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A Study of the Handwriting of the Tsinghua Bamboo-Slip Manuscripts *Shi fa and *Zi Chan

清華簡《筮法》與《子產》字迹研究

In: Bamboo and Silk
Author:
松儒 李 Jilin University School of Humanities (吉林大學文學院) Changchun (長春)

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Abstract

*Zi Chan in Volume 6 and *Shi fa in Volume 4 of Tsinghua University Collection of Warring States Bamboo-slip Manuscripts were written by one scribe. This study aims to use features of the brushwork to demonstrate this. In addition, this study will also examine physical features of the bamboo slips, handwriting, character forms, the orthography of different states, punctuation marks, erasures, and the binding of the bamboo slips. The texts of both manuscripts were first written and then bound. Research on the arrangement of *Shi fa and the layout of its text enriches our understanding about the activity of writing among Pre-Qin people, how ancient books were compiled, and how scrolls were opened.

摘要

清華四《筮法》與清華六《子産》是由同一抄手所寫的兩篇文本,本文通過兩篇字迹的運筆特徵、筆畫搭配比例、文字寫法等方面的特徵對比來證明兩篇字迹的同一性,並從竹簡形制、字跡特徵、國别特徵、標識符號特徵、刮削改寫、竹簡的編聯等方面對兩篇竹書進行了研究。《筮法》與《子産》均是先寫後編而成的,通過對《筮法》的編聯方式及書寫布局的研究,豐富了我們對先秦人們的書寫活動、古書的編聯及收卷方式等方面的認識。

In the sixth volume of Tsinghua University Collection of Warring States Bamboo-slip Manuscripts, there are six texts: Zheng Wu furen gui ruzi 鄭武夫人規孺子 (The wife of Zheng Wu advises the young son), Guan Zhong 管仲, two copies of *Zheng Wen gong wen Tai Bo 鄭文公問太伯 (Duke Wen of Zheng Asks Tai Bo) A & B, Zi Yi 子儀, and *Zi Chan 子產. The texts are well preserved, such that the handwriting is clearly visible. Among them, *Zi Chan was written by a scribe who also participated in writing the *Shi fa 筮法 (The Method of Milfoil Divination) text in the fourth volume of Tsinghua University Collection of Warring States Bamboo-slip Manuscripts. The other five texts were written by two different scribes.1 In the following, I will examine the handwriting and related issues of the two texts *Zi Chan and *Shi fa.

1 Formal Features and the Appearance of the Bamboo Slips

*Zi Chan includes 29 slips 45 centimeters in length and 0.6 centimeters wide. There is no title. There are obvious stripes on the backs of slips 22 to 25. Based on the position of the bamboo nodes seen on the backs of the slips, slips 1 to 21 came from a single bamboo culm, while slips 22 to 29 came from a separate culm (see Tables 1 and 2).

*Shi fa includes 63 slips 35 centimeters long and 0.6 centimeters wide. There is no title. The bottom front of the slips are numbered, and there are clear lines on the backs of the slips (slips 17 to 20 have two lines each). Based on the position of the bamboo nodes seen on the backs of the slips, slips 1 to 28 came from the same bamboo culm, slips 29 to 56 came from another, and slips 57 to 63 from a third culm (see Tables 1 and 3).

*Zi Chan is clearly organized, with characters written between the top and bottom binding straps, the distance between characters about a character and a half, each slip having between 26 and 30 characters. The writing is neat and orderly. Individual characters are written within a rectangular space, with both straight and curving strokes.

As of now, *Shi fa is the only Warring States bamboo manuscript that includes a diagram. According to the manuscript’s editor, “the entire text is written in columns, with a picture and tables inserted among the text, the form resembling a silk manuscript.” The editor also noted: “The text can be divided into 30 sections based on its content and structure.”2

Other than on slips 37 to 41 and 61 to 63, the characters of *Shi fa are written in columns, with a diagram inserted at the top of slips 42 to 60. According to the structure determined by the editor, the human figure is in the twenty-fourth section (see Diagram 1). Tables are found from slip 32 to slip 36 (see Diagram 1). The format of the characters is consistent. Therefore, the text was doubtless copied from an earlier text. This is because only handwriting based on a pre-existing model could render the form of *Shi fa so consistent. The characters of *Shifa are written closely together. This required great skill on the part of the scribe, since only such a scribe can properly control both the structure and distance between characters. The characters of *Shi fa occupy a rectangular space, using both straight and curving strokes. Based on the above analysis, both the text and the diagrams were executed by the same scribe.

Diagram 1
Table 1
Table 1

The formats of *Zi Chan and *Shi fa (measurements in cm)a

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

Table 2
Table 2

Bamboo culms used in *Zi Chan

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

Table 3
Table 3

Bamboo culms used in *Shi fa

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

The style of the handwriting of *Shi fa is measured; compared to *Shi fa, the handwriting of *Zi Chan is more casual. Based on the difference between *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the amount of space available exerted a limit on the handwriting. Within a limited space, the shape of characters and the handwriting were both controlled, providing a certain influence on the the handwriting of the scribe responsible for this text.

2 Features of Writing

Brushwork throughout the *Shi fa shows both straight and slanted strokes, whereas the *Zi Chan begins with slanted strokes, the start point is usually marked by sharp points, there is a balanced pressure exerted throughout the process of writing with the degree of curvature rather small, and a rather heavy hand forcing the brush down. This makes strokes seem relatively thick. Below I will analyze the special features of the calligraphy of the two texts.

