Ma Xinghua
Based on the original work of A Dream of Red Mansions, this paper finds the name of the author of A Dream of Red Mansions and obtains the exact date of the book's completion. The authors of A Dream of Red Mansions are Zhu Yunyang (Zhu Youxian), Xi Shi and Shi Tao, all of whom are adherents of the Ming Dynasty and have the status of Taoist and monk. Among them, Zhu Yunyang is a Taoist master, and Xi Shi and Shi Tao are both famous painters. A Dream of Red Mansions was written in 1692. The research results of this paper are of great significance to the in-depth study of A Dream of Red Mansions.
I. Introduction
The author of the first eighty chapters of A Dream of Red Mansions and the date of its completion have always been a matter of great concern to the red circle. The academic debate about the author of A Dream of Red Mansions has a long history. In A Dream of Red Mansions and One Hundred Years of China, Mr. Liu Mengxi made a detailed and objective comment on the argument about the author of A Dream of Red Mansions:
"The author of the first eighty chapters of A Dream of Red Mansions is Cao Xueqin. Since Hu Shi published Textual Research on A Dream of Red Mansions at 192 1, most researchers of A Dream of Red Mansions have affirmed this conclusion, so the school of textual research may develop into Cao Xue. Only some researches scholars hold different opinions and think that Cao Xueqin is just adding, deleting and modifying. He once thought that another person with adherents' thoughts was the original author. Mr. Pan Chonggui of Taiwan Province Province and Du Shijie, the author of A Dream of Red Mansions, hold this view. However, due to the weak argument and numerous opponents, the discussion was not concentrated. 1979, after the publication of KATTO's series of papers "Uncovering the Mystery of the Author of a Dream of Red Mansions", huge stones were thrown into the "Red Lake", which aroused strong repercussions in the red circle, and a big debate about Cao Xueqin's copyright began.
Dai Bufan's article was published in the first issue of Northern Essays (1979), with a length of more than 40,000 words. The main argument is that Cao Xueqin is not the author of A Dream of Red Mansions, but based on the old draft of the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon written by Shi Xiong. In a word, Cao Xueqin is just the novel's' changed author'. "
Because Mr. Dai Bufan can't produce strong evidence of "senior brother", there are many articles opposing his views. "Nevertheless, Dai Bufan's group of articles about Cao Xueqin's copyright can't be said to be insignificant academically. On the contrary, he raised many unsolved problems with unclear evidence, further explaining that the writing process of A Dream of Red Mansions is still an unsolved mystery. His guess is probably reasonable, but there is not enough evidence. For redology, this is enough to arouse people's interest. "
In recent years, the author of A Dream of Red Mansions and its completion date are still a topic of discussion. Mr. Tumog analyzed A Dream of Red Mansions from the taboo system in Qing Dynasty, and came to the view that the book was written in Kangxi Dynasty.
The data on which this paper is based are all the original works of A Dream of Red Mansions that everyone can get, and the words in the book are written by the author himself, which is the most reliable data.
Third, find two painters from the poem riddle.
Chapter 50, Li Wan has a riddle:
"Water cooled to the stone. Answer: Dan Tao. "
This riddle is called Dan Tao riddle. Come to think of it, the answer is problematic. "Tao" refers to big waves. Water flows out from the edge of the stone, which can form a boundary layer at low speed and turbulence at high speed, but it will never form a big wave. Obviously, this is a puzzle of Tibetan poems, and the author has to do so in order to write the word "Tao" in the answer. We first determine the word "Tao", then find the word "stone" in the riddle and get a name: Shi Tao. The name Shi Tao (164 1 ~ about 17 18) is well-known in the painting world. He and Xi Shi are called "two stones".
The word "Tao" in Dan Tao's riddle is not used properly. In my humble opinion, it is better to use the word "Xi" instead of "Tao". When I saw the "separation of valleys" behind the riddle, I suddenly realized. This word "Liu" is exactly what the author has painstakingly arranged to remind readers. In "Ten Memories of Xue Xiaomei's Ancient Poems", there are examples in which the author reminds readers with the following words.
Now we can rewrite Dan Tao's poem riddle as:
"Water cooled to the stone. Answer: Shanxi. "
Find another person from the riddles and answers: Xi Shi (16 12 ~ 1692). His common surname is Liu, just like Liu in the riddle. He is one of the four eminent monks in the early Qing Dynasty, and enjoys a good reputation in painting circles. In fact, from the mystery of "water is cold at the edge of a stone", we can directly get Xi Shi.
