The Mythological Roots of Chinese Characters
Chinese characters, known as hanzi (汉字, hanzi, literally: characters of the Han people), have a long and complex history spanning, according to various estimates, between 3 and 5 thousand years. Unlike Slavic writing, whose creators’ names — Cyril and Methodius — are known to us with certainty, the names of the creators of Chinese writing are unknown. It is also unlikely to have been the work of a single individual in such remote antiquity, so it is unsurprising that this achievement is attributed to the mythological ancestors of the Chinese people.
In particular, mythological tradition attributes the invention of Chinese characters to a court scholar and historiographer named Cang Jie (仓颉, Cang Jie), an adviser to the celestial emperor Huangdi (黄帝, Huangdi), who is believed to have reigned in 2698–2598 BCE. Huangdi, one of the five celestial emperors, is believed to have invented the axe, mortar, bow and arrows, clothing and footwear; taught people to cast bells and tripods, dig wells, make carts, chariots, boats, and certain musical instruments (the drum); discovered many medicinal plants; and improved warfare and agriculture. The invention of writing and the calendar is dated specifically to his reign.
Tradition describes the moment writing was invented as follows: «Cang Jie invented characters; on this occasion Heaven showered the earth with millet, and evil spirits wept through the nights». Many centuries later, the famous scholar and calligrapher Yu Shinan of the Tang (唐, Tang, 618–907 CE) dynasty said of Cang Jie’s invention: «He created six types of characters, taking as his models the outlines of mountains and streams, rivers and seas, and the tracks of dragons and snakes, birds and beasts. Legend also says that Chinese characters enabled people to understand the principles and fundamental laws governing the universe. Evil spirits could no longer deceive and mislead people so easily, and that is why they wept».
In these circumstances, contradictions within the mythology itself are unsurprising. Thus, the legendary emperor Fu Xi (伏羲, Fu Xi), who reigned in 2852–2737 BCE, is credited, among many other great inventions, with creating the eight trigrams, bagua (八卦, bagua), which became the foundation of the character-based writing system. According to tradition, he saw mysterious signs on the back of a dragon (or, in another version, a turtle), which inspired him to create the first graphic signs reflecting the unity of the surrounding world. He is also credited with inventing knotted-cord writing, or, as researchers also call it, proto-writing.
It is telling that, when the Chinese inventor Zhu Bangfu (朱邦复, Zhu Bangfu), known as the «father of Chinese computer writing», introduced a method for entering Chinese characters on a keyboard in 1976, based on breaking them down into their component parts, he named this input method after the legendary Cang Jie