Is Cangjie a legend? Who created the real Chinese characters?

The surname Cang, which means "one person on the king, one person under the king", and the legend says that Cangjie has "two eyes and four eyes". Cangjie is one of the ancient Chinese myths and legends, and the place where Cangjie made words is called "Phoenix Title Desk".

Cangjie is the historian of the Yellow Emperor, after the Yellow Emperor unified China, he felt that the method of using knotted ropes to record things was far from meeting the requirements, so he ordered Cangjie to make words. So, Cangjie built a house on a high platform on the south bank of the Weishui River at that time, and concentrated on making characters. However, he meditated hard, but there was no way.

One day, a phoenix flew in, and a thing in its mouth fell down, and it happened to fall in front of Cangjie, Cangjie picked it up and saw that there was a hoof print on it, but Cangjie couldn't identify what kind of beast's hoof print. When he asked the hunter who happened to come over, he said, "This is the hoof print of Pixiu, which is different from the hoof print of other beasts."

Cangjie listened to the hunter's words and was inspired. He thought that everything has its own characteristics, and if you can grasp the characteristics of things and draw an image, everyone can recognize them, isn't this just words? Since then, Cangjie has paid attention to carefully observing the characteristics of various things, such as the sun, moon, stars, clouds, mountains, rivers, lakes, seas, as well as various birds and animals, and applied utensils, and according to their characteristics, he drew figures and created pictographs.

In order to commemorate the merit of Cangjie in making words, the descendants will be in the south of Xinzheng County, Henan, the place where Cangjie made words is called "Phoenix Title Desk", and a temple was built here in the Song Dynasty, named "Fengtai Temple".

Regarding the origin of Chinese characters, there are various theories in ancient Chinese literature, such as "knotted rope", "gossip", "pictures", "book deeds", etc., and the legend of Cangjie making characters is a common record in ancient books. "Lu Xun's Talks on Outside the Gate" wrote, "In society, Cangjie is not one, some carve a little picture on the handle of the knife, and some draw some pictures on the portal, heart to heart, word of mouth." Cangjie may be the collator of Chinese characters, collecting, sorting out and using the words that circulated among the ancestors, and made immortal contributions to the reproduction and prosperity of the Chinese nation, and was respected as a "sage of character making" by later generations.

It is only a legend that Chinese characters were created by Cangjie alone, but he may be the arranger of Chinese characters, and is revered by later generations as a "saint of character making". In addition, from the perspective of the composition and structure of Chinese characters, it cannot be created by a single person, and it must be a relatively perfect script that has been formed after many years of process.

Cangjie characters must be legendary, because no matter which country's writing. It's all evolved by taking it one step at a time. Chinese characters belong to hieroglyphs.

As the name suggests, our Chinese characters evolved from pictures. In the beginning, we will replace certain things with some representative symbols. Then abstract it into words step by step.

Only then did more mature text appear in the future. Therefore, the real Chinese characters are the crystallization of the wisdom of all people.

Cangjie is just a mythical story created to reflect the wisdom of the ancient Chinese.

Chinese characters are not created by one person, but are finally formed through the integration of cultures in all dynasties, and it represents the collective wisdom and crystallization of the Chinese nation.

The legend of Cangjie characters appeared at the end of the Warring States period.

From the Yellow Emperor to the Warring States Period, there has been no record of Cangjie in the history books, until the late Warring States period, there was a sudden appearance of Cangjie to make words, the earliest record is that Xunzi pointed out that there are many good books in the late Warring States period, and Cangjie is the only one, one also. According to historical records, after the rise of the Xuanyuan Yellow Emperor, the historians of the Yellow Emperor Cangjie and Frustrated were inspired by the footprints of birds and beasts, concentrated the wisdom of the working people, and worked hard for decades to collect, sort out and promote the hieroglyphic symbols that circulated with the ancestors.

Although the knots differ in size and shape, they are difficult to identify over time. Hou Cangjie looked up at the curved movement of Kuixing, looked down at the texture of the turtle's back, the claw marks of birds and beasts, the shape of mountains and rivers, and the fingerprints of his palms, and was inspired to create hieroglyphs based on the shape of things.

Cangjie's main achievements

1. To improve the text, the so-called Cangjie (Cangjie) writing is not to say that Cangjie completely invented and created the text, but to say that Cangjie will extensively collect the existing folk pictures and texts, and carefully sort them out, so as to create a set of systematic and standardized hieroglyphs.

