孙诒让甲骨文研究的贡献

The Contribution of Sun Yirang on Research of Inscriptions on Bones or Tortoise Shells of the Shang Dynasty

晚清孙诒让是中国20世纪古文字研究的开创者,其金文成果代表了乾嘉至晚清金文研究的最高峰,同时又是历史上甲骨文研究的第一人。孙诒让所著《契文举例》作为第一部甲骨文研究著作,其开创意义是公认的。但学术界在肯定其开创之功的同时,对孙氏的甲骨文研究本身,则多有保留,甚至否定,说“谬误居十之八九”。这种评价是不客观的。对孙氏著作的调查发现,尽管孙氏难免开创者的局限,但在甲骨文研究方面不仅有价值的成果比例较大,而且有很多精辟的见解至今还被甲骨学界所沿用;更有甚者,孙氏的考释又有后人所不及者,乃至孙氏已作正确解释而后人至今还作错误的理解。

Sun Yirang , a celebrated scholar in the Later Qing Dynasty, was the pioneer of ancient character study in 20th Century China. His study on inscriptions on ancient bronze objects is the highest peak from the age of Emperor Qianlong and Emperor Jiaqing to the later Qing Dynasty, at the same time, he was also the first person of the research of Inscriptions on Bones or Tortoise Shells of the Shang Dynasty in history. As the first works about inscription study, Outline on Qiwen written by Sun Yirang, has obvious meaning on starting. However, on one hand, scholars admit his success; on the other hand, they don't agree him completely, even deny him, said 'all of them are nearly mistakes'. But this kind of appraisal is not objective. This paper finds though he had limitation ineluctably of a person who start, his studies were not merely valuable achievement large percentage in inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells, and many penetrating opinions are also continued to use by the later scholar; some conclusions can't be outstripped by later person; and even he had made clear but the later person' s understanding were wrong .