Book Of Songs Variant

The Book of Songs(《诗经》) is the earliest anthology in China. It was edited in the Spring and Autumn Dynasty and was said to have been revised by Confucius. Then it became the main classics of the Confucianists. During the long period of its spreading, the differences in characters appeared, which is called Yiwen. Yiwen has received much attention since the Han Dynasty, because it was concerned to the schools and the meanings of songs. Following the clue of history of study on The Book of Songs, this article gives a systematic study on the foundation of Yiwen, which is based on the unearthed bamboo slips, books copied on silk and the Dunhuang documents.The study on The Book of Songs was divided into four schools since the Western Han Dynasty. Lu, Qi and Han were present schools, songs of which were written in the popular characters. The different understanding of songs was reflected by Yiwen. Inherited from various teachers, Yiwen was abundant. Every branch took it for granted that his Yiwen was unchangeable, even to a single word. Then the emperor gave out the command that The Book of Songs carved on a stone, which was so-called Xiping Shijing was the standard model of characters. Mao was the fourth kind of school, songs of which were written in the ancient characters. With its spreading during one dynasty after another, it also had Yiwen. Investigating the characters of "Huge Man" on a newly-found mirror can give the proof that there exists many differences between Mao's Yiwen and the former three's.Since the Wei and Jin Dynasty, the former three schools gradually became feeble and died. Mao was the only remains and the available branch by public was Zhengxuan edition. In the Southern and Northern Dynasty, the territory was split into south of the Changjiang River and north of the Changjiang River. The characters of Mao of the two areas differed much from each other. Because the learning standard was poor at that time, especially in the Northern Dynasty, many common characters and mistaken ones appeared in The Book of Songs, which caused a great deal of Yiwen. For example, in the Dunhuang documents, the large number of common characters was surprising. Some of them were of the Han Dynasty, and some were of the Tang and Liao Dynasty.Living at the end of the Six Dynasties, LuDe-ming wrote a book named "the Explanation of the Classics"( 《经典釋文》 ), following whom, YanShi-gu and Kong Yin-da of the Tang Dynasty also contributed to the recovery of Mao to its original characters. The theory of model of written characters rose in the Tang Dynasty. Its first work was "Model of Written Characters" (《字样》 ), written by YanShi-gu. Then under the help of "the Ganlu Characters" (《干祿字书》 ), "the Five Classics Characters"( 《五经文字》 )and "the Nine Classics Characters" (《九经字样》 ), most of the common characters and the mistaken ones in Mao were corrected. Thus the edition of Mao carved on a stone named the Kaicheng Shijing was produced, which would be handed down generation by generation. From the Five Dynasties, the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, almost no new Yiwen appeared.Yiwen has a close relationship to the development of characters. The study on Yiwen has a bearing not only on the meaning of songs, but also on the history of learning. So it plays an important role on the all-sided understanding of the evolvement of The Book of Songs.