What is Xu Shen culture?

Xu Shen was a philologist and Confucian scholar in the Eastern Han Dynasty. In the Han Dynasty, when a hundred schools of thought were ousted and Confucianism was the only one, and in a special period when the Five Classics were regarded as "unparalleled" and the dispute between ancient and modern Confucian classics, he gave up all fame and fortune, devoted himself to the country and the people, and devoted his life to writing the earliest dictionary "Shuo Wen Jie Zi", which had a great influence on the development of the Chinese nation and the inheritance and development of Chinese civilization. Xu Shen's works and his spirit have influenced China people from generation to generation, and he is honored as a saint by later generations for his great contribution. Every year in the college entrance examination, students go to Xu Shen Temple to worship God, but they worship God not because of superstition, but because of spiritual strength, and they want to get some spiritual support from Xu Shengren.

Qin Shihuang unified China by force, and Xu Shen unified China's characters with a book, which standardized the form, sound and meaning of Chinese characters and also standardized a cultural framework. It is the first dictionary in China to analyze glyphs, explain meanings and identify phonology. It is the foundation work of literary language, and also the masterpiece of the study of characters, characters, phonology and exegesis. This is an extremely important contribution of Xu Shen to the study of China's philology. It not only preserved the fonts of the pre-Qin Dynasty and the exegesis of characters before the Eastern Han Dynasty, but also reflected the characteristics of Chinese vocabulary, summed up the development history of ancient philology in China, and systematically put forward the "character theory" of philology for the first time. It is said that in 1926, only Guo Moruo could understand Oracle Bone Inscriptions because he read Shuo Wen Jie Zi. A book has built a bridge between ancient and modern just visiting, and today's people can walk along this tunnel to the unknown future. This is Xu Shen's contribution. More than 65,438+0,000 years ago, Xu Shen was great. He was the first person to explain the importance of words in theory.

A very important person. He said: "Gaiwen is the foundation of art, the beginning of Wang Zheng, the predecessors are so late, so future generations know the ancient times." He "traced back to the source" by combing and studying the characters comprehensively and systematically. It is because of Xu Shen's unremitting efforts that Confucian Classics was brought into the correct track of science. Xu Shen's academic achievements have a wide and far-reaching influence. Not only today, but even in the future, the study of philology and ancient philology can not be separated from the book Shuo Wen Jie Zi. All disciplines involving ancient times, especially history and philosophy, need to look for information, clues and even answers from the book Shuo Wen Jie Zi. Therefore, we must clearly realize that Xu Shen's role and influence on the development of philology and exegetics is of epoch-making significance.

Without the spread of Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi, it would be impossible for us to know Da Zhuan, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Zhong Dingwen in the pre-Qin period and the ancient prose in the Warring States period. Sun Liyan once said in "Preface to Remake the General Edition of Shuowen": "The Five Classics were destroyed by the Qin Dynasty and existed in Shuowen." Shuo Wen doesn't write, and he knows little about literature and art; Literature and art can't understand Tang Yu's three generations of ancient prose, and the Five Classics can't understand it. Therefore, scholars of past dynasties evaluated his achievements as "comparable to Confucius and Duke Zhou" and respected him as "the eternal teacher" and "the Sect of Confucianism". During the Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty, in order to commend Xu Shen, Jiuqing, a university student, together with does, asked the emperor to "allow Confucian scholar Xu Shen to worship Confucius Temple", and the Henan Provincial Academic Affairs Office approved Yancheng County to build Anxun Pavilion Temple. During the Spring and Autumn Period, there were two sacrifices, three kneels and nine knocks.

Huang Dekuan: I put Xu Shen's contribution to the whole China culture mainly on philology, which is the foundation of the whole China culture. We know that classics are a very comprehensive thing, including pronunciation, writing, vocabulary and so on. And the classic inheritance is mainly text, that is, pronunciation. Xu Shen's greatest contribution is to lay a solid foundation for the spread of China's classical theory through Shuo Wen Jie Zi, so his most important contribution is to lay an academic foundation. However, there is no denying Xu Shen's attainments and contributions in the study of Confucian classics, which is not contradictory to locating his major achievements in the study of Chinese characters.

Interview with the famous "Xu Shen and China Culture"

Ye: In my opinion, Shuo Wen Jie Zi is not a book compiled solely from the perspective of philology or exegetics. In fact, part of it is based on the Five Classics at that time, and part of it is based on the text to explain the classics. We have left a lot of materials to study China's ancient classics, so it is an ancient book and also a classic book. We can't look at it completely from the perspective of philology.

