Talking about self-study of ancient writing
Li Xueqin
Mr. Li Xueqin, a native of Beijing, was born in 1933. He is a famous expert in ancient writing in my country and currently works at the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Researcher and adjunct professor at Northwestern University. His major works include "A Brief Theory of Geography in the Yin Dynasty" and "The Mystery of Chinese Bronze Wares" (English version).
The long letter on my desk was sent by a young teacher from afar. The letter mentioned that he lost the opportunity to study during the ten-year catastrophe, but because of his hobby of seal cutting, he often came into contact with ancient characters, and gradually became interested in ancient characters. He also wanted to study in depth the historical era in which ancient characters were produced. He was eager to tell him how to start learning paleography and formulate a systematic study plan based on the characteristics of amateur self-study.
I have received many letters like this in recent years. The young friends who wrote the letter include new comrades in the cultural relics, archeology and art circles, as well as teachers or students in the fields of literature and history. Whenever I read the passionate sentences in the letter, my thoughts always come back and I am immersed in memories.
I am self-taught when it comes to studying ancient Chinese characters. Someone once said that I owe my strength to my family education, but this is not true. My family is an intellectual, but it has nothing to do with the field of ancient writing. I didn’t take any courses related to this when I was studying at Tsinghua University. As a young student who was firmly attracted by the "mystery" of ancient characters, the only thing I relied on was the Beijing Library. The majestic library door, the clothing storage area, the catalog box, the benches waiting to pick up books, and the bright windows in the reading hall are still vivid when I think about them. The career of running around Wenjin Street regardless of whether it was cold or hot, morning or dusk, did not end until 1952, when I went to the Institute of Archeology to participate in the compilation of "Yinxu Text Conjugation". Such an experience made me feel more affectionate towards young friends who are interested in learning ancient writing on their own.
Chinese ancient philology has a long historical origin. However, due to various reasons, it is an obscure subject that few people care about. In the past, it was even called a "unique science". Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, with the prosperity of archaeological work, newly discovered ancient writing materials have emerged in an endless stream, and the practical value of paleography has become increasingly significant. However, the research strength of this subject is still very weak and is not commensurate with the heavy tasks ahead. This situation limits the development of paleography itself and is not conducive to the study of archeology and the entire ancient history and culture. How gratifying it is to see many young comrades willing to learn this unpopular practice.
Based on my personal experience, I feel obliged to tell everyone that it is really difficult to learn paleography on your own. Today's paleography is no longer comparable to elementary school and epigraphy in history. It lies between archeology, ancient history, linguistics, and philology, and is closely related to these disciplines. Therefore, learning paleography requires quite extensive basic knowledge. This is the difficult part -. Most of the research objects of paleography are precious cultural relics, scattered in various places, and some are not easy to see. Even the descriptions are generally printed in very small quantities, are expensive, and are listed as rare books in libraries. The relevant treatises are mostly specialized, and there is a lack of introductory books written at a new level and written in modern languages. This is the second difficulty. Therefore, although some self-learners work hard, they may not be able to achieve success or lack the necessary conditions, so they may not achieve much and waste their energy, which is really a pity.
By saying this, I do not mean to pour cold water on it. Difficult to learn does not mean that it cannot be learned, but it requires greater determination and perseverance. Xunzi said: "If you really accumulate strength for a long time, you will gain it; if you learn nothing, you will stop." This should be our motto.
Self-study is naturally not as good as having a mentor who can ask for help at any time, but as the saying goes: "The master leads you in, and the practice is personal." Even if you have a good teacher, you still have to do it yourself. A mentor is valuable, and the most important thing is to point out the direction and methods of studying and avoid detours and wrong paths. When we study by ourselves, we must pay more attention to the methods and methods of learning. We might as well read the writings of our predecessors on ancient philology, carefully understand the methods they used, the paths they took, and learn from their rich experiences. If you take the wrong path, you will have to spend a lot of time and effort to correct it. We have seen many such lessons.
The teacher asked me how to systematically learn ancient characters. In my opinion, there are two ways to learn them, which vary from person to person.
For those who take the study of ancient characters as their lifelong career, I suggest that it is best to start with "Shuowen" and study Qin and Han characters first, such as Qin bamboo slips, Qin carved stones, Han bamboo slips, and Han steles, and then study them later. Go back two weeks to study bronze inscriptions, and finally learn oracle bone inscriptions and other Shang Dynasty characters. I remember that more than 20 years ago, Mr. Chen Mengjia talked about this kind of learning method. I didn't think so at the time. It took many years to realize that this kind of learning can have a thorough understanding of the origin and evolution of ancient characters, as well as the shape, sound, meaning and reason of the characters, laying a solid foundation for ancient Chinese characters. A strong foundation in literary knowledge. On the surface it may seem slow, but in fact it is more effective with less effort.
