The old astronomical significance of the glyph and the word sui < *swats.

• Author: Smith, Jonathan
• Position: Essay

The glyph , writing the word sui < *swats 'year, etc.', has often been considered a phono-semantic compound incorporating , this writing the once similar-sounding word yue < *wat 'battle-axe'. However, the present study demonstrates in section 1 that such an analysis is untenable with respect to Oracle Bone Inscriptions (OBI) evidence, where found are, e.g., for the former, against for the latter. Instead, I argue, sound epigraphy would suggest a relation of to the graph , taking OBI forms such as and writing phonologically remote Wu < * muh, fifth of the ten Tian Gan [??] or Heavenly Stems. Moving next to reexamine early usage of the word sui, in section 2 I arrive at minor but arguably significant refinements to the typical OBI-era treatments 'to sacrifice' and 'year'. On their basis, in section 3 I first offer an adjusted view of the etymological status of sui < *swats by reference to Mei Tsu-lin's proposed derivation from a root yue < *wat [??] 'cross over'. More consequentially, recent astronomical suggestions of David W. Pankenier regarding traditional fourth of the Heavenly Stems, Ding [??], are shown there to extend to its neighbor at the fifth position, Wu an early word *swats 'crossing over (period)' and the early indicative glyph so writing appear in this new light to have had a highly specific astronomical significance which neatly corroborates the potentially momentous proposal of Pankenier.

1. THE GLYPH

   The character , traceable to the earliest known stages of the Chinese script, still awaits a satisfying explanation. The question is complicated by the early polysemy of the attendant lexeme (or lexemes?) sui < *swats, generally understood for the Old Chinese stage to mean at least 'to sacrifice', 'Jupiter', and 'year'. (1) Setting aside for the moment the lexicological question, we might count three distinct Oracle Bone Inscriptions (OBI) forms of the graph: (1) [Ye san 39.5]; (2) [Lu 458]; and, on a very few occasions, (3) [Menzies 2235]. (2) The first and unadorned form is to all appearances a depiction of a hafted blade; it is frequently identical to renderings, as [Yi 6881], of the glyph writing Wu < *muh [??] traditional fifth of the Tian Gan [??] or Heavenly Stems. (3) The rest are combinations of pairs of dots or slashes, in the case of (2), and in that of (3), of "feet," with the same basic "weapon" shape. Graphical variation in early is thus manageably delimited: the supplementary elements of (2) and (3), while differently rendered, are consistent) positioned within the weapon's blade, one above and one below the crosspiece, while the -type framework, "handle" if at times turned askew or "blade" squared, is a constant.

   Composition of from a form best equated with this fifth Stem glyph remains transparent through later periods. We may profitably compare Bronze Inscriptions (BI) graphs such as; Chen Zhang hu [??] or Zihezi fu [??]] to Qiang pan , for instance, noting for these stages the new prominence of the allograph featuring It is puzzling, then, that the relation of to has largely gone unrecognized. At least, it does seem agreed that the Shuo wen (c. 100 CE) association of with , a graph earlier taking clearly distinct forms such as OBI [Jia 2625] and BI [Shi Hu gui ], is anachronistic. (4) More persistent, though, has been the modern claim, apparently originating with Luo Zhenyu [??] and retained in more recent studies such as that of Mei Tsu-lin, for a structural relation between and the glyph , this writing the word yue < *wat tattle-axe'. Generally, as in the work of Luo and Mei, it is suggested that to write the similarly sounding word stet < *swats, this was redeployed in a purely phonetic capacity. Bare type-(1) of early is thus considered to be a "rebus" reassignment of , type-(2) a mysteriously elaborated variant of this first, and type-(3) a phono-semantic compound featuring a signific element generally identified (in this respect following the Shuo wen) with . (5) Guo Moruo, while maintaining the view of a relation to , has instead claimed simply that "anciently, sui and yue were to begin with a single character and word" [??]. (6) That is, Guo rejects the notion of as phonologically motivated--instead, he suggests, the word sui, like (or rather identical to) yue, actually first meant 'battle-axe'. The graph is thus seen as fundamentally depictive ("pictographic," if one likes) in its more basic incarnations , with the type representing "a shift from depictive glyph to ideo-associative character" [??]. (7)