Peng Lin: I am very concerned about the orientation of Luohe people to Xu Shen this time. I think it's not enough to just position Xu Shen as a "sage in speech", because he can achieve the status of "unparalleled in the Five Classics" when studying classics. He originally studied characters for the sake of studying classics, but studying characters is actually his tool for studying classics. Therefore, I think Xu Shen's contribution to China culture should be defined as Confucian classics.

Shan Zhou Yao: Shuowen Jiezi is very important for understanding ancient classics, documents and culture. Chinese characters are closely related to the whole Chinese nation and China literature. Shuowen Jiezi is very important to the stability of Chinese characters and plays a great role. In the Tang dynasty, the government paid attention to the unification and standardization of Chinese characters, based on Shuo Wen Jie Zi. Later, with the introduction of textbooks, the characters gradually stabilized and passed down.

Wen Huaisha: I am full of respect for the profound Central Plains culture, and deeply feel that Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi is the essence of culture. Central Plains culture is the mother culture. To understand China, we must first understand Henan. Du Fu, the greatest poet in China, Zhang Zhongjing, a medical scientist, and Xu Shen, a linguist. We were born in Henan, and now it is a great place where heroes come forth in large numbers. Xu Shen made great efforts to systematize and standardize prose writing. Not only Henan people should be proud of their hometown, but all China people should be proud of the fertile soil of Zhongzhou and Xu Shen of Luohe. Today, I feel the beauty of Luohe with the sand culture. There are two rivers in Luohe, Shahe and Lihe, and there is also a Shahe in Hunan, which reminds me of my hometown.

Gu Shenglongyi: Among all the academic sources in China, Xu Shen is one of them, because literature and philology are the most fundamental when we study history, and Xu Shen's Shuowen just provides such a channel to understand ancient academic works and literature records. His contributions to philology and Confucian classics are integrated and inseparable. Xu Shen's role in China culture cannot be underestimated.

Song Junfen: "Xu Shen belongs not only to China, but also to a world-class historical and cultural celebrity." This is the conclusion that Song Junfen reached after studying Xu Xue for many years. Song Junfen is a professor at Capital Normal University. When he was a doctor, he studied Chinese phonology. Now his research direction is Xu Xue. His works include Shuo Literature, Chinese Philology and Chinese Lexicology. Song Junfen said this for four reasons: First, Xu Shen wrote the first dictionary in China and even in the world. Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi has created 540 radicals, arranged 9353 small seal characters according to radicals, and interpreted them one by one. Some words also have documentary evidence or phonetic notation. It is the first truly complete Chinese dictionary in the world. It was not until18th century that this kind of dictionary appeared in western Europe, which was earlier than western Europe 15600. Second, Xu Shen was a great philosopher. Xu Shen put forward that "a man who covers literature is the foundation of art and the beginning of a monarch", which linked literature with politics and enabled Chinese civilization to continue. China has a vast territory and many dialects, so it is inconceivable that there is no unified written language. Moreover, "the predecessors have fallen behind, and future generations know the past", and the reason why excellent traditional culture is passed down from generation to generation depends on words. As early as 1900 years ago, Xu Shen saw how important and great writing was. In the 1920s and 1930s, some people advocated replacing Chinese characters with Pinyin, which shook the foundation of Chinese characters. The consequences are terrible. Imagine, if a nation's culture is lost, will its soul still exist? Third, Xu Shen is the originator of Chinese characters. Refers to things, pictographs, sounds and shapes, general interpretation, transliteration and borrowing are the "six books" commonly used in philology, which are a high summary of the construction methods of Chinese characters by the ancients and fully reflect the wisdom of the sages. The development of Xu Shen enriches the theory of "Six Books", which not only summarizes the construction methods of Chinese characters, but also coincides with the construction methods of other nationalities in the world. From this perspective, Xu Shen's "Six Books" theory can be regarded as an outstanding contribution to all human civilizations. Fourthly, Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi provides an important basis for linguistic research. The text on archaeological unearthed cultural relics and the solution of various problems in exegetics can not be separated from Shuo Wen Jie Zi. Song Junfen regrets that Luohe is really a treasure, thanks to Xu Shen's "Shuo Wen Jie Zi". At the same time, she also hopes that Luohe will cherish this unique cultural resource, and truly build Luohe into a scientific research, information and tourism center in Xu Shen and a holy place for people to worship.