On The Sacrificial Names Found In The Oracle Bone Inscriptions

A sentence can stand with no subject or object, but not with no predicate. In most of the oracle inscriptions, it is the verbs of the sacrificial names that play the important role of the predicate of a sentence. Sacrificial names became the obstacles to interpret the oracle inscriptions. Sacrifice was an important national affair. Sacrificial names in the oracle inscriptions are the concentration and records of the information about the sacrifice in the Shang Dynasty. We may say that sacrificial names are also a golden key to the long dust-laden political culture and religious rituals of the Shang Dynasty. This dissertation is an attempt to make a systematic and comprehensive study of the sacrificial names found in the oracle inscriptions.This dissertation consists of three main parts. The first part is chapter 1, in which the author tries to define the concepts and terminology about the sacrifice of the Shang Dynasty. These concepts and terminology have not been specially discussed and used in confusion. The second part is chapter 2, in which the author, based on his own interpretation and judging standards, scrutinizes the examples of the oracle inscriptions repeatedly, discriminates one by one the oracle inscriptions determined by former scholars, determines 197 kinds of sacrificial names, and categorizes these sacrificial names as sacrificial names of the old school, sacrificial names of the new school and those shared by both schools. The third part consists of chapters 3, 4 and 5, in which the author discusses the 116 kinds of sacrificial names of the old school, the 34 kinds of sacrificial names of the new school and the 41 kinds of shared sacrificial names briefly or thoroughly based on his full occupation and use of the examples of the sacrificial names in oracle inscriptions. The discussion about each of the sacrificial names focuses mainly on the literal meanings of the sacrificial names, data statistics, distributions in different times, targets to whom to offer the sacrifice, people who hosted the sacrificial rituals, sacrifices, associated sacrificial names, places and times to offer sacrifice, and the purposes of offering sacrifice.After a comparatively thorough study of the sacrificial names in the oracle inscriptions, the author finds out that the theory of old and new schools created by Dong Zuobin in Almanac of the Yin Dynasty is tenable. Many sacrificial names are clearly distributed in different times; for example, some are common in the first and fourth periods, and some in the second and fifth periods. The characters of some sacrificial names are more homoplastic during the first and the fourth periods and during the second and fifth periods although they are shared by the five periods. The first period, the second period also known as Zugeng Period and the fourth period including Wuyi and Wending Periods belong to the old school. The second period, Zujia Period, and the fifth period, Yixin Period, belong to the new school. The third period including Linxin Period and Kangding Period wavers between the two. The arguments are scattered in the demonstration of each of the sacrificial names.