In *Shi fa, most horizontal stokes start with straight strokes and maintain a steady hand, with strokes being even, and start and end points not distinct, such as . There are also some lines that start with a pointed slant stroke, with the motion of the brush tending to the right and the end of stroke tending downwards, such as . The start points of horizontal strokes in both *Shi fa and *Zi Chan are similar (see Table 4).

Table 4
Table 4

Comparison of horizontal stokes in *Shi fa and *Zi Chana

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

Vertical strokes in both *Shi fa and *Zi Chan begin with relatively sharp slanted strokes at the top, with then a slight pause to reinforce the beginning of the stroke, a downward push through the vertical part, and then with a sharp end, such as . Examples of this are shown in Table 5.

Table 5
Table 5

Comparison of vertical stokes in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

There are many curving strokes in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan. For instance, whereas other scribes of the Tsinghua manuscripts write left-slanting and right-slanting strokes as , in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan there are left and right curving strokes such as . Examples are shown in Table 6.

Table 6
Table 6

Comparison of curving stokes in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

Vertical strokes in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan are also often written as curving strokes, such as *Zi Chan 22, *Zi Chan 9, *Zi Chan 27, *Zi Chan 24. Thus, the overall effect is of curving strokes.

The style of writing within the *Shi fa shows some differences, such as between sections 26 and 29. Strokes in these two sections are straight, most of them with even beginnings. I believe the main reason for differences within the text is because of its overall layout. Being tabular and containing a picture, this imposes constraints on the writing, which had to be determined prior to it. Given this layout, the speed of writing would inevitably have been reduced.

3 Features of Corresponding Strokes

There are characters in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan in which components are relatively stable. Take the character qu as an example: *Shi fa 14, *Shi fa 16, *Shi fa 62, *Zi Chan 1. All of the strokes of the character you are written within the component, which is part of the character er .

In addition to the components of those characters that correspond with each other, strokes of other characters also correspond in some fixed ways, such as in the following characters.

3.1 Zhi

The four strokes of zhi can be represented by α, β, γ and δ, and the fixed location of each stroke can be shown by A, B and C, as follows: and . The character zhi occurs 41 times in *Shi fa. Of these, α and γ meet a little more than half-way up A, α and β are parallel, with their endpoints about one-third of the way from either end of δ: 35.

Zhi occurs twenty-one times in Zi Chan, in two different types. In one, α and γ meet just above the midpoint of A; α and β are not parallel, with β being relatively shorter; the angle made by where β and δ meet is larger than that of α and δ, β meets δ about one third from the left end of δ, and α meets δ about one third from the right of δ. There are 16 such examples: 1. However, there are five examples of zhi in *Zi Chan showing similar strokes as in *Shi fa: 11, 18, 21, 22, and 27. The same situation is seen in other characters that include the zhi component, such as zhi , written as 18, and tai , written as 7.

3.2 Zhi

The three strokes of the component zhi can be represented by α, β and γ: . In both *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the stroke γ of this component in the characters zheng and shi is written in the shape , and the point where β and γ meet is in the middle of the horizontal part of γ: . Examples include:

Table 7
Table 7

Comparing strokes of zhi

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

There is another situation with zhi in *Shi fa. The point where β and γ meet is at the end of γ: . Examples include: 24, 39, 57, 57, and 63. Among these characters, the character shi is once written as , in which γ is written as a slightly slanting stroke, in the shape of . However, this is an exception and not indicative of the scribe’s usual habit.

3.3 Chen

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the component of the character chen is written in the shape : *Shi fa 35, *Shi fa 35, *Zi Chan 9, *Zi Chan 10. However, other scribes responsible for the Tsinghua manuscripts wrote this component as a circular arc, such as Ruzi 4.

3.4 Xing

In both *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the top two strokes of the components chi and chu of the character xing are parallel, while the bottom strokes are not parallel, with a noticeable turn of the bottom strokes, and with the angle of curvature of the two strokes relatively similar: .

Table 8
Table 8

Comparing strokes of xing

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

3.5 Yu

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, characters having the component yu are written as:

Table 9
Table 9

Comparing strokes of yu

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

In both, the two small slant strokes of the component yu are written to the right of the vertical stroke of the character wang : .

3.6 Ren as a Character and as a Component

The two strokes of the character ren can be represented as α and β: . In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the stroke α in both the character ren and the component ren are written vertically. The starting point of β is at the midpoint of α, and it is also primarily vertical:

Table 10
Table 10

Comparing strokes of (component) ren

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

When compound characters are written left to right in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the stroke α in the component ren is curved left, the starting point of β is at the halfway point of α and then it bends before curving left as well, thus making the shape , as in the following examples:

Table 11
Table 11

Comparing strokes of the component ren , 1

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

When compound characters are written top to bottom in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the stroke α in the component ren at the bottom is curved left, and the starting point of β intersects the starting point of α, thus making the shape , as in the following examples:

Table 12
Table 12

Comparing strokes of the component ren , 2

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

In slip 5 of *Shi fa, there is one instance of the character ren written as . Looking at the picture, the point where α and β intersect is covered by the remnants of a string. The “Table of Character Shapes” lists it in the shape , yet a comparison of how the scribe writes the character and the component ren casts doubt on the facsimile. The character certainly differs from the character ren in slips 2 and 54, written , but it can be compared to an alternative way of writing ren in *Zi Chan, as in the examples below:

Table 13
Table 13

Alternative way of writing (component) ren in *Zi Chan

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

In these examples, the character and the component ren are written with stroke α curved left, the starting point of β is at the halfway point of α, and β is also somewhat curved, thus making the shape .

