Chapter 5 Section 1 Oracle

In the northwest suburb of Anyang City, Henan Province, there is a village called Xiaotun.Since ancient times, generations of hardworking working people have lived here.That happened more than 100 years ago. When they were plowing the land, they suddenly found some hard bone fragments of different sizes mixed with the soil clods turned up by the plow. When they picked it up, many of the bone fragments looked like The roads carved by the knife, some are a little dark red. "The keel has been planed!" Everyone in the village said so.The old people also said that this thing can be used as medicine, and it can be ground into powder to cure knife wounds, fight pendulum and so on.So everyone went to pick up the bone fragments and sell them to the pharmacies in the city.And a catty can only be sold for a few pennies.

One day, a businessman from Shandong, surnamed Fan, came to the village.He asked the villagers if they had any novelties dug up in the field, and he would offer a good price to buy them.Everyone showed him the bone fragments, and he bought some of them out of curiosity. The surname Fan was originally an antique dealer, who specialized in buying antiques at low prices in rural areas, and then sold them at high prices to wealthy and powerful officials in big cities such as Beijing and Tianjin.When he saw these bone fragments with engraved passages this time, he didn't know what they were, so he didn't dare to ask for more. He bought some, went to Beijing, and found a senior official he knew. Wang Yirong, please give him an appraisal.This Wang Yirong is a very learned Beijing official.When he saw these bone fragments, he was very surprised. After carefully observing the inscriptions on them, he thought that they were a kind of ancient characters that had been lost. They were very precious. The businessman hurried to buy again, he wanted all of them, and bone fragments with many engravings.

After further research, it was finally known that these bone fragments were not actually "keel bones", but the shells of tortoises and bones of cows and deer, so later scholars named the inscriptions on them "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". The year when Wang Yirong came into contact with oracle bone inscriptions was the 25th year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, that is, 1899 AD. The discovery of oracle bone inscriptions caused a sensation in the academic circles at home and abroad. After that, people conducted many scientific excavations in Xiaotun Village and its vicinity, and learned that this place was originally the capital ruins of the late Shang Dynasty about 3,000 years ago.According to ancient records, Shang kings often moved their capitals, but since Pangeng (the ninth grandson of Tang) moved his capital to Anyang in the 14th year, until Emperor Xin (that is, King Zhou) eight generations and twelve kings never moved again. However, the Xiaotun area in Anyang has been the capital of the Shang Dynasty for about 273 years.Anyang was called Yin at that time, so the Shang Dynasty was also called Yin.The Shang Dynasty was destroyed by the Zhou Dynasty, and it was destroyed here as ruins, and later generations called it the Yin Ruins.

The king of Shang was very superstitious, and he especially admired ghosts and gods. No matter the big or small things, such as maturity, conquest, childbirth, travel and even field hunting, etc., divination was carried out.Sometimes the king of Shang would do divination himself.The main materials and methods used for divination at that time were: using the treated tortoise plastron or the scapula of beasts (mainly cattle) to dig or drill circular and oval grooves on the back; Internal burning causes cracks to appear on the corresponding parts of the front. According to the number and shape of the cracks (called "signs"), the fortune and result of the divination item can be inferred.After the whole divination activity and things are done, the above situation is written and engraved on a certain part of the tortoise shell or animal bone as a verification.These characters are called inscriptions, so oracle bone inscriptions are often called "Inscriptions on Yin Ruins".

A complete inscription is composed of four parts, which are called Qianci, Zhenci, Zhanci, and Verificationci. Pre-words, also called narration or narration, describe the time of divination (some also record the location), and the name of the divination person; Zhen Ci, also called Ming Ci, describes the things to be asked in the divination, and sometimes asks questions from both positive and negative aspects, which is called "Dui Zhen"; Divination, which describes the judgments made by the king of Shang or the fortune-teller according to the situation of fortune-telling; Verification speech, which describes the situation that the result after divination is fulfilled.

These parts are sometimes inscribed on different parts of the oracle bone, and can only be read in a certain order. Here is an inscription (Fig. 9) belonging to the early oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin Ruins in the Wuding period for illustration: Guisi divination, Zhengzheng: It's raining in January today?Wang (Zhan Zhan) [zhan Zhan] said: Bingyu. Guisi divination, Zhengzheng: Doesn't it rain this month? Xun Renyin rain.Jiachen also rains. The composition and meaning of this inscription is—— Preface: Guisi divination (divination on the day of Guisi), Zhengzheng (the divination of a chastity named Zheng).

