Study About The Development Of Clerical Script

During the past time, studies about the development of clerical script always based on carved stone inscription. However, the number of carved stone inscription is limited and most of them are belonged to the later stage of clerical script, which makes the result inaccurate. For example, Ba Fen Shu is considered formed in Eastern Han Dynasty, while according to the bamboo-slip and silk, it has already appeared in the later period of Western Han Dynasty. Bamboo-slip and silk is used to record words before paper was invented, and it keeps original appearance of clerical script completely. As for this, my study on the development of clerical script mainly depending on the bamboo-slip and silk, of course carved stone inscription is included, too.When talks about the development of clerical script, current academic circles mostly made the same mistake:they firmly believed writings on the Qingchuan Wooden Slip was ancient clerical script, and took it as the upper limit. If writings on Qin bamboo-slip is clerical script, then namely clerical script was formed earlier. Therefore, the process of germination should be included while this period is ignored by all researchers. Eventhough there are a many of researchs about the germination of clerical script, which is also called clerical change,most of them are just treated as single object. Compared to other researchers, I take the beginning of clerical change as the first period of the development of clerical script. By comparing some writings, such as Houma Mengshu, I trace the beginning of clerical change back to the later of Spring and Autumn Period. Clerical change happened all around of China and served for the formation of clerical script. This is the first part of my paper.After clerical script has been formed, it was traditionally divided into two periods:Ancient clerical script and Ba Fen Shu. It is basically reflect the real process of clerical script, but it ignored the period of transition between ancient clerical script and Ba Fen Shu. According to the theoretical research, Ba Fen Shu is equal to ancient clerical script after doing some decoration with bozhe(波磔).But compared the type of clerical script on bamboo-slip with each other, we can find that Ba Fen Shu is more standard than Ancient clerical script. Considering this, we can conclude that between ancient clerical script and Ba Fen Shu there still exist a another period. We call it Han script, and the former one Ancient script, the latter one Ba Fen Shu. This period is a new discovery which distinguished with others.It takes two steps to research the development of clerical script:first of all, we can summarize some characteristics about clerical script in different periods and make it agree that the development of clerical script obey the rule that everything goes to be better. Then, by comparing the difference between Ancient clerical script and Ba Fen Shu on bamboo-slip and silk, we find there exist a period of transition, namely Han script. At the same time, we not only distinguish the different names of clerical script, but also link them to the image on bamboo-slip and silk, which has not been done by traditional research.