Forward

When Chinese people say“人同此心，心同此理”（Everyone feels and thinks the same about this），they mean for certain matters and issues，most people feel and think alike．For example，when two people meet，one greets“你好”（literally meaning“you well”），which is similar to the western greetings of“How do you do”or“How are you”．When hearing this，the other person would usually say“你好”．Such daily greetings are meant to wish someone to be physically well．Obviously，a healthy body is a public concern．A healthy body makes it possible for an individual's life to bloom with happiness．Should there be any problem with any part of the body，a person would have no energy or strength，and all his or her work，life，fame，fortune and wealth would become bleak．Therefore，people will pay more attention to their body．

Likewise，what people feel most familiar with is their body．When Chinese ancestors created the Chinese characters，they probably got inspirations from the observation of the human bodies and the universe．And this is what The Great Treatise Ⅱ of The Book of Changes says“近取诸身，远取诸物”．At the early stage of the creation of the Chinese characters，the ancient people got to know the world following an observing order from objects in the natural world to human beings to man-made things．And later with conceptualization and imagination，the ancient people developed metaphors and analogies．All the things in the natural world have their shapes，colors and sounds，and later were given human understanding of their concepts，meaning and pragmatic use．Gradually，in oracles created in the Wu Ding Period of the late Shang Dynasty as early as 3，000 years ago，Chinese characters related to human body were already plenty．Among these characters，there are ones depicting various features of the human body，the head and neck，the chest and stomach，the limbs，the life and death，etc．And these words had already formed a relatively standard system．Such development and maturity of Chinese characters symbolize the emergence of Chinese civilization．

When explaining Chinese characters，Chinese literature usually refers to“六书”（Liù Shū in Chinese，six categories of Chinese characters），namely指事（zhǐ shì）、象形（xiànɡxínɡ）、形声（xínɡshēnɡ）、会意（huì yì）、转注（zhuǎn zhù）、假借（jiǎjiè）（indicative characters or ideograms，pictographs，pictophonetic characters，associative compounds，mutually explanatory characters and phonetic loan characters）．The first four categories are creating methods of Chinese character，which enable new coinage of characters while the last two are just using methods without the function of creating new words．According to Shuo Wen Jie Zi （explaining graphs and analyzing characters），the earliest dictionary in China by Xu Shen of the Han Dynasty（hereafter referred to as Shuo Wen ），it elaborates on the six categories of Chinese characters．Indicative characters or ideograms means the form or structure of the characters seem to be self-explanatory，but the meaning of such characters can only be understood by further examination．For example，上（up）and下（down）are such characters．Pictographs are words depicting the shape of the objects with the strokes representing similar or same frames and waves of the natural things．日（the sun）and月（the moon）are instances of such characters．Pictophonetic characters are words which are compounded with phonetic and semantic elements according to the pronunciation and the meaning of the character．Characters of江（river）and河（waterway）are typical examples of such pictophonetic characters．Associative compounds are characters made up of at least two semantic components，for instance，武（military）and信（letter）．Mutually explanatory characters are variation of or derivation from a root character and are of the same meaning with the original root word．Examples of such words are考（old man）and老（old man）．Phonetic loan characters are words with a sound similar to the name used to refer to something or some events which does not have a particular character for the concept itself，such as令（order）and长（grow or long）．

When referring to ancient Chinese characters，Chinese literature often mentions oracles，bronze inscriptions，large seal scripts，ancient scripts of the Warring States Period，and small seal scripts．What are the distinctions among these five categories of scripts？