Zhen Ci: It will rain in January today (will it rain within a month now)? Divination words: Wang (accounting in the Chinese character) said (the king of Shang judged after reading the omen): Bingyu (it will rain on the day of Bing). Verdict: Xun Renyin rain.Jiachen also rained (as a result, it rained on Renyin day in the next ten days. It also rained on Jiachen day in the second ten days). In the article, "Guisi divination, striving for chastity: it will not rain in January this month" is a question of divination from the opposite side, which forms a counterpoint to the above "rain in January this month".

This inscription also has "Jiyouyu. Xinhai Yiyu" (it rained on Jiyou Day and also rained on Xinhai Day) on the reverse side of the tortoise shell. However, there are many inscriptions that are relatively simplified, and it is not necessarily true that all four parts are fully available. Yin Ruins inscriptions are of great value for us to study ancient Chinese society, especially the social conditions of the Yin and Shang Dynasties, and can be said to be the most reliable first-hand historical materials.For example, comparing the names and lineages of the ancestors and kings of the Shang Dynasty seen in the inscriptions with the relevant records in my country's first large-scale general history "Historical Records" compiled by Sima Qian of the Han Dynasty, most of them can be consistent, which proves that the records in "Historical Records" Basically believable.At the same time, the inscription records can be used to correct inaccurate or even wrong places in historical records such as "Historical Records", so that we can have a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of ancient Chinese history.

A large number of materials related to ancient astronomy, meteorology, agriculture, animal husbandry and other science and technology have also been found from the inscriptions. For example, there are several records about lunar eclipses in the inscriptions of Wuding: (There is) eclipse", "moon"Eat, smell, August. ""Wen" means "faint", which refers to the total lunar eclipse and the darkness of the world. These scientific and technological materials are of great significance to the discussion and research of various related disciplines. Their value belongs not only to Chinese civilization, but also to the entire human civilization.

There are also oracle bone inscriptions that are not used to record divination. For example, there is an inscription that inscribes 10 heavenly stems (A, B, C, D, E, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui) and 12 earthly branches (Zi). , Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, Unitary, Xu, Hai) are composed of 60 stem and branch names (Figure 10).This kind of table of stems and branches was used by people at that time to check and calculate the date of the calendar of stems and branches. It can be said to be the earliest calendar in my country. In addition, ancient cultural relics in places other than Yin Ruins, such as Zhengzhou City and Luoyang City in Henan Province, Hongdong County in Shanxi Province, Jinan City in Shandong Province, Chang'an County, Fufeng County, Qishan County in Shaanxi Province, and Changping County in Beijing Later, oracle bone inscriptions were discovered one after another.

