《孔子詩論》“讒人之害”眾說評議

The excavated Chu bamboo slips labeled “The Views of Confucius on the Shijing” is now held in the Shanghai Museum. Slip no.8 mentions eight poems of the Shijing and there are some simple commentaries on each of the poem. In this slip, the word is not recognized to us. The character is not seen in ancient texts, nor does it appear in the Shuowen Jieji. Scholars have different interpretations, some of which are all the view that is a phonetic loanword. It is undeniable that phonetic loanwords are often used in the ancient texts and the Chu bamboo slips. It is of prime important to identify the phonetic loanwords before we can understand the texts. But in many cases, competing theories are equally plausible. Though in-depth phonetic analysis and investigation of the content of related poems, this paper concludes that the character is equivalent to 讒.