Xu Shen

Xu Shen

Xu Shen (about 58-147, about 30-121) was a famous Confucian scholar and philologist in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

It took Xu Shen at least 21 years to compile the world's first dictionary, Shuowen Jiezi, to standardize the shape, sound and meaning of Chinese characters. Scholars who respect Xu Shen call him "Xu Jun", Shuowen Jiezi "Xu Shu", and his learning "Xu Xue". Xu Shen made an outstanding contribution to Chinese philology and was honored as "the sage of Chinese characters".

Life of the characters

Early experience

Xu Shen, whose name is Shuzhong, was born in Zhaoling, Runan, Eastern Han Dynasty (now Xuzhuang village, Jishi Town, Zhaoling District, Luohe City, Henan Province). He was simple and heavy in nature.

Ma Rong, the master of Confucian classics, always respected him. At that time, people said: "no one can surpass Xu Shen in the study of the Five Classics (Zhouyi, Shangshu, Shijing, Liji, Chunqiu)

Stepping into official career

Xu Shen stepped into his official career and served as a meritorious officer of the prefecture. Later, he was promoted to be filial and honest. After that, he became the governor of the prefecture.

He once offered wine to the South Pavilion of Taiwei, and later became a doctor of Wujing and a scholar of Dongguan. Xu Shen thought that the interpretations of Wujing were confused and different, so he wrote Wujing Yiyi.

become an author

In the 12th year of Yongyuan (100th year) of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xu Shen studied Dongguan with Taiwei Nange liquor, and initially completed Shuowen Jiezi. At that time, Shuowen Jiezi had been created. In order to make it more perfect, Xu Shen had not finalized the manuscript, but constantly added new discoveries and gains.

In the first year of Jianguang (121), Xu Shen finalized the manuscript and sent his son to present Shuowen Jiezi to the imperial court.

In 147, Xu Shen died of illness.

Main achievements

Confucian classics thought

On the issue of Confucian classics, Xu Shen insisted on the position of ancient Confucian classics from the beginning to the end, and made outstanding contributions to the development of ancient Confucian classics and the final victory over modern Confucian classics.

Wujing Yiyi is a work of Tongjing, which corrects the confusion of Wujing and fully reflects its sense of the times. It is widely cited by later scholars and commentators, and has a great impact on the development of later Confucian classics.

Xu Shen highly praised classical Chinese classics and ancient Chinese classics. The literature he mentioned and quoted in ShuoWenJieZi was mainly ancient Chinese classics. He mentioned many times his experience of learning ancient Chinese classics from Jia Kui, a famous ancient Chinese classics scholar. He also mentioned many times that his great work Shuowen Jiezi was reviewed and guided by Jia Kui, a teacher. Xu Shen wrote ShuoWenJieZi, which refuted the shortcomings of modern classics scholars in all aspects, and proposed his position as an ancient classics scholar.

Primary school achievements

Xu Shen insisted on the concept of the development of characters. He believed that characters had gone through a long period of development from the origin to the popular Lishu in Han Dynasty. During this period, characters had gone through the evolution from the ancient writings in Warring States period to Xiaozhuan in Qin Dynasty, and then to Lishu in Han Dynasty. This refuted the rigid idea that Lishu in Han Dynasty was the shape of the ancient characters.

ShuoWenJieZi is the first dictionary in the history of Chinese philology to analyze the characters, identify the pronunciation and explain the meaning of characters. It contains 9353 characters and 1163 reduplicated characters, with a total of 10516 characters, which are arranged according to 540 radicals. It is the first time to check the characters by radicals. By analyzing the characters in six books, it systematically establishes the theory of analyzing characters, and at the same time preserves most of the characters in pre Qin Dynasty and the exegesis of Han Dynasty It reflects the face of ancient Chinese vocabulary.

Xu Shen analyzed tens of thousands of forms of Chinese characters in detail, and founded the theory of "six characters" to analyze the formation of Xiaozhuan, which fundamentally refuted the shortcomings of jinwenjing scholars in analyzing the form and meaning of Chinese characters according to the characters of Lishu. Xu Shen thinks that the creation of scriptures by sages is not out of thin air, and there is a basis to follow. Therefore, he insisted on starting from the actual materials, proving the form, sound and meaning of the characters with the historical documents and the theory of Tongren, so as to explain the meaning of the classics, and fundamentally refuted the way that the modern scholars interpret the meaning of the classics at will, expound the meaning of the minor words, and create new ideas.