4 Writing Style and Features of Characters

4.1 Writing Style

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the writing style is relatively consistent, as demonstrated in the following examples:

Table 14
Table 14

Consistency of writing style across *Shi fa and *Zi Chan

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

Apart from the characters listed above, the writing style of some characters in *Zi Chan is fairly distinctive, as in: yuan written 23, jia written 14, zhai written 7, nan written 8, qi written 6, sui written 14, chong written 7, etc. Some further examples are as follows:

4.1.1 The Character qian

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the character qian is written:

Table 15
Table 15
The character qian

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

The upper part of qian is written in the shape while the lower part is written in the shape . The combination of the two parts differs from how the character is written in other Tsinghua manuscripts, as in Bao xun 3, Houfu 1, Ruzi 9, and Guan Zhong 9.

4.1.2 The Character shi

In *Shi fa, the character shi is written in two ways: 24 and 57. There are six examples that have the upper part written , while two examples have the upper part written .

In *Zi Chan, there are three instances of the character shi, and they are only written in one way: 10, 19, and 26. As shown, the upper part of the character shi in *Zi Chan is written , and is the same as one of the styles used to write the character shi in *Shi fa.

In the Tsinghua manuscripts published to date (Volumes 1–6), writing the upper part of the character shi as only occurs in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan. However, it does occur in the Shanghai Museum manuscripts, such as Zi Gao 10.

4.1.3 The Character er

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the character er is variously written as *Shi fa 5 or *Zi Chan 28. There are eight instances in *Shi fa of the character er written , whereas there is only a single example in *Zi Chan of it written . There are other compounds however that contain er as a component: *Shi fa 46, *Zi chan 5, and *Zi Chan 16. As shown, while there is a difference in how the individual word er is written in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, in compounds the way of writing the character is consistent.

4.1.4 The Component bei

In *Shifa, the component bei is written: 58, 31, 54, and 57. In *Zi Chan, it is written: 1, 15, 26, 27, 8, 11, and 22. In both *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the short left stroke and the starting point of the right slanting stroke intersect and go separate ways making a ∧ shape, as in .

4.1.5 The Component li

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the character li is variously written: *Shi fa 63 and *Zi Chan 15. In *Shi fa, there are compounds including the component li that are written: 3, 62, 7 and 34. In *Shi fa, there are twelve instances of the character nan . Among them, ten instances write li as , in one instance it is written , and in one instance it is written .

In *Zi Chan, there are compounds including the component li that are written: 1 2 7 7 17 17 28. As shown, the component li in *Zi Chan is always written , which is one of the styles used to write the same component in *Shi fa.

4.1.6 The Component hu

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, there are compounds including the component hu that are written:

Table 16
Table 16
The component hu

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

In *Shi fa, in compounds written top to bottom the component hu is usually written , but there is one instance where it is written ; this is probably due to a space restriction.

In *Zi Chan, the component hu is written in four ways: , , and . Among these, is most similar to the main style of the component in *Shi fa; in the vertical stroke on the right has been slightly lengthened; the style of writing and is similar to one another, which means that on the right the two vertical strokes both extend downward. However, most instances are in the form , which suggests that this is the main style of this component.

From the components li and hu shown above, the writing style in the *Shi fa and *Zi Chan is not altogether consistent. Even in one text, characters are written in slightly different ways. Below, I provide two more examples to show different styles of writing within the same text.

4.1.7 The Character wo

In *Zi Chan, there are three instances of the character wo . All of them, occurring on slip 19, are written . In *Zi Chan, there is also one instance of the character yi written as 25. In the compound yi , the component wo is written , which differs in style from how the character wo is written.

4.1.8 Characters Writing the Words wen and wen

In *Shi fa, the characters used to write the words wen and wen are written respectively:3 13 and 13. In Warring States bamboo slip manuscripts, the characters and have a mixed use, but mostly they are used to write the words wen and wen . As the two characters appear on the same slip and in the same section of text, Li Shoukui has pointed out that “the two characters are written differently seemingly with the intent to distinguish them.”4

4.2 The Phenomenon of One Character with Multiple Forms

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, there are many instances where one character is written with multiple forms. As mentioned, in *Shi fa, there are two ways to write the character shi : 24 and 57. Other examples include:

Table 17
Table 17

Characters with multiple forms

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

As the same scribe wrote *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, below we provide more examples of one character with multiple forms.

4.2.1 Zhe

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the character zhe is written in the following styles:

Table 18
Table 18
The character zhe

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

As shown, there are two styles of writing the character zhe in *Shifa, of which , with eleven instances, is the more common. In *Zi Chan, the character is written in three styles, and there is not much of a difference between and ; is a bit closer to how the character is written in *Shi fa.

4.2.2 Jian

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the characters shi and jian are written:

Table 19
Table 19
The characters shi and jian

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

In *Zi Chan, shi was interepreted as jian by the editors.5 However, through a comparison with in *Shi fa, which is understood as jian, Shan Yuchen has pointed out that on slip 5 of *Zi Chan should be interpreted as shi.6 This is credible since the scribe shows a tendency to write one character in multiple forms. In the manuscript Cheng ren 成人 in Qinghua 9, on slip 10 there is a sentence, “use things to ‘X’ its evil and lucky omens 用物 A 之妖祥”, with “X” written . The editors interpret X as the character jian and read it as xian . However, according to the usage of characters and words in canonical texts, X should be interpreted as shi 視(示) “reveal.”7 Although X is quite different from the character shi in Cheng ren, and should be the character jian , that it can also be interpreted and read shi is further suggested by its form on slip 5 of *Zi Chan. In Chu script, scribes had their own habits in regard to jian and shi .