2. The number of rise and fall of ancient emperors is recorded in detail on the Book of Luo, Hetu and Luoshu, and the Taoism of governing the people and the country, which can only be obtained by the emperor who is ordained by God. After Cangjie ascended the throne as emperor, he patrolled his territory to the south, climbed Yangxu Mountain, and followed the Luo River to the east to Luo Wei at the confluence of Luoshui and the Yellow River. It was found that the spirit turtle was carrying a mysterious pattern and was dedicated to Cangjie.

Bagua is the evolution of Luoshu, and later "Zhou Yi"**.

The above content reference: Encyclopedia - Cangjie.

The legend of "Cangjie making characters" has been widely spread in the Warring States Period: "Xunzi Jiesha" said: "There are many good books, and Cangjie is the only one".

Cangjie [jié] word-making, is one of the ancient Chinese mythology of the book of rough sayings, Cangjie word creation place called the town of the hand town "phoenix title book". From "Huainanzi Benjing Training": "The former Cangjie wrote books, and the sky rained, and the ghosts cried at night.

Cangjie, known as Cangjie, surnamed Hou Gang, and known as Shi Huang, once collected, sorted, regulated, and used the words that circulated among the ancestors, and played an important role in the process of creating Chinese characters.

Cangjie, formerly surnamed Hou Gang, is known as Cangjie Xianshi, and Shi Huang's family, also known as Cangwang and Cangsheng. Shuowen Jiezi, Shiben, Huainanzi all record that Cangjie is the Yellow Emperor period of the left historian of the Yellow Emperor to see the footprints of birds and beasts, divided into different categories, to collect, sort out and use, in the process of the creation of Chinese characters played an important role, was respected as the "word making sage" according to the "Hetu Jade Edition" and "Zen Tongji" records, Cangjie once established himself as the emperor, called Cangdi, is the leader of a tribe in ancient times. During the reign of Cangjie, he once worshipped Luo Shu in Luozhishui.

According to the record of "Lü's Spring and Autumn Tongquan, Trial and Division, Jun Shou": Cangjie, surnamed Hou Gang. Legend has it that the creator of Chinese characters was the historian Cangjie of the Yellow Emperor, who once collected, organized and used the characters that were handed down among the ancestors, and played a vital role in the creation of Chinese characters.

However, according to the current research, this statement is not true, and the Chinese characters were by no means created by Cangjie alone, but he may be the organizer of the Chinese characters, so later generations respectfully called him "the saint of character making".

Legend has it that the "Bird Trail Book" he pioneered shocked the world and can be called the ancestor of humanity. The Yellow Emperor recognized his great achievements very much, and gave him the surname "Cang", which means that there is one person on the king and the next king. Legend has it that the Jade Emperor rewarded him for his merits in making words, and gave the world a grain rain, which is the current "Gu Rain" solar term.

There are still many places where Cangjie is sacrificed on the day of the "Guyu" solar term. After Cangjie's death, the local people built the temple near his tomb and named the village "Shiguan Village".

The legendary Cangjie script was inspired by the use of knots to keep notes, and then created hieroglyphs based on the shape of things. Cangjie was inspired by the texture of the turtle's back, the claw marks of birds and beasts, the shape of the mountains and rivers, and the fingerprints of the palms, and created words based on the shapes.

Legend has it that Cangjie was an official under the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Emperor assigned him to manage the number of animals in the pen and the amount of food in the tun. But slowly, the storage of livestock and food is gradually increasing and changing, and it is impossible to remember it with my head alone.

Cangjie is in trouble. All day and all night, he tried to figure out a way, first tying knots in the rope and using ropes of various colors to represent different kinds of livestock. But after a long time, it doesn't work.

This increased number is convenient to tie a knot in the rope, and when the number is reduced, it is troublesome to untie the knot in the rope. Cangjie thought of making circles on ropes and hanging all kinds of shells in the circles to replace what he was in charge of. If you add more, you will add a shell, and if you decrease, you will remove a shell.

This method has been used for several years. Cangjie made words, the Yellow Emperor valued him very much, everyone praised him, and his reputation became bigger and bigger.

Legend has it that he observed the footprints of birds and beasts and was inspired to create writing, and he went around observing the depictions of plants, trees, utensils, and shapes. Make different symbols.

