The use of Dao (ancient gravers) and Chinese brushes: As for the writing mode of ancient bamboo
strips and bamboo strip scroll, it is impossible to verify whether the characters are engraved with
Dao or written with Chinese brushes. In Artificers' Record, it was mentioned that "craftsmen made
Dao and Chinese brushes", Zheng Xuan explained it as "today's inboard", Jia Gongyan further
explained it as "In ancient times, there was no paper and brushes, so inboards were used to
engrave characters. Even when there was paper and brushes in the Han Dynasty, there were still
inboards". According to these records, inboards in the Han Dynasty were probably used for
engraving bamboo strips and bamboo strip scroll rather than engraving characters, so the Dao and
brushes were often mentioned together. Even in the writings of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties ,
not all of them used inboards. In "Record of Rites Compiled by Elder Dai:jianzuo", Shi Shangfu
said that Huangdi and Zhuanxu’s philosophy "in Dan Book", "Rites of Zhou Dynasty·SiYue"
mentioned that "Agreements were written in pictures", Zuo Qiuming’s Commentary on Spring and
Autumn Annals also had recordings like "Fei Bao, a servant, was recorded in Dan book" , Zheng
noted Rites of Zhou Dynasty" Dan Book is not detailed", Du noted Zuo Qiuming’s Commentary on
Spring and Autumn Annals "guilty was written in Dan Book". According to the End of the
Kingdom of Yue (volume 13), "The King of Yue wrote on silk with cinnabar and placed it under
his pillow, treating them as national treasures", which also supports Du Lin. By the end of the
Zhou Dynasty, ink manuscripts began to appear. In the article Guan Zi: Ba Xing, it was said, "So I
ordered all the officials to cut the wooden boards and prepare ink brushes. The next day, everyone
met in the courtyard of the imperial temple and established laws for all the officials." In the Han
Shi Wai Zhuan (volume 7), it was mentioned that when Zhou She met Zhao Jianzi, he said, "I
would like to be a minister who speaks frankly and admonishes me. I would suck up the ink for
the brush and use the writing board to record the events, and follow the king, waiting for his
mistakes and recording them".This was enough to prove the existence of ink calligraphy during
the Zhou Dynasty. In addition, the Biography of the King Mu of Zhou Dynasty written by Ji Zhong
must have been written before King Anli of Wei, and it was written in ink (see the above content),
so there was almost no use of knives for carving after the Warring States period. [3]
[3] Note: In ancient times, there was also the saying of “lacquer manuscript”. The mention of
lacquer manuscript was found in the History of the Later Han: Biography of Du Lin, which stated
that “Du Lin previously obtained a scroll of the lacquer manuscript called the Book of Documents
in Xizhou”. Additionally, the Biography of Confucian Scholars recorded that “Some people even
spent money to bribe officials in Lantai, the institution for the custody of documents, agreeing to
secretly modify the content of the lacquer manuscript to ensure that the views in it are consistent
with their own.” Given that China ink manuscript were already in use by the late Zhou Dynasty, it
seems unlikely that lacquer manuscript would have been used during the Han Dynasty. It’s
possible that the term “lacquer manuscript” was used due to the black and shiny appearance of
China ink, which resembles the color of lacquer. Furthermore, what Du Lin obtained was a
“scroll” instead of a “strip” of the Book of Documents, so this type of manuscript should have been
silk manuscript, rather than bamboo split. Therefore, the claim that lacquer was used to write on
bamboo splits is not credible.
Stringing of Bamboo Splits: With regard to the stringing of the bamboo strips, it is possible to use
materials such as leather or silk threads. In the Records of the Grand Historian: The Biography of
Confucius, it was mentioned that Confucius, in his later years, took pleasure in I Ching and
studied it so diligently that the leather cord used to string the bamboo strips broke many times.
And this is a great example of a bamboo split strung with a leather cord. In Biography of the King
Mu of Zhou Dynasty, plain silk thread was used; in Artificers’ Record, cyan silk thread was used
(as seen above); and in The Art of War, nattier blue silk thread was used (as cited in Taiping
Imperial Encyclopedia referencing Liu Xiang’s Bie Lu). The above bamboo splits were strung
with silk threads. Regarding the arrangement of the stringing, Analytical Dictionary of Characters
referred to “two volumes within,” and Deciding Alone spoke of “two volumes,” which could be
understood by observing the form of seal scripts.
Kuanfeng (Sealing style on bamboo strips): After Han and Wei Period, the seams where two
bamboo strips are connected were called Kuanfeng as a whole. Yan Shigu mentioned in
Correcting Wrong Chinese Characters (volume 6) that Kuanfeng, originating from laws during
the Wei and Jin Dynasties, was originally written in Zilin as Ke (sealing). In ancient times, when
there was no paper, all official records and documents were made of bamboo strips or wooden
tablets. There might have been changes in the arrangement, so marks were carved on the seams to
record them. This practice was passed down and then called Kuanfeng. This was the origin of
Yinfeng (sealing style on overlapping paper) and Yafeng (sealing style on magic works) which
emerged after Six Dynasties, but was not necessarily the tradition of the early Han Dynasty or
even of the Zhou Dynasty and Qin Dynasty.
[1] Note: The Knife Section in the Origins of Chinese Characters mentions “books of different
coupons”, meaning that a knife was used to cut along the edges of contract documents for
distinction and verification, hence referred to as “bamboo slips”. This was a practice in ancient
times or during the Han dynasty. Xu Shen did not mention this in his writings. Zheng Xuan in his
commentary on The Rites of Zhou refers to “bamboo slips” as the coupons or certificates used for
exchanging goods in the market. The image of these coupons was written on two wooden writing
tablets and carved on their sides. This is somewhat similar to the file sewing method during the
Wei and Jin dynasties. However, It’s feared that both Xu Shen and Zheng Xuan might have
interpreted the character '契' (qi) as carving, so their explanations might be based on a
misunderstanding, and the actual practice in the Zhou dynasty might not have been as such.