4.2.3 Shen

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, the character shen is written either *Zi Chan 1 or *Shi fa 32.

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, it is common to see the addition of components or superfluous symbols thus creating the phenomenon of one character written with multiple forms. Examples include the word: zhong written *Shi fa 32 and *Zi Chan 4; xiao written *Shi fa 38, *Shi fa 41 and *Zi Chan 12; e written *Shi fa 13 and *Zi Chan 26; yi written *Shi fa 13 and *Shi fa 11; chen written *Shi fa 27 and *Shi fa 56; zhen written *Shi fa 49 and *Shi fa 45; zuo written *Shi fa 61 and *Shi fa 61; bang written *Shi fa 61, *Shi fa 30 and *Zi Chan 24; qu written *Shi fa 19 and *Shi fa 30; ru or nei written *Shi fa 8 and *Shi fa 24; xiang written *Shi fa 1 and *Shi fa 62; wei written *Shi fa 47, *Shi fa 55 and *Zi Chan 3; gan written *Shi fa 27 and *Shi fa 43; mian written *Zi Chan 1 and *Zi Chan 17; chi written *Zi Chan 7 and *Zi Chan 23; gu written *Zi Chan 2 and *Zi Chan 26; wei written *Zi Chan 3 and *Zi Chan 11; and the character chan in the name Zi Chan 子產 written *Zi Chan 7 and *Zi Chan 16, etc.

Due to the special nature of the writing and format in *Shi fa, we should also pay attention to the circumstances throughout the entire text of the distribution of character forms with one character written in multiple forms. The table below displays these examples:

Table 20
Table 20
Distribution of one character written in multiple ways in *Shi fa

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

4.3 A Single Character Form Writing Multiple Words

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, there are characters written in the same way representing different words. For example: *Zi Chan 9 represents the word bi and *Zi Chan 19 represents bei ; *Shi fa 8 represents ru , *Shi fa 42 represents nei and *Shi fa 14 represents ru ; *Zi Chan 20 represents and *Zi Chan 25 represents yi ; * Zi Chan 8 represents shao and *Zi Chan 12 represents xiao , etc.

5 The Writing of Numbers

In *Zi Chan, there are a relatively few characters representing numbers, whereas in *Shi fa there are many numbers in the main text.

Table 21
Table 21

The writing of numbers in *Shi fa and *Zi Chany

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

Using the characters , and to represent the numbers yi “one”, er “two” and san “three” respectively is commonly seen in Warring States manuscripts. In *Zi Chan, the number si “four” is written , which while common in oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, occurs only rarely in Chu manuscripts; examples are: Feng Xu 2 (three instances) and Ruzi 10. In *Shi fa, the number wu “five” is written and the number liu “six” is written . Previously, these forms rarely occurred in the main text of Warring States manuscripts.

Sometimes how numbers are written in the main text differs from how they are written as slip numbers. In *Shi fa, slip numbers occur at the bottom of the slip below the third binding cord; the number si “four” is written , and from slips nineteen to fifty-nine, the number jiu “nine” is written .8 This style of writing the number jiu also occurs on slip 22 of the Zhou Changes from the Shanghai Museum Manuscripts, where it is written .9 Although there is a slight difference in how numbers are written in the main text and as slip numbers, the exemplary features of the brushwork among the two groups of numbers are fundamentally the same. A comparison between the two is as follows:

Table 22
Table 22

Exemplary features of the brushwork in the main text of *Shi fa compared with slip numbers

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

As shown, the horizontal, vertical, and curved strokes writing numbers in the main text are consistent with the same strokes writing slip numbers. The writing of numbers in the main text occurring under numerical hexagrams is done carefully and neatly. Exemplary features of the brushwork, its direction, and rising and falling, are clearly unconcerned with formatting restrictions outside of the hexagram examples; for example, handwriting in sections 21, 22, 23, 28, 29 and 30 is easier to compare with the handwriting of the slip numbers. Thus, it is apparent that the same scribe wrote both the slip numbers and the the main text of *Shi fa.10

Among Warring States bamboo-slip manuscripts published to date, there are many differences between how numbers are written in the main text and how slip numbers are written. Numbers used for recording purposes are written in a more simplified style, just like how the numbers in the numerical hexagrams in *Shi fa are also written in a different style. One cause for this is due to historical development, whereas a second cause is due to space concerns. Even though pairs of numerical hexagrams are written over two slips and there is a bit more space right and left to write, the fact that these numbers function as symbols and together form a hexagram restricted how much space there was to write top to bottom and led to a compressed space. Through a comparison of “how numbers are written as numerical lines in mantic statements and as slip numbers,” Li Wanting concluded that “there was a difference in the way numbers were written in Chu during the Warring States, and that in some specialized books, how numbers were written depended on usage requirements.”11

6 Features of Characters and Writing Styles from Different States

Overall, *Shi fa and *Zi Chan are written with Chu characters, yet some characters are written in a style that differs from standard Chu characters. These differences are most likely related to the state or region from which an earlier version was copied. Characters retaining state or regional features have been much discussed by scholars,12 as for example Li Shoukui, who has posited that in *Shi fa “some of the characters in the text have characteristics of Three Jin States’ script, which suggests this text has a relatively intimate relationship with Jin.” Moreover, he has also said, “the inclusion of characters from Three Jin States’ script is a prominent feature of the Tsinghua Manuscripts … although some texts, overall, appear to be in Chu characters, but among them there are characters with features of Three Jin script,” for which he offers the characters xi , fan and zu as evidence.13 Qiu Xigui, in discussing how the style of some characters in *Shi fa reflects the issue of state affiliation, has posited “perhaps an original earlier version of this text came from Jin.”14 Li Xueqin, the editor of *Zi Chan, pointed out that the style of the character xin “is in the standard style of the Three Jin States’ tradition. The author or scribe of this text perhaps had a certain connection with the state of Zheng.”15 Zhao Ping’an has suggested that, in *Zi Chan, “the text contains a distinct Three Jin style of writing.”16 Their views are reliable. Below I provide further clear examples of characters written differently from the Chu script tradition.

