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SHUN 舜 AND THE INTERPRETATION OF EARLY ORTHOGRAPHICAL VARIATION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2018

Jonathan M. Smith
Jonathan M. Smith*
Affiliation:
Jonathan M. Smith, 趙納川, Christopher Newport University; [email protected].
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Abstract

Ji Xusheng's 季旭昇 account of the character 〈舜〉 as a derivative of 〈夋〉 and ultimately of 〈允〉 by reference to Warring States excavated manuscript evidence, recently elaborated by Adam Smith in these pages, appears to clear up the mystery of Shun's 舜 doppelgänger—Jun 俊—in the Shanhai jing 山海經. However, while Ji's observations are of value, there is danger in treating early orthographical variation of this kind with one eye on an interpretive problem from the received texts. In this case, attested variation shows clearly that the form 〈舜〉 was no such derivative, its peculiar origins arguably “large and useless” from a textual critical point view.

提要

季旭昇教授將“舜”字理解為“夋”、“允”字的變體或分化字似乎進一步旁證了舜與《山海經》中帝俊之間的關係，上一期《古代中國》中 Adam D. Smith (亞當)教授又拓展了這種分析。此說法雖能解釋一些問題，但藉傳世文獻中未解之謎推斷異體字演變順序的方法有時難免失於牽強。本文闡述了“舜”字並非源於此種分化字，證明了“舜”字的神奇來源於校勘學其實是“大而無用”的。

Keywords

ShunOrthographical VariationPaleography舜古異體字古文字學
Type
Research Notes
Information
Early China , Volume 41 , 2018 , pp. 415 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Study of Early China and Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 Xusheng, Ji, “Du Guodian, Shangbo jian wu ti: Shun, he hu, shen er yi, qiang you ci, wan qiu” 讀郭店、上博簡五題：舜、河滸、紳而易、牆有茨、宛丘, Zhongguo wenzi 中國文字 new ser. 27 (2001), 113–20Google Scholar; Smith, Adam D., “Early Chinese Manuscript Writings for the Name of the Sage Emperor Shun 舜, and the Legacy of Warring States-Period Orthographic Variation in Early Chinese Received Texts,” Early China 40 (2017), 63–88Google Scholar.

2 Smith, “Early Chinese Manuscript Writings,” 73.

3 The glyph 〈炎〉 usually writes Middle Chinese (MC) hjem > yan 2 ‘flame; burn’ (MC throughout is after Baxter, William H., A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology [Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992])CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In C–H, Guwen 古文 “Ancient Script” is a Han-era designation (and misnomer) for then-obsolete glyphs of innovating Warring States traditions; see Smith, “Early Chinese Manuscript Writings,” 77–80. The six forms of 〈舜〉 shown are (C) Lesser Seal (xiaozhuan 小篆) and (D) Guwen renderings from the Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1998) as they are shown at Smith, “Early Chinese Manuscript Writings,” 70; (E) the Shuowen Guwen headword Shun 舜 from the Kangxi zidian 康熙字典 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1980), 1008; (F) a Hanjian 汗簡 Guwen form from Huang Xiquan 黃錫全, Hanjian zhushi 汗簡注釋 (Taipei: Taiwan guji, 2005), 181, to which compare Smith, “Early Chinese Manuscript Writings,” 70; (G) a Guwen form of 〈蕣〉 also from Hanjian zhushi, 23; and (H) one of numerous Han-era personal Seal forms from Luo Fuyi’s 羅福頤 (1905–81) Hanyin wenzi zheng 漢印文字徵 as presented at Gu wenzi gulin 古文字詁林 (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu, 1999–2004), vol. 5, 690.

4 See Ji, “Du Guodian, Shangbo jian wu ti,” 117.

5 Smith, “Early Chinese Manuscript Writings,” 70.

6 Smith, “Early Chinese Manuscript Writings,” 78.

7 Shan, Ding, Zhongguo gudai zongjiao yu shenhua kao 中國古代宗教與神話考 (Shanghai: Longmen lianhe, 1961), 84Google Scholar. Referring to the two Seal forms, the author notes that they are “similar as regards both pronunciation and form and in ancient times were perhaps at first the same character” 音形俱相似，在古代可能本是一字.

