Collation And Research Of Huang Benji's "Ancient Zhi Shihua"

Huang Benji(1781-1855)is a famous scholar who live in Tianxin village,Ningxiang county(now at Daolin town),Hunan province during Jiaqing and Daoguang periods of Qing dynasty.In his lifetime,Huang Benji covered a wide range of subjects,especially in the study of epigraphy.With the rubbings of tombstones collected by himself and his friends,he compiled Gu zhi shi hua,which is 30 volumes and include 282 epitaph articles.He also has done some textual research after recording those epitaphs which is groundbreaking in the history.However,up to now,no scholar has punctuated and done systematic research on this ancient text.This paper intends to punctuate the book,and on the basis of it,do comprehensive discussion on the source and flow of its edition,compilation style,content,value and shortcomings of this book.This paper is divided into two parts,The introduction explains the research significance and research status of this topic.The fist part is the research part,which is divided into four chapters.The second part mainly on the Gu zhi shi hua book punctuation,which make up the blank of punctuation version less.The total amount of the text is about 224,000 words.The first part is mainly from the following four chapters:First chapter narrate Huang Benji's life experiences and his writings,divided into three sections.In the first section,Huang benji's lifetime is divided into three stages:the period of studying,the period of traveling and the period in Qian Yang serving as an official.The second section investigates Huang benji's friends,including Huang benji's main teachers and friends,such as Wang jince,Deng xianhe,Wu rongguang and Jiang huan.,in the form of a biography,in order to show their important influence on the formation of Huang Benji's aspirations and the choice of his academic path.The third section lists the 21 kinds of works written by Huang benji,covering the fields of epigraphy,calligraphy and painting,classics,history and geography,academic notes,poetry and other miscellaneous works.The second chapter discusses the source and compilation style of Gu zhi shi hua,divided into two sections.The first section is a summary of the version and clearly shows its source and flow in the form of charts.It has been less than 200 years since the book was written in the 8th year of Daoguang(1828 AD),so its editions are relatively simple,mainly including four kinds:the first edition in the 9th year of Daoguang,the edition in the 27th year of Daoguang published by Jiang huan,the edition published by Zhi jing xue zhai Press.during Daoguang years of Qing dynasty,and the edition in the 4th year of Guangxu.The second section is an explanation of the compilation style.On the basis of the explanation of the compilation style of past dynasties epigraphy books,the author concludes the compilation style of the book,and thinks it has four parts,including the main object,the epilogue,the recording and the copying,which makes the arrangement of many materials clear.The third chapter is the study of the content of Gu zhi shi hua,which is divided into three sections.The first section gives an overview of epitaphs and discusses its origin and stylistic characteristics.The second section describes the contents of the book,which is divided into two parts.Firstly,we explain the name and writing motivation of this book,and discusses its materials source.Then,we displays the contents in a form.The third section analyzes the characteristics of the materials recorded in this book and the characteristics of the epilogue written by Huang Benji.The fourth chapter discuss the value and deficiency of Gu zhi shi hua,divided into two sections.The first section narrates its value from three aspects.One is the value as historical materials,which can correct and supplement official history.The second is cultural values which reflected in the record of the aristocracy funeral custom,the funeral custom under the influence of Buddhism and the funeral custom of ghost marriage.The third is philology value which is reflected in the copying and analysis of the variant Chinese character,as well as the preservation of the new characters in the northern Wei Dynasty and Wu zhou period.The second section narrates the deficiency of Gu zhi shi hua,mainly from two aspects,scholarship is not rigorous and the deficiency of textual research.