Page:Elementary Chinese - San Tzu Ching (1900).djvu/41

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The San Tzŭ Ching
23

was used until the introduction of 字 tzŭ (see title), and literature, and by extension civilian (see line 189). [Eitel and Père Zottoli have both missed the point of these two lines. For the latter Eitel has "and understand the several appellatives" whatever that may mean. P. Zottoli has "scias aliquot notiones," the scias following an ut erroneously inserted as a conjunction between lines 42 and 43.]


45. Units and tens,
I1 êrh2 shih2
one and ten


I stands for Unity, the cosmogonical abstraction which was ultimately subdivided into two forces, the resultant being the visible material universe. It is the number of heaven; see title and line 49.

Erh originally meant whiskers. It is now used as a conjunction, sometimes disjunctive, and also as the pronoun you.

Shih is composed of one line pointing east and west and another pointing north and south; it therefore represents the hub of the universe, also numerical completeness, the Chinese system being decimal.


46. tens and hundreds,
Shih2 êrh2 pai3 or pŏ 
Ten and hundred


Shih see line 45.

Erh see line 45.

Pai (or ) was composed, according to the Shuo Wên, of a contraction of 自 tzŭ nose (line 93) as radical, and 一 i unity. In K'ang Hsi's dictionary, however, it is regarded as composed of 一 i one and 白 pai or white as radical, though i would be an intelligible radical and pai would be a perfect phonetic. The functions of radical and phonetic are often thus arbitrarily interchanged. Pai is much used by synecdoche for all, every; e.g. 百