In a letter to Phoenix Culture Channel, Zou Dexiang, a folk scholar, said that according to Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi and the method of seal script, he found that "Tiangan" corresponds to the shapes of various parts of the human body. He also said that excavating the wisdom of the ancients is the basis of modern people's research, but it is forbidden to mystify ancient knowledge and scare yourself. The research article is reproduced as follows:
Some time ago, in order to improve the level of calligraphy, the author practiced seal script hard. While intensively reading Shuo Wen Jie Zi, he accidentally discovered the original mystery of the ancient concept of "Tiangan". I found that "Tiangan" originally painted a complete "human body" with ten specific Chinese characters "A, B, D, E, G, F, N and D"!
"Tiangan" is actually not mysterious, but the number "one" to the number "ten". "earthly branch" is not more mysterious than "heavenly stem", but it is only the number "one" to the number "twelve". The ancients were very clever. In order to distinguish them from different "sequence" systems, they chose different Chinese characters to represent "one to ten" of heavenly stems and "one to twelve" of earthly branches, which gave ancient Chinese characters three different "ordinal number" systems: number (1234 …), heavenly stems (a, b, c, D …) and earthly branches (ugly son).
The crux of the matter is, when the ancients said "heavenly stems" and "earthly branches", why did they only choose "A, B, C, D ..." and "Zi Chou Yin Mao ..." instead of other words? People have been thinking about this problem for a long time, but they haven't grasped the main point.
Today, we will uncover the mystery that has puzzled people for thousands of years-why did "Tiangan" choose the words "A, B, C, D, E, G, G, G"? As for the "earthly branch", why do you choose the twelve words "ugly Mao Yinchen is at noon in Xu Hai, Shen You"? I will discuss them in detail in another article.
Solve the mystery of "heavenly dryness"-"man"
"Tiangan", an ordinary and unfamiliar ten words, was used by the ancients to indicate the order and is still in use today. From "a" to "Deck", it stands for "one" to "ten" respectively. Why do you use the words "a, b, d, e, g, n, n, g" to mean "heavenly stems"? Careless readers certainly haven't thought about this question, while intelligent readers certainly haven't got a satisfactory answer despite their exploration.
In fact, Xu Shen has vaguely perceived this wonderful answer in his great work of philology, Shuo Wen Jie Zi, but he didn't tell the reader the answer directly. Didn't he solve the eternal mystery himself? Or deliberately leave a mystery for readers to disassemble? I can't say clearly today.
Common sense is that the earliest method of word-making in ancient times was "taking things far away and taking objects near", with pictographs as the main method. In Xia and Shang dynasties, there were also abstract concepts such as "heavenly stems" and "earthly branches", so it is difficult to express these abstract concepts with a single Chinese character. But difficulties can't stop our predecessors. When the ancients said the concept of "heavenly stems", they actually used ten words "A, B, C, D, E, Ji, Ji and N" to form the pattern of the human body (see the illustration of heavenly stems drawn by the author). In other words, the word "Tiangan" itself refers to "people". The creativity of the ancients is really amazing.
The ancients in China understood the human body as ten parts:
One is the head;
The second is the neck;
The third is the shoulder (upper limb);
The fourth is the lateral abdomen (chest rib);
The fifth is the heart (viscera);
The sixth is abdomen (abdomen and waist);
Seventh, genitals;
Eight is the thigh (thigh);
Nine is the tibia (calf);
Ten is the foot.
This understanding is very scientific. Therefore, the ancients carefully selected ten Chinese characters from "A" to "Gui" and used their ancient characters to represent these ten parts of the human body respectively. These ten kinds of corresponding relations constitute the map of "heavenly dryness"
Shuowen gives a detailed explanation of the words "A, B, C, D, E, Ji, G, Xin, Man and Ghost". Now we will extract the words related to "human body" in the commentary one by one to see how Xu Shen understood the pictographic relationship between Tiangan characters and various parts of the human body. Xu Shen said-
A: When it comes to human heads, it should be called A, just like human heads.
B: B is like a person's neck.
C: C carries B, like a person's shoulder.
Ding: Ding is like a human heart.
Wu, like a person's threat.
Himself: I am like a person's stomach.
G: G inherits himself and looks like a person (qi refers to genitals-author's note).
New: new, stock.
Ren: Ren, like a human tibia.
I am a man's foot.
The Nature of "Tiangan" and the Shape of Different Parts of Human Body
Most of the early Chinese characters were pictographs, which were quite graphical. The ancients used ten "graphic characters" to reorganize the extremely complex "figure" of "human body", which was really ingenious.
When the ancients wrote Tian Gan, the characters had already appeared. If they want to combine "humanoid" and "glyph", they will inevitably consider which words are best used to express the image of the human body here. This is a painstaking thing. So we can see that their choice of glyphs is very successful, and the selected characters are very similar to the human parts to be represented by images. So there is the following ingenious relationship-
"A": This word is round and square, much like a human head. The upper head represents hair, and the lower head is connected to the neck.
"B": The strokes are slightly curved and soft, extremely concise, very much like the shape of a human neck. If I don't choose this word, I can't decide which word can better represent this group of people.
"C": This glyph best represents the part from shoulder to wrist. My feeling is that at the beginning of word creation, it seems to be used to express a person's upper body. If you lengthen the "person" inside, it becomes the word "heaven". Please note that the "hand" is not here, you will know where the "hand" is.
"Ding": used to express "heart", which is very vivid from the font of ancient Chinese characters and seal script. When the reader touches this part of himself, he can know that it is the junction between the two sides and the thoracic vertebra, protecting the important organs of the chest, such as the heart, liver and lungs.
