When did the word "Fu" originate? What's the point?

The origin of the word "Fu": In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the word "Fu" is a hieroglyph of "offering wine to heaven with both hands", which means holding a bottle of wine in one's hand and offering it in front of the ancestors' gods to seek God's blessing.

In ancient times, sacrifices were made to seek the blessing of God or ancestors. After the sacrifice, people should get the offerings of "blessing" and "returning to happiness" respectively.

It is often said in ancient books that people's "Five Blessingg" are: longevity, wealth, health, moral integrity and the end of life.

The Evolution of the Word "Fu"

The word "Fu" was first seen in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Early characters have the characteristics of pictographs and strong pictographs. The word "Fu" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a group of words, which is related to sacrifice and prayer. At this time, in the glyph design, "symbol" means "sacrifice", "unitary" means "altar of wine", and the configuration similar to hands represents the wizard offering wine to the altar.

Compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the graphic elements of the word "Fu" in the Jinwen period were relatively weak, and the word formation was relatively unified. At this time, the word "fu" has omitted both hands, but the main ideograms "finger" and "unitary" still remain.

In the early days of seal script, the structure of "character" was further simplified and stable, the strokes became rounded, and the structure of "square characters" became more obvious. Since then, the word "you" has been misrepresented as the word "Yi". At the same time, "Yi" means "full". When combined with the word "Shi", it means to be filled with sacrifices to worship ancestors or gods and pray for shelter.

During the official script period, compared with Xiao Zhuan, Han Li's "Fu" substructure remained unchanged, but the writing convenience was slightly different, and the font became square. In the character "Fu", the characters "Kou" and "Tian" in "Fang" are obviously straightened, while the character "Shi" is slightly deformed, which lays the foundation for the character "Fu" in regular script.

The improvement of regular script to Han Li is manifested in the convergence of wave picking and the turning of angle. The word "Fu" in regular script inherits the form of official script, but the word "Kou" and the word "Tian" were originally written in two strokes, which were connected horizontally and vertically to form a horizontal hook. The word "yes" has changed a lot, which shows that the horizontal line has become smaller, and the overall word "fu" is narrower on the left than on the right, which is more conducive to writing.

In this word "blessing", the ancients prayed for land to meet the needs of food and clothing and the desire to be blessed by the gods. Later generations expressed their desire for peace and happiness through "sticking blessings" and "praying for blessings" and prayed for a smooth and healthy life.

Extended data

According to legend, the word "Fu" was posted in the Zhou Dynasty. When honoring a deity, I named my wife Ye as a poor deity and told her not to go to places with the word "Fu", so people would paste the word "Fu" to prevent the poor deity.

China also has a long history of upside-down blessing characters, and there are many legends about this.

It is said that it has something to do with Zhu Yuanzhang, saying that Zhu Yuanzhang made people post the word "Fu". Zhu Yuanzhang was furious when a family member couldn't read and posted it backwards. At this time, Ma Huanghou said that this backward posting means "blessing", so the family was not only exempted from punishment, but also rewarded.

According to the textual research of writer Feng Jicai, in the folk tradition, the word "upside down" appeared in two places. One is on the water tank and the earthen box, which is also a box for garbage. Everything in these two places has to be poured out from the inside. In order to avoid dumping blessings, the word "Fu" is pasted backwards, meaning "Fu is here".

Another place is on the cupboard at home. A cupboard is a place to store things, but it is a word of blessing, meaning that happiness (and wealth) has always come to the home, house and cupboard.

It is forbidden to paste the word "Fu" upside down on the gate. The word "blessing" on the gate means "welcoming blessings" and "accepting blessings". The gate is the entrance and exit of the family and a solemn place. The blessing words posted must be solemn and generous, so they should be posted correctly. It is very disrespectful to turn the blessing on the door upside down.

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