6.1 Wei

The character read as wei in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan is written as *Shi fa 39 or *Zi Chan 28. Zhao Ping’an has noted that this character is written in the same style as the character read as sui in Jin Gong pen 晉公盆 (Jicheng 10342):17 or .

There is a character written on slip 2 of Cai Feng qu mu 采風曲目 in Volume 4 of the Shanghai Museum Manuscripts. Wang Tingbin has pointed out that this character has the same shape as the character wei in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan. However, as the character is in the last sentence of the slip, and as the upper half of slip 3 is broken so that it cannot be connected and read with other content, there is no way to be certain how the character should be read.18 Although the shape of character wei is also seen on slip 2 of Cai Feng qu mu, this character hardly appears in Chu script, but frequently appears in the Jin script tradition. Although one character can have different forms in Warring States writing, it does not mean that there is a clear distinction between the characters from different states. There are also instances of infiltration and borrowing. As there are many examples where state A’s script uses state B’s character forms, it cannot be assumed that if a certain character was once used by state B that it was definitely not a particular way of writing in state A’s script. Thus, from the frequency of the character wei , the way it is written can still be classified and placed in the Jin script tradition.

6.2 Zu

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, there is the character zu , which is read as cui in *Shi fa and as it is written in *Zi Chan:

FIG000410

In Chu script, the character zu is often written as Ruzi 1 or Guan Zhong 20. Writing zu as is an iconic feature of Chu script. However, the way zu appears in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan is different from how it is written in Chu script. Huang Jie and Liu Yun have pointed out that the way it is written in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan is the same as how it is written on slip 18, , of *Tang Yu zhi Dao 唐虞之道,19 a manuscript that is regarded as having features of Qi-Lu script.

6.3 Fu

In *Shi fa, there are two instances of the character fu : 23. In Chu script, fu is usually written with chuo and with fu : *Zi Chan 28. Huang Jie was the first to point out that the character fu in *Shi fa written with chi is different from the character fu written with chuo in Chu script.20 Guo Yongbing suggests that the head of the character in *Shi fa “is, fundamentally, the result of a corruption and abbreviation of the character found in the Wenxian Covenant Texts.”21 Qiu Xigui considered the upper part on the right of the character in *Shi fa to be like the upper right-hand part of fu in the Jin script tradition and how it is sometimes written in the Houma Covenant Texts and as in the Xing qi jade inscription 行氣玉銘.22 Examples are as follows:

Wenxian Covenant Texts WT1K17: 129

Houma Covenant Texts 79: 7

Houma Covenant Texts 92: 33

Xing qi-jade inscription

6.4 Fan

In *Shi fa, the character fan is written fan 𢓉: 40. In Chu script, it is usually written with chuo and fan , as in Xincai A.1.12. Li Shoukui pointed out that in *Shi fa, “fan has characteristics of Three Jin script.” He points to the character fan on the Zhongshan Wang Zici hu 中山王:23

Ming wen xuan 882

6.5 Xi

In *Shi fa, there are four instances of the character xi written 3. In Chu script, xi is commonly written Tai Bo (B) 8. Li Shoukui has pointed out that in *Shi fa the style of the character xi “has characteristics of Three Jin script.” This conclusion can be demonstrated through a comparison with the following:

FIG000432

The addition of an extra ‘ornamental’ stroke at the bottom of xi is similar to how it was written in Three Jin script.

6.6 Xia

In *Shi fa, there are four instances of the character xia written as 18.

In Chu script, xia is commonly written in the following forms:

FIG000434

Sun Hefei has pointed out that in the writing of xia in *Shi fa, below the component ri should be the component you , and should be transcribed as .24 This form can be compared with how the character is written in Three Jin script:

FIG000442

As shown, the component below ri in xia is similar to how it is written in Three Jin script.

6.7 Tai

In *Zi Chan, the character tai is written Zi Chan 7. In Chu script, tai is commonly written: Zi yi 14 and Guo dian · Lao zi (A) 26. Zhao Ping’an has pointed out that the writing of the character tai is “almost identical to how it is written on coins” in the Jin script tradition: : Huo xi 2479.

6.8 Xin

In *Zi Chan, there are eight occurences of the character xin , all of them written as *Zi Chan 1. In Chu script, the right part of xin is written , such as in Guo dian . Lao zi (C) 2. Li Xueqin, has pointed out that this way of writing xin is “commonly seen in the Warring States script tradition of the Three Jin.”25 Examples for comparison include:

FIG000455

6.9 Da

In *Zi Chan, the character da is written 13. In Chu script, da is commonly written as: Bao shan 119, Bao shan 111, or Bao shan 121. Zhao Ping’an has pointed out that this style of writing is “similar to that on Wenxian Covenant Texts Oath WT1K17:131”: .26

6.10 Ye

In *Shi fa, there are two instances of the character written 11. This character was previously unattested in Chu script. Li Shoukui has pointed out that a similarly formed character occurs in the Zhongshan Wang Cuo ding 中山王 inscription: Mingwen xuan 880. Apart from this, the character also occurs in the Houma Covenant Texts as Houma Covenant Texts 185: 9.

