A Reconsideration of the Character Hong “弘”

This article proposes that the oracle bone and bronze script character □ be interpreted as 弘, and that □, □, and □ all be interpreted as 強. In the Western Zhou Dynasty, 強 was written as □ and 弘 as □. As it developed in the Eastern Zhou, the upward slanting element on the right of □ might have been separated off from the 弓 element; as a result, 弘 was written as □--a convention which was passed on to the Han Dynasty. On the other hand, since 強 was also written as □ in the Eastern Zhou, to make a distinction, in the writing systems of Jin and Chu dynasties an extra element was added to the original form to make the new character form □. In the Han dynasty, the 強 character was taken from the writing system of Qin. This led to the confusion between 弘 (written as □) of the Han and 強 (written as □) of the Western Zhou, as well as between 引 (written as □) of the Han and 弘 (written as □) of the Western Zhou. The confusion was due to the fact that different words might take the same character form. The character evolution can be seen clearly in the following table: Misinterpretation may occur if scholars overlook the long-term evolution of character forms, especially when they ignore the phenomenon that two or more etymologically distinct character lineages might pass through the evolutionary stages in identical form.
Aside from discussing the evolution of character forms, this article also examines the extant oracle bone and bronze inscription characters □ and □. It argues that in every instance of their occurrence, □ and □ are better interpreted as 弘 and ? than as 引 and 弘. The interpretation may serve as important guidance for making sense the meanings of □ and □ in other texts and contexts.