“九合諸侯”之“九”辨正

The origin and meaning of the character “九”in "九合诸侯”(unite all the feudal princes)

《論語·憲問》中'桓公九合諸侯,不以兵車,管仲之力也',歷來各家對於'九'的解釋都不同。從宇義與用法上可大致分為兩大類。'九'之宇義:1)實數之說,2)虛數之說,3)聚合義之説説説;'九'之用法:1)假借之說,2)同源通用之說。本文首先對各家觀點進行概述,分別其異同;之後通過對於'九''勼''糾''鳩'音形義的分析,並且根據行文進行語法上的推理,從而證明'九'本宇似當為'勼','九'與'糾'乃是同源通用,且'九合'解釋為'糾合'之義為上。

The chapter Xianwen in The Analects says,'The duke Huan Gong united all the feudal princes not by his army,but by Guan Zhong.' The character '九' in this expression has been interpreted by different scholars.There are mainly three different meanings of it:A) nine times;B) several times;C) to describe the union.On the using of this character,there are also two theories:A) using it as other characters which have similar sound with it;B) using it instead of other characters which have the same origin with it.The author summarizes and differentiates all these theories at first.Then by analyzing characters '九' '勼' '糾' '鳩',and the syntactical inference,the author proves that the original form of the character '九' is'勼',and it is used as '糾' in the word '九合诸侯'.Therefore,the word'九合' means 'gathering and unification'.