In 29, Peking University accepted a batch of donations, which were a batch of bamboo slips of the Western Han Dynasty returned from overseas. There are more than 1,6 complete slips in this batch, and there are more than 3, pieces in total. The whole batch of bamboo slips are all official scripts, with clear ink, exquisite writing and rich content.
among unearthed bamboo slips, the characters on bamboo slips are usually higher than those on wooden slips, and the classics are usually copied on bamboo slips. Of course, this has something to do with weaving, because bamboo slips are thin, and the volumes will not be too thick and heavy after weaving, and wooden slips are not easy to be thin and light.
The Han bamboo slips of Peking University in Tibet are very rich in content, which can be said to cover all categories of "Six Arts" contained in the History of Han Arts and Literature. This is of great academic value to the study of the history of pre-Qin, Qin and Han dynasties, as well as the fields of ancient thought, science, medicine, calligraphy and so on. At present, the Han bamboo slips of Peking University have all been published, and * * * has published five volumes, the first of which is the second volume "Lao Zi".
Up to now, there have been four kinds of Laozi unearthed, which are in chronological order:
The first and second kinds are the silk version of Laozi unearthed in Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha City, Hunan Province in 1973. When unearthed, there were two kinds of manuscripts in the same tomb, which were called A and B respectively according to the different situations of fonts and taboo words. Among them, A did not avoid the taboo of Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang, and B did not avoid the taboo of Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang, but did not avoid the taboo of Emperor Huidi Liu Ying. It can be seen that A was earlier, but both of them were copied in the early Han Dynasty.
The silk version of Lao Zi in Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha
The third version is Lao Zi in Guodian Chu Bamboo Slips in Jingzhou, Hubei Province; Laozi, a Guodian bamboo slip, was unearthed in the Chu tomb in Guodian Village, Jingmen City, Hubei Province in 1993. This tomb was in the late Warring States period, so Laozi published in the tomb should have been written earlier, probably in the middle and early Warring States period or earlier, but the copying time should be in the late Warring States period, about 3 BC. Laozi, a bamboo version of Chu, is the earliest and most primitive copy of Laozi at present, but its length is small, only two-fifths of that of today's edition, and its ideological views are also very different from that of today's edition.
Laozi in Guodian bamboo slips
The fourth kind is Laozi in Peking University Tibetan bamboo slips. There are 176 complete bamboo slips and 15 incomplete bamboo slips in the Han Bamboo Slips of Peking University, totaling 211 pieces after splicing, with more than 5,2 words. It is the most complete version with the largest number of words among the four ancient editions of Laozi.
Laozi, a Han bamboo slip of Peking University, is divided into two parts, with the titles "Laozi goes to the classics" and "Laozi goes to the classics" at the back of the slips. The Upper Classic is equivalent to the Classic of Virtue handed down from generation to generation, and the Lower Classic is equivalent to the Classic of Daoism handed down from generation to generation. The titles of Laozi handed down from ancient times include Daojing and Dejing, but Laozi in Han bamboo slips of Peking University is called Shangjing and Xiajing, which is the first discovery in unearthed documents. The whole book preserves the complete chapter structure of Laozi, which is divided into 77 chapters, providing valuable information for studying the chapter division of the ancient version of Laozi.
There are many differences between the sentences and words of Laozi in the Han bamboo slips of Peking University and other unearthed Laozi. Many experts have pointed out the differences, for example, in Laozi, a popular book today, "I want to do things, and I will make my town simple", the word "Zhen" in this sentence, and the writing of Laozi in the Han bamboo slips of Peking University is "Yan". However, the ancient pronunciations of "Zhen, Zhen, Qin and Zhen" are all the same or similar, which is called "Tongjia" in ancient Chinese, which may be a manifestation of the differences in words used in different dialects or regions. Another example is today's popular book "Laozi", "It is better to hold on to it than to have it; In this sentence, "chuai" means "Lao Zi" written in Han bamboo slips of Peking University, "Lao Zi" written in Guodian Chu bamboo slips is "turbulent" and "Lao Zi" written in silk by Mawangdui is "short". There are many differences between these words in the four versions. This difference plays a very important role in studying the completion of Laozi and the historical changes of its words. From the point of view of writing and calligraphy, Laozi, a bamboo slip of Peking University, is beautifully copied, which can also be regarded as a representative of the middle Western Han Dynasty in the history of calligraphy, which is also of great reference significance to calligraphy research.
We often say that literature is very important, but how important it is, the unearthed versions of Laozi are a typical example. From the Bamboo Slips of Guodian in Jingzhou, Hubei Province in the Warring States Period to the A and B versions of the silk script of Mawangdui in the late Qin Dynasty and early Han Dynasty, to the Bamboo Slips of Peking University in the middle Western Han Dynasty, and then to the version of Laozi handed down by Wang Bi in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, a complete sequence of versions of Laozi in different years has been formed, which can be said to be of extraordinary significance for discussing the formation and evolution of Laozi.
Reference
Bamboo Slips of Western Han Dynasty Collected in Peking University (II), published by Shanghai Ancient Books in 212.
bamboo slips of the western Han dynasty collected by Peking university <; Lao Tzu > Great value, People's Daily, overseas edition, December 21, 212.