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55-676: The territory takes its name from the Tribute of Yu wherein Yu the Great wrote: "Between the sea and Mount Tai there is only Qingzhou". In around 5,000 BCE the area was the cradle of Dongyi culture. During the Xia and Shang dynasties, it was home to the Shuangjiu ( 爽鸠 , Shuǎngjīu ), Jize ( 季则 , Jìzé ), and Pangboling ( 逄伯陵 , Pángbólíng ) clans and the state of Pugu . Following

110-467: A dúruò ( 讀若 'read as if') notation. In addition to the seal script form, two other variant styles were included if they differed in form—called 'ancient script' ( gǔwén 古文 ) and 'Zhou script' ( Zhòuwén 籀文 ), not to be confused with the Zhou dynasty . The Zhou characters were taken from the no-longer extant Shizhoupian , an early copybook traditionally attributed to "Historian Zhou", from

165-572: A water deity in Taoism and Chinese folk religion . He is the head of the "Five Kings of the Water Immortals" honored in shrines in Mazu temples as protectors of ships in transit. His personal name is written identically to a Chinese surname, a simplification of the minor polity of Yu ( 鄅國 ) in present-day Shandong . Its people carried this lineage name forward after Yu was conquered by

220-518: A careful study of the river systems in an attempt to learn why his father's great efforts had failed. Collaborating with Hou Ji , a semi-mythical agricultural master, Yu successfully devised a system of flood controls that were crucial in establishing the prosperity of the Chinese heartland. Instead of directly damming the rivers' flow, Yu made a system of irrigation canals which relieved floodwater into fields, as well as spending great effort dredging

275-535: A great deal of his body to control the floods. For example, his hands were said to be thickly calloused, and his feet were completely covered with calluses. In one common story, Yu had only been married four days when he was given the task of fighting the flood. He said goodbye to his wife, saying that he did not know when he would return. During the thirteen years of flooding, he passed by his own family's doorstep three times, but each time he did not return inside his own home. The first time he passed, he heard that his wife

330-468: A kind of mythical fish, though they differed on Gun's origins. According to Sima Qian 's Shiji ( c.  90 BC ), Yu's father was Gun, grandfather was Zhuanxu , great-grandfather was Changyi , and great-great-grandfather was the Yellow Emperor , Changyi and Gun being mere officials, not emperors. The Book of Han , quoting Lord Yu Imperial Lineage, stated that Yu's father Gun

385-464: A millennium. Yu's name was not inscribed on any artifacts which were produced during the proposed era in which he lived, nor was it inscribed on the later oracle bones; his name was first inscribed on vessels which date to the Western Zhou period ( c.  1045  – 771 BC). The Shuowen Jiezi ( c.  121 AD ) gives the earliest definition of yu 禹 under

440-482: A nine-headed snake monster. Emperor Shun , who reigned after Yao, was so impressed by Yu's engineering work and diligence that he passed the throne to Yu instead of to his own son. Yu is said to have initially declined the throne, but was so popular with other local lords and chiefs that he agreed to become the new emperor, at age 53. He established a capital at Anyi ( 安邑 ), the ruins of which are in modern Xia County in southern Shanxi and founded what would be called

495-506: A preface and 15 chapters. The first 14 chapters are character entries; the 15th and final chapter is divided into two parts: a postface and an index of section headers. Xu Shen states in his postface that the dictionary has 9,353 character entries, plus 1,163 graphic variants, with a total length of 133,441 characters. The transmitted texts vary slightly in content, owing to the omissions and emendations of later commentators. Modern editions have 9,831 characters and 1,279 variants. Xu Shen sorted

550-400: A radical indexing only the rare 繠 ( ruǐ 'stamen')—instead of listing the character under the common ⼼   'HEART' . A typical Shuowen Jiezi character entry consists of: Individual entries can also include graphical variants, secondary definitions, information regarding their regional use, citations from pre-Han texts, and further phonetic information, typically provided in

605-492: A six-page fragment dating to the Tang dynasty , amounting to about 2% of the entire text. The fragment concerns the 木 ; mù section header. The earliest post-Han scholar known to have researched and emended this dictionary was Li Yangbing ( 李陽冰 ; fl.  765–780 ), who according to Boltz is "usually regarded as something of a bête noire of [ Shuowen ] studies, owing to his idiosyncratic and somewhat capricious editing of