   Certainly, Lud, Mei, and Guo are on firm ground with regard to the phonological resem-blance of the OC word *swats [??] to *wat . Their approaches, however, also require for credibility a close resemblance of the graphs to early forms of --a proposition that proves every bit as problematic as the Shut-wen claim for a connection to . Paleographic studies report that the graph took the quite distinct OBI form [Jia 2239], from which it may be seen to progress to BI [Yue Fit GILT yan [??]] and eventually to Seal Script .(8) Early might thus be characterized, in opposition to and , as "bulbous-bladed," closed ovoid protrusion transitioning over time to open inward hook. In such a light, it is impossible to consider identical to or to be derived from it, whether from phonological considerations or otherwise. (9) On occasion, late forms of a purported have been brought forward in defense of the claimed connection: Guto, and apparently also Mei, turns in particular to the exemplar [??] (?); Guoji Zibai pan [??]], where similarity might indeed be found to and more particularly to ; Mao Gong ding [??]]. (10) However, even allowing that such late evidence might be relevant to original structure, the graph on the Guaji Zibai pan turns out certainly not to write yue 'battleaxe' and in fact likely writes sui 'to sacrifice', thus representing a survival of the bare type-(1) OBI forms of described above. (11) The unavoidable conclusion, and the jumping-off point for the present inquiry, is therefore that there exists no evidence for a formal link between and that would support either the proposal of Luo and Mei or that of Gmo. (12) The conventional view of , it appears, is a graphological canard that owes its longevity only to the absence of a compelling alternative.

   As a first step in the formulation of such an alternative, it is worth recalling Guo's insistence, voiced in opposition to the view of Luo, that the glyph does not resemble a typical phono-semantic compound to begin with. As he points out, the form's "feet" are not a signific determinative in any regular sense, while the very particular positioning of these elements with respect to the basic form can hardly be without meaning. (13) In accepting this last and more valuable observation, however, we must at the same time reject the view of that author and most others that type-(2) , along with , was at first simply depictive of some peculiar species of axe. (14) Much more likely is that this form harbors just the same indicative significance, whatever it may have been, reflected in . Seeking the nature of this significance, in section 2 I consider the generally agreed upon senses of early sui < *swats primarily in light of the word's occurrences in the OBI. In the cases of 'to sacrifice' and 'year' in particular, I propose minor but ultimately revelatory semantic adjustments. Subsequently, in section 3, beginning from the proposal of Mei for the relation of sui < *swats to a root yue < *wat [??] 'cross over', I offer a unified account of what seem to be several closely related words *swats and of the glyphs that represent them. Of critical importance to this discussion are the recent astronomical assertions of David W. Pankenier regarding traditional fourth of the Heavenly Stems, Ding [??], that can be readily extended to its neighbor at the fifth position, Wu [??]. (15)

2. THE WORD(S) SUI < * SWATS

   Considered here in more detail, with primary reference to the OBI, are the three preliminary senses of sit/ offered above--'to sacrifice', 'Jupiter', and 'year'--and also, more briefly, the matter of concomitant graphical variation. It should be noted that there are appearances of -type glyphs in the bone inscriptions for which context is too deficient or opaque for understanding (some of these will be encountered below); thus, it remains entirely possible that there are OBI uses of sui that lie beyond our current purview. Other textually attested OC uses of the word may include simply 'time' (e.g., Lunyu [??], "time does not consort us" [??]), (16) 'harvest time' (e.g., the Zuo zhuan [??], "apprehensive, as husbandman anticipating the harvest" [??]), (17) and 'year of age' (e.g., the Zhuangzi [??] "people live at the upper limit to a hundred years of age" [??]). (18) These might of course all be treated as offshoots of a primary 'year', but, as will be seen, the question is not entirely straightforward.

   1. sui 'to sacrifice'?

      Shaughnessy's considered conclusion regarding OBI-era sui, offered in the course of his analysis of the LI gut inscription (see n. 11), is that the word "ought to be interpreted as a type of sacrifice, normatively directed toward an ancestor or ancestors, and ... there seems to be no evidence requiring or even suggesting an interpretation such as 'year' or 'Jupiter'." (19) The latter claim is discussed below; as will be seen, the author is careful to qualify in particular his assessment of 'year'. At issue for the moment is the possibility that stet refers to "a type of sacrifice": somewhat more precisely, it appears that in the bone inscriptions antecedents to the graph frequently write a verb encoding a sacrificial action of some kind. (20) This sui behaves more or less straightforwardly as regards syntax, with an associated sacrificial recipient generally marked with the preposition yd [??], e.g., sui yu Shang Jia [??] "sacrifice to Shang Jia" (Heji 32352), or preposed as topic, as Shang Jia...