Full text translation of "Shuowen Jiezi Shu" ● Compiled by Xu Fuchang, Department of Chinese, National Taiwan University
In ancient times, Fu Xishi governed the world, and (he) looked up at the sky and observed the sky. Geography, observing the images of birds and beasts and the texture of the earth, drawing the close ones from oneself, and the distant ones from other objects. On this basis, the "Yi" and Bagua were created, using hexagrams to show people's good and bad luck. In the era of Shennong, the method of knotting knots to record events was used to govern society and manage the affairs of the time. The number of industries and chores in society became increasingly numerous, and cover-ups and forgeries also occurred. (In the time of the Yellow Emperor,) Cangjie, the historian of the Yellow Emperor, saw the footprints of birds and animals, and realized that the textures were different and birds and animals could be distinguished, so he began to create characters. (After words are used in society,) all industries are determined and all categories are clear. The original meaning of Cangjie's creation of the character was probably taken from the "Gua Gua". "Gua Gua" said that ministers should assist the king so that the king's government can run smoothly. This means that Cangjie created writing to promote religious orders and promote style, which would help the king's administration. It is easier for the king to use writing tools to bestow favors on his subjects. However, subjects should be virtuous and must not rely on their skills in writing to obtain titles and salaries.
When Cangjie first created characters, he drew shapes based on objects, so they were called "wen". Later, he created combined ideographic characters and pictophonetic characters to expand the number of characters. These characters are called "wen" Character". Calling it "word" means that it comes from the proliferation of "literature", which increases the number of words. Writing words on bamboo slips and silk is called "book". "Book" means writing things as they are written. (Text) After a long period of "Five Emperors" and "Three Kings", some of the strokes have been changed: some have created variations, so the stone carvings left by the seventy-two generations of monarchs who enshrined themselves in Mount Tai to worship heaven have different fonts. .
The "Zhou Rites" stipulates that eight-year-old gentry children enter the elementary school to study. The academic officials educate them and first teach them the "Six Books". The name of "Six Books") The first one is called Zhishi. The meaning of Zhishi is: the shape and structure of the characters may seem familiar, but the meaning of the characters cannot be known until further examination. This is the case with the two characters Shang and Xia. The second is called pictogram. The meaning of pictogram is to draw the object by drawing, and the twists and turns of the strokes are consistent with the posture of natural objects. The two characters of sun and moon are one such example. The third is called pictophone. The meaning of pictophone is to select comparable sound symbols and meaning symbols to form words according to the nature and name of things. The word "jianghe" is an example of this. The fourth is called knowing. The meaning of knowing is: combining graphemes related to affairs to form words; blending the meanings of graphemes, one can learn the meaning or purpose of the new character. The word Wu Xin is an example of this. The fifth is Zhuanzhu. The meaning of Zhuanzhu is to establish a character as the head and root, and create a generic character. The generic character inherits the shape, sound, and meaning of the root character and has the same meaning as the root character. The second character Kaolao falls into this category. example. The sixth is called borrowing. The meaning of borrowing is: instead of creating a word for something, you find a homophone word to represent it according to the name of something. This is the case with the word "Ling Chang".
When King Xuan of Zhou Dynasty's Taishi Zhou compiled fifteen large seal scripts, there were differences between Zhou's text and ancient texts. (However, ancient prose is still in common use.) Until Confucius wrote the "Six Classics" (in the late Spring and Autumn Period) and Zuo Qiu Ming wrote "Zuo Zhuan", ancient prose was still used; the form and meaning of ancient prose were still well understood by scholars. Later (in the Warring States Period), the princes relied on violence to govern and did not obey the emperor of Zhou; they hated the rituals and music that hindered them, and they all abandoned the classics (each did his own thing). China is divided into seven countries standing side by side, with different ways of measuring acres, different sizes of cars, different laws and regulations, different rules for clothes and hats, different dialects for speaking and different writing styles.
When Qin Shi Huang first destroyed the six kingdoms, Prime Minister Li Si petitioned for a unified system and abolished those characters that were not consistent with the Qin characters. (Li Si and others were responsible for Jia's standardization of writing.) Li Si wrote the "Cangjie Pian", Zhao Gao, the magistrate of the CRRC, wrote the "Yanli Pian", and Hu Wujing, the Taishi magistrate, wrote the "Bo Xue Pian". (They) all used it. Some characters in the font of Shi Zhou's large seal script have been simplified and changed. This font is what people call "small seal script". At this time, Qin Shihuang burned the "Book of Classics", destroyed ancient books, recruited officials and soldiers, and established garrison and corvee services. There were many affairs in government offices and prisons, so the official script was created to make writing simpler, and the ancient script style ceased.