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660-504: A thousand years after his supposed death. During the early 20th century, the Doubting Antiquity School of historiography theorized that Yu was not a person in the earliest legends, but rather a god or mythical beast who was connected with water, and possibly with the mythical Dragon Kings and their control over water. According to this theory, Yu was represented on ceremonial bronzes by the early Xia people, and by

715-594: Is a Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen c.  100 CE , during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE). While prefigured by earlier reference works for Chinese characters like the Erya ( c.  3rd century BCE ), the Shuowen Jiezi contains the first comprehensive analysis of characters in terms of their structure, where Xu attempted to provide rationales for their construction. It

770-402: Is also seen in early forms of 盧 ( lǔ 'vessel', 'hut') and 虜 ( lǔ 'captive'). The Qing scholar Duan Yucai 's annotated Shuowen Jiezi Zhu ( 說文解字注 ) is particularly notable, and the most common edition still in use by students. 20th-century scholarship offered new understandings and accessibility. Ding Fubao collected all available Shuowen materials, clipped and arranged them in

825-690: Is assisted in his work by a yellow dragon and a black turtle (not necessarily related to the Black Tortoise in Chinese mythology ). Another local myth says that Yu created the Sanmenxia in the Yellow River by cutting a mountain ridge with a divine battle-axe to control flooding. This is perhaps a reference to a meteorite stone—something hard enough to etch away at the hard bedrock of Mount Longmen . Traditional stories say that Yu sacrificed

880-645: Is located four kilometers southeast of Shaoxing city. Most of the structure was rebuilt many times in later periods. The three main parts of the mausoleum are the tomb, temple, and memorial of Yu. Sima Qian once "went to Kuaiji and explored the cave of Yu". The tomb faces east and west and has a grate gate, a canal and a pavilion for the Great Yu Tomb. In many statues he is seen carrying a hoe. A number of emperors in imperial times traveled there to perform ceremonies in his honor, notably Qin Shi Huang . There

935-544: Is no evidence suggesting the existence of Yu as a historical figure until several centuries after the invention of writing in China, during the Western Zhou dynasty—nearly a millennium after the traditional dating of his reign. What was eventually recorded in historiography consists of myth and legend. No inscriptions on artifacts dated to the supposed era of Yu, or the later oracle bones, contain any mention of him. The first archeological evidence of Yu comes from vessels made about

990-500: Is one of the few Chinese monarchs who is posthumously honored with the epithet " the Great ". There is no contemporary evidence of Yu's existence as traditionally attested in the Shiji . Yu is said to have ruled as sage-king during the late 3rd millennium BC, which predates the oracle bone script used during the late Shang dynasty —the oldest known form of writing in China—by nearly

1045-587: Is referred to in Chinese history as "Great Yu Controls the Waters" ( 大禹治水 ; Dà Yǔ zhì shuǐ ). In particular, Mount Longmen along the Yellow River had a very narrow channel which blocked water from flowing freely east toward the ocean. Yu is said to have brought a large number of workers to open up this channel, which has been known ever since as "Yu's Gateway" ( 禹門口 ). In a retold version of this story as presented in Wang Jia 's Shi Yi Ji (4th century AD), Yu

1100-522: Is said in the Book of Documents that the Miao people rebelled under their leader, but he treated them harshly and so many abandoned him. He fought with Yu, who had the intention to kill him, but after defeating him spared him and reformed him for 3 years. He became wise and ruled well and the people returned. The Bamboo Annals claim Yu killed Fangfeng , one of the northern leaders, to reinforce his hold on

1155-402: The wén , and "analyzing" ( jiě 'separate', 'analyze') the zì . Although the "six principles" ( liùshū 六書 ) of traditional character classification had been mentioned by earlier authors, Xu Shen's postface was the first work to provide definitions and examples. However, only the first four of these principles occur in the body of the dictionary. According to Imre Galambos ,

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1210-416: The Erya ( c.  3rd century BCE ) and Fangyan were limited, with entries loosely organized into semantic categories, and merely listing synonymous characters. This layout was comparatively unsuited for looking up characters. In the Shuowen Jiezi , Xu instead organized characters by their apparent shared graphical components. Boltz calls this "a major conceptual innovation in the understanding of

1265-578: The Rites of Zhou , there was no Xuzhou or Liangzhou, instead there were Youzhou and Bingzhou , but according to the Erya there was no Qingzhou or Liangzhou, instead there was Youzhou ( 幽州 ) and Yingzhou ( 營州 ). Either way there were nine divisions. Once he had received bronze from these nine territories, he created ding vessels called the Nine Tripod Cauldrons . Yu then established his capital at Yang ( 陽城 , modern Dengfeng ). It

