10.4 Erya is unfamiliar

In "Erya Shiyu", an animal called "蛞蜞" is introduced. Crabs are similar to ordinary crabs, with eight legs and two pincers, but they are smaller, poisonous, and cannot be eaten directly.

Erya is an ancient Chinese dictionary, a book that explains the meanings of words, and the first comprehensive dictionary compiled according to meanings. It understands words in ancient literature including the Five Classics. It is an important reference book of ancient Chinese and one of the classics of Confucianism, so it is included in the Thirteen Classics.

This is an allusion to Xie Shang's criticism of Cai Mo for not reading "Erya" thoroughly, which led to a joke.

When Cai Mo was crossing the river, he saw many crickets on the riverside. He didn't recognize them, but when he thought of the sentence "A crab has eight legs and two pincers" in "Encouraging Learning", it was natural. He thought these were crabs, so he caught them, steamed them and ate them as delicacies.

But after eating these "crabs", Cai Mo suffered from vomiting and diarrhea, and almost died.

So Cai Mo told the matter to General Xie Shang of Zhenxi.

Xie Shang said: "You are not familiar with "Erya", so you were almost killed by "Encouraging Learning"!"

Later, the classics of Chinese traditional medicine also left Downloaded the story of "Cai Mo Jiaochu".

"Encouraging Learning" is a masterpiece by Cai Yong, a great scholar of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

"The Book of Rites of Great Dai: Encouragement to Learning Chapter" contains: "A crab with two pincers and eight legs is not a snake or a snake with nothing to rely on in its cave, so it is impetuous."

And In Cai Yong's "Encouraging Learning", there is a sentence: "A crab has eight legs, plus two claws."

In the Eastern Jin Dynasty more than a hundred years after Cai Yong's death, Cai Yong's great-grandson Cai Mo became a Situ in the court.

Since "Encouraging Learning" is a work written by his ancestors, Cai Mo attached great importance to it and could memorize "Encouraging Learning" by heart.

The story of "Cai Mo's cricket" tells the world: a slightest mistake can lead to a thousand miles of error. Careless "taking things for granted" can mislead others and yourself.

"Erya" collects a relatively rich collection of ancient Chinese vocabulary and is the ancestor of dictionaries.

In fact, "Erya" is not a classic, nor is it an appendage of a certain classic. It is an independent dictionary and a core component of traditional Chinese culture.

"Er Ya" is the first known dictionary. "Er" means "near" and "Ya" means "upright". Here it refers specifically to "elegant words". That is, standard language that conforms to norms in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.

"Erya" means to be close to and consistent with Yayan, that is, to interpret ancient words and dialect words in Yazheng words to make them close to the standards.

The upper limit of the completion of "Erya" will not be earlier than the Warring States Period, because some of the materials used in the book come from "Chu Ci", "Liezi", "Zhuangzi", "Lu Shi Chunqiu" and other books , and these books are works from the Warring States Period.

Some of the animals mentioned in the book, such as suān ní (one of the nine dragons, shaped like a lion), were not seen before the Warring States Period, according to research.

The lower limit for the completion of "Erya" will not be later than the early Western Han Dynasty, because during the reign of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, a doctor of "Erya" had already been established, and by the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the "Erya Commentary" of Jianwei literature had appeared. 》.

In history, "Erya" has been highly praised.

Also because "Erya" summarizes and explains the ancient meanings of many ancient words in ancient pre-Qin books, it has become an important reference book for Confucian scholars to read and understand the classics.

Studying "Erya" can help you "know the names of birds, animals, plants, trees, insects, and fish," and increase your knowledge of all kinds.

Erya was regarded as a Confucian classic in the Han Dynasty. When Emperor Wenzong of the Tang Dynasty carved the stone scriptures, they were included in the scriptures. By the Song Dynasty, it was listed as one of the Thirteen Classics.

In fact, "Erya" is not a classic, nor is it an appendix to a certain classic. It is an independent dictionary.

With the help of this dictionary, people can read ancient books and conduct research on ancient vocabulary; they can understand ancient society and increase various knowledge.

Erya occupies a prominent position in the history of Chinese linguistics and calligraphy.

"Erya" pioneered the classification and arrangement of words according to meaning and various interpretation methods, which had a great influence on the development of later generations of ci books and similar books.

Later generations imitated "Erya" and wrote a series of poetry books with "Ya" as the title, such as "Xiaoerya", "Guangya", "Piya", "Pianya" ", "Tongya", "Bieya", etc., and the study of Yashu has become a science, which is called "Yaxue".

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