The Idea of ​​"Heaven and Man" in Chinese Ancient Book Binding (1)

Books are the quintessence of culture. As soon as they are produced, they possess two attributes, one is a spiritual attribute, and one is a material attribute. The so-called spiritual attribute means that the content of a book develops and changes with the development of the times; the so-called material attribute refers to its framed form. The binding format of books varies with the production materials, production methods, social economic conditions, and cultural development and needs of the books. Among them, Chinese culture is in ancient China

The formation and development of book binding patterns are deeply influential and subtle.

First, the "Unity of Heaven and Man" and the layout of books

Can be called the origin of modern Chinese characters is Oracle, Oracle has been fully equipped with the Chinese character "six books" of the six major categories of composition, point planning is basically composed of a number of long and short lines with each other, with Chinese characters known as "square word" very Notable feature. Since it is a square word, there is an arrangement. "Sermons and Calligraphy" said: "There is a summer service (acceptance) destiny"; "The Analects of Confucius Tabor" said: "The filial piety is like ghosts and ghosts." This shows that the slave owners of the Xia Dynasty had deceived and oppressed the people under the guise of religion and ruled. There has been a sense of "heaven," but it is more embarrassing.

Upon entering the Shang Dynasty, a religious superstition that is closely integrated with witchcraft was formed. It was believed that the universe had a supreme god called "divine" or "God." "God" is like a father; "the next emperor" is like a son, the so-called "Emperor." To be a son, everything has to obey his father's orders. For example, Yin Ruujiu's bone inscriptions include "A Chenchen, the Imperial Order of the Rain?" and "Emperor's Decline (堇)?" As Mr. Guo Moruo said, just saying "imperialism" can show a double meaning: it means both the meaning of the supreme god and the significance of the patriarchal god. As the supreme god, there is a meaning from top to bottom; as a ancestral god, there is a continuous meaning from ancient times to the time. In this way, when inscriptions are written, they must be carved out from the top to the bottom. This type of carving can be inherited from the purpose of “the heavens,” and can be carved out continuously to form straight-line styles. In ancient China, advocating the right is the top and the left is the bottom. From top to bottom, nature is right and left. This writing style has continued along. The inscriptions on bronze wares, and the characters in regular script, are all the same. This shows that with the formation of traditional ideas, the style of writing is gradually fixed. Because of the right-to-left reading method, the later book pages were formed from left to right until the appearance of modern books.

After Zhou replaced Yin, Zhou Ren inherited the thought of the Tian people. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period in the Warring States period, Confucius put forward the proposition that “Heavenly Heaven spoke”, which means that heaven is speechless and has no image, and heaven is separated from God as a natural object. In the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu inherited the pre-Qin Dynasty and Xie Kaiwei Jin and put forward the famous "Heaven and Man" idea. The essence of "Heaven and Man Combine" is a unity of man and nature. It is a profound understanding of man's own existence, structure, and activities. It forms an active and active humanist world view that focuses on ginseng heaven and earth.

The earliest regular books in ancient China are simple rules that have been identified, and it already has some basic forms of book binding. The brief policy was mainly used for official purposes. At that time, the thinking of “Heaven” was still highly respected by the rulers. For their rule, they would not give up and change their views on “Heaven”. The booklet still follows the vertical writing of Oracle and Jinwen, right-and-left styles.

With the layout features of the simple script of succession, the natural lines formed by the two simple texts in the simple policy book were used in the regular script. A line of cinnabar or ink painting appeared. Later, the red line was called “Zhu Si”, which was called black. The "Ukrainian bar". The first appearance of the “Zhu Si Lan” and “U Si Lan” forms seems to naturally follow the simple changes of the book, and actually contains aesthetic and practical factors. Although it was inspired by the brief policy, it contained the subjective intention of "harmony between man and nature." In the Han dynasty, due to the maturity of the idea of ​​"Unity of Heaven and Man," the idea of ​​going straight up and down has been further developed. Not only has there been formality, it has further clarified the concept of heaven and earth.

After the advent of the script, scroll loading, cyclone loading, bran binding, and folding books appeared one after another. The writing methods of these types of books are generally similar (of course, the binding methods are different), but the pages in the cyclone book are written on both sides, and the others are written on one side. There is not much difference in the layout.

After the publication of the Eastern Han Dynasty Cai Lun Paper and the late Sui and early Tang dynasty prints, it developed into the Song Dynasty, and it entered its peak period. The layout of the printed book also had a relatively fixed format. The formation of this format has a close relationship with the "integration of nature and man" and its "isomorphism." It believes that the world is a whole, all evolved from heaven and earth. "Heaven and Man" has several layers of meanings: First, the "unity of man and nature" on a physical body; second, the "unity of man and nature" in affection; the third is the "harmony between man and nature" on the law. Mencius said that "Everything is prepared for me" and expressed that all reason in the world is concentrated on people and ginseng.

People are the main ones. Therefore, in people's various behaviors, people get the same structure from the "harmony between man and nature" and form the "intelligence of heaven and man". "Nearby taking care of everything and taking everything far", everything is the same. The layout of Song Dynasty engraving and printing also follows this principle. The following example shows the layout of the printed book:

Song book layout

As you can see from the figure, this is a very complete and very perfect layout design. Its vertical writing keeps the writing method started from Oracle; the title of the heavens and feet has appeared for the first time, which summarizes the “day”. The traditional concept of "land" is more clear. The words in the foot and the ground are written and sculpted by people according to different contents. This is precisely in line with the dialectical view that the "Heaven and Man Oneness" ideology has formed the basis of human beings. The Chinese characters in the layout are still from the right to the left, and the traditional habits of the upper right and the lower left are adopted. The "Ukrainian bar" appearing in the Shui Shue has evolved into a bounding box, bounded up and down, and left and right. The appearance of the boundary grid appears to be the natural evolution of the simple policy book and the official script layout, but in fact it is the influence and deepening of the “harmony between man and nature”.

(to be continued)