The question is, why are the books in the Three Emperors' era called "graves", the books in the Five Emperors' era called "Dian", the books in Fuxi era called "Suo" and the books in Yu era called "Qiu"? The answer in Preface to Shangshu is that "grave" has great righteousness, "canon" has eternal righteousness, "seeking" has seeking righteousness, and "hill" has gathering righteousness. It is said that Confucius wrote the preface to Shangshu, saying: "The book of the Yellow Emperor of Fuxi Shennong, named' Three Graves', is also a way of saying things. The books of Zhuan Xu, Tang (Yao) and Yu (Shun) are collectively called the Five Classics. As for the books of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, although neither fish nor fowl, elegant and noble, they are palm-sized, are treasures of past dynasties, and are regarded as great teachings. Gossip is called eight kinds, and its meaning is also sought The ambition of Kyushu is called Jiuqiu. Autumn, gathering together, means all Kyushu, land and gas are suitable, all of which are gathered in this book. "
The question is, why are the books in the Three Emperors' era called "graves", the books in the Five Emperors' era called "Dian", the books in Fuxi era called "Suo" and the books in Yu era called "Qiu"? The answer in Preface to Shangshu is that "grave" has great righteousness, "canon" has eternal righteousness, "seeking" has seeking righteousness, and "hill" has gathering righteousness. Obviously, this is explained from the meaning of the above words, and it does not involve what materials are used as carriers in these ancient books.
For quite some time, the author accepted the statement in the Preface to History without thinking, or did not examine whether this statement was reasonable at all, let alone whether there were other explanations. However, with the in-depth thinking of semiotics (refer to the author's book The Mystery of Symbols, China International Broadcasting Publishing House), especially the textual research of Shan Hai Jing since 1997, and the thinking of the information carrier that may be used to draw Shan Hai Jing in the Yu era (with the aim of redrawing the artistic and geographical restoration map of Shan Hai Jing today), this work has been completed, including 42 square meters.
As we all know, the orthography of "grave" is composed of soil and script, and the variant characters are composed of soil and script. According to Ci Hai, it has many meanings: tomb, highest soil, water margin, size, appearance, loose soil and appearance, a kind of book. Therefore, the preface to Shangshu interprets the word "grave" in "three graves" as big, which is quite reluctant. In my opinion, the word "grave" in "Three Graves" actually means that both the book carrier and the writing carrier at that time were made of earth, which may be similar to the clay tablets in the two river basins or the pottery tablets (including pottery utensils). In a broad sense, soil also includes stones, so the Book of Three Tombs may also take slate as the carrier. In fact, humans have been painting and writing on mud and stones for a long time, for example, painting directly on mud (the invention of China characters was inspired by the footprints of birds and animals), painting on caves and rocks, and writing on pebbles (this kind of stone with words is called talking stone), while the original intention of hieroglyphics mentioned by ancient Greeks refers to the sacred words carved on stones by Egyptians, which Moses obtained from God on Mount Sinai. From this perspective, the Chinese character tomb in China can also be interpreted as a clay tablet with characters.
The meaning of the word "Dian" includes: routines, codes, laws and regulations, leaders, leaders (pawns), surnames (Tai Hao married Shaodian) and ancient books (originally referring to the books of the Five Emperors, but now only Yao Dian and Shun Dian know their contents). So, what is this book called "Dian" like? This will be traced back to the hieroglyphics of typical characters. In Chinese characters, the characters such as Dian, * *, Gong, Ju, Bing, Qi and Liu, as well as the original orthographic characters such as Ji, Huang, Yi and Yi, all have the same symbol as * * *, that is, two supporting points are added under a horizontal plane. The pictographic meaning of this symbol is a display stand or a table with legs, which is used to display items; Of course, this is not an ordinary table, but an instrument for displaying important items, which is usually used for major ceremonies or religious witchcraft ceremonies.
Therefore, the original meaning of "Dian" refers to the documents of great significance displayed or placed on the desk, which plays the role of bulletin board, convention board, Oracle Bone Inscriptions monument, legal documents and code of conduct notice. It may have evolved from contracts, that is, compact contracts are large in scale, open and solemn, and their materials can be wood, bamboo, slate, leather or silk (attached to hard materials). The inventor of this document should be Shaodian tribe. The further evolution of classics is books, which are later bamboo slips or wooden slips. It is formed by Canon's continuous miniaturization, portability, folding and curling.
