Quick Answer: What Is the Shuowen Jiezi?
The Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字, Shuōwén Jiězì), often rendered Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters, is a character dictionary compiled by Xu Shen (许慎, Xǔ Shèn) in the Eastern Han (东汉, Dōng Hàn). It examines written forms, their meanings and the roles of their components.[4]
- Head forms: Its analysis centers on small-seal script (小篆, xiǎozhuàn), not simply the modern printed character.
- Organization: It groups entries under 540 section heads.
- Method: An entry may distinguish an element related to meaning from one related to sound.
The work is foundational for studying Chinese writing. It is neither the first appearance of Chinese characters nor a guarantee that every Han explanation establishes a character’s earliest origin.
Why does a river character contain an element associated with a different word? The Shuowen Jiezi often answers by identifying a sound component. Reading the entry’s analysis, rather than inventing a story from modern shapes, reveals the dictionary’s particular purpose.
Xu Shen and a Dictionary Organized by Character Forms
Compiled around the beginning of the second century CE, the work connects the study of written forms with the interpretation of earlier texts. In its postface, Xu Shen criticizes explanations that treat recent forms as though they preserved the earliest writing unchanged.[2][5]
Its 540 section heads are commonly called bushou (部首, bùshǒu), or radicals. They organize groups of graphs by form. A section head, a component inside a character and a category of analysis are related ideas, but they are not interchangeable labels.
The postface reports 9,353 main graphs and 1,163 additional variant forms. Keep those counts separate: adding them does not produce 10,516 equivalent main entries. It identifies fourteen entry sections, with the postface forming a fifteenth part in the received arrangement.[1][2]
Later editions divide the fifteen juan (卷, juàn) into upper and lower halves, producing thirty divisions. Thus a catalogue’s “thirty juan” and a description’s “fourteen sections plus a postface” can refer to different levels of arrangement, rather than different-sized dictionaries.[5]
Reading an Entry: Jiang, He and Their Sound Components
The water section provides two examples. Each entry begins by identifying a waterway, gives geographical information, then explains its written construction. The following isolates that construction; it is not a translation of the entire entry.[3]
| Headword in modern form | What the entry identifies | How Xu Shen analyzes the graph |
|---|---|---|
| Jiang (江, jiāng) | The entry associates the graph with the Yangtze (长江, Cháng Jiāng). | shui (水, shuǐ), water, supplies the meaning-related element; gong (工, gōng) is identified as the sound component. |
| He (河, hé) | The entry associates the graph with the Yellow River (黄河, Huáng Hé). | Water supplies the meaning-related element; ke (可, kě) is identified as the sound component. |
Calling gong a sound component does not explain the river as “water doing work.” Nor does ke turn the other river’s name into “water that can.” Such stories substitute modern meanings of components for the functions assigned in these entries.
The sound component also need not be a perfect match in modern Mandarin. The pinyin here helps readers identify the modern forms; it is not a transcription of Han pronunciation. Compare the historical forms and sound relationships before judging an analysis solely by today’s readings.
This distinction between meaning-related and sound-related elements is central to understanding Chinese characters. A written component may perform a different role from the standalone word that its modern form suggests.
The Six Shu and What Their Categories Explain
The postface discusses liu shu (六书, liù shū), conventionally called the six principles or categories of writing. These are a framework for discussing written signs and their use, not six calligraphic styles or six sections of the dictionary.[2]
| Traditional category | Basic reading orientation |
|---|---|
| zhishi (指事, zhǐshì) | Indicating a relation or idea through a visible mark. |
| xiangxing (象形, xiàngxíng) | Representing an object through its outline or shape. |
| xingsheng (形声, xíngshēng) | Combining a meaning-related element with a sound-related one. |
| huiyi (会意, huìyì) | Combining elements to express a joined sense. |
| zhuanzhu (转注, zhuǎnzhù) | A relation of shared grouping and linked interpretation; its precise scope remains debated. |
| jiajie (假借, jiǎjiè) | Borrowing a graph to write another word on the basis of sound. |
Xu Shen’s postface names Jiang and He as examples of xingsheng. That connection helps relate the theoretical discussion to actual entries. It does not mean every entry carries an explicit label assigning it to one of six exhaustive boxes.[2][6]
For zhuanzhu especially, compare the traditional examples with the interpretation being proposed. A compact English label should not imply a settled definition.
Later Editions and the Limits of a Han Explanation
The text reached later readers through editions and commentary. Three names commonly encountered belong to later scholarship, not Xu Shen’s own authorial voice.[1][5]
| Later scholar | What to distinguish when reading |
|---|---|
| Xu Xuan (徐铉, Xú Xuàn) | A Song (宋, Sòng) editorial tradition that includes additions and later pronunciation spellings. |
| Xu Kai (徐锴, Xú Kǎi) | A separate commentary tradition; distinguish its explanation from the base entry. |
| Duan Yucai (段玉裁, Duàn Yùcái) | A Qing (清, Qīng) commentator whose notes should be read alongside, rather than silently merged with, Xu Shen’s text. |
Small-seal forms are also not automatically the earliest attested forms of a character. When testing a proposed origin, compare the relevant earlier evidence, including oracle bone script, instead of assuming that a Han analysis exhausts the character’s history.
The dictionary’s value survives that distinction. It preserves a systematic account of forms and explanations studied in the Han tradition, while later discoveries and scholarship can change how particular origins are understood.
How to Read the Shuowen Jiezi Today
- Identify the head form: Locate its section and compare the seal form with the modern character used to find it.
- Separate the entry’s jobs: Read the meaning gloss, component analysis, variant forms and any sound information as distinct elements.
- Check the textual layer: Distinguish Xu Shen’s entry from later additions and commentary before comparing the account with earlier evidence.
Bottéro and Harbsmeier’s 2008 English study examines entry structure and distinguishes graphic explanation from a comprehensive account of word meanings.[6]
For comparison, the Erya (尔雅, Ěryǎ) and the Shiming (释名, Shìmíng) offer other kinds of early lexicographical explanation. Compare particular entries and their questions rather than treating all three books as interchangeable modern dictionaries.
FAQs About the Shuowen Jiezi
Does the Shuowen Jiezi say every character is a picture?
No. It recognizes different kinds of written relationships, including sound-based components. Its analysis of Jiang and He explicitly distinguishes water-related elements from sound components.
Does a Shuowen entry give every meaning of a word?
Not necessarily. Its gloss serves the written-form analysis and need not cover every sense or pronunciation of a word.
Did Chinese writing begin with the Shuowen Jiezi?
No. Xu Shen analyzes an existing writing tradition and discusses earlier forms. The book is evidence about the study of writing in the Han period, not the invention of Chinese writing.
Fuentes
[1] Public-domain Chinese text. Shuowen Jiezi: received contents
[2] Public-domain Chinese text. Shuowen Jiezi, postface
[3] Public-domain Chinese text. Shuowen Jiezi, water section: Jiang and He
[4] Ministry of Education, Revised Mandarin Chinese Dictionary. Shuowen Jiezi: characters, section heads and small-seal forms
[5] Wang Yahong, National Library of China Press. The Shuowen Jiezi and its circulating editions (2023)
[6] Françoise Bottéro and Christoph Harbsmeier, Asia Major. The Shuowen Jiezi Dictionary and the Human Sciences in China (2008)