Are the two names we found correct? The author behind the mystery of Dan Tao gave us a hint:
Li Wan added, "Qier is a firefly. Type a word. Baoqin guessed for a long time and said, "This means a lot. I wonder if it is the word' flower' of flowers and plants? " Li Qi smiled and said, "Exactly." They asked, "What is the relationship between fireflies and flowers?" Daiyu said with a smile, "Wonderful! Fireflies are not grass! " Everyone laughed and said, "Good."
Obviously, the answer here is "flowers" as a reminder of "painting". Dai Yu just pointed out the homonym of "painting" directly through "grass" and "transformation", and "everyone understands". I wonder if readers understand? The two people we found are both painters, and here the author implies by "flowers" and "transformation", which shows that we are right.
Fourth, find the signature from the monkey riddle.
Next is a riddle of "Little Red Lip":
"Valley separation, the world of mortals game, what's the fun? Fame and fortune are still empty, and it will be difficult to continue afterwards. "
We call this poem "Monkey Riddle", and the answer is monkey. The logic of "separation of valleys and streams" is unreasonable and has nothing to do with the answer. A "stream" is a small water flow in a mountain stream, and a "ditch" is a gully or a large puddle. "Flow" can only flow into ravines or into large puddles. How to distinguish streams from gullies? "Separation of branches and leaves", "separation of sand and stones" and "separation of rice bran" are all reasonable. Why do you have to use "valley separation"? Obviously, the word "Xi" here is a word that the author needs to point out in particular, referring to Xi Shi, which shows that we have found it right, and the author did not write poems to solve puzzles for Xi Shi alone.
Let's put the "world of mortals game" aside, assuming it's a person's name, and change it to xxx for the time being. The following two sentences are Tibetan poems that need to be read carefully. Say, "What's the fun? The first word of each sentence is extracted from the two sentences of fame and fortune to get the "real name". Then extract the last word "Ji" in the last sentence "It will be difficult to succeed in the future", replace it with homophonic "Ji" to get the word "real name Ji", and then combine these three words with Shi Tao obtained earlier to get the result.
The real names of Shi Tao, Xi Shi and xxx.
This is obviously the author's signature to the work, using his real name. Using the homonym "Ji" instead of "Ji" conforms to the principle of using homonyms. If the author directly uses the word "Ji" in Tibetan poems, it will be too exposed, so the homonym "Ji" is used instead. "Real name" means to register with your real name.
Sixth, interpret the "world of mortals game"
Finally conquer the fortress of "the world of mortals game". From the context, the "world of mortals game" should imply a person's name. When the word "red" in A Dream of Red Mansions has the meaning of surname, the surname is Zhu. We have another detailed proof of this problem. The pronunciation of the word "you" in "game" is no stranger to us. Emperor Chongji's name is Zhu Youjian, and his younger brother Emperor Mingxizong's name is Zhu Youxiao. All belong to your generation. Therefore, the word "you" in "game" can be defined as "you". The third word in the names of Zhu Youjian and Zhu Youxiao has a wooden side, so the third word in this person's name should also have a wooden side. The word "xi" is a homonym. We can easily find the word "analysis", just open the Modern Chinese Dictionary, press Pinyin to find the "Xi" part, and then find the word with a wooden character next to it. The word "analysis" means separation and separation. At this time, we saw the separation of valleys in the poem. The original word "separation" is consistent with the meaning of the word "analysis", which shows that the word "analysis" we found is correct. Finally, we got the name of the third author: Zhu Youxian.
In the late Ming Dynasty, the imperial clan flourished day by day. It is said that there were hundreds of thousands of people in Chongzhen. Due to the large number of people, the third word is limited to five elements, and the word is not enough. But to create some strange characters, many alienated royal families can't even list their names. Due to the war, there are not many jade books in the Ming Dynasty that have been preserved so far, and Zhu Youyan's name remains to be verified. Nevertheless, we think there is a person named Zhu Youxian, because the word "analysis" is a common word, not a new word. Only when the existing words are used up, will a number of strange words with wooden characters be created. From the fact that the word "analysis" is a common word, we speculate that the blood relationship between Youdi Zhu and Zhu Youjian, the emperor of Jia Chong, is not far away.
From the hint that "Taoist priests also have monks" given by the author, we can judge that Zhu Youyan should be a Taoist priest. Although we don't have detailed materials about Zhu Yuyan at present, we think of another Taoist in the book: Zhu Yunyang.
