Chapter 2 Section 1 The Earliest Form of Books in China - Bamboo Slips and Silk Scripts

Books generally refer to works that use words, pictures or other symbols to record knowledge on certain materials and pack them into volumes.From the appearance of characters to the formation of books in the modern sense, it has gone through a process of evolution. At the end of primitive society, pictographs appeared in our country.By the late Shang Dynasty, Chinese characters had developed into characters with a certain grammatical structure and the ability to express certain thoughts.This is confirmed by the oracle bone inscriptions unearthed from the Yin Ruins in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan.There are about 4,500 single characters used in the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin Ruins, and about 1,700 characters have been recognized so far.Oracle bone inscriptions already have four forms of pictographic, referring to things, knowing, and pictophonic, which laid the foundation for the later development of Chinese characters.Oracle bone inscriptions are inscriptions on the plastron of a turtle and the shoulder blades of a cow that engraved the events and results of divination at that time.People in the Shang Dynasty attached great importance to these inscriptions and kept them as documents for future reference.

With the development of social economy, utensils made of copper-tin alloy, namely bronze ware, appeared.In the late Shang Dynasty, some people cast or carved characters on bronze wares to record important historical facts.We call the inscriptions on these bronze wares Bronze Inscriptions or Zhong Ding Inscriptions.Most of the bronze inscriptions of the Zhou Dynasty were written to praise meritorious deeds and celebrate rewards [lai Lai]. They recorded battles, captures and rewards, and the inscriptions were very specific.However, although all the aforementioned oracle bones or bronze vessels with inscriptions were endowed with a certain function of books, they are not books in the strict sense, and there is no purposeful book collection.

The earliest forms of books in our country are bamboo slips [dudu] and silk books.Slips, those made of bamboo are called bamboo slips, and those made of wood are called wooden slips.The shape is long and the size varies. Most of them are about two feet and four inches long (about 55 centimeters).In order to prevent beetles and moisture, the bamboo is cut into strips (discs), and then roasted with fire to evaporate the water. This treatment method is called "killing".This is also the source of the fact that the completion of the book is still called "finalization".Writing on such bamboo sticks with pen and ink becomes Jane.Tablets are wooden boards, about one foot square, and are used for writing on them.Bamboo refers to a bunch of bamboo slips that are strung together with ropes in order.Generally, two ropes are used to wear it.For the sake of strength, some use leather ropes, which are also called "Wei".According to ancient books, Confucius liked to read in his later years. Because of frequent reading, he broke the leather rope connecting the notebooks three times.

The earliest records about bamboo slips can be found in "Shangshu·Toshi": "Only the ancestors of Yin, there are books and codes", but no actual Shang bamboo slips have been found so far.In the last years of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, bamboo slips such as "Shangshu", "Book of Rites", "Book of Filial Piety" were found in the walls of Confucius' residence, which are the earliest bamboo slips discovered.In the fifth year of Xianning, Emperor Wu of Jin Dynasty (AD 279), more than 2,500 bamboo slips were found in the tomb of King Wei Xiang in Jixian County, Henan Province, which were later called Jizhong (zhongzhong) books.After sorting out, there are 16 kinds of ancient works, including "Bamboo Book Chronicle", "Mandarin Language", "Mu Tianzi Biography" and so on.Since the beginning of this century, nearly 30 bamboo slips have been unearthed, among which more than 1,000 Qin bamboo slips were unearthed in Yunmeng, Hubei Province in 1975.

Simultaneously with the bamboo slips, there are also silk scripts, which are also called Jian [jianjian] scripts.Silk is a general term for silk fabrics, and silk books are books written on silk fabrics.In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when books were mentioned, they were already referred to as bamboo and silk. For example, in "Mozi", there is a reference to "the bamboo and silk of books, the gold and stone of engraving, and the bowl of carving". "Han Feizi" and "Yanzi Chunqiu" also mentioned silk scripts repeatedly.Silk scripts were not very popular in the Spring and Autumn Period, but they were relatively common in the Warring States Period.The earliest silk script we have unearthed now is the Warring States Zong [zeng Zeng] script discovered in 1942.Although silk is more convenient to use than bamboo slips, it is expensive, so it has not become a commonly used writing material to replace bamboo slips.Before the appearance of paper, bamboo slips and silk scripts were the main forms of books in our country.This time is roughly from the Warring States period to the Three Kingdoms period, that is, from the 4th century BC to the 3rd century AD, with a history of about seven or eight hundred years.