Page:Elementary Chinese - San Tzu Ching (1900).djvu/17



San (see ) is an ideogram, as also are 一 i one, 二 êrh two , and the archaic 亖 ssŭ four, for which 四 was substituted at an early date. Odd numbers are regarded as male, even numbers as female.

Tzŭ is composed of 子 tzŭ child and 宀 mien an obsolete character meaning shelter, the former having here the double function of radical or indicator of sense, and of phonetic or indicator of sound. The word originally meant to suckle,—a child beneath a roof; later on, to betroth a girl. It came to be used in the sense of written character under the First Emperor (lines, ) according to some, and according to others about a century later in the famous history by 司馬遷 Ssŭ-ma Chi'en. Previous to that date the characters 名 ming and 文 wên  had been used.

Ching is composed of radical 糸 mi five strands of silk as spun by the silkworm, now generally read ssŭ like the duplicated form in, and an obsolete phonetic. It originally meant to weave, the warp of a web, and came to be applied to canonical works or classics, thus offering a curious analogy with our own word text. Strictly speaking the property of the Confucianists, it was borrowed by the Buddhists as a suitable equivalent for sûtra (= threads) or that portion of the Canon which contains the actual utterances of Shâkyamuni Buddha. It was subsequently adopted by the Taoists, and has also been employed by Roman Catholic missionaries in their dignified rendering of Bible.