Chapter 15 Chapter 5 The Prosperity of Ancient Calligraphy

After "Yupian", in the Song and Ming dynasties, among the dictionaries classified by radicals, "Leipian", "Zihui" and "Zhengzitong" had a greater influence. The compilation of "Lei Pian" was due to the fact that when Ding Du and others compiled "Ji Yun", the collection of characters was based on the principle of "following the wide", and various characters written in different styles: regular style, ancient style, variant style, or style, vulgar style , as long as they think there is a basis, they will all be collected. A total of 53,525 characters have been collected, which is 27,331 characters more than "Guangyun" and 30,964 characters more than the current "Yupian".In the opinion of Sima Guang and others, "Ji Yun" is too long and "incompatible" with "Jade Pian" ("Lei Pian·Supplementary Note"), so a part of rhyme characters are separated from "Ji Yun" Separately compile "Class Articles". The radicals and the arrangement of each part of "Lei Pian" basically follow the "Shuowen Jiezi", which explains the characters, pays attention to the ancient sounds and meanings, and clarifies the changes in the shape of ancient and modern characters. "Lei Pian" added a lot of new characters produced during the Tang and Song Dynasties.Under each radical, first explain the meaning of the radical, then explain the shape, and finally note Fanqie, which actually includes the explanation about this radical in "Shuowen Jiezi".Then explain the characters in this part, first note Fanqie for each character, and then explain the meaning.Pay attention to the sound and meaning, and do not analyze the physical structure word by word, but if there are variants in the characters, they will be annotated under the original characters, and sometimes seal characters will be attached.If there are different meanings or different readings, please explain after explaining the meaning of the words.The arrangement of each Chinese character is in order of rhyme.

Although the content and arrangement of "Jade Pian" and "Lei Pian" have improved compared with "Shuowen", they are still not convenient for ordinary people to consult.The dictionary that made major reforms to the classification of radicals and has concise and easy-to-understand interpretations is the "Zihui" written in the Yimao year of Wanli in Ming Dynasty (AD 1615). Features of "Zihui" Mei Yingzuo, the author of "Zihui", was born in Xuancheng (now Anhui).The book has 14 volumes, 12 volumes of the main text, and two volumes of appendices, containing 33,179 characters, all in regular script.Compared with previous dictionaries, this dictionary has been greatly improved in terms of arrangement, word collection, phonetic notation, and definition, mainly as follows:

(1) Easy to check characters "Zihui" simplifies the radicals of the dictionary since "Shuowen Jiezi", arranges the radicals in regular script "in order of the number of calligraphy and painting", and lists them as 214 from one to 17 strokes, according to the earthly branch Zichou and Yinmao are divided into 12 episodes in turn, the sub-collections are the first and second-drawing radicals, the ugly and Yin-collections are the three-drawing radicals, the three episodes of Mao, Chen, and Si are the four-drawing radicals, and the afternoon collection is the five-drawing radical , The two collections of Wei and Shen are the radicals of six strokes, the collection of You is the radical of seven strokes, the collection of Xu is the radical of eighth and nine strokes, and the collection of Hai is the radical of more than ten strokes.The characters in each part are also arranged in descending order of strokes.The radicals with changes or irregular shapes mainly refer to the changes in regular script, which are all marked.The list at the beginning of each volume indicates the radicals of this volume, lists the number of strokes of each part and the single character in the part and the page number in the volume.This arrangement is easier to search than "Shuowen Jiezi" and "Jade Pian".

(2) The collection of characters should be practical. "Zihui" includes the commonly used and popular characters in classics and history, and all the weird characters are not included; (3) The phonetic notation specifies the explanation of each word first and then the interpretation.There are generally four kinds of phonetic notation methods used in the book: fanqie, straight tone, four-tone, and near-sound.First use Fanqie phonetic notation for each character, and then add the straight tone; if there is no suitable straight tone for the homophonic character, then add the four-tone notation, such as the word "judgment": "Pubanqie, Pan Qusheng." Some Even the four-tone method of the word cannot be used to note its sound, so the method of sound proximity is used.For example, "(亻冘)〔dandan〕" is annotated: "It's just a feeling, the sound is close to light, and it's up." If there is a transfer sound or in another word, first note the original sound, and then note the transfer sound or leaf sound.