Although the book "Shuowen" now seems to have many limitations of the times, it can still be regarded as the starting point for the study of ancient characters. Many of the ancient books that Han Confucians saw and the teachers' sayings they heard were inaccessible to future generations. Xu Shen is known as "unparalleled among the Five Classics". "Shuowen" is a collection of the most comprehensive knowledge of philology in the Han Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty's annotations of "Shuowen" are even more important. When you start learning ancient Chinese characters, you must read "Shuowen", but don't just read the Daxu version of the text (such as the recently photocopied one-character-by-line version), you should also read the annotations. Everyone likes to read Duan Yucai's "Shuowen Jiezi Annotation", and this is right. If you feel that the volume of paragraph annotations is too vast to be read at once, it is recommended that you read Wang Jun's "Shuowen Judu" first, which is more concise. In addition, Xu Hao's "Shuowen Jiezi Notes" is very helpful for reading paragraph annotations. As for "Shuowen Jiezi Jielin" compiled by Ding Fubao, it is a collection of books for easy retrieval and cannot be used for reading.
The bottom-up, step-by-step learning method mentioned above requires more time and is only suitable for comrades who specialize in this subject. If it is due to work requirements or personal interest, it is okay to learn oracle bone inscriptions or bronze inscriptions from the beginning. For example, first read Guo Lao's "Compilation of Oracles" and "Two Weeks of Bronze Inscriptions", Rong Geng's "A Comprehensive Examination of Shang and Zhou Yi Ware", Chen Mengjia's "A Summary of Yinxu Oracles" and "The Dating of Western Zhou Bronze Ware" ("Acta Archeology" 1955 —serialized in 1956), as well as "Jinwen Bian", its sequel "Oracle Bone Inscriptions", etc., are all very good. I originally studied oracle bones and Warring States characters first, but in the 1960s I had to study bronze ware as a supplement. This shows that no matter what I study first, if I want to make achievements in the field of paleography, I must understand the entire process of the development of ancient characters. To borrow a saying from a martial artist, it is called "When it comes to the end, it will be the same."
Some self-learners are worried that it is difficult to memorize ancient characters, so they spend all their energy copying the seal characters of "Shuowen" or "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" and "Jinwen Bian". In fact, understanding ancient characters is often more important than memorizing them. In order to make up for the lack of memorization, you can try to make use of reference books. Books such as "Compilation of Ancient Classics", "Shuowen Tongxun Dingsheng", "Newly Compiled Ancient Phonological Table", "Guangyun Phonetic System", "Collection and Interpretation of Oracle Bone Inscriptions", "Blockwork Exegesis", etc. are all beneficial to study and research. . The newly published "Classification of Ancient Chinese Characters" by Comrade Gao Ming and the "Character Table of Ancient Chinese Characters" edited by Mr. Xu Zhongshu list fonts of different eras in columns, which is particularly helpful for scholars to understand the evolution of characters.
Mr. Tang Lan once said: "The key to ancient philology does not lie in ancient characters." I have introduced this famous saying many times in my lectures over the years. I understand that Mr. Tang means to emphasize the importance of literary knowledge in the study of ancient characters. To study ancient characters, we must make full use of the results of philology. As far as I know, all the famous ancient scholars have profound attainments in literature. Take Mr. Yang Shuda as an example. He studied and taught primary schools for many years, but he did not start studying bronze inscriptions until he took refuge in western Hunan during the Anti-Japanese War. His "Ji Wei Ju Bronze Inscriptions" is full of wonderful meanings and unique achievements. Pushing back to its origin, its skills and methods are all derived from literature research. Another example is Mr. Chen Zhi, who passed away not long ago. He wrote "New Evidence from Historical Records", "New Evidence from Han Dynasty", "Economic Historical Materials of the Han Dynasty", "Collation of Sanfu Huang Tu", etc., all of which are based on cultural relics of the Qin and Han Dynasties and Ancient books corroborate each other. Even bricks and tiles, he could pick them up at his fingertips and use them to illustrate certain historical issues. How can this be accomplished without superb research into the literature?
When reading ancient books when learning ancient characters, it is best to compare the ancient characters materials with contemporary documents. For example, if you study the bronze inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty and at the same time read the works of the Western Zhou Dynasty in "Shang Shu", "Yi Zhou Shu" and "The Book of Songs", you will definitely get the best of both worlds.
A few years ago, we compiled and annotated the Yunmeng Qin bamboo slips and established a special rule: "Annotations should quote ancient books and their annotations from a similar era as much as possible." This is to facilitate comparative research. For example, blindly pursuing high antiquity and relying on the ancient teachings of "Poems" and "Books" are inconsistent with Qin bamboo slips.
When reading ancient books, you must first read common books, and do not prefer unique secret books. The most common ones are "Historical Records". When Sima Qian wrote, he combined "Poems", "Books", "Zuo Zhuan", "Guoyu", etc. into one pot. It is the basic material for studying ancient history and culture. Although the three annotations are not ideal, the content is But it is very rich and sufficient for reference. Some people think that "Historical Records" is common and not worthy of careful reading. They have even studied for many years and have not read "Historical Records" thoroughly. This is not enough as a lesson.