In addition to these examples pointed out by others, I have found three other characters whose forms match the Jin script tradition but do not match the Chu script tradition.

6.11 Yin

In *Zi Chan, the character yin is written *Zi Chan 14. In Chu script, it is commonly written Ruzi 7. In Chu script, the component kou in is commonly in the shape . But in *Zi Chan, kou is written , which is similar to how this component is written in the Jin and Qi script traditions, as for instance on the Zhongshan Wang fanghu 中山王方壺 (Jin) and Chen Gong Yinzi dun (Qi) inscriptions: Mingwen xuan 881 and Ji cheng 4649.

6.12 Shi 使

In *Zi Chan, the character shi 使 is written 16. In Chu script, it is often written as: Shang Bo · Zi gao 1, Shang Bo · Cong zheng (A) 17, Xi nian 87. In Three Jin script, shi 使 is written in the following ways:

FIG000481

Writing the character with the component chi must derive from Three Jin script.

6.13 Sheng

In *Shi fa, the character sheng is written 32. In Warring States manuscripts published to date, the character sheng is written in the following ways:

FIG000486

The upper part of sheng is perhaps sheng , or a corrupted form of it, and the lower part is the shape . Only in *Tang Yu zhi dao from the Guodian manuscripts is the lower part written with tian , and this manuscript is considered to be a copy that has features of Qi-Lu script.

In Three Jin script, the character sheng is written:

Ji cheng 2746

Mingwen xuan 880

Houma Convenant Texts 92:39

Wenxian Convenant Texts WT4K6:160

The lower part of sheng in *Shi fa written is exceptional. It is unlike in Chu manuscripts, but instead is similar to how the component is written in Three Jin script.

Of the characters occurring in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan mentioned above, while several occur in both Jin and Qi script, some forms in *Shi fa only occur elsewhere in Qi script, for instance the characters bing : 2 and bing : 45.

Bing is written differently in these two characters. The individual form of bing is written in a style frequently seen in Chu script, whereas when it is part of a compound it is written , which is different from how it is written in Chu script. In Chu script, the character bing is commonly written with the components ne and fang : Bao shan 243, Xin cai 0.209. In the Tsinghua manuscripts published to date, the character bing is written: Yue ming (zhong) 7, Xi nian 138, and *Zi Chan 17.

‘Changsha fu’ and Liu Yun have pointed out that the way this character is written is like the following characters in Qi script:27 Ji cheng 4152 and Ji cheng 10374. In terms of proportion, however, in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, more characters show features of the Jin script tradition. As mentioned by many scholars, the handwriting in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan has characteristics of the Jin script tradition, and these two texts were written by one scribe; this perhaps suggests that previous copies of the texts might have originated in Jin.28

7 Ligatures

There are four ligatures in *Shi fa, while there are two in *Zi Chan. I list them in Table 23:

Table 23
Table 23

Ligatures

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

From these examples we can see that in *Shi fa and *Zi Chan the scribe wrote the mark indicating a ligature at the bottom right, apart from the immediate space taken up by the character. As with and in *Shi fa, and in *Zi Chan, although there was still plenty of room at the bottom right, the mark was still bound to the ligature; that is, it was placed within “the space of the character’s structure.”29 This reflects the scribe’s writing habits.

8 Punctuation Marks

In *Shi fa and *Zi Chan, punctuation marks are comparatively numerous. Apart from the four commonly used attention marks indicating a ligature, reduplication, punctuation and section-ending, attention marks also have other uses. The table below lists the quantity of marks in each text, as well as the marks indicating the end of a section:

Table 24
Table 24

Overview of punctuation marks

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

8.1 Punctuation Marks in *Zi Chan

In *Zi Chan, there are three different types of reduplication marks: “-”, “=”, and “”. Occasionally two of these marks occur on the same slip. For example, on slip 2 there are four reduplication marks: three are “=” while one is “”, and in the shape (see Fig 2). This is the first time a mark like this has been used to indicate reduplication. As it occurs at the end of the slip, perhaps it was an error; that is the scribe first used “┕”, which is often used as a punctuation mark, but then later realizing a reduplication mark was needed, he added a short horizontal stroke to it even though the mark then became abnormal. Moreover, on slip 28 there are ten reduplication marks: three are “=” and seven are “-” (see Fig 3). A single phrase can include different reduplication marks as well. For instance, in the phrase “you qi (zhi) 又(有)桼(秩)” on slips 5 + 6, you , which is the final character on slip 5, has the reduplication mark “-” under it, whereas qi (zhi) 桼(秩), the first character on slip 6, has the reduplication mark “=” (see Fig 4) under it.

