Several years ago, in connection with the kanji 王旺皇士仕, I discussed a couple of photos of actual oracle bones from the exhibit at the Tokyo National Museum in the Ueno area in Tokyo (東京国立博物館, 東博). (Many of our readers may not have had a chance to read or remember it, so here is the link.) While I was in Tokyo this summer, I revisited the museum with my family, hoping to see more oracle bones that could be used for the front cover of my upcoming Joyo kanji study guide/reference (The Key to All Joyo Kanji – A Study Guide Using Kanji Common Shapes and Character Histories 共通形と古代文字による常用漢字の学習ガイド). To my great disappointment, only six oracle bones were displayed, all the same as I saw back in 2015. The only consolation I felt is that my new iPad camera may give us better photos with clearer resolution. In this posting, I am going to pick another bone with a new photo (shown on the left) and discuss it.
Part I Appreciating the real oracle bone
What oracle bone–style characters 甲骨文字 are about is explained briefly in the upcoming book as follows:
“In order to divine the future for the benefit of a ruler, a tiny indentation was drilled into a particular spot on the back of a tortoiseshell or an animal bone, to which heat was then applied using a burning stick or heated metal rod. The heat caused cracks to appear on the surface, which were then interpreted as messages from deities. The reading of the cracks was then chiseled onto the bone, in what is now called oracle-bone style characters.”
This oracle bone was chipped on two sides in the ground. Oracle bones are fragile and fragment after having been processed with holes and heat and buried in the grounds for more than three thousand years. However, because the sentence structure had a set pattern, scholars can fill the gap with the knowledge of other bones. On this bone, the eight characters in two lines at the bottom formed the main content text, with its duplicate above it. Oracle bone inscriptions usually had duplicates on either side – the right and the left or the top and the bottom. The characters on the right side, barely visible in the photo, were the record of the divination date. The eight characters read: 貞 旬 亡 □ 王□曰吉. (□ indicates that there is no font)
The figure on the right side shows what the corresponding kanji would be for those ancient characters and their literal meanings.
[First vertical line] 貞 “divination; to inquire the deity’s will,” 旬 “(a cycle of) ten days,” 亡 “do not exist,” and □ (misfortune, ill luck).
[Second vertical line] 王 “king, ruler,” □ (???), 曰 “speaking,” and 吉 “good luck.”
The museum curator’s notes displayed by the side say that the inscription meant: “The king divined (or inquired the deity) whether or not during the next ten days there would be misfortune. From the cracks that appeared on the bone, the ruler declared that there would be good luck.”
From the contents of the inscription, we can see that oracle bone–style characters, which were the oldest precursors to kanji, were created for communication between a ruler and deities in ancient China. The bone is quite small, no more than 4 inches long. And yet, seeing the actual bone that is still shining with life more than three thousand years later with my own eyes is quite moving. I wish more of these were readily available for us, the public, to enjoy rather than only for specialists.
Part II: Analysis of the Present-day Kanji －貞 旬 亡 王 曰 吉 曰
Now, let us connect those ancient characters we have just witnessed to the present-day kanji. The following are the excerpts from the upcoming book, which discusses all Joyo kanji in smaller groups of kanji that share common shapes with historical developments.
[SG-number: the order of kanji in the new book; Letter A, B, C, or D: study level designation; F-number: frequency-of-use order (the smaller the number, the more frequently used, from Tokuhiro 2014).]
1. The common shape 卜 “divination” [from cracks that appeared on an animal bone or a tortoiseshell when heated] Kanji: 外点店占貼訃
2. The common shape 勹 “wrapping around” Kanji: 均旬句拘匂勾
3. Common Shape 亡 “to disappear, not exist”; boo/ koo/ moo Kanji: 亡忘荒忙盲慌
4. 王 “king” [from a large, ornate ax belonging to a king, symbolizing power]; oo Kanji: 王皇往旺
5. 吉 “good luck” [from a full container with a secure stopper]; kitsu/ ketsu Kanji: 吉結
6. 曰 “to say; reason”
The kanji 曰 is not a Joyo kanji and is not discussed in the book. The kanji 曰 originally depicted a mouth from which a voice (some view it as the voice of a deity) is coming out; hence, “to say, speak.” In Japanese, it is used for the phrases, such as 曰く付き /iwakutsuki/ “with a history,” and 彼曰く /ka’re i’waku/ “he said; what he said is…” In some fonts, it is difficult to differentiate 曰 “to say; reason” (wider, and the middle horizontal line is slightly shorter) from 日 “sun.”
Thank you very much for your reading. – Noriko (August 31, 2022)
KANJI PORTRAITS 
Fascinating. To see the real bone inscription is indeed moving. Humans have been doing the same things for so many lifetimes and cycles around the sun… just with different technologies. This is a powerful reminder of that. And– of our creativity, ingenuity, folly, and absence of true control over anything beyond our own minds. How curious this is, indeed. Thank you, Professor Noriko.
LikeLike