Zhu Yunyang's name is implied in paragraph 39 of the fortieth chapter, and the word Zhu Yunyang is also implied in paragraph 4 1 Japanese apricot planted on the cloud. There is also a Tibetan poem about him: "The Imperial Garden was taken away by a bird", and "Imperial Garden" is homophonic with "Imperial". The yuan in the word "yuan" was picked out by a bird and got the word "yuan", which happened to be Zhu Yunyang's word. It should be noted that the word "imperial garden" can be used casually? There are many homophones in education, which can be called "Yu Garden", "Yu Garden" and "Yu Garden". Why is it called "Imperial Garden"? His word "Yuan Yu" can be pronounced as "Yuan Yu", which actually implies his royal status to us. Poetic puzzles like "The Imperial Garden was taken away by a bird" can only be written by people who know Zhu Yunyang's life experience. In the early Qing Dynasty, many members of the royal family were killed. Zhu Yunyang must have kept his royal identity very secret. No one can write such a riddle poem except Zhu Yunyang. Judging from the writing characteristics of "The Imperial Garden was taken away by a bird", Zhu Yunyang is also a person who is good at using homophonic characters. In chapter 63, I repeated "Japanese apricots planted on clouds". In short, Zhu Yunyang's name appeared in the book three times in the form of Tibetan poems, and his words appeared once. Counting his name and words together, it appeared four times.
Zhu Yunyang's name and words appeared four times in the book because Zhu Yunyang wanted to leave his mark in the book. Zhu Yunyang has this ability, which means that he is the author. Zhu Yunyang is not only the author of poem riddles such as "The Imperial Garden was taken away by birds", but also one of the authors of "A Dream of Red Mansions". He is also a Taoist, in line with the "guess Taoist" prompt.
Two authors, both surnamed Zhu and Taoist priests, can't appear in the book at the same time. Zhu Youxian and Zhu Yunyang are actually the same person. Zhu Youxian is his real name and Zhu Yunyang is a later pseudonym. The question that Zhu Youxian and Zhu Yunyang are the same person will be discussed in detail in another article and new evidence will be presented.
Zhu Yunyang is very famous in Taoist circles, saying that he "knows the truth from his heart". There are two books, You Xuan, a magical device (1669) and You Xuan in Wuzhen, which are circulated in the world. He was a man in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and his life is still inconclusive in Taoist circles.
Due to the limitation of words, it is impossible to write three names in a Tibetan poem at the same time. It is reasonable for the author to combine two Tibetan poems. Finally, we got the signature and year as follows.
Shi Tao, Xi Shi and You Zhu analyze their real names.
ghosts and gods
This is a complete signature, with name and year.
Seven. Results, discussion and conclusion
(1) It should be pointed out that the author didn't let us guess any poem puzzles when discussing the above signature issues, but mainly found Tibetan characters from Tibetan poems. For example, Dan Tao's poem "Riddle", we must first be able to see that it is a poem with Tibetan characters, and we must know a little about the history of painting. We will soon find the word Shi Tao when we know that there is a painter named Shi Tao. The author implies the word "painting" through the homonym of "flower" and "Hua". Our name is painter. The author also hinted at his identity by guessing the monk, which shows that it is correct for us to extract the word "Shi Tao" from this Tibetan poem.
The word "real name" is the key of this article. The word "real name" is extracted from Tibetan poems and is not difficult to find. The word "Ji" is located at the end of the poem, which is not difficult to find, and then it is replaced by the homonym "Ji". If someone insists that the word "Ji" cannot be used instead of the word "Ji", we can accommodate him once and write the signature obtained above:
Shi Tao and He Yan used their real names.
ghosts and gods
Obviously this is a sick sentence. If primary school students give such words to the Chinese teacher, the teacher will change the word "Ji" here to "Ji", because the word "Ji" is obviously a variant, and the word "Ji" conforms to its language environment.
The date of signature is bright and dark, and it is not difficult to find the word "Shen" from the word "monkey". Because of the basis of guessing Xue Xiaomei's nostalgia for ancient poems, it is not difficult to think of "puppet" from "puppet", and it is necessary to be familiar with the use of homophonic words from "classics" to "ghosts".
We have found three authors for this paper. As long as we find one, find the word "real name" and the date of signature, this paper will be established. In only half a page of the book, there are a lot of information such as the names of three authors, "real names" and the year of signature. This is definitely not a coincidence, but a clever arrangement by the authors.
