Of Mao Vegetation, Insects, Fish, Birds And Animals Sparse Research

Shi jing(Book of Odes), the earliest existing collection of Chinese poems, is inclusive and comprehensive. It records all-around knowledge about life of Chinese dating from the Zhou Dynasty(1027-771BC) to the Spring Autumn Period. Quite a great number of proper names like plants, animals, weapons, farm tools or appliances used in royal family are mentioned in the book. However, with the passage of time, they are vague and indefinite for the understanding of today's readers. Some of the proper names are briefly explained in Mao Shi Gu Xun Zhuan, an annotation to Shijing. Luji, a celebrated ancient intellectual lived in the Three Kingdom Period, offered further interpretation to those proper names in his book Meanings of Plants Birds, Beasts, Insects and Fish in Mao Shi (Hereafter called Lu Shu for short). Names of85plants and57living creatures are interpreted in Lu Shu.The paper studies and analyzes the life of the author, different editions, style, and historical background of the book Lu Shu, trying to draw a rudimentary conclusion that the distinctive features of the book are as following:1. A same specimen has several different names; dialects are spoken in vast area; plants and animals are depicted vividly.2. Through writing Lu Shu, Luji's way of naming and his writing style became a prototype for latter learners and their studies to Shi Jing.3. In Lu Shu, its writer clarifies the origins of Mao Shi Gu Xun Zhuan, arguing that there are two authors contributed to the book, they are Maogong and Jr. Maogong respectively; Zixia was the first writer of Mao Shi Gu Xun Zhuan, Zixia's works were passed through generations to Maogong and Jr. Maogong, at last the two completed the writing of the book. Author of the paper quotes and examines some of the poems in which grass, trees, birds, animals, fish and insects are mentioned.The innovation point of this thesis is that the author firstly did some systematic research on Lu shu. Rarely did the scholar comment on or explain it, but there were no monographers or books systemically focused on Lu shu. Therefore, this thesis focuses on systemic research on Lu shu. The significance of this thesis is the research on Lu shu from the perspective of text and literature.This thesis is based on the version edited by Luo Zhengyu instead of the version of Ding Yan in Qing Dynasty which is not specific as the former. There was no any punctuation, so the author did some work on it.