Wang Xizhi's "Orchid Pavilion Preface", whether it is an article or a calligraphy, has been passed down and copied through the ages, and it is a symbol of Chinese cultural history.

However, there are many debates surrounding the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion, among which the most interesting topic is the dispute over whether the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion was written by Wang Xizhi.

　　Mr. Qi Xiaochun's new book "Liu Zhai Lanting Examination" summarizes his achievements in researching "Orchid Pavilion Preface" for many years. The most important discussion is the chapter "The "Lan" Character of "Orchid Pavilion Preface" and the Taboo of the Six Dynasties Gentry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Lan" article), the author said in the postscript: "The issue of the authenticity of the "Lanting Preface" has been raised so far that no one has noticed."

　　The main point of the article "Lan" is: The word "Lan" is written twice in the "Orchid Pavilion Preface", because Wang Xizhi added the word "Lan" in order to avoid the word "Lan" in the names of his great-grandfathers (Wang Xizhi's father Wang Kuang, grandfather Wang Zheng, and great-grandfather Wang Lan). Radical, changed into a blanket.

The "Lan" article also examines the taboo methods in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and believes that the use of Lan instead of Lan to avoid taboos is not in line with the taboo norms at that time.

As Wang Xizhi's gentry son, it is impossible to avoid using the wrong "Lan" word twice in a row.

From this, it can be deduced that the second half of the "Lanting Preface" may not have been written by Wang Xi.

If even the article was not written by Wang Xizhi, it would be even more doubtful whether the handwriting of the Lanting Preface was written by Wang Xizhi.

　　The premise of the inference of the "Lan" text seems to be in doubt: first, is it possible that the "Lan" in the "Lanting Preface" is not a taboo?

Second, even if the purpose of writing the words is to avoid taboos, does such writing necessarily violate the norms of taboos at that time?

　　Let's talk about the first question first, that is, Wang Xizhi's writing of the "Lan Ting Xu" in "Lanting Preface" may not be a taboo.

　　The taboos in the early Jin Dynasty were only traced back to the three generations of Sima Yi, Sima Shi, and Sima Zhao (Sima Shi and Sima Zhao were brothers, but they were actually tabooed to their grandfather).

At that time, Dr. Taichang Sun Yu thought it was inappropriate, and advocated the pursuit of taboo seven temples.

　　According to the "Ritual": when a person sets up two temples, it is taboo to be below the king's father (according to the grandfather), and the emperor and princes are all taboos to be ancestors.

　　Although the discussion was about national taboos, it proved from one side that scholars who avoided family taboos at that time probably only avoided the names of their grandfather and father.

　　The "Lan" article sorted out 27 instances of taboos committed by the gentry during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, including 19 taboos of their father's name, 3 of their own names, 2 of their grandfather's names, 1 taboo in the country, 1 taboo in officials, 1 inaccurate name is taboo.

In the two instances where the name of the grandfather is taboo, it is taboo to link the father and the grandfather together.

It can be seen from this that there are few instances of taboos for grandfathers alone at that time, and the instances of taboos for great-grandfathers seem to have never been recorded.

　　There is another counter-example.

Tao Yuanming, a famous writer in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, whose grandfather was named Mao ("Tao Yuanming's Book of the Year", Zhonghua Book Company, 1986), but the "Nine Songs from the Ancients" in "Tao Yuanming Collection", nine of them are: "The branches begin to grow, The mountains and rivers are suddenly changed." There are many versions of "Tao Yuanming Ji", and there are also Song editions handed down. According to the revision of the Zhonghua Book Company in 1979, it can be seen that the Mao characters in this verse have not been changed in the handed down editions.

It can be seen that Tao Yuanming did not shy away from the name of his grandfather.

　　Therefore, Wang Xizhi may not necessarily shy away from his great-grandfather's name.

　　If Wang Xizhi did not shy away from reading the words, in the Preface to Lanting, the two places "the reason why every person who embraces the past will be excited" and "the people who follow him will also feel the sense of poetry" should be directly written as "Lan" according to their literal meaning. , What does it mean here?

　　According to the handwriting of "Lanting Preface", there are many cases of using the common and false characters.

In the "History of Chinese Literature" written by Mr. Qian Jibo, the full text of the "Lanting Preface" after correcting the false characters is recorded. The comparison is as follows:

　　The work of repairing bamboo plants (Jingtong Si)

　　There are lofty mountains here (Lingtongling)

　　Inside the room of Wu Yan (Wu Tong Meeting or Wu)

　　Although the interest is different (interesting trend)

　　Self-sufficient

　　and what it is

　　Looking at the past from the present (by Tongyu)

　　Since Wang Xizhi frequently used the common false characters in the writing process, the Lanzi may also be a borrowed common false characters.