Paleophilology cannot be separated from archaeology. Before liberation, the vast majority of ancient philological materials were obtained from accidental discoveries or stolen excavations. Scholars had to rely more on rubbings to study oracle bones and bronze inscriptions, focusing on the analysis of characters. They had fewer opportunities to come into contact with the artifacts themselves and were less familiar with the unearthed conditions. Difficult to understand. Nowadays, scientific excavation materials have clear unearthed records, and their academic value has been greatly improved. Therefore, those who study ancient characters must have certain archaeological knowledge.
Archeology and paleography complement each other. Combining textual interpretation with archaeological methods can often solve difficult problems that cannot be solved by the former alone. When studying bronzes, we should not only pay attention to the inscriptions, but also observe their shapes, patterns, functions and smelting techniques. When studying oracle bones, we should also take into account the types of oracle bones, the methods of repair and the shape of drilling. Important ancient writing materials newly discovered in these years include oracle bones from Xiaotunnan in Yinxu, bronzes from the "Fuhao" tomb, Zhouyuan oracle bones and bronzes, Xichuan Xiasi bronzes (I think the tomb from which Lingyin Zigeng's tripod was produced does not belong to Lingyin Zigeng), The books recorded in Houma and other places, the bronzes and bamboo slips from the tomb of Marquis Zeng in Suixian County, the Qin slips in Yunmeng, the silk scrolls in Mawangdui, Changsha, etc. must be studied together with the sites and tombs in order to have an in-depth understanding. Therefore, I hope that self-study palaeography will read more relevant archaeological reports, and if you have the opportunity to visit a museum or excavation site, don’t miss it.
When searching for ancient literature and related archaeological materials, you should also rely on reference books, that is, various bibliographies and indexes. Regarding the epigraphy works of the past dynasties, you can check Rong Ai's "Inscriptions on Epigraphy", the supplement of which was published in the third issue of "Archaeology Newsletter" in 1955. This book has been expanded in recent years and is expected to be reprinted. For books and papers since liberation, you can use the "Chinese Archaeological Document Catalog" compiled by the Library and Reference Room of the Institute of Archeology. In the catalog of the specialty, regarding oracle bones, there is "Fifty Years of Oracle Bone Studies" published by Mr. Hu Houxuan in the 1950s. Xiao Nan's "Catalogue of Oracle Bone Studies" contained in the first volume of "Ancient Script Research" can be regarded as a continuation of Mr. Hu's catalog. In terms of bronze inscriptions, Mr. Rong Geng's "Review of Ancient Gold Books of the Song Dynasty" ("Academic Research", Issue 6, 1963), "Review of Jijin Books of the Qing Dynasty" ("Academic Research", Issue 2, 1962) and Zhang Weiwei's "Review" "Foreign Writings on Chinese Bronze Ware" (Journal of Sun Yat-sen University, Issue 3, 1965) is very useful for understanding the recording situation.
Look through the bibliography and don’t be intimidated by the variety of previous works. To study by yourself, you should be good at choosing. When I was young, I always fantasized about reading all the books in the world. In fact, life is limited, and there are not many books that a person can read from beginning to end in his lifetime. If you read a lot of books without any choice and cannot digest them, it will not be of much use. The "two-legged bookcase" satirized in the novel "Xi Duo" serves as a warning. I suggest dividing the books you want to read into two categories, one is intensive reading and the other is general reading. The book for intensive reading must be a good book that is really necessary for you. No matter how many volumes it is, you must read it thoroughly and understand it. If you can read one or two such books a year, you will benefit a lot. You may wish to expand the scope of the books you read in order to broaden your horizons, but in order to conserve your energy, there should not be too many. When I was studying oracle bones, I tried to read all the relevant treatises, and spent a lot of unnecessary effort. There is a thread-bound book about oracle bones. There are many volumes. I borrowed it from the library and spent several days reading through it. I gained nothing. I should have stopped here. I also managed to borrow an unpublished manuscript by the same author, which was longer. I read it for many days but was still disappointed. Self-learners have limited energy. If this kind of book is not for writing academic history, it seems that it can be read slowly.
Finally, I would like to talk about writing.
I think it is very important to practice writing. If you have learned to a certain extent and can generate some insights, you should try writing a paper. If you are too cautious and refuse to write for a long time, you will easily fall into the shortcomings of being too ambitious and too weak. However, the paper should have new insights. If it is not original, then there is no need to write it, at least not to publish it. Creativity often contradicts traditional stereotypes, and it takes a lot of courage to break stereotypes. Some people say: The characteristic of science is that it is never "orthodox", which means that research work must be constantly innovative. Li Zhuowu said that one should be courageous, knowledgeable, and talented in studying and writing. The so-called courage is the courage to overcome difficulties and get rid of prejudices. In the study of paleography, if you want to establish a new theory, you sometimes have to go through many years of debate. Without determination and courage, it is difficult to persist. However, to have courage, you must also have knowledge. The so-called knowledge, I think, is the spirit of seeking truth from facts and the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Without hard work and real insight, although there is what Li Zhuowu calls "twenty percent courage", the result can only be the opposite.
I personally know very little about ancient philology, and my academic ability is very limited. I am just talking about it, but I don’t know if there is enough reference for young friends. As for the basic knowledge of paleography, there will be opportunities to introduce it in the future. I wish you all the best in your self-study.