figure 1
However, the inscription has its own characteristics in terms of content, because the engraving on the golden stone is to pass on the immortality, so the inscription is mostly made for the Jingbiao Jigong in the hope of passing on to future generations. The texts he publishes either highlight the merits of the gods and ancestors, or commemorate the great deeds of heroes, or describe magnificent buildings, or carve famous poets and poems, with the beauty of The Mountains and Rivers, and some of them are four high-level texts such as classics, politics, and religion, which mean to spread the world and pass them on immortality. The images he has carved, whether it is King Wen, The Duke of Zhou, or Kong or Meng, whether it is Laozi or Buddha, or Pengzu and Guan Gong, are all positive images of Ming Jun, Zhongxian and so on. The animals it depicts, the four spirits of green dragon, white tiger, suzaku and xuanwu, are used to ward off evil spirits, avoid disasters and pray for blessings; their edges are curly grass patterns, honeysuckle, peony, pomegranate, lotus, chrysanthemum, orchid, etc., mostly representatives of hardiness, wealth, high-grade and proud shore. The content is serious and regular, and the illustrations are gorgeous and elegant, which is the same as the engraved literature.
In summary, the inscription has the characteristics of both a written book and an engraved book, but it has significantly more characteristics of the written book than it has, so it belongs to the category of written literature.
Inscription documents belong to the category of written documents, but from the perspective of writing carriers, contents, and functions, it is different from other written documents.
From the perspective of writing carriers, the writing carriers of the writing documents in the JianMu stage are mainly bamboo and wood, the writing carriers of the paper writing documents are plant fiber paper, and the writing carriers of the inscription documents are stone slabs. Most of these slates are made of bluestone, but the use of stone varies from place to place. For example, Shandong, Henan, Hebei and Shanxi in the north, Yichang in Hubei and Longchang in Sichuan in the south are rich in bluestone, henan county uses local redstone, and Sichuan region widely uses blue sandstone. Paper scrolls can be written directly on plant fiber paper. The formation of inscription documents is much more complicated, including the stages of stele making, calligraphy, and carved stones. Specifically, including the chiseling of stone materials, painting patterns, carved boundary grids, calligraphy, engraving drawings, engraving, proofreading, restoration, etc., the most important link is the stone and engraving of shudan, that is, the brush dipped in cinnabar is used to write in the painted boundary grid, and then the carving knife is used to carve out the yin text (a few are yang). Engraving is the fundamental reason why inscription documents are different from other written documents.
From the perspective of the role of literature, whether it is the era of the Jian Mu written book, or the paper writing era, the government laws, Confucian classics, various historical multiplications, the hundred families of the sons, and the collection of other collections are all books in the simple book or paper volume; and the books on the inscriptions of the stele are mostly inscriptions, and the inscriptions are mainly used for funerals such as tombs, which is the main role of the stele. From the perspective of content composition, the inscription mainly includes two parts, the preface and the epitaph, the preface mainly introduces the name of the tomb owner, the origin lineage, the calendar, the wife and the place of burial, etc., and the inscription praises the shape, character and merit of the tomb owner. The two are honored before and after mourning, that is, the preface recounts the merits of the tomb owner before his death, and the inscription directly expresses the sadness of the reality of the living.
Because of its solid texture and long-standing circulation, inscription documents have important value in the history of civilization transmission. From the perspective of content, inscription documents can collate or corroborate other written documents, supplementing the total collection or other collections. For example, Su Shi wrote and wrote the "Su Jiu Immortal Mountain", "temporary", and "Su Dongpo's Complete Works" as "one". "Spring", "The Complete Works of Su Dongpo" as "Incense". "Midnight", "The Complete Works of Su Dongpo" as "Midnight". The poem has not been changed after the stone is written, and the stone inscription should be corrected. And carefully taste the meaning of the text, with the stone carved text as the best, you can proofread the "Complete Works of Su Dongpo". Zeng Guofan wrote, Sun Haizheng and the "Inscription guihu poems" confirmed the authenticity of the text of the "Zeng Wenzheng Gong Poetry Collection". The Song Dynasty poet Zhang Shu's "Butterfly Love Flower Words" can supplement the compilation of Tang Guizhang, Wang Zhongwen reference, Kong Fanli's supplementary collection "All Song Words", and the Qing Dynasty poet Huang Pu's "Huang Pu Li Xian Poetry Carving" can supplement the collection "Shiya Collection" and "Manxing Collection" and so on.