From this time on, there were eight styles of calligraphy in the Qin Dynasty. The first was called large seal script, the second was called small seal script, the third was called engraving, the fourth was called insect script, and the fifth was called imitation. The sixth is called Shushu, the seventh is called Shushu, and the eighth is called Lishu. Cursive writing appeared after the founding of the Han Dynasty.
The laws of the Han Dynasty stipulated that schoolchildren should start taking the exam after the age of seventeen. Only those who can recite, read and write 9,000 Chinese characters can be clerks of calligraphy and history; further, they will be tested with the "eight-body" calligraphy . After passing the county examination, they were transferred to the Central Taishi Order for another examination. The person with the best score was used as the secretary of the Privy Secretariat. If the officials' official documents and memorials were written incorrectly, the "Shang Shu Shi" would report and impeach them. Nowadays, although the regulations are there, the assessment has been stopped, the craft of writing has not been taught, and the scholars have not been able to learn Chinese characters for a long time.
When Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty recruited a person who could read the ancient text "Cangjie Pian", Emperor Xuan sent Zhang Chang to study with that person. (After this) Du Ye, the local official in Liangzhou, was a native of Pei, and Qin Jin, a lecturer and scholar, could also read ancient characters. During the reign of Emperor Ping of the Han Dynasty, more than 100 people, including Yuan Li, were recruited and asked to speak Chinese characters in Weiyang officials, and they were honored to serve Yuan Li as "primary scholars". Yang Xiong, the minister of Huangmen, collected everyone's explanations and compiled the "Exuns and Compilations".
"Xun Zhuan Pian" summarizes fourteen calligraphy books since "Cangjie Pian", totaling 5,340 characters. Most of the characters used in the classics are included in this book.
When Wang Mang came to power and took charge of the king's affairs, he asked Grand Sikong Zhenfeng and others to review the books to show off that he was doing his best to make rituals and entertain. During this period, there were some changes to the ancient writing. At that time, there were six types of fonts. The first was called ancient script, which came from a batch of ancient books collected in the walls of Confucius' residence; the second was called Qizi, which was also ancient script, but the font was different from ancient script; the third was called seal script, also called seal script. It is Xiaozhuan: the fourth is called Zuoshu, which is the official script of the Qin Dynasty, and was created by Cheng Miao, a native of Du, who was envoyed by Qin Shihuang; the fifth is called Miao Zhuan, which is the text used on seals and seals; the sixth is called Bird and Insect Script, which is Written on flags, flags, etc.
King Lu Gong demolished the residence of Confucius and (unintentionally) obtained ancient classics such as "Book of Rites", "Shangshu", "Spring and Autumn", "The Analects of Confucius", and "The Classic of Filial Piety". (ancient classics) and "Zuo Zhuan" presented by Beiping Hou Zhangcang. Some counties and vassal states also often unearthed treasure tripods and utensils from previous generations from the ground. Their inscriptions are ancient inscriptions from previous generations. (These ancient writing materials) are very similar to each other. Although they cannot reproduce the complete picture of ancient writings, we can get a rough idea of ??the situation of ancient writings in the Pre-Qin Dynasty. People in the world are ignorant and try their best to deny and slander ancient Chinese characters. They think that ancient Chinese characters are unknown characters that were forged by curious people who deliberately changed the writing method of current characters and pretended to come from the walls of Confucius' residence. People who support ancient literature) want to use it to show off to the world.
There are many Confucian scholars (who like to rely on conjecture) who are scrambling to explain the text and the meaning of the Sutra. They regard the official script that was only available in the Qin Dynasty as the writing of the Cangjie era. What do they say, "Writing is passed down from father to son, and how will it change?" They went so far as to say nonsense: "The character for "horse" means a person is long." "A person holding ten means a fight." "The character for insect is the Chinese character for bend." When explaining the law, the executioner went so far as to make assumptions based on analyzing the glyphs. Criminal laws, such as "harsh people receive money" (the original meaning is to prohibit intimidating criminals and asking for bribes, "harsh" is a borrowed word of "ha", but) some people say that the word "harsh" ("stop" in the upper part, "stop" in the lower part) Sentence"), meaning "stop sentence". There are too many examples similar to the above, (these explanations) are inconsistent with the ancient characters unearthed in the hole wall, and are contrary to the font of Shi Zhen Dazhuan. Vulgar and superficial people appreciate the things they are accustomed to, but are incompatible with rare things. (They) have never seen Hongtong's knowledge, do not know the laws and rules of Chinese characters, regard ancient Chinese classics as heresy, and regard nonsense as nonsense. Truth, seeing what you know is extremely wonderful. (They) explored the profound meaning of the saint's writings, and saw the sentence "the young son inherited the imperial edict" in the "Cangjie Pian", so they said that the "Cangjie Pian" was written during the Huangdi era, saying that the sentence implies that the Yellow Emperor went to immortality and asked the young son to inherit the edict. The profound meaning of Si. How can they not violate the truth if they are astray?