8 Baxter, William H. and Sagart, Laurent, Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 78, 103.

9 The rest of the answer is the Old Chinese source of MC -w- in ‘Shun’: here I am happy to accept Schuessler’s final *-wins for OC proper (see Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese: A Companion to Grammata Serica Recensa [Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009], 321), though indications for a complex onset at an early stage (see below) mean there are other possibilities.

10 There is no consensus regarding interpretation of the relevant portion of the inscription in question, found on two Middle Western Zhou bronze steamers termed Yin ji li 尹姞鬲 (Jicheng 754), or regarding the small number of directly derivative Bronze Inscriptional characters. Ahead of further study, I would neither advocate nor rule out the possibility that the puzzling phrase here (regularized as sheng lin ming 聖粦明) refers to “the sagacity of the sage Shun 舜.” For discussion of the inscription, see for instance Xie Naihe 謝乃和, “Jinwen zhong suo jian Xi-Zhou wanghou shiji kao” 金文中所見西周王后事蹟考, Huaxia kaogu 華夏考古 2008.3, 142–52.

11 Best on these points is Du Zhonggao 杜忠誥, “Gu wenzi xingti yanjiu wu ze” 古文字形體研究五則; I have reference to the remarks on lin 粦 therein that are reprinted at Gu wenzi gulin, vol. 8, 735–37.

12 See Schuessler, Axel, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007)Google Scholar, 277.

13 See Zhongshu, Xu, Jiaguwen zidian 甲骨文字典 (Chengdu: Sichuan cishu, 1998)Google Scholar, 69.

14 The word has *s- in Northern Min dialects, perhaps suggesting an earlier cluster; see Zulin, Mei 梅祖麟 and Jierui, Luo 羅杰瑞 (Jerry Norman), “Shi lun jige Minbei fangyan zhong de s- sheng Lai mu zi” 試論幾個閩北方言中的s-聲來母字, Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 9.1 (1971), 96–105Google Scholar. Schuessler (ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, 360) cites a Proto-Kam–Sui *krin5 ‘scales’. Also, ‘scales’ and ‘flickering lights’ could of course in theory be the same word.

15 Lai Wenying 賴文英, Xinwu xiang Lüwu Fengshun qiang Kehua yanjiu 新屋鄉呂屋豐順腔客話研究, Master’s Thesis, National Kaohsiung Normal University, 2004, presents on p. 137 Thai lin41, Dong 侗 (= Kam) lan6, Bunong 布儂 (Northern Tai) lin6, Daide 傣德 (Southwestern Tai) ket9lin6, Zhangzhou 漳州 (Southern Min) la5li3, Meixian 梅縣 (Hakka) le5li3, and Xinwu Fengshun 新屋豐順 (Hakka) lien2li1, among others. Also compare the southern contributions to the national language lingli 鯪狸 and lianli 鰱鯉, both ‘pangolin’.

16 Shanhai jing, “Zhongshan jing” 中山經 (Sibu congkan chubian 四部叢刊初編 ed. vol. 466), 26b–27a; see also Ding, Zhongguo gudai zongjiao yu shenhua kao, 84. This is part of the core Shan jing 山經 “Classic of Mountains” portion of the text, dating perhaps to the Warring States period and by no means exclusively fantastic material (the description here is spot-on, arguably excepting the claimed therapeutic effects of consumption). Guo Pu’s 郭璞 (276–324 c.e.) commentary says of the name lin 獜 that it “means its body has scales [linjia 鱗甲]; the pronunciation is (MC) linH 吝”: 言體有鱗甲，音吝; the contrast with the typical MC level tone reading is of interest.

17 For OC forms of ‘old unmarried man’, see Schuessler, Minimal Old Chinese, 334. The idea of an Austronesian–Chinese connection here is not new; see Lai, Xinwu xiang Lüwu Fengshun qiang Kehua yanjiu, 137, and also Williams, Samuel Wells, Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language (Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1896), 541Google Scholar, where lin 獜 is defined as “a name for the scaly manis or pangolin, and perhaps this character imitates the last syllable of its Javanese name pangiling.”