The meaning of the word "rope" includes: rope, rope, dharma, independence, fatigue, seeking, traction, desire, need and crying. However, as a kind of literature or information carrier, rope should refer to the symbolic system of knotting chronicles, and may also include documents with silk or other woven fabrics as the carrier (writing and painting on silk or weaving pattern symbols that can convey information). In fact, China people first invented sericulture and silk, so it is also possible to use silk as an information carrier; A similar example is that China was the first country to invent kites, because China made thin, long, light and strong ropes, as well as light, thin and strong silk and paper. From this perspective, the original name of Bagua is Basso, which is logical. The so-called basso is a kind of silk script, which originated from knotting notes and knotting divination (the original meaning of hexagrams refers to timing, and one of the functions of knotting symbols is also timing); This is the origin of Preface to Shangshu. "The ancients claimed to be the king of the world and began to draw gossip and make calligraphy contracts instead of tying the knot, so literary books were born."
The meaning of the word "hill" includes: hill, mountain, the one with the highest soil (or high on all sides and low in the middle), city, big hill, tomb, empty, large, gathering and district (four cities are hills). In terms of glyphs, hills refer to landforms with gentle slopes. The question is, why use the word hill in the word "soldier"? In fact, the word "soldier" is actually a combination of gold and a display platform, that is, the weapon "gold" is displayed on the stage (gold is an axe with a slant shape). According to legend, it was first invented by Chiyou. The so-called "Chiyou as a soldier" means that the Chiyou tribe first worshipped weapons as artifacts.
Then, why did the book Nine Hills choose the word "Hill" to describe or refer to it? It should be said that the meaning of "ju" in the preface to Shangshu is reasonable, but it is not complete. This is because hills also mean mountains and rivers, regions, huge areas, empty ruins and big graves (usually with rich funerary objects). Interestingly, the above meaning is very similar to a simulated physical map, that is, there are products symbolizing geographical orientation in different simulated areas. In today's words, it is in the colorful soil of the national altar that products with corresponding directions are displayed. From a deeper perspective, the use of the word "Qiu" in Nine Hills also means that the ruling power of the central government covers all regions of the world.
In view of this, the so-called "ambition of Kyushu" in the preface to Shangshu is called "nine hills"; It is said that all of Kyushu, the place where it was born, and the appropriate atmosphere are all collected in this book. In fact, it is a classic of mountains and seas. Another version of the Five Zang Mountain Sutra, or another version of the Five Zang Mountain Sutra. According to the author's research on The Classic of Mountains and Seas for more than 20 years, it is considered that The Classic of Mountains and Seas was five collections when it was completed by Emperor Wu, four books in summer, four books in the desert when it was completed by Shang, and five books at sea when it was completed by Zhou. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, editors and rewriters followed the classics with Zhou in 5 16 BC. Moreover, based on geographical survey and land resources investigation, the geographical orientation of Wuzang Mountain can be found basically, and the landform basically conforms to the landform of China 4200 years ago. It is really the first historical treasure of Chinese civilization and culture, and also the cultural heritage of human civilization.
Therefore, Jiuqiu is a physical map geography book, which is laid flat on a holy land (without tables and supports). It is a bit like today's model sand table, or it may be a huge painting, drawing mountains, rivers, landforms, products and cultural landscapes in the five districts of Kyushu. Maybe I can still feel the harmonious heartbeat of the sacred unicorn. 1Sept. 9, 1999, it took the author and his wife Sun years to finally create a huge painting "The Emperor's Mountains and Rivers" of 42 square meters, which recorded 447 mountains, 258 rivers, 348 landforms and 673 minerals in five regions of east, west, south, north and central China. To this end, the author once wrote a poem happily saying: "When the flood recedes, the Jade Emperor decides Kyushu, and both at home and abroad explore it, and it will be a bumper harvest." If Dayu has spirit, he will come back pleasantly surprised!
To sum up, it can be seen that the Three Graves, Five Classics, Eight Sorts and Nine Hills are indeed the oldest books of the Chinese nation. Inheriting China's traditional culture needs to start from the source, and promoting China's excellent traditional culture needs to start from bit by bit.