1320-506: The ⽕   'FIRE' heading. He also included as section headers all the sexagenary cycle characters, that is, the ten Heavenly Stems and twelve Earthly Branches. As a result, unlike modern dictionaries which attempt to maximize the number of characters under each radical, 34 Shuowen radicals have no characters under them, while 159 have only one. From a modern lexicographical perspective, Xu's 540 radicals can seem "enigmatic" or "illogical". For instance, he included 惢   'DOUBT' as

1375-458: The ⽱   ' TRACK ' radical: 'bug', 'reptile'; a pictograph . Historical linguist Axel Schuessler reconstructs the Old Chinese pronunciation of 禹 as *waʔ , and compares it to either Proto-Tibeto-Burman * was 'bee', 'honey', or Proto-Waic * wak 'insect' (further from Proto-Palaungic * ʋaːk ). Transmitted sources uniformly asserted that Yu was the son of Gun ,

1430-700: The Duke of Zhou 's c.  1040  BCE successful campaign against the Dongyi states allied with the revolting Three Guards and the rebellious Shang prince Wu Geng , the captured territory of Pugu was granted to Jiang Ziya as the marchland of Qi . In 106 BCE, Emperor Wu formally divided the Han Empire into 13 provinces and appointed a Regional Coordinator ( Chinese : 刺史 ; pinyin : cìshǐ ; also translated as Inspector) in Qingzhou. With

1485-612: The burning of books ordered by Qin Shihuang . Xu believed that these were the most ancient characters available, since Confucius would have used the oldest characters to best convey the meaning of the texts. However, Wang Guowei and other scholars have shown that they were regional variant forms in the eastern areas during the Warring States period , from only slightly earlier than the Qin seal script. Even as copyists transcribed

1540-475: The Chinese heartland was frequently plagued by floods that prevented further economic and social development. Yu's father, Gun, was tasked with devising a system to control the flooding. He spent more than nine years building a series of dikes and dams along the riverbanks, but all of this was ineffective, despite (or because of) the great number and size of these dikes and the use of a special self-expanding soil . As an adult, Yu continued his father's work and made

1595-568: The Chinese lexicon into 540 sections, under section headers generally referred to as " radicals " in English: these may be entire characters or simplifications thereof, which also serve as components shared by all the characters in that section. The first section header was 一 ( yī 'first') and the last was 亥 ( hài ), the last character of the Earthly Branches . Xu's choice of sections appears in large part to have been driven by

1650-470: The Chinese writing system". Xu wrote the Shuowen Jiezi to analyze seal script characters that evolved slowly and organically throughout the mid-to-late Zhou dynasty in the state of Qin, and which were then standardized during the Qin dynasty and promulgated empire-wide. Thus, Needham et al. (1986: 217) describe the Shuowen Jiezi as "a paleographic handbook as well as a dictionary". The dictionary includes

1705-554: The Engineer was a legendary king in ancient China who was credited with "the first successful state efforts at flood control ", his establishment of the Xia dynasty , which inaugurated dynastic rule in China , and for his upright moral character. He figures prominently in the Chinese legend titled "Great Yu Controls the Waters" ( 大禹治水 ; Dà Yǔ zhì shuǐ ). Yu and other sage-kings of ancient China were lauded for their virtues and morals by Confucius and other Chinese teachers. He

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1760-590: The Han era, the prevalent theory of language was the Confucian Rectification of Names , a line of thinking revolving around the use the correct names to ensure proper governance. The postface explains: Now, as for writing systems and their offspring characters, these are the root of the classics, the origin of kingly government, what former men used to hand down to posterity, and what later men use to remember antiquity. Previous Chinese dictionaries like

1815-542: The Tu Peak of the Southern Mountain of Chongqing . A separate legend of Yu's birth is attested in an excavated manuscript, the provenance of which is provisionally assigned to the Warring States period . In this legend, Yu's mother became pregnant after consuming the grains of a Job's tears plant, and gave birth to him through her back after a three-year gestation period. During the reign of Emperor Yao ,

1870-494: The Xia, traditionally considered China's first dynasty. Yu's flood control work is said to have made him intimately familiar with all regions of what was then Huaxia territory. According to his Yu Gong treatise in the Book of Documents , Yu divided the Chinese world into nine zhou or provinces. These were Jizhou , Yanzhou , Qingzhou , Xuzhou , Yangzhou , Jingzhou , Yuzhou , Liangzhou , and Yongzhou . According to

