China -- Social life and customs; Chinese language; Chinese literature; Taoism
So far as we know, this system originated with him; and we are therefore
not surprised to find that in his hands it was on a clumsier scale than
that in vogue to-day. Hsü Shên uses no fewer than 540 of these
indicators, and even when the indicator to a character is satisfactorily
ascertained, it still remains to search through all the characters under
that particular group. Printing from movable types would have been
impossible under such a system.
In the modern standard dictionary, published in 1716, under the
direction of the Emperor K'ang Hsi, there are only 214 indicators
employed, and there is a further sub-arrangement of these groups
according to the number of strokes in the other, the phonetic portion of
the character. Thus, the indicators "hand," "wood," "fire," "water," or
whatever it may be, settle the group in which a given character will be
found, and the number of strokes in the remaining portion will refer it
to a comparatively small sub-group, from which it can be readily picked
out. For instance, 松 "a fir tree" will be found under the indicator 木
"tree," sub-group No. 4, because the remaining portion 公 consists of
four strokes in writing.
Good copies of this dictionary are not too easily obtained nowadays. The
"Palace" edition, as it is called, is on beautifully white paper, and is
a splendid specimen of typography.
A most wonderful literary feat was achieved under the direction of the
before-mentioned Emperor K'ang Hsi, when a general Concordance to the
phraseology of all literature was compiled and published for general
use. Word-concordances to the Bible and to Shakespeare are generally
looked upon as no small undertakings, but what about a
phrase-concordance to all literature? Well, in 1711 this was
successfully carried out, and remains to-day as a monument of the
literary enterprise of the great Manchu-Tartar monarch with whose name
it is inseparably associated.
The term "literature" here means serious literature, the classics,
histories, poetry, and the works of philosophers, of recognised
authorities, and of brilliant writers generally.
It was not possible, for obvious reasons, to arrange this collection of
phrases according to the 214 indicators, as in a dictionary of words. It
is arranged according to the Tones and Rhymes.
Let me try to express all this in terms of English literature. Reading
a famous poem, I come across the lines
"And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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