The editor decided to read slips 3 + 4 of *Zi Chan as, “What Zi Chan likes is unknown. On the inside, the lord’s son has nothing changeable. Placing officers in government he is mindful of who takes what seriously. He faces affairs and advances, (he) does not have a predilection for anything.” (子產所嗜欲不可智(知),內君子亡(變)。官政【3】眔(懷)師栗,當事乃進,亡好。) Under the character zhi , there is a punctuation mark. Shan Yuchen regards it as having been misplaced, and proposes to read it: 子產所嗜欲,不可知內,君子亡(偏),官政【3】眔師栗當事,乃進亡好.30

In *Zi Chan, there are also marks under personal names, official titles, and phrases. These marks, written “-” and “┕”, presumably were used to indicate something proper. Their pattern of usage is also relatively abundant; for instance, on slip 22, there are eight marks indicating a person’s name. Among these, four are “-” while the other four are “┕”. There is a “-” under the character bian of the phrase “pei zhi bian俖之. Although the ink is very light, we can be certain that it is a punctuation mark when looking at the enlarged images since the opening stroke resembles how this mark is usually written. As such, the mark ought to be “-”. Moreover, the editors, in their transcription, have noted this (see Fig 5).

In *Zi Chan, there are one hundred and fourteen punctuation marks written either “-” or “┕”. These marks are of the same type used under personal names, official titles, and phrases.

In the table below (Table 25), I have counted the number of characters per slip and the usage of punctuation marks.

FIG000533
Table 25
Table 25

Number of characters per slip and the usage of punctuation marks

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

8.2 Punctuation Marks in *Shi fa

In *Shi fa, both reduplication and ligature marks are written “=”. There are also marks in the text that indicate the hexagrams and their names, as well as serving as punctuation.

Most of the numerical hexagrams in *Shi fa have a “” mark under them. Numerical hexagrams appear in the Tianxingguan, Baoshan, and Xincai manuscripts, but without any marks under them. (Only some of the Tianxingguan slips have been published.) Numerical hexagrams are written on one slip in the other manuscripts, while in *Shi fa they are written over two slips (one hexagram per slip). Thus, we assume that the marks occurring under one of the numerical hexagrams serve to group the two numerical hexagrams together. Li Wanting noticed these marks early on, proposing that they play a role in indicating the orientation of the hexagram pair:

A clue as to the direction of the text is indicated by how the scribe used punctuation marks. Each set in the *Shi fa are hexagram images each comprised of two trigrams. Below each set of hexagram images is a prognostication and explanation. Prognostications are, in most cases, written neatly in two columns, and arrayed below the hexagram images. Only in a few instances are there three columns of text. In addition to the scribe using lines to divide columns, he also used punctuation marks at the end of each of the prognostications to indicate the end of the example. A punctuation mark, the same type that was used under the text, was also added under the lower left trigram of each set of numerical hexagrams … from the positioning of the punctuation marks it can be deduced that the diagrams are also to be read from the right to the left, in the same direction as the text. Therefore, when interpreting and reading the hexagram images, the direction of how to read them should also be considered to avoid misunderstanding.31

Based on this, Li proposed that the “”-shaped mark placed below the numerical hexagrams indicates the end of a divination example and serves as a separator. She further clarified this.

At the end of each divination statement the scribe added a cube-shaped “”. This is a feature common in most of the examples in *Shi fa. It can be deduced that the meaning of this type of cube-shaped mark in *Shi fa is to end one set of divination examples and, at the same time, to indicate separation. This causes the entire *Shi fa to look rather orderly and unified. These cubed-shaped marks were added after each set of divination text, and under the lower left trigram of each set of trigrams in their four positions. From this, we can deduce that the lower left trigram is the last of the four trigrams, and that the order of reading is from right to left.32

I agree with Li Wanting that the “”-shaped mark under the numerical hexagram picture indicates the end of each divination example.

In sections 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17, there are “”-shaped marks below the numeral hexagrams. In sections 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, below the numerical hexagrams there are no marks. Moreover, and interrelated, there are no punctuation marks at all in sections 5, 6 and 7.

In *Shi fa, there are marks under the names of the trigrams. This was done presumably to serve as a proper noun marker; for instance, the trigram names “Lai” and “Xun” in section 21, and “Qian,” “Xun” and “Gen” in section 22 all have punctuation marks written “┕” or “-” under them. Names of “heavenly stems” in section 27, such as bing , ding , wu , ji , geng , and xin , also have marks.

In *Shi fa, there are 152 marks indicating punctuation, and they were written either “-” or “┕”. Especially in sections 29 and 30, many marks occur under the formulaic ‘becomes X’. For our purposes here, we count the marks occurring under the word ‘X’ as punctuation.

Below, we tabulate the usage of attention marks on each slip in *Shi fa (see Table 26).

Table 26
Table 26

Punctuation marks in *Shi fa

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

9 Erasures and Rewriting

On slip 15 of *Zi Chan, there is a very light ink mark under the second binding cord. Originally there was a thick horizontal line (outlined with a rectangle in Fig 6). The character once under it was then partly covered by the character qiu , but vestiges of it are still visible (outlined with a square in Fig 6). From this point onwards, there are traces of ink in the lower half of qiu , but it does not resemble writing. However, the vestige of ink traces under the character de ought to have been the component you (outlined with a square in Fig 6). There are no anomalies on the verso of slip 15, but based on the ink traces and a recognition of the component you on the recto, the ink traces ought to have been a vestige of erasure, and not caused by writing on another slip impressed onto it.

Figure 6
Figure 6

Vestiges of erasure on slip 15

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

10 The Arrangement of Bamboo Slips

10.1 The Arrangement of Slips in *Zi Chan

*Zi Chan was written first and then bound. Some of the characters are close to the notches and were affected by the binding cords, such as the character 24. The last slip, slip 29, has been broken and damaged at the top part of the first binding cord, so that the first character, bang , has also been affected; this is doubtless a sign of wear and tear on the binding cord. This also shows that the bamboo slips of this manuscript were bound in sequence starting at the top right of the slip, and then were grouped sequentially, starting with the top of the right-hand slip. On the final slip, the head knot of the binding cord wore away and damaged the writing on the slip, as we see with .