Oracle bone scripts were characters used for practicing augury and divination．Shells are usually the belly or back shells of tortoises．Bones are animal bones of bulls，sheep，deer and pigs．In the Shang Dynasty，the animal bones used for augury were mainly the shoulder blade of bulls．Oracles are characters written on tortoise shells or animal bones with the content expressed in relation to the augury practices．Oracle inscriptions or bone inscriptions are the earliest mature characters in Chinese．契means carving inscriptions．In Decade of Wen Wang ， Greater Odes of the Kingdom ， The Book of Odes and Hymns ，it says“爰始爰谋，爰契我龟”．In translation，this sentence means“there he began with consulting［his followers］；there he singed the tortoise-shell，［and divined］”．And it says in Zheng Jian （Zheng Xuan's Commentary on Mao's version of The Book of Odes and Hymns ）“于是契灼其龟而卜之”（And then they carve and burn the shells and bones to practice augury and divination）．According to the literature and materials，there are altogether over 4，600 characters used in the oracle inscriptions，among which around 1，000 words are now readable and interpretable with years of investigation by experts．

In 1933，Dong Zuobin published a book entitled Case Studies on Ora cles of Different Historical Periods ．In this book，he divided the evolution of oracles into five stages，namely：

Stage 1：Xiaoyi（小乙），Wuding（武丁）and Pangeng（盘庚），Xiaoxin（小辛）（four kings of two generations．Among these four kings，Xiaoyi and Wuding were father and son and Pangeng，Xiaoxin and Xiaoyi were brothers．）

Stage 2：Zugeng（祖庚），Zujia（祖甲）（two kings of one generation who were brothers）

Stage 3：Bingxin（廪辛），Kangding（康丁）（two kings of one generation who were brothers）

Stage 4：Wuyi（武乙），Wending（文丁）（two kings of two generations who were father and son）

Stage 5：Diyi（帝乙），Dixin（帝辛）or Zhou（纣）（two kings of two generations who were father and son）

During these five stages，there were altogether 12 kings of eight generations over the 254 years between 1300 BC and 1046 BC from King Xiaoxin to Dixin．The timeline can be extended to over 270 years if the assumed reigning time of 20 years under King Pangeng's ruling were added in the calculation．The division of these five stages was made according to ten standards，which are kinship，title and addressing terms，the augury officials，evacuation sites，polis or city states，figures，events，grammar，character forms and script types．

Chinese bronze inscriptions are characters carved on the bronze wares from the Zhou Dynasty（1046 BC－256 BC）．Because many of these characters were inscribed or cast on the surface of the ritual wares of Ding（tripods usually regarded as a symbol of status）and Zhong（chimes used for music in worshipping rituals），these bronze inscriptions are also called Zhong Ding inscriptions（Tripod and Chime Scripts）．Until now，about 14，000 passages of bronze inscriptions have been found with 10，000 or so passages of Shang and Zhou bronze inscriptions，and over 3，000 passages of bronze inscriptions from the Warring States Period（475 BC－221 BC）．According to the Collection of Bronze Inscriptions （4th edition）by Rong Geng，there are 3，722 bronze inscription characters in total with 2，420 characters legible and around 1，000 illegible．It is likely that Xu Shen could have seen bronze inscriptions．

籀文（zhòu wén in Chinese，meaning large seal scripts）in Shuo Wen by Xu Shen or the large seal scripts were characters from the Warring States Period．According to a modern scholar，there are 223 large seal script characters in Shuo Wen or 225 characters．籀文collected in Shuo Wen were characters from the Warring States Period which were seen by people from the Han Dynasty（202 BC－220 AD）．The large seal script characters were originally taken from the History of Zhou Chapter written by史籀（Shǐ Zhòu），a historiographer from King Xuan of the Zhou Dynasty（？－782 BC）．

The so-called古文（ɡǔ wén，ancient scripts）in Shuo Wen were also characters from the Warring States Period in Chinese history．According to the study by Wang Guowei（1877 AD－1927 AD），a renowned Chinese master of ancient characters and classic literature，there were about 500（or 510）characters．The ancient scripts collected in Shuo Wen were characters from the Warring States Period seen by people in the Han Dynasty，mainly taken from the so-called“壁中书”（bì zhōnɡshū），which means Confucius Books hidden in the wall，are some ancient classic books written by descendants of Confucius in scripts popular in the Warring States Period．These classic books were carefully placed and well hidden in a wall during the Qin Dynasty（221 BC－207 BC）so as to be protected from being burned out by Emperor Qin Shihuang（the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty）．Just as Shuo Wen indicates，“古文，孔子壁中书也”（The ancient scripts were the scripts from the Confucius Books hidden in the wall）．The ancient scripts were also said to be taken from ancient classic books donated by ordinary people such as Zhou Guan （ The Rites of Zhou ）， Mao Shi （ Mao's Version of Book of Odes and Hymns ）which were donated by King Hejian from the Han Dynasty．

