说五一简“芛”为“笔”的异体

On the Variant Character of Bi in Wuyi Square Eastern Han Manuscripts

五一简471、1681中的“芛”是“笔”的异体。颜之推《观我生赋》自注“芛天道”即“笔天道”,指记录天道。“笔”作“芛”说明晚到东汉,仍有“聿”“尹”偏旁通用的例子,为认识《玉篇》“芛”的古文“茟”打开了思路。字书有把俗字误认为“古文”的现象,五一简“鼓”的俗字作“䩔”,就是字书中“鼓”的古文“[革攴]/[革支]”的源头。

The character bi芛on slips 471 and 1681 of the Wuyi Square Eastern Han manuscripts is a variant form of the character bi笔.In Yan Zhitui s Guan wo sheng fu观我生赋,he notes that bi tiandao芛天道is actually bi tiandao笔天道,meaning the act of recording the way of heaven.The use of bi笔as bi芛shows that even in the Eastern Han Dynasty,there were still examples of using yu聿and yin尹interchangeably.This helps us to understand the use of the ancient character wei茟for wei芛in the Yu pian玉篇.There is a phenomenon in character dictionaries where common characters from earlier times are mistaken for ancient characters.Gu䩔,the common form for gu鼓in the Wuyi Square Eastern Han manuscripts,is the origin for the ancient form of the character gu鼓recorded as gu[革攴]/[革支]in character dictionaries.