《三字经》研究二题

A Study of Three Character Classic in Two Perspectives

幼儿启蒙教育读物《三字经》迄今无确切作者和成书年代。经过清代乾嘉学派的极力搜求,认为是南宋大儒王应麟所作。文章认为,《三字经》应是宋代的饱学者为幼儿启蒙教育而写的稿本,后经友好文人之间互相传抄、扩散、增益,并不落名。成书年代大约起自北宋中后期,到南宋定型。版本大约可粗分为两类:一类是宋版的流传本,一类是民国章太炎的重订本及同型本。文章对上述内容做了较为详细地分析,并增全历史部分,以订正错字、错义为宗旨,作了《增订三字经》。

Three Character Classic is a popular children’s text,but up to now there has been no agreement on its author and publication time.The textual research by the scholars of the Qianlong Period and the Jiaqing Period of the Qing dynasty concluded that its author was Wang Yingling,a famous Confucian scholar of the Southern Song dynasty.This paper has the following conclusion:Three Character Classic was first written by an unknown scholar of the Song dynasty and its manuscript was copied,spread and rewritten by other friendly unknown scholars.It was written around the mid-period or later period of the Northern Song dynasty,and its final version appeared in the Southern Song dynasty.The different versions fall roughly into two categories,one being the popular edition of the Northern Song dynasty and the other being the revised edition by Zhang Taiyan of the Republic of China or similar editions.Besides the above incisive analysis,this paper gives a revised version of Three Character Classic by making some corrections and giving more historical facts.