In ancient times, our ancestors, like other animals, had no language or writing, and could only communicate with each other with their hands and body movements. The earliest human language is:"Babble, ah, wow, ha"and other monophonic interjections, and then gradually develop into two-tone words. After millions of years of evolution and development, it was not until the late Neolithic period (about 100,000 years ago) that humans had a rudimentary language.

<> by the time of Flinterman, there was a large number of languages, but there was no written language, so different things could only be represented by placing stones, depending on the size of the stones, the number of stones, how the stones were stacked, and the placement of the stones. Later, this method was cumbersome, inconvenient to manage, and easy to destroy. The weavers of the Frynman tribe invented the technique of twisting rope and then invented it"Knotted ropes"。

Before words, people used their brains to memorize things. The capacity of the brain is limited, and humans will always die, and the brain will die with it. While it is possible to pass information from one brain to another through storytelling, there is always an error after a few passes.

By the end of primitive society, society had become complicated, who owed whom, what could be eaten, what could be poisoned, what could be cured, and so on. The brain alone is no longer enough to meet people's needs, and there is an urgent need for something to memorize for our brains, so words appeared. After the advent of writing, people gradually took on new uses, writing poems, compiling history, and even memorizing recipes, and culture gradually took shape.

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The Evolution of Chinese Characters

Regarding the origin of Chinese characters, there is a saying that "Cangjie makes words" since ancient times, and the legend says that Cangjie is the historian of the Yellow Emperor, after the Yellow Emperor became the leader of the Chinese tribal alliance, the exchanges with various tribes became more and more frequent, and Cangjie invented writing, which brought great convenience to the communication and records at that time. Legend has it that after Cangjie made words, "the sky rains, and the ghosts cry at night", which shows that words bring infinite wealth to people and get rid of ignorance. The creation of writing is indeed one of the greatest inventions of mankind, so how did Chinese characters come about?

Is it really the credit of Cangjie alone? At present, there are several hypotheses circulating in China, I don't know which one you agree with?

First, Cangjie characters.

The "Cangjie Book" that no one can solve

This theory has been widely circulated since the Warring States period, and perhaps Cangjie was not fictional, and it did play an important role in the production of Chinese characters. However, when Guo Shi Jun (General Theory of National History) introduced the "Cangjie Book" before, he also mentioned that the huge writing system could not be created by one person. Just like even if there are Chinese characters as the basis, the Tangut, Khitan, Jurchen, etc. have also gone through a long process, and it took a lot of manpower to form a system.

Therefore, Cangjie may have been the key figure in the construction of the Chinese character system, but not the "inventor".

2. Knotted rope notes.

Cumbersome ancient Inca Chip

According to the Northern History of Wei Benji, the ancestors of the Northern Wei Dynasty were nomadic people who lived in pursuit of water and grass, and they did not have writing, but used the method of "carving wood and knotting ropes" to record or transmit information.

Chip – What is it expressing? ​

There is also a saying in "Zhou Yi" that "the ancient knots are ruled by ropes". Now there are still many primitive tribes still using the method of knotting ropes, perhaps at the beginning of the birth of the Chinese nation, they did use knotted ropes to remember, and then gradually developed into writing.

3. Pictorial notes.

The mystical symbol of the Jiahu ruins

This claim is supported by some archaeological data, and most of the original forms of the text are pictographic. At present, the earliest murals found were born 30,000 or 40,000 years ago, China found 8,000 years ago in the Jiahu site, 5,000 years ago, the bone inscription of Longshan culture in Shandong may be the prototype of the oracle bone inscription. The origin of Chinese characters may be multi-sourced, and after the non-stop communication and even merger of various tribes, the script gradually became unified (similar to the unified script of Qin Shi Huang), and after the formation of a slave society, the script gradually became standardized.

Longshan bone inscription

The previous article Chinese Shijun (General Theory of National History) also talked about the mysterious characters in the Erlitou ruins, which may actually be the text of the Xia Dynasty. Therefore, it is very likely that Chinese characters gradually developed from the original pictures, and eventually ended up in the same way.

4. Other doctrines.

In the Preface to the Book of Shang, it is said that in ancient times, the Ku Xi clan dominated the world and created gossip and writing, replacing the previous knotted rope records. The Han Dynasty's Book of Wisdom and Wei "Hetu" said that when Cangjie was the emperor, there was a "Spirit Turtle Negative Book", and the Book of Heaven was awarded to him. Both of these statements have a certain mythological overtone, which may just show that the ancients were also full of curiosity about the origin of Chinese characters.