Shuowen Jiezi
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Shuōwén Jiězì (說文解字, "Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters") was the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary, the first to analyze the components and etymology of the characters, as well as the first to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components, called section headers (部首 bùshǒu). It was compiled by Xǔ Shèn, finished in 100 CE, but due to an unfavorable imperial attitude towards scholarship, it was not presented until 21 years later, when his son Xǚ Chōng (許沖) presented it to the emperor Ān Dì (安帝) in 121 CE in Hàn Dynasty China.
Xǔ Shèn, in defining words and analyzing their etymology and construction, strove to disambiguate the meaning of the pre-Han Classics, so as to render their usage by government unquestioned and bring about order, and in the process also deeply imbued his organization and analyses with his philosophy on characters and the universe.
The title of the work draws a basic distinction between two types of characters, 文 wén and 字 zì, the former being those composed of a single graphic element (such as 山 shān, "mountain"), and the latter being those containing more than one such element (such as 好 hǎo, "good") which can be deconstructed into and analyzed in terms of their component elements. The title means commenting on the wén (as they cannot be deconstructed), and analyzing (deconstructing) the zì.
Xu Shen states in his preface that Shuowen analyzes 9353 seal script characters and 1163 variant forms; note that the transmitted texts vary slightly in content, with some emendations and omissions. The total number of graphs therein does not actually match the numbers cited in his preface, generally being slightly greater, especially due to additions of missing characters by the early Song dynasty scholar Xú Xuàn (徐鉉 916-991).
Xu Shen then categorized these graphs into 540 sections, under section headers (often called radicals); these are characters or extracted strokes or portions thereof, which also serve as components shared by all characters in that section. The number of section headers, 540, equals 6 × 9 × 10, the product of the symbol numbers of Yīn and Yáng and the number of the Heavenly Stems. The first section header was 一 (yī, one) and the last was 亥 (hài, the last character of the Earthly Branches). Xu Shen's choice of section headers appears in large part to have been driven by the desire to create an unbroken, systematic sequence among the headers themselves, such that each had a natural, intuitive relationship (e.g., structural, semantic or phonetic) with the ones before and after, as well as by the desire to reflect cosmology. In the process, he included many section headers that are not considered section headers today, such as 炎 yán (flame), 熊 xióng (bear). He also included the cyclical characters, i.e., the Heavenly Stems and the Earthly Branches. As a result, unlike similarly arranged modern dictionaries which attempt to maximize the number of characters under each section header, some of the headers (34) in Shuowen have no characters under them, while 159 headers have only one each.
The main entries were and still are seal script characters, followed by etymological analyses and definitions, which were originally written in the script of the day, clerical script but which were later reprinted in standard script. Included in the analyses were two kinds of variant forms which he termed either "ancient" (古文 gǔwén) or Zhoù 籀 forms. The "ancient" forms were so named because he thought they predated the Qín dynasty seal forms, but they have been conclusively shown to be regional variant (Eastern Warring States) forms contemporary with the pre-unification Qín script. In cases where the graphs from the Eastern Warring States texts in Xu Shen's possession differed from the standardized Qín forms, he included them in Shuowen, while those that did not differ were ignored. The Zhoù graphs were in fact older, and came from the surviving nine sections (out of fifteen) of a compendium (possibly a copybook) from ca. 800 BC called Shĭ Zhoù Piān (史籀篇). Zhoù may have been the name of the Grand Scribe who oversaw or created this compilation, although some scholars argue that it is a verb meaning write, such that the compilation is named "Compilation Written by the Historian/Scribe". Either way, Zhoù was not the name of a script, but is rather a reference to examples, taken from this particular book, of the script of the Zhōu (周) dynasty around 800 BC (note that Zhoù 籀 and Zhōu 周 are unrelated words). Xu Shen did not know it at the time, but the Zhoù graphs were actually ancestral to both the Eastern Warring States and Qin forms he was analyzing.
The analyses and definitions under the main entries typically take the following form: a short definition, which was sometimes a single synonym, but sometimes paranomastic (punning), followed by deconstruction of compound graphs into semantic and/or phonetic components. Second or subsequent definitions are sometimes provided. Although overall the work is extremely valuable to scholars and was historically used as the most important etymological reference work, many of the analyses and definitions are unclear or simply incorrect, so that Shuowen cannot be relied upon as a single, authoritative source for definitions and etymological reference. Furthermore, Xu Shen lacked access to the Shāng dynasty oracle bone script and the early Western Zhou writing to which scholars now have access, and these are often critical for understanding the structures and origins of the graphs.
