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Jizhong Discovery
The Jizhong (汲冢 or Jijun 汲君, northern part of present Henan) discovery in AD 279 is an important event in the paleography of ancient China, recorded in the ''Book of Jin''. A grave robber Biao Zhun 不準 broke into the tomb of King Xiang of Wei (r. 318–296 BC) and found there a corpus of ancient bamboo slips. Their discovery became a source of textological studies that had been impossible since the editorial work of Liu Xiang and Liu Xin of Han. The importance of the Jizhong discovery is compared to the Guodian discovery for the modern scholarship. The initial editorial work for the found slips was done by Xun Xu (d. 289), Director of the Imperial Library, though it was questioned by his successors. Among his editions, only two have survived; the large number of quotations shows the extent of Xun Xu work's influence. Among Jizhong texts, the most profound influence was the ''Bamboo Annals'', but the ''Bamboo Annals'' was not the only text retrieved. Collectively kno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henan
Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is also applied to the entirety of China proper. Henan is a birthplace of Han Chinese civilization, with over 3,200 years of recorded history and remained China's cultural, economic and political center until approximately 1,000 years ago. Henan Province is home to many heritage sites, including the ruins of Shang dynasty capital city Yin and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the Eight Great Ancient Capitals of China, Luoyang, Anyang, Kaifeng and Zhengzhou, are in Henan. The practice of tai chi also began here in Chen Jia Gou Village (Chen style), as did the later Yang and Wu styles. Although the name of the province () means "south of the ellowriver.", approximately a quarter of the province lies north of the Yellow River, also known as the Hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tale Of King Mu
The ''Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven'' ()Literally "Mu(,) Heaven('s) Son('s) Tale". "Son of Heaven" is a designation for a sovereign of China, and the word used for tale is often a biography or history. is a fantasy version of the travels of King Mu of Zhou, historical fifth sovereign of the Zhou dynasty of China, r. 976–922 BCE or 956–918 BCE. The written originals of the fantasy biography of King Mu and a biography of his mother were found along with the '' Bamboo Annals'' in the tomb of Wei Xiang-zi (d. 296 BCE), king of Wei, rediscovered in 281 CE during the Jin dynasty (266–420), after which they were merged into a single tale during transmission. Transmitted are four textual lineages which became independent from the original. Later versions were sometimes called ''Zhou Wang Youxing'', literally "(The) Zhou King('s) Travels" or "Travels of the Zhou King". Contents King Mu dreamed of being an immortal. He determined to visit the Western heavenly paradise of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yi Zhou Shu
The ''Yi Zhou Shu'' () is a compendium of Chinese historical documents about the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE). Its textual history began with a (4th century BCE) text/compendium known as the ''Zhou Shu'' ("Book of Zhou"), which was possibly not differentiated from the corpus of the same name in the extant ''Book of Documents''. Western Han dynasty (202 BC-AD 9) editors listed 70 chapters of YZS, of which 59 are extant as texts, and the rest only as chapter titles. Such condition is described for the first time by Wang Shihan (王士漢) in 1669. Circulation ways of the individual chapters before that point (merging of different texts or single text's editions, substitution, addition, conflation with commentaries etc.) are subject to scholarly debates (see below). Traditional Chinese historiography classified the ''Yi Zhou Shu'' as a ''zashi'' (雜史) "unofficial history" and excluded it from the canonical dynastic ''Twenty-Four Histories''. Titles This early Chinese hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Sui
The ''Book of Sui'' (''Suí Shū'') is the official history of the Sui dynasty. It ranks among the official Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written by Yan Shigu, Kong Yingda, and Zhangsun Wuji, with Wei Zheng as the lead author. In the third year of Zhenguan of the Tang dynasty (629), Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered Fang Xuanling to supervise the completion of the Book of Sui, which was being compiled around the same time as other official histories were being written. The Book of Sui was completed in 636 AD, the same year as the ''Book of Chen'' was completed. Contents The format used in the text follows the composite historical biography format (斷代紀傳體) established by Ban Gu in the '' Book of the Later Han'' with three sections: annals (紀), treatises (志), and biographies (傳). The extensive set of 30 treatises, sometimes translated as "monographs", in the ''Book of Sui'' was completed by a separate set of authors and added in 656 – 20 yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bowuzhi
''Bowuzhi'' (博物志; "Records of Diverse Matters") by Zhang Hua (c. 290 CE) was a compendium of Chinese stories about natural wonders and marvelous phenomena. It quotes from many early Chinese classics, and diversely includes subject matter from Chinese mythology, history, geography, and folklore. The ''Bowuzhi'', which is one of the first works in the literary genre of ''zhiguai'' "tales of anomalies; supernatural stories", records the earliest versions of several myths, such as the white '' yenü'' 野女 "wild women" living south of China in a society without men. Scholars have described the ''Bowuzhi'' as "a miscellany of scientific interest" and "an important minor classic". Author The ''Bowuzhi'' author Zhang Hua (232-300) was a Western Jin dynasty (265-316) scholar, poet, and protoscientist. His biography in the (644) ''Book of Jin'' depicts Zhang Hua as a ''fangshi'' "master of esoterica" who was especially skilled at numerological arts, and a voracious collector of bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhang Hua
