Preliminary Discussion On The Variants Of Small Seal In Shuo Wen Jie Zi

The Chongwen in Shuo Wen Jie Zi consists of Small Seal,Guwen and Zhouwen,and the study of it has always been one of the hot points in the field of acadamy. What's more, great achievements have been made in this area, among which, however, few study are made involving the different types of Chongwen. Therefore, the author of this thesis attempts to do the fundamental research on the Small Seal as the following steps:First, investigation is made on the origin of variants. According to investigation , we may draw the conclusion that the variants of the Small Seal has four origins:1. The existing lexicon. According to Honshu Yiwenzhi and Shuowen Houxu ,the lexicons in later Qin Dynasty include Shizhou, Cangjie, Fanjiang, Jijiu, Yuanshang, Xunzuan etc,which may be the reference book for Xu Shen to compose the book Shuo Wen Jie Zi.2. The classical books, which after the disaster of fire in Qin Dynasty, have two kinds of script: ancient script and modern script, the usage of the characters is different.3. The explanation of those Tongren. In addition to the materials employed by Xu Shen in collecting of the variants, he had also consulted many contemporary "Tongren", who were proficient in the field and their analysis of the form of the characters became sufficient and significant support to the study of variants.4. Other materials, mainly the stone inscriptions.Second, after a complete analysis of the form of all the variants in the Small Seal conclusion is drawn that the variants in the Small Seal can be classified into two types according to the form number of each groups (for convenience's sake, the Zitou of the Small Seal is called Zhengti, and the variants of it is called Yigouzi). The first chool is composed of Zitou of the Small Seal in Shuo Wen Jie Zi, and the corresponding Small Seal, namely every Zhengzi has only one variant .The analysis of the variant form gives rive to five types of variants in the Small Seal in which the first four types are basic.1. he replacement of sound part (including the omission of the sound part)2. he replacement of meaning part (including the omission of the meaning part)3. The total replacements of both sound and meaning parts4. The invention of characters takes different forms5. Other types, namely the variant form is different from the four types above.The second school refers to the two and more than two variants in addition to the Zhengzi of every type. Although there is more than one variants in every group, the form is still in accordance with the four basic types of variants in the Small Seal.Last, the following questions are discussed on the basis of the census and analysis of the variants in the Small Seal.1. As for the character reorganization and the regulation of character form, the policy pursuited by Qin in unifying characters set the Small Seal as the criterion .The form is unified and variants are reduced. But the survival of variants shows that the policy is not ideally carried out.2. As for the type of variants, Xingshengzi is the main trend. Meanwhile, the percentage of Xingshengzi goes up from 28% in Jiaguwen and 50% in Jinwen to 80% in the Small Seal, signifying that Xingshengzi become increasingly important and come to be widely used . Mobilization of character form lead to variants, which take the main form of the replacement of sound and meaning part.3. As for the origin of variants, discovery is made that the number of variants of the Small Seal in ShuoWenJieZi from the state of Qin is almost the same as that from the oriental countries, according to a comparative study of variant form and archaeological materials. Historically, the form of some of the variants can be traced back to the ancient characters.