　　The Lanzi "Shuowen Jiezi" was not included. Later, it was believed that the 楥 character included in "Shuowen Jiezi" was commonly written as "Lan" (Wang Yun's "Suowen Ju Du"). For the meaning of summarizing and gathering.

Substituting the meaning of the word 楥 (lan) into the "Orchid Pavilion" seems to make sense.

"The person who embraces it later will also feel the gentleness" - it can mean that when you hold the piece of paper with the "Lanting Preface" in your hand, it will also arouse feelings for the article.

"Each of the reasons for the rise of people's feelings in the past", combined with the next sentence "if there is a unity, it is not impossible to mourn" - it can be said that the reason for the rise of all the predecessors' feelings, if there is "a unity", there is no difference "Linwen mourns".

Pei Songzhi commented on the "Three Kingdoms", citing Sun Sheng's "Spring and Autumn Period of the Wei Dynasty" in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, saying that Zhuge Liang "sleeps at night and is punished for more than 20 years.

　　Moreover, the word "Lan" itself has a meaning to see.

"Zhuangzi Zaiyou": "This is the benefit of the three kings", the Han Dynasty Meicheng "Seven Hair": "The endless flow, returning to the gods and mothers", and even the Ming Dynasty "Xu Xiake Travel Notes": "The situation before the cave", all used It means to look at it.

From this point of view, Wang Xizhi may have just written a false character like the previous ones.

　　Now let’s talk about the second question, that is, Wang Xizhi avoided taboos for his great-grandfather Wang Lan, and rewriting the word “Lan” as “lan” may not violate the taboo norms of changing characters at that time.

　　The main argument in the "Lan" article is to use the lan instead of the list to avoid taboos, which is not in line with the etiquette that should be avoided at that time.

It is exactly as stated in the "Lan" article, if you use the method of changing characters to avoid taboos, it is more standardized to replace them with a character that has the same meaning, but different glyphs and pronunciations, that is, the same training substitution.

For example, if Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of Jin, is taboo, the character for Yan is changed to the character for Sheng; the character for Sima Rui, the emperor of Jin and Yuan, is taboo, and the character for Rui can be changed to the character for Ming.

Such taboo methods are mostly used to avoid national taboos. The "Lan" article has collected more than 30 cases of national taboos in the Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and will not be repeated here.

　　While scholars avoid personal or family taboos, the 77th chapter of "Shishuoxinyu·Literature" is quite representative: Yu Chan wrote "Yangdu Fu", and there is a sentence "Better is more beautiful".

At that time, another important official, Yu Liang, wanted to read this fu. In order to avoid Yu Liang's name, Yu Chan changed the sentence to "Bide is Yurun".

This represents the norm that Mr. Qi Xiaochun identified as a taboo to change words at that time.

　　However, there are many examples similar to Wang Xizhi's use of "Lan Dai Lan" to use the radicals of "Change Yi" to avoid taboos.

In Chen Shou's "Three Kingdoms", in order to avoid Sima Yi, Zhang Yi's name was written as Zhang Yi, which detracted from the radical of the character Yi.

At that time, in order to avoid Sima Shi, the legendary wind god, Feng Shi, was renamed Feng Shuai, and he also used the strokes of derogation words to avoid it.

　　A more representative example is the case of Wang Shu repeatedly testified in the "Lan" article: the imperial court appointed Wang Shu to serve as an official in the internal history of Kuaiji, and Wang Shu was the son of Wang Hui.

Later, the imperial court changed it to Pingji, and Wang Shu had no choice but to take up his post.

This example can certainly show that the addition of the radical will be changed to He, which does not strictly conform to the taboo norm, so Wang Shu is not satisfied.

But at the same time, it just shows that the method of changing the radicals and characters to avoid taboos was also used at that time.

Of course, Hui and Hen not only have different fonts, but also different pronunciations. Wang Xizhi changed it to Lan. Although the fonts were different, the pronunciations were the same—comparing the two, Wang Xizhi changed the characters he could control, while Wang Shu changed the characters he couldn’t control. On the contrary, Wang Xizhi changed it to be less strict - but can these situations be understood as the difference between the two being lenient and strict, not the difference between right and wrong?

　　Similarly, Sima Zhao's name was taboo at that time, and Zhao was changed to Shao or Shao, which was also avoided by changing the radical.