"Shangshu" records that Emperor Shun said, "I want to see the images drawn by the ancients." This shows that Emperor Shun will act in accordance with the old canon when formulating the system, and will not go beyond the details. Confucius said: "I can still see areas where there are doubts in the history books." He also said: "(This kind of "skeptical spirit") is gone nowadays! ” (“Doubtful”) It’s not that the author himself doesn’t understand and is indifferent, (but he is worried) that if people rely on their own conjectures to interpret ancient history, it will lead to uncertainty about right and wrong; clever words and sophistry will bring trouble to the world. It has caused doubts and troubles for students and researchers. Writing is the foundation of hundreds of schools of classics and history, and is the primary condition for the implementation of the royal way. The ancients used it to record their own experiences and pass them on to future generations, who then relied on them to understand ancient history. Confucius said, "The foundation is established and the Tao is born." This is because (establishing the foundation) can enable people to understand the most profound truths in the world and no longer be troubled. Now I describe the seal script, refer to ancient Chinese and Zhenwen, and learn from the opinions of various schools, so that everything I say, no matter how big or small, is conclusive and evidence-based, and I write my own explanation on the basis of textual research. I want to use this book to compile all things and identify fallacies, so that students can understand (the origin of words) and understand the wonderful meaning of words. I use the method of separating the radicals and connecting the radicals with the prefixes to organize the text so that they are not confusing. Everything can be seen in this book, and there is nothing that is not covered or recorded. When I encounter something that is difficult for readers to understand, I use metaphors that can explain it. The book mentions Meng Xi's "Book of Changes", Kong Anguo's "Book of Songs", Mao Heng's "Book of Songs", "Zhou Li", "Zuo Zhuan", "The Analects of Confucius", and "The Classic of Filial Piety", etc., all referring to ancient Chinese versions. When I encounter something I don't know, I just ignore it. ...
The text "Xu" lists fourteen chapters and five hundred and forty parts. (This book contains Chinese characters) 9,353 words, 1,163 reprints, and a total of 133,441 words of commentary. In the arrangement of radicals in this book, the "一" radical is placed at the beginning, and the arrangement of Chinese characters is carried out according to the principle that if the "type" is the same, things will be grouped together; things with the same "type" belong to one place, and "with the same reason" The characters are connected together, arranged in an orderly manner, without confusion, and the prefixes are connected one by one according to the glyphs; starting from the character "一", citing and connecting, the origin of tens of thousands of Chinese characters is explored; The word "Hai" is listed at the end of the chapter, so we can see that the change has reached its extreme and returned to "one".
At that time in the Han Dynasty, the saints and virtues were prosperous and shining like the sun. Emperor Guangwu accepted the destiny and followed the way of Emperor Yao to create a great cause. All China and abroad received the favor of the Han Emperor, which was like rain. The tide is extremely strong.
The (royal) government promoted learning and selected talents without neglecting the common people; the scholars knew the essentials of scholarship and conducted profound research (writings), and their insights could be passed on to future generations (so I collected and edited them into this book). This is the first day of the first lunar month in the twelfth year of Emperor Yongyuan of the Han Dynasty.
I am a Miao descendant of the Xu family, and my ancestors should be counted from Emperor Yan and Shennong. The distant ancestor Jinyun clan assisted the Yellow Emperor, the distant ancestor Gong clan was succeeded by Gao Xin clan, the distant ancestor Taiyue clan assisted Xia Yu, and the descendant of Taiyue clan, Uncle Lu, guarded the Zhou Dynasty and was entrusted to Xu by the Emperor of Zhou to protect his ancestors. Protect and protect the Xu family from generation to generation. Since then, the Xu family moved from Xu land to Runan, and my direct descendants have lived by the Ru River since then.
I admire the saints, and I would like to get close to the saints without any presumption. How tall is the Holy Gate? Like Nanshan Cui Wei. I wanted to give up halfway, but I couldn't. I have exhausted all my dull skills, but unfortunately I have not mastered the "Tao Tao". When I hear the word "suspicious", I can only remember "suspicious". I deduced the meaning of the saint's words and compiled my own superficial opinions. I don't know much about this subject. If there are obvious mistakes, I hope everyone can correct them.