From the stylistic point of view, inscription documents can enrich the genre of ancient literature, adding styles such as inscriptions, statues, and land purchase vouchers. Liu Xun's "Wenxin Carved Dragon And Stele" specifically introduces the inscriptions and inscriptions, and opens the precedent of the inscriptions. In particular, the epitaphs, since the end of the Han Dynasty, and even the Qing Dynasty, have recorded the biographical literary works of the zhi lord's life and inscriptions, which are beautifully written and recorded in the collection of literary masterpieces of past dynasties, such as the 22nd to 35th volumes of the "Han Changli Collection" and the 86th to 91st volumes of the Su Dongpo Anthology. In addition, the "Liu Zihou Epitaph", "Taizhou Hailing County Master Book Xu Jun Epitaph", and "Five People's Tombstone" were selected for their beautiful style and sincere emotions. Buddhist iconography refers to the record text left for the production of various religious grottoes, shrines, and other statues. The genre originated in the Northern Wei Dynasty, until modern times, recording the statue maker, the time of the statue, the statue created, the reason for the statue, the words of the wish, and several other parts, such as the Northern Wei "Longmen Four Pins", "Shiping Gong Statue Record", "Wei Lingzang Statue Record", "Yang Dayan Statue Record", "Sun Qiusheng Statue Record", etc., all of which have become the fine works of the statue with narrative sentiment and calligraphy agility. The land purchase voucher is a burial text material with distinct Taoist cultural characteristics that has appeared since the Western Han Dynasty, and is a symbolic security placed in the tomb to ensure that the deceased's ownership of the cemetery is not infringed. The content of the style includes the place of origin of the tomb owner, identity, birth and death time, cemetery location, land purchase time, land price, four to, tomb god, coupon time, coupon holder, etc. For example, "Wang Xinggui Buys Land Coupons" in the first year of the Western Han Dynasty, "Cai Balang Buys Land Coupons" in the eighth year of the Northern Song Dynasty Yuanfeng, etc., which objectively enrich the style of literary works passed down from generation to generation.
Linguistically, the allusions produced in the inscription enrich the vocabulary of the document. In particular, the inscriptions of the Six Dynasties period of the Han and Wei Dynasties, because this period was the solidification period of the allusions of Chinese in China, a large number of allusions produced since ancient times were rapidly fixed during this period, and a number of new allusions were produced. These allusions adopt two methods: abbreviated and split, the former such as "Pengtu", "Tuju", "Shenghu", "Laige", "Huanyu", and "Anluo", which are ancient poetry sentences, idioms, mythological stories, colloquial folk songs, historical stories, Buddhist terms, etc.; the latter such as "corpse su", "慃篪", "Zhibai", "Yishu", "Juntian", "Pei Calf", "Warped", etc., the main living environment of these allusions is inscription literature.
From the perspective of calligraphy, before the Qing Dynasty, China's calligraphy was mainly the study of thesis, but since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the real texts of the "Two Kings" have gradually been lost and lost, the original texts such as the Chunhua Ge Ti and the Daguan Ti since the Song Dynasty have become less and less, and the engraved books have lost the face and charm of the original posts, which have led to the decline of the thesis. On the contrary, the stele was not tampered with by later generations, retaining its true face, so it took advantage of the decline of the thesis to develop. Since the middle of the Qing Dynasty, epigraphy has developed strongly, and a number of people such as Ruan Yuan, Bao Shichen, and Kang Youwei have appeared.
Guangming Daily (2020.03.28. 11th edition)