Zhang Hua (232–7 May 300According to Sima Zhong's biography in ''Book of Jin'', Zhang Hua was killed on the ''guisi'' day of the 4th month of the 1st year of the ''Yongkang'' era of his reign. This corresponds to 7 May 300 永康元年夏四月)癸巳，梁王肜、赵王伦矫诏废贾后为庶人，司空张华、尚书仆射裴𬱟皆遇害...)''Jin Shu'', vol.04), courtesy name Maoxian, was a Chinese poet and politician of the Jin dynasty. He previously served in the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period. He authored ''Bowuzhi'', a compendium of stories about the supernatural. Background and service under Wei Zhang Hua's father, Zhang Ping (), was a commandery administrator in the Cao Wei state during the Three Kingdoms period. He died when Zhang Hua was still young. Zhang Hua's family became impoverished, and he was a shepherd when he was young. The official Liu Fang () was so impressed with Zhang Hua that he arranged for Zhang Hua to marry his daughter. Zh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shan Hai Jing
The ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'', also known as ''Shan Hai Jing'', formerly romanized as the ''Shan-hai Ching'', is a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and beasts. Early versions of the text may have existed since the 4th century BCE, but the present form was not reached until the early Han dynasty. It is largely a fabulous geographical and cultural account of pre-Qin China as well as a collection of Chinese mythology. The book is divided into eighteen sections; it describes over 550 mountains and 300 channels. Authorship The exact author(s) of the book and the time it was written are still undetermined. It was originally thought that mythical figures such as Yu the Great or Boyi wrote the book. However, the consensus among modern Sinologists is that the book was not written at a single time by a single author, but rather by numerous people from the period of the Warring States to the beginning of the Han dynasty. The first known editor of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fangyan (book)
The ''Fāngyán'' (), compiled by the Han dynasty poet and philosopher Yang Xiong (53 BCE – 18 CE), was the first Chinese dictionary of regionalisms. Translations of this ancient dictionary's title include: 'regional words', 'regional expressions', 'dictionary of local expressions', and 'regional spoken words'. Yang Xiong's ''Fangyan'' is considered the "most significant lexicographic work" of the Western Han. His dictionary's preface explains how he spent 27 years amassing and collating the dictionary. Yang collected regionalisms from many sources, particularly the ''yóuxuān'' ( 'light carriage') surveys, which were a Zhou and Qin dynasty tradition of annually sending imperial emissaries into the countryside to gather folk songs and popular sayings, which recorded localisms from all over China and as far north as Korea. The ''Fangyans full title is ''Yóuxuān shǐzhě juédài yǔ shì biéguó fāngyán'' (, 'Local expressions of other countries in times immemorial expla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sancang
The ''Cangjiepian'', also known as the ''Three Chapters'' (, ''sāncāng''), was a BCE Chinese primer and a prototype for Chinese dictionaries. Li Si, Chancellor of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE), compiled it for the purpose of reforming written Chinese into the new orthographic standard Small Seal Script. Beginning in the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 221 CE), many scholars and lexicographers expanded and annotated the ''Cangjiepian''. By the end of the Tang dynasty (618–907), it had become a lost work, but in 1977, archeologists discovered a cache of (c. 165 BCE) texts written on bamboo strips, including fragments of the ''Cangjiepian''. Title The eponymous ''Cangjiepian'' title derives from the culture hero Cangjie, the legendary Yellow Emperor's historian and inventor of Chinese writing. According to Chinese mythology, Cangjie, who had four eyes and remarkable cognizance, created Chinese characters after observing natural phenomena such as the footprints of birds and animals. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erya
The ''Erya'' or ''Erh-ya'' is the first surviving Chinese dictionary. Bernhard Karlgren (1931:49) concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from the 3rd century BC." Title Chinese scholars interpret the first title character ''ěr'' (; "you, your; adverbial suffix") as a phonetic loan character for the homophonous ''ěr'' (; "near; close; approach"), and believe the second ''yǎ'' (; "proper; correct; refined; elegant") refers to words or language.''Shiming (Explanations of Names)'"Explaining the Classics" versio [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zilin
The ''Zilin'' (; c. 350) or Forest of Characters was a Chinese dictionary compiled by the Jin dynasty (266–420) lexicographer Lü Chen (呂忱). It contained 12,824 character head entries, organized by the 540- radical system of the ''Shuowen Jiezi''. In the history of Chinese lexicography, the ''Zilin'' followed the ''Shuowen Jiezi'' (121; with 9,353 character entries) and preceded the ''Yupian'' (c. 543; with 12,158 entries). Text Lü Chen compiled the ''Zilin'' to supplement the ''Shuowen jiezi'', and included more the 3,000 uncommon and variant Chinese characters. Yong and Peng describe the ''Zilin'' as a "more influential character dictionary" than the ''Shuowen jiezi''. Lü Chen's younger brother Lü Jing (呂靜) was also a lexicographer, who compiled the '' Yunji'' (韻集; "Assembly of Rimes"; c. 280). Other than their dictionaries, little is known about either brother. The title ''Zilin'', translated as "Forest of Characters" or "The Character Forest", combines ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shuowen Jiezi
''Shuowen Jiezi'' () is an ancient Chinese dictionary from the Han dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the '' Erya'' predates it), it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them, as well as the first to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components called radicals (''bùshǒu'' 部首, lit. "section headers"). Circumstances of compilation Xu Shen, a Han Dynasty scholar of the Five Classics, compiled the ''Shuowen Jiezi''. He finished editing it in 100 CE, but due to an unfavorable imperial attitude towards scholarship, he waited until 121 CE before having his son Xǔ Chōng present it to Emperor An of Han along with a memorial. In analyzing the structure of characters and defining the words represented by them, Xu Shen strove to disambiguate the meaning of the pre-Han Classics, so as to render their usage by government unquestioned and bring about order, and in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