Among them, the oracle bone inscriptions discovered in Qishan and Fufeng, Shaanxi, are called Zhouyuan oracle bone inscriptions.Zhouyuan is the ancient place name of this area and the birthplace of the Zhou Dynasty. The oracle bone inscriptions of Zhouyuan, the main ones found so far are divination shells, with a total of about 300 pieces.The era is roughly from the late Shang Dynasty to the early Western Zhou Dynasty.These armors with words are all remnants, and their area is only as big as the one-cent or two-cent coins that are commonly used today.The font engraved on it is extremely thin, and it needs to be recognized with a magnifying glass more than five times. It can be described as a miracle in the history of miniature sculpture art in the world. Figure 11 is a facsimile of an inscription with a large number of words in the oracle bone inscriptions of Zhou Yuan that we selected. The interpretation is as follows: Guisi, Emperor Wu of the Yi Dynasty Yi Zong.Chastity: Wang Qi (sword 阝) [zhao Zhao] sacrifice Cheng Tang.Ding (zhen): royal, (Report the word to go to 扌) 〔fu Fu〕The second mother, whose Yi Blood (sheep soil) [mu mu] three pigs three, The fontanelle [sis] is upright again. The general meaning of the full word is: On Guisi Day, Yi sacrifices are held in the ancestral temple of Emperor Wenwu Yi.Question: Wang solemnly offered sacrifices to Cheng Tang.To hold an imperial sacrifice, two (报字去扌) female human sacrifices are used, and three rams and three piglets are used for the blood of Yi sacrifices. The discovery of Zhou Yuan's oracle bone inscriptions is a major achievement in the history of oracle bone studies and has expanded the scope of our research on oracle bone inscriptions.Whether it is the study of the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty or the history of Chinese characters, it is of great significance. From the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions in 1899 to the present, according to preliminary statistics, more than 100,000 pieces of oracle bones have been unearthed.The total number of all the characters seen in these oracle bone tablets is about 4600-4700, of which less than 1800 characters can be clearly identified. Oracle bone inscriptions are the oldest writing system found in China so far.It is almost at the same time as the holy script of Egypt, the Mayan script of Central America, and the cuneiform script of Sumer, but the latter several scripts have long since died out, and have no origin relationship with the scripts currently used in these countries or regions; only the oracle bone script is related to modern times. The Chinese characters still in use are closely related, and it can be said that it is the ancestor of modern Chinese characters. Many characters in oracle bone inscriptions are easily recognizable.These are first of all characters that represent the shapes of various things in nature, called pictographs, for example: The word "月" looks like a crescent moon. The word 雨 means it is raining in the sky. Turtle character, in the shape of a turtle. Fish characters, like the shape of fish. The word "clothes" is like the shape of the coat worn by the ancients. Wood characters, like the shape of trees. Herringbone, like a sideways person. Sometimes two pictographic characters are combined to express a more complex and abstract meaning. For example, there are several characters related to human pictographic characters: From the word, one person follows another, which means to follow. Bei character, two people back to back, is the ancient character of "Xiang Bei". The character for rest, people leaning against a tree, means rest. Bing means that two people stand side by side (a horizontal stroke at the bottom indicates the ground level). Characters like the above "moon", "rain", "wood", "person" and so on are composed of a shape that cannot be decomposed, which are called "single-style characters"; while characters like "xiu" and "cong" These words formed by more than one (generally two) individual characters are called "combined characters".Therefore, the single characters "人" and "木" become part of the compound characters "Xiu" and "Cong" respectively. We call them the "parts" of the characters, just like the parts of a machine.Of course, some parts are not necessarily words that can exist independently.These terms are what we will often use in the future, so let's introduce them here first. Now let's go back to Oracle.It should be pointed out that more oracle bone inscriptions have features that are not quite the same as those of later generations of Chinese characters, otherwise there would be nearly two-thirds of oracle bone inscriptions that have not yet been deciphered.These features mainly include: (1) The shape of oracle bone inscriptions is often not fixed.This manifests itself as: a The position of the components is relatively free, such as: "Female" and "object" are respectively composed of ox, dagger, ox and wu, and the two parts can be placed left and right, up and down. b The same word can use different components, such as: "Prison" was a place to keep livestock in the oracle bone inscription era, which is equivalent to our barn today.Indicates a fence for livestock, where cattle, sheep or horses can also be kept, so (Cattle), (sheep), (horse) can all become parts of the word "prison". The word "Zhu" means chasing wild beasts in the era of oracle bone inscriptions.orIndicates the hunter's footsteps, which can be used above (籕) indicates that the one chasing is a wild boar, and can also be used (鹿) means that it is a deer that is chasing. c The same part can have different strokes, such as: The word "tooth" resembles the shape of a tooth. The upper and lower teeth can mean more or less, or even only lower teeth and no upper teeth. The word "Silk" is like two bunches of bundled silk, some with more loops and some with fewer loops, some with silk ends and some without silk ends. The complexity of the component strokes is also a very important aspect for understanding the changes in the shape and structure of Chinese characters.The development of component strokes from less to more is called "complexity"; the development from more to fewer is called "simplification". The writing direction of d parts can be different from the front and back, such as: The character "啊" means that a person is close to the food and adopts a kneeling posture, which is the same on the left and on the right. The word "Yin" means holding a pen in one hand, and the same is true for holding a pen in the left hand and the right hand. (2) There are many "combined characters" in oracle bone inscriptions, that is, two or three characters are squeezed and inscribed in the position of one character.For example: Names used: (Report B) (Pangeng) (Zusin) Numbers: (Thirteen) (fifteen) (four thousand) (December) Common words: (up and down) (cattle) The shape of the oracle bone inscriptions in Zhouyuan mainly retains the characteristics of the oracle bone inscriptions at Yin Ruins, which is the representative of the culture of the central dynasty; at the same time, it has developed to some extent due to the influence of the social life and cultural characteristics of the Zhou tribe.This development has played an active role in the entire history of Chinese characters.The shape of a group of Chinese characters was produced or finalized in the oracle bone inscriptions of Zhouyuan, such as the commonly used characters "cheng, night, house, and Ze" in later generations, which were first seen in oracle bone inscriptions of Zhouyuan; Compared with the oracle bone inscriptions of Yinxu, the characters such as ancestral hall, teacher, Zhen, Che, Shou, Jian, Team, Bi, and Shu” have greater variation. After the Zhou tribe seized the central power, these mutated forms became the norm. It was inherited by bronze inscriptions and small seal script of the Western Zhou Dynasty.Therefore, the role of Zhouyuan oracle bone inscriptions in the evolution of Chinese characters is worthy of attention and research. Oracle bone inscriptions are generally first written on oracle bones with cinnabar or black ink, and then carved with a knife, and some are directly carved.Because it is carved with a knife, the strokes are thin and firm, and less rounded. As far as the exquisite carving is concerned, it is very admirable.