In *Zi Chan, each binding path used two cords. Thus, not only are there vestiges of cord marks at the binding notches, but there are also vestiges of other cord marks not far from them. Although the scribe wrote the text with the intention of avoiding the binding notches, some of the characters were covered by the second binding cord (see the example on slip 24 above). Other manuscripts in the Tsinghua collection also used two cords per binding path.33 For example:

FIG000545

Examples in *Zi Chan of binding marks at each section of a slip

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

10.2 The Arrangement of Slips in *Shi fa

*Shi fa was also first written and then bound; for instance, on slips 29 and 30 strokes comprising the first characters (numbers) were slightly affected by the pressure of the binding cord:

FIG000555

Apart from this, that the vertical line passing through the place of the second binding cord was not impeded by the cord is strong proof that the text was written before it was bound. This is because if the text of *Shi fa had first been written and then bound, then following damage to the binding cord, the writing on top of it would also, in turn, have disappeared. But if it were first written and then bound, the writing at this place would not necessarily have been affected by damage to the binding cord and lost ink. This method of arranging slips shows us that even with a text containing so many columns and tables, the writing was done first and then it was bound.

I propose that this copy of *Shi fa must have been informed by an earlier model. This copy would have rigidly adhered to the layout of the earlier model (which would have also been on bamboo slips), because in this way the scribe could guarantee that the layout would not be disrupted. The fact that all the borders on the bamboo slips are aligned horizontally suggests that the slips with borders must have been drawn in advance of writing, which also limited the space for writing text. Judging from that fact that the columnar boundary lines maintain a unified standard, columnar boundary lines on slips, where they occur, ought to have been drawn before the main text was written. In this way, the lines controlled the placement of the text that came under it. From text on slips with columnar boundary lines, they too ought to have been informed by an earlier model to maintain a layout that was so orderly and unified. In Section 24 of *Shi fa, the illustration of the human figure and its border take up the width of nineteen slips, from slip 42 to slip 60. Judging from the continuity of the illustration and the evenness of the lines drawing the border, it would have been impossible to have drawn them by holding the slips in hand. Rather, the slips must first have been placed tightly together and the border then drawn. Moreover, it ought to have been before the manuscript was bound that the slips were combined as a group, and there also ought to have been something underneath them as support, otherwise it would have been difficult to keep them fixed in position. In the past, scholars have discussed the scribe’s posture when writing on slips. Many have argued that the usual way was to hold a slip in the hand and write on it.34 The discovery of the layout of *Shi fa has enriched our knowledge about how people wrote on slips. Other examples are the pictures of the two human figures in the section “Yu Tang sheng zi zhan” 禹湯生子占 from among the Zhoujiazhai 周家寨 M8 bamboo-slip manuscripts. Each human figure occupies the width of five bamboo slips. Judging from the images, the pictures of these two human figures ought to have been drawn by first bringing the slips tightly together. This is further evidence to corroborate that the slips containing the picture of the human figure in *Shi fa were first bound and then drawn.35 Apart from this, in the Zhoujiazhai M8 manuscripts, the spacing of the borders of the sections “Si Shi” 死失 and “Gen shan Yu zhi li ri” 艮山禹之離日 are not unified. Thus, it can be detected that these sections ought to have been drawn by first holding the slips in the hand and then binding them, because the lines are not orderly and unified. This is different from the bordering in Section 24 of *Shi fa. In the outer ring of the illustration in *Shi fa, the two trigrams Lao and Li were written on the same slip. The handwriting is neat. The other six trigrams: Kun , Dui , Qian , Xun , Zhen , and Gen , are written in a looser structure, and the lengths of the strokes writing the characters varies. As the style of the writing on the same slip differs, they were not written at the same time. This was caused by the position of the six trigrams.

As for how the scroll was opened, we can refer to the editor’s introduction:

*Shi fa is the only manuscript among the Tsinghua manuscripts in which the bamboo slips are still in their scroll, even if one of the ends had slightly loosened and come undone. Thus, a few of the bamboo slips had become scattered and misplaced. After going through the process of organizing them, fifty-two of the slips remained in the scroll while the other eleven had become scattered and mixed among slips with other content on them. The text remained in its original scroll because vestiges of irregular silk fabric wrapped it. The outermost layer has more residue, presumably from the decay of the casing containing the bamboo slips. Thus, it spread around the scroll. In the inner layer, there is a vestige of two strips of irregular ribbon attached to the back of the slips. … in the inner layer the remaining pieces of silk ribbon are approximately 4 cm wide. Placed at the middle of the top and bottom halves of the slips, they were used, in addition to the binding cords, to keep the scroll’s slips together.36

From the photograph published by the editors before the scroll was opened, we can know the text was rolled up starting from the final slip (Fig 7). Jia Lianxiang has pointed out that the verso sides of slips 37–39 are damaged.37 This damage ought to have been caused when slips became scattered and fell out of place.

Figure 7
Figure 7

Schematic drawing of *Shi fa unrolled

Citation: Bamboo and Silk 7, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/24689246-20240003

Acknowledgements

This article has been supported by “2023 nian guojia sheke jijin yiban xiangmu” 2023年國家社科基金一般項目, under the title “Ji yu xiandai biji xue yuanli de jiagu wen ziji yanjiu” 基於現代筆迹學原理的甲骨文字迹研究 (23BYY002). Translated by Wu Fang.

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