1925-596: The Yellow River. The water control problems after the initial flooding could plausibly have lasted for some twenty years. Wu and coauthors suggest that this supports the idea that the stories of Yu the Great may have originated from a historical person. Yu was long regarded as an ideal ruler and kind of philosopher king by the ancient Chinese. Beichuan , Wenchuan , and Dujiangyan in Sichuan have all made claims to be his birthplace . Owing to his involvement in China's mythical Great Flood, Yu also came to be regarded as

1980-483: The analytical exegesis model of Xu Kai. While the Shuowen Jiezi has historically been very valuable to scholars and was the most important early source regarding the structure of Chinese characters, much of its analysis and many of its definitions have been superseded by later scholarship, in particular that resulting from the late 19th-century discovery of oracle bone script. It is no longer seen as authoritative for definitions and graphical analysis. Xu lacked access to

2035-594: The beginning of the Zhou dynasty, the legendary figure had morphed into the first man, who could control water, and it was only during the Zhou Dynasty that the legendary figures that now precede Yu were added to the orthodox legendary lineage. According to the Chinese legend Yu the Great was a man-god. Archaeological evidence of a large outburst flood at Jishi Gorge on the Yellow River has been dated c.  1920 BC . This coincides with new cultures all along

2090-493: The coming of the Eastern Han dynasty in 25 CE, the seat of a local administration moved from Qingzhou to the former Qi capital of Linzi (present-day Linzi District , Zibo , Shandong ). In Eastern Han, Qing Province consisted of 5 commanderies , namely Pingyuan , Jinan , Beihai , Qiansheng , Donglai , and the kingdom/principality of Qi . During the Tang dynasty (618–907), Qingzhou held jurisdiction over

2145-413: The court of King Xuan of Zhou ( r.   827–782 BCE). Wang Guowei and Tang Lan argued that the structure and style of these characters suggested a later date, but some modern scholars such as Qiu Xigui argue for the original dating. The ancient characters were based on the characters used in pre-Qin copies of the classics recovered from the walls of houses where they had been hidden to escape

2200-517: The damage done by Li Yangbing resulted in the closest version we have to the original, and the basis for all later editions. Xu Kai, in turn, focused on exegetical study, analyzing the meaning of Xu Shen's text, appending supplemental characters, and adding fanqie pronunciation glosses for each entry. Among Qing-era Shuowen scholars, some like Zhu Junsheng ( 朱駿聲 ; 1788–1858), followed the textual criticism model of Xu Xuan, while others like Gui Fu ( 桂馥 ; 1736–1805) and Wang Yun ( 王筠 ; 1784–1834) followed

2255-443: The desire to create an unbroken, systematic sequence among the headers themselves, such that each had a natural, intuitive relationship (e.g. structural, semantic or phonetic ) with the ones before and after, as well as by the desire to reflect cosmology . In the process, he included many section headers that are not considered ones today, such as 炎 ( yán 'flame') and 熊 ( xióng 'bear'), which modern dictionaries list under

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2310-519: The earlier oracle bone inscriptions, as well as bronzeware inscriptions from the Late Shang and Western Zhou periods, which often provide valuable insight. For example, Xu categorized 慮 ( lǜ 'be concerned', 'consider') under the 思   'THINK' radical, noting its phonetic as 虍 ( hǔ 'tiger'). However, early forms of the character attested on bronzes have a ⼼   'HEART' signific and 呂 ( lǚ 'a musical pitch') phonetic—which

2365-559: The function of the Shuowen was educational. Since Han studies of writing are attested to have begun by pupils of 8 years old, Xu Shen's categorization of characters was proposed to be understood as a mnemonic methodology for juvenile students. Although the original Han dynasty Shuowen Jiezi text has been lost, it was transmitted through handwritten copies for centuries. The oldest extant manuscript currently resides in Japan, and consists of

2420-440: The main text of the book in clerical script in the late Han, and then in modern standard script in the centuries to follow, the small seal characters continued to be copied in their own seal script to preserve their structure, as were the ancient and Zhou-script characters. The title of the work draws a basic distinction between two types of characters: Thus, the work's title means "commenting on" ( shuō 'comment', 'explain')

2475-463: The riverbeds. Yu is said to have eaten and slept with the common workers and spent most of his time personally assisting the work of dredging the silty beds of the rivers for the thirteen years the projects took to complete. The dredging and irrigation were successful, and allowed ancient Chinese culture to flourish along the Yellow River, Wei River , and other waterways of the Chinese heartland. The project earned Yu renown throughout Chinese history, and