(4) Interpretations are concise and interpreted according to the sound, and different meanings are listed according to different sounds.Where there are different sounds and meanings, they are listed one by one, documentary evidence is cited as much as possible, and some colloquial and colloquial meanings are also used, so the interpretation is comprehensive and concise.Now take Daobu's interpretation of the published characters as evidence: Publication Qiu cold cutting, look at the level sound, cut it, 扟 [duo many] also, and Chamu also. "Yugong": Suishan publishes wood. ○Yeqiu is pious and cut, and the sound is leading.Cao Zijian's "Songs of Resentment": Zhou Danzuo Wenwu, Jin Tenggong will not publish it.Pushing his heart to help the royal family, the second uncle countered the rumors. ○Yeqiu remonstrates and cuts, pulling away the sound.Ban Mengjian's "Nangong Hou Zan": I am ashamed of the scene, and I sacrifice myself by cutting my neck.The gold and purple praise watch will not be published forever. ○ From fighting.Yang Sheng'an said, Liu Xin's "Answer to Yang Xiong": "A book that hangs in the sun and the moon and is not published, the words cannot be cut off."Nowadays, it is mistaken for the purpose of engraving a catalpa, and there are many prefaces in the township examinations, and some of the best essays are published.Readers because of it.If you don't talk about learning, it's almost here!Zhang Ruifu said: "Journal characters can also be used. After publishing the characters, the rest of the wood will be used to complete the characters. Therefore, it is called "Journal" after engraving characters, and it is called "elimination" when the official is moved."

(5) The first volume of "Zihui", which publishes Mei Dingzuo's preface, general examples and general catalog of the whole book, and appendices such as "Yunbi", "Conggu", "Zunshi", "Gujintong", "Zizi" and other articles . "Yunbi" lists more than 70 characters in various shapes, respectively explaining the order of each character's writing and writing, and teaching readers the order of writing and writing. "From Ancient Times" lists more than 160 ancient characters, indicating that such characters should be written according to the structure and shape of ancient characters. "Zunshi" lists nearly 120 common characters, lists the ancient style of each character, and tells readers that similar characters should follow the prevailing writing method at that time. "Universal for Ancient and Modern" lists more than 130 characters with different forms in ancient and modern times, which shows that these characters can be used in both ancient and modern times, and both writing methods are acceptable. "Zi Zi" arranges the difficult characters that are difficult to distinguish radicals according to strokes.

The last volume of the book has appendices such as Discrimination, Xingmi, and Yunfa. "Distinguishing Similarities" distinguishes more than 470 characters with similar shapes but different sounds and meanings. "Awakening Mistakes" corrects more than 60 characters that are often wrongly engraved in the engraved edition. "Rhyme" uses diagrams to explain the methods of distinguishing the four tones and mastering Fanqie. The value of "Zihui" "Zihui" pays attention to practicality in terms of layout and content, and is a creative invention that is convenient for readers to check, which made it very popular among ordinary readers in the late Ming Dynasty. "Everyone regards it as a Gongbi", "the teacher is a Confucian, and the boy is a boy, and everyone learns it without grouping" (Nian Xiyao's "Five Fang Yuan Yin Preface").In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were not a few calligraphy books that supplemented it or used its name, among which "Zheng Zi Tong" was more popular and had a greater influence.

The author of "Zheng Zi Tong" was Zhang Zilie in the late Ming Dynasty, and Liao Wenying added the "Twelve Letters of the National Book" (that is, the twelve letters in Manchu) in the early Qing Dynasty.There are 12 volumes in the whole book, and it is still the same as the old "Zihui" in terms of divisions, radicals and the arrangement of characters within the department. mistake.In addition, the ancient style, 籀 style, seal style, vulgar style, and wrong style of each character scattered in "Zihui" are concentrated after the original character and annotated. As long as you find the original character, you can understand its variants.

For more than 300 years, "Zihui" has been widely used in various dictionaries to check characters according to the number of strokes, laying the foundation for Chinese dictionary compilation, thus demonstrating its value.Of course, "Zihui" is far from a perfect dictionary. For example, its mistakes in interpretation, citations without indicating the title of the book and the title of the article, etc., were not further improved until the "Kangxi Dictionary".

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