"E": It is said that it is "Zhong Gongye". Then it is more appropriate to use this glyph to represent the "middle palace" of the outline of the human chest. The upper right corner of "E" looks like an armpit, and the lower right corner looks like a rib. It is amazing to choose this word to express "chest ribs".
"Ji": the ancient Chinese and seal script of the word "Ji" are written gently and tortuous. In the human body, the abdomen is the softest, and the "soft intestine" of the abdomen is more similar to the word "self". This glyph represents a person's stomach, which means a lot.
"Geng": This word actually stands for male genitalia. People didn't know this before, but in this "picture" I drew, the original meaning of the word was clearly revealed.
"New": Shuowen said that the font is like a human thigh. At first glance, this statement can't be established, and it's really difficult to connect the "Xin" shape with the "thigh". However, judging from the "picture", it is extremely appropriate to use "Xin" to represent the thigh, which shows both the shape and the bones, and the details such as hip joint (commonly known as hip bone) can be displayed quite accurately.
"Man": The upper part of the word and the lower part of the word "heart" just constitute the knee of a person. Moreover, the word "money" in the upper part of the word is seal script, which can show the flexibility and flexibility of the human knee.
"Deck": This word has many meanings. Its radicals, like the word "Deng", are both "double stops", which happens to be people's feet. And the word base comes out from "arrow" and "day", plus "double check" eight, and there are ten * * *, just ten toes. The word * * * ten paintings is even more ingenious.
You see, "pattern" and "glyph" have such a wonderful correspondence! Some words are irreplaceable. For example, "c", "g" and "Gui", without these words, it is impossible to "draw" the graphics of the corresponding parts of the human body.
In Shuo Wen Jie Zi, although the ten words "A" to "Gui" are explained together, Xu Shen did not draw us a picture of heavenly dryness. There is a long time between the appearance of Tiangan and Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi, and because Qin Shihuang burned the book thoroughly, even the "ancient prose" before Xiao Zhuan could not be read in the Western Han Dynasty. Therefore, Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty can only give people a simple hint according to his own understanding, which is scattered and not concentrated (Shuo Wen Jie Zi is a seal script annotation with annotations attached to it). In this way, future generations' understanding of the original meaning of "heavenly stems" stays at a very superficial level, and even no one can understand it at all.
Today, we will "reveal the secret" about "Tiangan", which should be something to be happy about in the cultural history.
"Geng" and "Qi" originally refer to genitals.
After reading this, you may ask: the word "C" has no two hands. How can a person have no hands? Where is the "hand" in the sky? Unless Xu Shen is lost?
The ancients created the number "heavenly stem", and of course there will be no such low-level mistakes.
It turns out that the two hands of "man" have reached "Geng" in this strange "heavenly dryness pattern", and here we express the unknown meaning. The word "Geng" here, two "hands" arch an upside-down "Ru", so what other meanings does the word have besides the meaning of "genitals"? It turns out that "Geng", like "Qi", represented genitalia in ancient times. This is also something that people have not figured out for thousands of years.
The word "Geng" is written with a stalk in the middle and a hand arched on both sides of the stalk. Shuowen thinks that the word "dry" is "from back to one", so what is the word "into" with two "hands" inverted, not genitals? And it's just under the abdomen. In other words, the "qi" in Shuowen is not the navel, but the genitals. The word "Geng" in later generations also means age, such as "Nian Geng" and "Tong Geng", all of which mean "bearing" and "reproduction". Xu Shen's answer to "Dao" helped us finally decipher the original meaning of "Geng".
By the way, the word "qi" in Shuowen is mentioned here. This "Qi" was put in the "Meat Department" by Xu Shen. There are two "people" in the middle of the glyph, and there is an inverted "gold" (written as "Ya") in the middle of the two "people". So who are these two people? What are you doing? Readers may wish to ponder. From this perspective, the word "dry" of "heavenly stem" must be pronounced "dry". In the past, some people read it as "gan", which is completely wrong. Since it is "from the reverse, from the one", it is "into" into "one" and "interfering with" one ".
People who are "heavenly" are also human beings, and people who are "dry" are also human beings; "Branches" refer to the universe and the universe, time and space.
From the two words "Geng" and "Qi", we understand that "Gan" refers to genitals, and "Qi" also means copulation between men and women. It seems that the ancients created characters and attached great importance to human reproduction. In ancient times, people were the most scarce and the most important productive force, so people's "production" was always in a prominent position. This social phenomenon is reflected in the intelligentsia, and there is a worship of "dry" in words-the ancient People's Daily "Dry Branch", which used to talk about "sex".
For thousands of years, the mysterious "dry branch" is like a riddle without a clue, which makes people puzzled and unable to solve it. The ancients played a little joke on us. When we finally understand this riddle, can we smile from the heart?
When the mystery of "heavenly dryness" is solved, the cultural meaning of "dryness" is also solved.
Now, from the perspective of glyphs, in ancient times, "Gan" refers to the sexual inheritance and reproduction of human beings, and inheritance and reproduction need "time", so "Gan" is given the meaning of "time". The ancients believed that "space is everywhere" and space is "space"; "Since ancient times, the universe has called it" and the universe has called it "time". Together, the two refer to everything in the world through the ages. In this way, in the concept of "stem and branch", "stem" refers to human nature, and "branch" refers to many animals, which has profound meaning. All animals and things represent space, so "branches" are the sum of time and space, and are synonymous with the universe and the universe. When we say "stem and branch" in the future, we will say "time and space" and "space universe". I don't think it should be wrong.
This is why the ancients used "dry branches" to remember "time".