A Research On Shape Change With The Chinese Characters In Taoist Secret Figures

From the aspects of the theory of the common Chinese words and that of calligraphic Chinese characters, this thesis mainly studies the reasons,conditions and regularities about shape change of the Chinese characters in the Taoist secret figures. The aim of this study is to help us to dig deep into the culture of Taoism, enlarge the visual field and sum up the regularities about common Chinese words.In order to cure the patients and abate the disasters, Chinese people need the help of divinities or deities who they believe know another Chinese character which is different from the standard one, we called"another Chinese character"as"Fulu", which made up of secret characters (main component of Fulu),pictures and peculiar emblems, have special shapes,pronunciations and meanings. In order to emphasis on the shape difference between these secret characters to standard ones, Taoist changes the shape of standard characters,adds some new characters and symbolic sign (For example, secret picture or special star or peculiar emblem) during the religious service.The paper is divided into five chapters, after reviewing the history and point out the methods of study on Taoist secret characters, the paper firstly introduces the definitions and analyses the regularities of the shapes of Taoist characters. Secondly studies the reasons,conditions by analyzing writing processes , materials and tools etc. Thirdly analyses the regularities of shape change of strokes (e.g. bending or unbending strokes, connecting or disconnecting strokes),single character (e.g. create new characters, transform to square or round, simplify or complicate the shapes) etc. Finally analyses the significance,effect and apocalypse.