A Treatise On Tang Lan's Study Of Bronze Inscriptions

Tang Lan has been regarded as the most famous contemporary scholar on the subjects of characters, inscriptions and history, for he devoted all his life to the career of teaching and research, whose theory follows from the school of Sun Yirang as well as Wang Guowei in the Qing Dynasty and has been developed further by later scholars in modern times, accomplishing prodigious achievements and making great contribution to the development of multiple realms such as phonology, archeology, inscription studies, the research of bamboo tablets or silk scripts, calligraphy and ancient poems, as well as the reform of Chinese characters. Consequently, this systematic and comprehensive exploration on Tang Lan's theory would have tremendous significance to the academic study of the 20^th Century even the one at present.The academic exploration on Tang Lan's research has been focused on since 1980s, whereas the dominate field of this realm was limited in the theory of ancient characters and carapace-bone-script, which was devoid of any systematic and specific achievements on Tang Lan's study of Bronze inscriptions. As a matter of fact, throughout the theoretical history of bronze inscriptions during 1930s to 1970s, Tang Lan not only played a role as a leader in this realm, but also the most distinguished scholar in almost all the polemics on every vital issue. For his magnificent achievements and engagement that influenced study on linguistics of ancient Chinese, the lack in the research of Tang Lan and his school would definitely be helpless or harmful to the development of bronze inscriptions study at present, in terms of the absorption of former scholars and their theories. Thus, taking Tang Lan's works as the main subject of this study at the point of modern bronze inscriptions study would provide sufficient and efficient evidences for identifying Tang Lan's academic rank and the promotion of Bronze Inscriptions study, which would be companied with the evaluation and criticism of the typical issues and propositions in Tang Lan's research, as well as the advanced innovation and specific methodology in his works. This study has four chapters as follows.Chapter One "Preface" has two dominate dimensions, elaborating certain issues related to the main subjects of the dissertation. In the first part of Chapter One, a generalization on Tang Lan's career both in life and study as well as the academic background would be made in details. The second part of Chapter One presents the situation of research in this realm in the recent three decades, pointing out which lacks in systematic study on Tang Lan's bronze inscriptions research thereby analyzing the profound reasons of this phenomenon in the first place, which could be referred to as exactly the significance of this dissertation and its methodology.Chapter Two focuses on Tang Lan's textology study in bronze inscriptions, who's famous for the accomplishments in this domain of bronze inscriptions textology, as well as the fundamental constructioner of modern theory on ancient Chinese linguistics. No matter his methodology of bronze inscriptions textology, or the concrete and specific explanation on certain unknown bronze inscriptions, there are both valuable and significant works in his theory. The first part mainly evaluate the earlier textological theory of Tang Lan as the greatest significant theory without any parallels in the history, which would be mentioned in seven dimensions as a paradigm of repectination and put into the frame and sequence in terms of the methodology. In the second part, based on the serious examination of the original work of Tang Lan and related scholars, the conclusion would be draw as below. The number of the unknown bronze inscriptions analyzed by Tang Lan for the first time in the history should be in the range of fifty to seventy. According to the main methodology Tang Lan used in his study on textological study of bronze inscriptions, fifty five typical and concrete cases would be specifically analyzed and objectively judged in order to figure out the significance and achievemnts of Tang Lan's study by using the latest accomplishments of modern linguistics.Focusing on his hermeneutic study of literatures written in bronze inscriptions, the third chapter analyzes the whole style and character of Tang Lan's perspectives as follows. First, standing at the advanced front all the way, Tang Lan renewed the explanation of inscriptions on bronzewares. Second, keeping inherent connection between inscriptions on bronzewares and historical literatures, there is a strict style in Tang Lan's hermeneutic study. Third, being good at break through the limitation and weakness in the detailed discussion of inscription hermeneutics, Tang Lan's theory is full of innovation spirit. According to his textological works of the existing explanation of literatures written in Bronze inscriptions, the first part of Chapter Three analyzes Tang Lan's supplement to the unaccomplished perspectives and the correction of the inaccurate mistakes, which reveal his hermeneutic mode as development and promotion based on former theories. In the second part, according to the concrete and typical cases in his study, the achievements and characteristics of Tang Lan's study would be analyzd and draw as a conclusion, which are embodied in three dimensions as the meaning and usage, the name and description as well as official institutions both in history and geography. Certain mistakes in Tang Lan's research would be pointed out in the fourth chapter respectively in four dimensions as the explanation of characters, the separated pronunciation, the punctuation and archeology, based on strict analysis on specific and concrete cases.In the last chapter, Tang Lan's research would be analyzed in terms of dynastic study accurately, which provides the premise and basis of dynastic lexis, semantics, linguistics and the study on the structure of calligraphy. By establishing the theoretical system that concentrates on the bronzei nscription category "Kanggong", the school of Kanggong starts to develop, which is represented by Tang Lan. The first part of Chapter Four focuses on the dominate methodology of Tang Lan's research, working out the basic clue and standard with which, Tang Lan diveded the dynastic period, including the interpersonal correlation, the combination between inscription and historical literatures, the analysis of shapes and figures of Bronze inscriptions, as well as using multiple methodology and the latest achievements. In the second part, the Kanggong standard related issues has been referred to and discussed based on the review of the famous argument in the history about Kanggong, by reflection and examination on the persuasiveness and possibility of this perspective step by step, figuring out the solutions of the theoretical development of this issue in the future. Compared with the other five schools on the dynastic study of bronze inscriptions, The last part of this chapter makes respective evaluation and criticism on Tang Lan's conclusion of the Charts of Inscription on Bronze Instruments in Xizhou Dynasty with preliminary statistics, by using the latest academic achievements. According to the preliminary statistics, in body of the work mentioned above, there are merely twenty nine obvious mistakes whereas the number of the accurate and proximate conclusions almost reaches one hundred and fourty seven amongst all the one hundred and seventy six pieces of literatures written in Bronze inscriptions.There are two appendixes in the end of the dissertation. Firstly, the Charts of Inscription on Bronze Instruments in Xizhou Dynasty is based on all the schools' perspectives. Secondly, the Academic Annual of Tang Lan is a correction as well as a supplement toward the Annual of Tang Lan by Tang Funian and Tang Yinian, the sons of Tang Lan in order to accomplish and fulfill a much more detailed pectination of his academic achievements.