Character evaluation

Yan Zhitui: Xu Shen checked the six articles, followed by the parts, so that he could not make mistakes, and if he made mistakes, he would feel it. I take it as a book, which is well organized and analyzes the root of poverty. Zheng Xuan's annotations are often cited as evidence. If you don't believe it, you don't know what it means.

Zeng Guofan: there are 200 words in Xu's book. The ancient mirror has swept away the dust of a thousand years. The seal script is different from the popular one, and the interpretation is especially refreshing. The old Confucianists in Qianjia period were elegant and elegant, and the southeast strict section was peerless.

Duan Yucai: let all the characters be 540. Each book has its own song, and the same one says "all the things belong to one", so the form is established and the sound and meaning are easy to understand. Every character must have its own head, and 540 characters can govern all the ancient and modern characters in the world. Xu Junzhi created a book that had never existed before.

Huang Kan: when Xu Jun says words, he has credit information. If there are signs in classics and canons, he will sign classics. If there are no signs in classics, he will pay more attention to those who know his meaning. If there is no sign, he would rather build a palace to avoid being insensitive.

Historical records

Fan Ye's biography of Xu Shen in the later Han Dynasty

Family members

Son: Xu Chong

Commemoration of later generations

a burial

Xu Shen's tomb is located on the East mound of Xuzhuang village, Jishi Township, Zhaoling District, Luohe City, Henan Province. The tomb is 5 meters high and 33 meters long. Most of the village are descendants of Xu Shen. In the Qing Dynasty, on the day of Zhong Yue Hou Ding, the county magistrate and academic officials went to Xu Fuzi's tomb to offer sacrifices, kneeling and kowtowing three times. In 1656, Yancheng county magistrate Jing Qidun rebuilt the tombstone; in 1707, Yancheng county magistrate Wen Deyu erected the "Tomb of Xiaolian Xu Gong"; in 1876, Yancheng county magistrate Wang Fengsen erected the "tombstone of Xu Fuzi worshiping Confucian Temple". In 1985, at the first meeting of Xu Shen Research Association, it was proposed to "rebuild Xu Shen's tombstone".

On November 21, 1986, Xu Shen's tomb was announced by Henan provincial government as the second batch of cultural relics protection units in Henan Province.

On May 25, 2006, Xu Shen's tomb was approved by the State Council as the sixth national cultural relic protection unit.

ancestral hall

Xu Shen's ancestral temple is located in the north of Xuzhuang village and has been abandoned. In the county seat, there is a "Xunan Pavilion ancestral hall" built by Zhou Shichen in the east of Shandong Province in the Qing Dynasty, in which there is a "Taiwei Nange, a place for offering sacrifices to wine and taboo the word Xushen, uncle Zhong". There are two stone tablets on each side of the courtyard, which respectively record the construction and repair of that year. In the middle of the hall, under the plaque of "cultural master", there is a tablet of Mr. Xu Shen in front of his portrait. On both sides are the research materials of Xu Shen's work Shuowen Jiezi.

Xushen ancestral hall is located in the west section of Haihe Road, Yancheng District, Luohe City, Henan Province, on the west side of Luohe four high (former Yancheng one high, provincial Yanzhong).

Cultural Park

Xushen Cultural Park is located in the east of Xuzhuang village, Jishi Town, Zhaoling district. It was built in September 2008, with Xushen tomb as the core, covering an area of more than 150 mu. According to the regulations of traditional Chinese architecture, the whole park is arranged symmetrically on the central axis, with three zones and one axis, and twelve nodes, which are distributed on the third terrace from south to north. In the service area of the square, there are six character stone pillars, character gate, Hanlin Pavilion, Xushen culture research center and other buildings. In the exhibition area of the center, there are Chinese character Avenue, character temple, shuchongtang, Shuowen hall, cultural corridor, Kuixing Pavilion, and font archway. The tomb protection area is mainly composed of cultural relics, radical square array, glyph interpretation, etymological stone, changui mountain and other landscape sketches.

In April 2014, Xushen Cultural Park passed the 4A level audit and officially became a national AAAA level tourist attraction.

Chinese PinYin : Xu Shen