2530-592: The seven counties of Yidu (益都), Beihai (北海), Linqu (临朐), Linzi (临淄), Qiancheng (千乘), Bochang (博昌) and Shouguang (寿光) with the administrative centre based in Yidu County. The administrative centre of Qingzhou remained in Yidu County during the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127) with the number of counties reduced to six by the removal of Beihai County. Yu the Great Yu the Great or Yu

2585-555: The slopes of Mount Song, just south of the Yellow River . Yu was described as a credulous, hard working, quick witted person with morals. He later married a woman from Mount Tu ( 塗山 ) who is generally referred to as Tushanshi ( 塗山氏 ; 'Lady Tushan'). They had a son named Qi , a name literally meaning "revelation". The location of Mount Tu has always been disputed. The two most probable locations are Mount Tu in Anhui , and

2640-511: The state of Lu during the Spring and Autumn period . Three Exalted Ones: Suiren · Fuxi · Taihao · Nüwa · Zhurong · Shennong · Yandi · Gonggong · Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) Four Perils: Gonggong · Huandou · Gun · Sanmiao · Hundun · Qiongqi · Taowu · Taotie Five Primal Emperors: Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) · Shaohao · Zhuanxu · Ku · Zhi · Yao · Shun Shuowen Jiezi The Shuowen Jiezi

2695-409: The structure of characters and defining the words represented by them, Xu strove to clarify the meaning of the pre-Han classics, so as to ensure order and render their use in governance unquestioned. Xu's motives also included a pragmatic and political dimension: according to Boltz, the compilation of the Shuowen "cannot be held to have arisen from a purely linguistic or lexicographical drive". During

2750-680: The text". Shuowen scholarship improved greatly during the Southern Tang and Song dynasties, as well as during the later Qing dynasty . The most important Northern Song scholars were the brothers Xu Xuan ( 徐鉉 ; 916–991) and Xu Kai ( 徐鍇 ; 920–974). In 986, Emperor Taizong of Song ordered Xu Xuan and other editors to publish an authoritative edition of the dictionary, which became the Shuowen Jiezi Xichuan ( 説文解字繫傳 ). Xu Xuan's textual criticism has been especially vital for all subsequent scholarship, since his restoration of

2805-625: The throne. According to the Bamboo Annals , Yu ruled the Xia Dynasty for forty-five years and, according to Yue Jueshu ( 越絕書 ), he died from an illness. It is said that he died at Mount Kuaiji , south of present-day Shaoxing , while on a hunting tour to the eastern frontier of his empire, and was buried there. The Yu Mausoleum ( 大禹陵 ) known today was first built in the Northern and Southern period (6th century) in his honor. It

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2860-493: Was a five-generation-descendant of Zhuanxu. The Classic of Mountains and Seas stated that Yu's father Gun (also known as 白馬 ; 'White Horse') was the son of Luoming, who in turn was the son of the Yellow Emperor. Yu's father, Gun, was enfeoffed at Shiniu of Mount Wen ( 汶山 ), in modern-day Beichuan County , Sichuan, Yu was said to have been potentially born there, though there are debates as to whether he

2915-533: Was also the first to organize its entries into sections according to shared components called radicals . Xu Shen was a scholar of the Five Classics during the Han dynasty . He finished compiling the Shuowen Jiezi in 100 CE. However, due to an unfavorable imperial attitude towards scholarship, he waited until 121 before his son Xu Chong presented it to Emperor An of Han , along with a memorial. In analyzing

2970-587: Was born instead in Shifang . Yu's mother was of the Youxin ( 有莘氏 ) clan, named either Nüzhi ( 女志 ) or Nüxi ( 女嬉 ). His surname was Si , later Xia after the state he was enfeoffed with, while his personal name was Wenming ( 文命 ), according to the Shiji . When Yu was a child, Emperor Yao enfeoffed Gun as lord of Chong, usually identified as the middle peak of Mount Song . Yu is thus believed to have grown up on

3025-455: Was in labor. The second time he passed by, his son could already call out to his father. His family urged him to return home, but he said it was impossible as the flood was still going on. The third time Yu was passing by, his son was more than ten years old. Each time, Yu refused to go in the door, saying that as the flood was rendering countless number of people homeless, he could not rest. Yu supposedly killed Gonggong 's minister Xiangliu ,

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