It is reasonable to use Tibetan poems without guessing the author's signature. The information expressed by guessing is sometimes inaccurate. For example, in Ten Poems of Xue Xiaomei's Nostalgia for Ancient Poetry, the answer to a poem of Nostalgia for Zhongshan is a puppet, also called a puppet. Both answers are correct, but the words are different. Tibetan writing is different. What the author wants to express is hidden in Tibetan poems, and readers only need to extract it. Although homophonic words are sometimes used, the information expressed is accurate.
(2) The process of writing A Dream of Red Mansions explains at the beginning that the story of the stone was copied from the stone by an empty Taoist priest. "From beginning to end, it is a legend." He changed his name to "Love Monk". Finally, Cao Xueqin finished writing the book. The author mentioned that Kong Meixi wrote the title of the book, but did not say that he also participated in the writing. Empty Taoist brought the Story of the Stone to the world, and he should be the main author of the Story of the Stone. We don't have to stick to the narrative copied by the empty Taoist priest from the Story of the Stone, as long as we admit that the author of the Story of the Stone should be a Taoist and a monk.
Now we have found two "stone brothers": Shi Tao and Xi Shi. Interestingly, "Stone" is a homonym of "Shi Tao", and "Story of Stone" can also be read as "Story of Shi Tao". Shi Tao is not only good at painting, but also good at masonry. Xi Shi lived in Nanjing for a long time. Shi Tao lived in Beijing for four years and settled in Yangzhou in his later years. Mr. Zhou wrote a book "Shi Tao and Cao? , indicating that Shi Tao and Cao Jia have contacts. It is possible that The Story of the Stone was handed down to the Cao family through Shi Tao.
Empty Taoist clearly refers to Zhu Yunyang (Zhu Youxian). He left four marks in the book and used his real name in his signature. This paper preliminarily speculates that he should be the main author, and this issue can be further discussed. His last signature appears in Chapter 63, which should attract our attention.
The three authors found in this paper are all talented people and form a strong writing team. Apart from their high achievements in their respective fields, they all wrote monographs or poems. Zhu Yunwen has Shen Xieyou (1669) and Zhen Wu's Xie You, Shi Tao has quotations from paintings by bitter gourd monks and poems and postscripts drawn by later generations, one volume of Zen Dai, six volumes of Big Xie, and poems and songs such as Tea Records. Xi Shi did not cooperate with the rulers of the Qing Dynasty politically. He enjoyed a high reputation among the adherents of the late Ming Dynasty, missed the motherland and had deep national feelings. Xi Shi visited the Ming Tombs in Nanjing seven times and the Ming Tombs in Beijing six times.
(3) The date of signature is consistent with the author's life. Shi Tao (164 1 ~ about 17 18) and Xi Shi (16 12 ~ 1692), their life and signature year/kloc. Shi Tao is the youngest of the three authors. He lived to about 17 18. To say the least, even if Shen Nian's signature date was not found in this article, the writing time of A Dream of Red Mansions was no later than 17 18, when Cao Xueqin was only three years old.
(4) This article is based on the original work of A Dream of Red Mansions, which is the most reliable and authoritative information. Some methods used in this paper, such as homophone method, are also widely used in books, and the results obtained are reliable.
The authors of A Dream of Red Mansions have argued for many years, and it is not easy to change some people's inherent ideas. It is not surprising that this article will be opposed by scholars who insist that Cao Xueqin is the original author after publication. I hope they can also use this method to find out any "traces" left by Cao Xueqin from the original work (except for the first time), otherwise it is not convincing.
The method used in this paper does not belong to the research school, nor does it belong to the research school. It is a bit like digging, using the right method to dig out the "gold" buried by the author in the book. Whether it is gold or stone dug, and whether the digging method is correct, can be tested.
Mathematically, the unknown number X has a limit, and only within a given threshold range can X have a definite solution. If it is in the range of another domain value, the solution of x is different. So is the study of A Dream of Red Mansions. If the information we have is not comprehensive, even if the research method is scientific, we will come to the wrong conclusion and put on the coat of "science" for the wrong conclusion.
refer to
[1] Liu Mengxi, A Dream of Red Mansions and Centennial China, Hebei Education Press, 1999.
[2] Tu Mo Fever, the writing age of A Dream of Red Mansions from the taboo system in Qing Dynasty, published in Academic Research in 2003- 10- 14.
Beijing, June 20th, 2005