先秦两汉高粱古名考

Study on Ancient Names of Sorghum in the Pre-Qin and Han Dynasties

先秦两汉的古籍中是否有高粱的古名,是已有高粱史研究的焦点问题之一。赞同高粱起源于中国的前辈学者陆续提出了多种关于高粱古名的猜想,其中影响较大的有三种。然而,这三种猜想并没有完全得到学界的认可。本文重新审视了这三种猜想,认为过往关于高粱古名的猜想缺乏决定性的证据,难以成立。但是,也不完全排除中国在先秦两汉存在高粱的可能性。

Whether ancient names of sorghum existed in books of Pre-Qin and Han dynasties is one focal issue in the study of the sorghum history.Scholars who believe that the origin of sorghum is China have successively put forward many kinds of hypotheses about the ancient names of sorghum,and three of them have great influence which have not been fully accepted yet by the academic community.This paper reexamines the three hypotheses,and believes that the hypotheses about the ancient names of sorghum lack decisive evidence and are hard to prove.However,there is some possibility of the existence of sorghum in China before the Han Dynasty.