For instance, he put 慮 lǜ (be concerned) under the section heading 思 sī (think). As evident from an even older source of bronzeware script (jīnwén) where 慮 (lǜ) appeared as a combination of the phonetic component 呂 (lǚ) and the semantic component 心 (xīn), it is clear now that 慮 is not a combination of 虍 and 思 but rather of the phonetic also found in 盧 and 虜 and the semantic 心 (heart).
Shuowen Jiezi is often mistakenly given as the origin of the Six-Principles Theory (六書 liùshū) of Chinese character composition and usage. However, it is actually first mentioned by the name liùshū in the Dìguān chapter of the Rituals of Zhōu or Rites of Zhōu (周禮 Zhōu Lǐ) of ca. 300 BC, and the principles first listed in the Book of Han (漢書 Hànshū) of the 1st century CE as well as by Zhèng Zhòng in a 1st century CE Zhōulǐ commentary (周禮鄭注 Zhōu Lǐ Zhèng Zhù).
The six principles are enumerated in Xu Shen's preface; he goes on to use the first two, simple indicatives (指事 zhǐshì) and pictograms (象形 xiàngxíng) to explicitly label the character entries in the dictionary, e.g., in the typical pattern of "(character) (definition) ...simple indicative" (A B 也...指事(也)). Compound graphs belonging to the third principle, phono-semantic compounds (aka picto-phonetic compounds, 形聲), are implicitly identified through the the entry pattern "from A, B phonetic" (A...從 B, C 聲), meaning that element B plays a semantic role in A, while C gives the sound. The fourth type, compound indicatives (會意 huìyì), are sometimes identified by the pattern "A...from X from Y" (A...從 X 從 Y), meaning that the compound A is given meaning through the graphic combination and interaction of both consituent elements. The last two of the six principles, borrowed characters (aka phonetic loan, 假借 jiǎjiè)and derived characters (轉注 zhuǎnzhù), are not identificable in the character definitions, as they are not principles of structural composition.
In addition to the above analyses, Shuowen also sometimes provides information on regional usage or graphic variants, examples of usage from pre-Han texts, and pronunciation given by citing homophones.
The original version of Shuōwén Jiězì has been lost, and no traces of it after the Han dynasty appear until a few (2%) fragments from the Tang dynasty. The earliest post-Han scholar known to have researched and emended Shuowen (albeit badly) was Li Yangbing (李陽冰, fl. 765-80). Shuowen scholarship then improved greatly in the Song and Qing periods. Important scholarship was undertaken separately by the Xú brothers, Xú the Elder (Xú Xuàn 徐鉉 916-991) and Xú the Younger (Xú Kǎi 徐鍇 920-74); Xu Xuan's work on textual criticism, especially, has been vital for all subsequent scholarship, since his restoration and emendation resulted in an authoritative version, the closest thing we have to the original, and all later editions are based on this. His brother, in turn, focused on exegetical study, analyzing the meaning of Xu Shen's text. In the Qing dynasty, many scholars engaged in either of these two kinds of research on Shuowen, but one stands above all the others due to the quality of his research in both areas: Duàn Yùcái (WG Tuan Yü-ts'ai 段玉裁). His annotated edition is the one most commonly used by students today. Also particularly important among Qing scholars of Shuowen were Guì Fù (Kuei Fu 桂馥), Wáng Yún (王筠) and Zhū Jùnshēng (Chu Chün-sheng 朱駿聲).
External links
References
Boltz, William G. (1993). "Shuo wen chieh tzu", p.429-442 in Loewe, Michael (ed.). Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, (Early China Special Monograph Series No. 2), Society for the Study of Early China, and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, ISBN 1-55729-043-1.)
Duàn Yùcái (段玉裁, Wade-Giles Tuan Yu-tsai; publ. 1815). "說文解字注" ("Shuōwén Jĭezì Zhù", commentary on the Shuōwén Jíezì), compiled 1776-1807. This classic edition of Shuowen is still reproduced in facsimile by various publishers, e.g., in Taipei by Li-ming Wen-hua Co Tiangong Books (1980, 1998), which edition conveniently highlights the main entry seal characters in red ink, and adds the modern 楷 kǎi standard script versions of them at the tops of the columns, with ㄅㄆㄇㄈ bopomofo phoneticization alongside.
Serruys, Paul L-M. (1984) "On the System of the Pu Shou 部首 in the Shuo-wen chieh-tzu 說文解字", in 中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊 (Zhōngyāng yánjiùyuàn lìshĭ yǔyán yánjiùsuǒ jíkān, Journal of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica), v.55:4, pp.651-754.