As for the forms of the characters，large seal scripts stood for official style forms and the original complex forms，while the ancient scripts were regarded as ordinary non-official style and simplified forms．Large seal scripts were used in the literacy textbook in the Zhou Dynasty and therefore these large seal scripts look complex but orderly，neat and formal．The ancient scripts were characters used in handwriting copies．Therefore，they were usually non-official and popular among ordinary people with simplified forms or informal folk forms．For example，the character弃（discard，abandon）was written in two distinctive forms as in large seal script and in ancient script．Another instance can be found in雷（thunder）with the formal large seal script written as and the informal ancient script as ．Compared with other scripts in the Warring States Period，the large seal scripts were similar to inscriptions on drum-shaped stone blocks（石鼓文，shíɡǔ wén），while the ancient scripts were similar to inscriptions on pottery，seals and ancient currencies．

The small seal scripts（小篆）were characters used after the unity of the Qin Dynasty．During the Warring States Period，the six states had their own distinctive characters．In 221 BC，Emperor Qin Shihuang united the six states，abolished the paleography in the former six states，and formed a consolidated official character system based on the small seal scripts．The characters used the rock inscription on Mount Tai by Li Si，Emperor Qin Shihuang's Prime Minister were in small seal scripts．The large number of characters kept in Shuo Wen were also in small seal scripts．There were，however，also some doubts about this argument．In June，2002，over 36，000 bamboo slips were taken out of a dried well in Longshan County，Hunan Province．These were the official archive files for over a decade in the State of Qin and were called Li Ye Qin Jian（Li Ye Bamboo Slips of the Qin Dynasty）．All the characters were written in Qin clerical script without any official small seal script on any of the slips．

There are altogether 9，353 characters collected and interpreted in Shuo Wen by Xu Shen（about58 AD－147 AD），the Eastern Han Dynasty（25 AD－220 AD），and there are another 1，163 variants form characters．Xu Shen categorized characters into 540 radicals，analyzed the forms and original sense of the characters by applying the theory of六书（six categories of Chinese characters）and annotating the ancient phonetic features．He also quoted other scholars'explanation and cited examples from ancient literature．He devoted all his life to the writing of Shuo Wen and it can be said that every character in this book represents the traditional spirit of Chinese etymology research．Without Shuo Wen ，the oracles from the Shang Dynasty（about 1600 BC－1046 BC）and bronze inscriptions from the Western Zhou Dynasty（about 1046 BC－771 BC）would be a large number of characters remaining illegible to us．With Shuo Wen ，we are enabled to know about ancient characters as Shuo Wen bridged the information gap about ancient characters with the records，collection，and interpretation of the ancient scripts and seal scripts．

The arrangement of this book takes the following format．Firstly，the character and its forms in oracles，bronze inscriptions and small seal scripts are represented and for some characters，the ancient script forms and large seal scripts from Shuo Wen are provided．Next，the explanation to the characters by Xu Shen is quoted and commented．Thirdly，the analysis of forms，the original meaning，extended meaning or loan meaning of these characters are provided．Fourthly，examples from Chinese ancient literature are given to illustrate the original and extended meanings of the characters．The book tries to interpret every character in an accurate，informative，scientific and interesting way．For some of the characters with divergent opinions，at least two to three examples or several typical comments from other scholars are provided for reference．

This book，despite the efforts made in the compiling and writing process，cannot in the nature of things be free from error．And therefore，comments and criticism from experts and researchers are welcome． chAp3zJ/OCOpi/U38CLzjpVx1QKYipj8cUSv5CSSatZbqWtZlnVm8IV7d3jMDxhr