The explanation in the "Lan" text is that these taboos in the radicals of reformation are different in pronunciation, shape and even meaning of the word, and the pronunciation of the word "Lan" is the same as that of "Lan", so it is not standard.

Is it okay to use the method of changing the radicals to change words to avoid taboos, must the pronunciation of the words be different?

　　In Wang Xizhi's handed down books (copies or records), which are recognized as more credible, Wang Xizhi wrote the words "political" and "zheng": in "Seventeen Posts", there are "seventy years of politics this year"; "Chunhua Pavilion Posts". ", there is "send this carp, sign and respect it".

At the same time, Wang Xizhi will also write the first month as the first month.

　　In response to this phenomenon, since the Song Dynasty, people generally believed that this was Wang Xizhi's taboo grandfather Wang Zheng's name, or replaced Zheng with political and levy; or avoided the formal character and used the first character instead.

　　In these two cases, the latter "as the first generation is right" conforms to the strict norm of avoiding word change, but the problem lies in the former.

Zheng and Zheng, both are "Zhishengqi", the same pronunciation.

Zheng, "Shuowen Jiezi" "cong Chuo, Zhengsheng".

These two words are the same as the case of the lanzi, and the pronunciation of the words is the same.

　　According to the inference point of view of the "Lan" text, the two paragraphs in "Seventeen Posts" and "Chunhua Pavilion Posts" should also be fakes.

　　The text of "Lan" intends to prove that the change of Lan to Lan does not conform to the norm of taboos, thus confirming the falsehood of the "Lanting Preface", but at the same time it cannot deny the truth of the "Seventeen Posts" and "Chunhua Pavilion Posts" that have similar situations. Therefore, it is explained that , Wang Xizhi's use of government and levy instead of rectification is not a taboo, but a guise between synonymous words.

The main reasons are as follows:

　　First, if Zhengyuzheng is used as a noun, such as the first month, it needs to be avoided, so Wang Xizhi changed the first month to the first month, and he could not irregularly write the first month as the political month.

If Zheng, Zheng and Zheng are used as verbs and adverbs, the meanings of the words can be interchanged. At this time, writing Zheng as Zheng or Zheng is a guise, not a taboo.

That is to say, if the part of speech is a noun, it should be avoided, and if the part of speech is a verb or an adverb, there is no need to avoid it.

Since it is not taboo, the homophony is fine.

As for why the ancients only avoided nouns, the "Lan" article believes that the purpose of taboo is to avoid the names of ancestors, so the requirements for taboo of nouns are the strictest.

　　The second is that it is used as the radical character of Zheng and Zheng, like the strokes of horizontal, swipe, and 頺, so its sound and shape can be preserved without hesitation.

　　The distinction between nouns, verbs, and adverbs has come from modern times. The ancients did not have such concepts when using words. How to avoid it by part of speech?

Even if today we analyze the taboo situation at that time according to the part of speech, "Shi Shuo Xin Yu" records that Huan Wen's son Huan Xuan, when he heard people say "warm wine", thought he had violated his family's taboo, so he covered his tears with a handkerchief.

Here, the temperature of the wine is a verb, which should also be avoided.

"Shi Shuo Xin Yu" also records that Zhong Hui, the son of Zhong Yao, was jokingly used by others, saying that he "wanted Qing to be far away." Hu Wenzai" was asked why not to avoid it.

Here, Yao and Yao, Yu and Yu are all common and false characters with the same meaning, and they are not used as nouns. It can be seen that the common and false characters that are not nouns should also be avoided.

This one.

　　The radical of the word Zheng can be either Zheng or 唵; the radical of the word Zheng is 彳, which is not a radical in the two characters Zhengzheng and Zheng.

In the "Yan's Family Instructions" created during this period, those who avoided the word cloud changed it to "Funyan", which is similar to the so-called "radical" in the "Lan" text, and it is not a noun. Why avoid it?

This second.

　　Chinese characters are characterized by polysemy. Derived from a single character, it often includes many parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. If this is used as a basis for avoiding taboos, it will be difficult and unfounded.

　　To sum up, Wang Xizhi wrote Lanzi twice in the Lanting Preface, probably not for the purpose of avoiding taboos, but also adding the method of avoiding taboos by adding homophones to radicals, which was possible at that time.

Therefore, from the perspective of the taboo of "Lan Ting", it cannot be inferred that there is a problem with the second half of the "Lanting Preface", and it is impossible to add a different proof to the authenticity of the "Lanting Preface".

(Author: Yin Yanzhao)