What are the taboos in writing history books?

Taboo words in history books

The so-called taboo means that in feudal society, in order to show respect for monarchs, officials, sages and other respected people, they did not address them directly when speaking. Name is a custom of not writing the name directly when writing an article, but using other related or similar words instead. This not only restricts people's thinking, but also causes a lot of trouble for later generations when reading history books. It is briefly summarized as follows, hoping to be helpful to beginners.

There are many ways to avoid taboos in ancient books, the main ones are as follows:

1. Missing pen

It means incompletely writing the words that should be avoided , and write one or two less strokes.

2. Eliminate words

It means to remove the words that need to be taboo and not write them in the book.

There are two ways to do this: one is not to leave it blank; the other is to leave it blank. The so-called not leaving blank, for example, the current Xia County was originally called Xiaqiu County, and Gong County was originally called Gongqiu County. In order to avoid the taboo word "Qiu" in Confucius, the word "Qiu" was removed, so they became Xia County and Gong County. To leave it blank means to remove the taboo word but leave it blank. For example, in order to avoid taboos about the word "世" (shi) used by Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, people in the Tang Dynasty wrote "Wang Shichong" as "Wang Chong". Later calligraphers did not know that this was caused by the taboo, so when engraving books, they combined the two characters to form "Wang Chong". If you understand these situations, you will make a joke. In addition, there are some books that leave the words that need to be avoided blank, but write the word "Shangtao" in them. For example, in the book "Shuowen Jiezi", the words "Xiu", "Zhuang" and "Hu" are all written with the word "Shangtao". . The empty words are not noted. This is because Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty was famous for Xiu, Emperor Ming was famous for Zhuang, and Emperor An was famous for Hu.

3. Changing words

It is to rewrite the words that need to be avoided into other words.

Changing characters is the most common practice. Due to taboos, not only many people’s surnames and names have been changed, but many things have been changed beyond recognition. Therefore, we will focus on some examples of such taboos. .

1. Change the name

Nowadays, many people have the surname Qiu. In fact, these ancestors with the surname Qiu were not originally named Qiu, but Qiu. Qiuyuan is a place name, which is the surname named after the place named Linzi (anciently called Yingqiu) in Shandong Province (King Wu of Zhou named his hero Jiang Ziya here. After the establishment of Qi State, all the descendants of Jiang Ziya who lived in Yingqiu were named after the place). The surname was Qiu). At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius was promoted as a "sage". In this way, the surname Qiu was taboo with Confucius's name, so "Qiu" was changed to "Qiu".

Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty was named Qi, so "Weiziqi" was renamed "Weizikai".

In the "Book of Han", "Zhuangzi" is written as "Yanzi" just to avoid the taboo of Liu Zhuang, Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty. If you don't understand this situation, you don't know who "Yan Zi" is.

After Sima Yan ascended the throne, in order to avoid the taboo of his father Sima Zhao, "Wang Zhaojun" was renamed "Wang Mingjun".

Tang Taizong's name was Li Shimin. In order to avoid the word "世", Xu Shiji changed his name to "Xu Ji", and even Guanyin had to be changed to "Guanyin".

The name of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was Li Longji, so anything called "Ji" or anything that sounds the same as "Ji" is taboo and cannot be used. Therefore, "Ji's" was changed to "Zhou's". The famous historian "Liu Zhiji" no longer dared to use his own name, but used other words, called "Liu Zixuan".

Another example is the debater "Kuai Che" in the early Han Dynasty. Because Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was named Liu Che, he was renamed "Kuai Tong" in the history books. It seems that only one play in the Peking Opera "earning Kuai Che" has been restored. Its true colors.

2. Change the official name

Liu Bang, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, changed "Xiangbang" to "Xiangguo".

Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty was famous for his talent, so he avoided the taboo word "xiucai" and changed "xiucai" to "maocai".

The father of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty was named Yang Zhong, so in the Sui Dynasty, the official name "Zhongshu" was changed to "Neishi", and the official name "Shizhong" was changed to "Nayan".

In order to avoid the word "people" used by Emperor Taizong Li Shimin, the Tang Dynasty changed the "Minbu", one of the six central ministries, to "Hubu".

When Li Zhong, the son of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty, became the crown prince, he changed "Zhonglang General" to "Lvben Langjiang".

3. Change the name of the object

Qian Liu, the king of Wuyue in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, changed the name of pomegranate to "Golden Cherry" because the word "镠" has the same pronunciation with the word "liu" of pomegranate. ";

Yang Xingmi, a contemporary of Qian Liu, was named King of Wu by the Tang Dynasty. When he occupied Yangzhou, the locals were afraid of violating his taboo, so they changed "honey" to "bee sugar".

4. Change the place name

In order to avoid the taboo of Chu for his father and son, Qin Shihuang changed the name of Chu land to "Jing".

Emperor Min of the Jin Dynasty, Sima Ye, changed "Jianye" to "Jiankang".

Zhao Hengshi, Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty, changed Beiyue's "Hengshan" to "Changshan".

5. Others

In order to avoid the taboo of his father Sima Tan, Sima Qian changed "Zhao Tan" in "Historical Records" to "Zhao Tong".

Sun Sheng of the Eastern Jin Dynasty wrote a book called "Jin Yang Qiu" because Emperor Sima Rui of the Yuan Dynasty had a concubine named Zheng Achun. After his son became emperor, he stipulated that the word spring should be avoided, so he changed it to "春" It is "yang". "Yangqiu" in "Book of Jin" is actually "Spring and Autumn".

During the reign of Li Zhi, Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty, the word "zhi" in all writings was replaced by synonymous words such as "reason" and "zhi"; "child" was replaced by "you".

After Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, all places where the word "Xuan" was written must be changed to the word "Yuan".

Du Fu’s mother’s name was Haitang, so he did not write a poem praising Haitang. The preface to Su Shi’s grandfather’s name was changed to a narrative.

Learning more about some taboo words will help us avoid going around in circles when reading ancient books. Of course, some words are still in use today and have long been established by convention, so there is no need to return them to their true colors, so we just need to Just understand the content and don’t worry about it.