摘要
1923年,顾颉刚先生根据《说文》"禹,虫也",猜测"禹或是九鼎上铸的一种动物",引起轩然大波,有人将作为动物之名的"虫"偷换为蠕虫加以讽刺。其实虫为动物总名,顾先生的假说已触及到了用图腾解释族系祖先。1937年,古史辨派健将之一童书业先生提出的"禹为句龙"是朝顾氏假说的正确发展,顾先生晚年也仍然坚持"禹为动物"。从金文字形来看,"禹"就是蛇的象形,确属"虫"。禹父"鲧",又作"鮌",实为"玄鱼"二字的合写,"玄鱼"等于"天鱼",意谓神圣的鱼族。甲骨文中存在没有释读出的"天鱼"、"大鱼"合文,意思等于"玄鱼"。早在仰韶文化大量出现的"蒙面人"神秘主义纹饰,其中"蒙面人"和鱼的组合,寓意即"天鱼"。受崇拜的鱼、龙、龟,长期被先民视为一物。当前学术界寄希望于从豫西或晋南寻找最早的夏文化,而夏文化的渊源可能在西部渭水流域。
In 1923, Gu Jiegang aroused a great stir by conjecturing that ＂Yu might be a kind of animal cast on the nine tripods＂ according to ＂Yu is a worm＂ in Shuowen. Someone satirized the theory by substituting ＂earthworm＂ for ＂worm＂ which is used by the Chinese as a general name for animal. Gu＇s proposition had gotten to the essence of interpreting the clan ancestors with totem. Viewed from the configuration of the inscriptions on ancient bronze, ＂Yu＂ is just the pictograph of a snake, and indeed belongs to ＂worms. ＂ Yu＇s father ＂Gun＂, also written as ＂Xuan＂, is actually the combination of two characters, which represent ＂heavenli fish＂, meaning the holy clan of fish. The implied meaning of the mystic figure with the combination of the mask and fish which had emerged in Yangshao culture in large amounts is just this ＂heavenly fish. ＂ The worshiped fish, dragon and tortoise had long been regarded as one same object by the ancients. At present, the academia hope to seek the earliest Xia culture in the area of Western Henan or Southern Shanxi, and to find the origin of it in the Weishui valley in the west of the above-mentioned area.
出处
《文史哲》
CSSCI
北大核心
2007年第6期35-47,共13页
Literature,History,and Philosophy
关键词
顾颉刚
禹
夏文化
Gu Jiegang
Yu
Xia culture
