Pu (Daoism)

Terminology

Pu can be written with either of the variant Chinese characters 樸 and 朴, which are linguistically complex.

Characters

Both 樸 and 朴 are classified as radical-phonetic characters, combining the semantically significant "tree" radical 木 (commonly used for writing names of trees and wooden objects) with the phonetic indicators pu 菐 and bu 卜.

The Chinese character pu 樸 was first recorded on Chinese bronze inscriptions from the Spring and Autumn period (771-476 BCE), and the character pu 朴 was first recorded in Chinese classics from the Warring States period (475-221 BCE).

When the People's Republic of China promulgated simplified Chinese characters in 1956, the established variant pu 朴 (with 6 strokes) was chosen to replace the traditional Chinese character pu 樸 (with 16 strokes).

One of the two (c. 168 BCE) Mawangdui silk manuscript versions of the Daodejing, discovered in 1973 by archeologists excavating a tomb, uses a rare textual variant character for pu 樸: wò 楃 "a house tent (esp. with a wooden roof)", written with the "tree radical" and wu 屋 "room; house" phonetic. The "B" text, like the received version, uses pu 樸 8 times in 6 chapters; the "A" text uses wò 楃 6 times in 4 chapters and has lacuna in chapters 19 and 57. The (c. 121 CE) Shuowen jiezi defines wo 楃 as muzhang 木帳 "wood canopy", and the (early 3rd century) Guangya defines it as choumu 幬幕 "curtain; cover". These variant words pú < *phrôk 樸 "unworked wood" and wò < *ʔôk 楃 "house tent" are semantically and phonologically dissimilar.

Pronunciations and meanings

The comprehensive Chinese character dictionary Hanyu Da Zidian (1987: 2:1291, 2:1154) lists 2 pronunciations and 8 meanings for the character 樸, and 6 pronunciations and 11 meanings for 朴; which are summarized below.

The graph 樸 can be read:

1. "unworked wood",
2. "cut down; fell trees"
3. "nature; essence; intrinsic quality" (compare English in the rough)
4. "simple; plain; unadorned; unaffected"
5. "(economics) net cost"

1. "grow thickly (of plants); shrub"
2. "an oak tree"
3. "attached; affixed"

The graph 朴 can be read to mean:

1. "unworked wood; natural; plain; etc." (= pǔ 樸)
2. "large"
3. "uncured meat"

1. "root; basis; origin"
2. "beat; hit; an instrument of torture" (= pū 撲)

1. "tree bark; (esp.) magnolia bark" in houpo 厚朴 "Magnolia officinalis bark (used in Traditional Chinese medicine)"
2. in pòshù 朴樹 "Celtis sinensis, Chinese hackberry"

1. in pōdāo 朴刀 "a kind of two-handed sword"

1. "a surname", namely Park (Korean surname)

1. "a surname"

The Erya, which is the oldest Chinese dictionary, defined pu 樸 and supu 樕樸 as "oak" names (in "Explaining Trees" chapter 14). First, pu 樸 is defined as bao 枹 (14:45). Guo Pu's Erya commentary identified this pu tree as yupu 棫樸 "Quercus acutissima, saw-tooth oak" (which occurs in the Shijing below). Bao 枹 is usually read fu "drumstick", and Guo noted this name bao denoted "a kind of oak [樸] that grew in clumps", and quotes the Shijing usage as baoli 枹櫟 instead of baoli 苞櫟 "bushy oak" (see below). The Bencao Gangmu says there are two varieties of hu 槲 "Quercus mongolica, Mongolian oak", the bao 枹 is small and grows in clumps while the li 櫟 is tall and has large leaves. Second, supu 樕樸 is defined as xin 心 "heart; mind" (14:64). Guo identifies supu (cf. reverse pusu 樸樕 in the Shijing below) as husu 槲樕 (with hu 槲 "Mongolian oak"), the "Quercus dentata, daimyo oak". While xin "heart; mind" is a common Chinese word, this Erya definition is the only known context in which it names a tree. The Yijing uses xin to mean "thorn; prick", (tr. Wilhelm 1967:277): "Among varieties of wood it means those which are firm and have much pith".

The Shuowen Jiezi, the first Chinese dictionary of characters, simply defines pu 朴 as mupi 木皮 "tree bark; wood with bark", and pu 樸 as musu 木素 "plain wood; unworked lumber" (later meaning "lignin" in scientific terminology).

Returning to the central Daoist meaning of pu, Pas and Leung (1998:351) challenge the stereotyped "uncarved block" translation of pu: "The idea implied in it comes closer to "wholeness," which is also contained in "uncarved block," except that "uncarved block" has been reified. As a result, what was an excellent analogy of the Tao has become sterile and counterproductive." Citing the pu translations of Séraphin Couvreur (1890:475) "wood that has not been worked on; simple, without ornament, without disguise" and Bernhard Karlgren (1923:231) "wood in its natural state, not worked: rough, plain, natural, simple"; Pas and Leung conclude, "it is obvious where the expression "uncarved block" came from, but the addition of "block" is an interpretation. The term means "plain wood," "uncarved wood.""

Etymology

Reconstructions of Old Chinese pronunciations have transformed Chinese etymology. Old Chinese reconstructions of pu or bu 樸 include:

Victor Mair (1990:138) suggests that pu < *phluk 樸 "unhewn log" is "almost certainly related to the English word "block," which probably derives from the Indo-European root bhelk (beam)."

Axel Schuessler (2007:418) says the etymology of pú < *phrôk "to trim wood" could either be an "aspirated iterative derivation" from bāo < *prôk 剝 "cut up, peel, pluck", or "belong to the homophonous etymon with the basic meaning 'in a natural state, unworked', as in pú 樸 'in a natural state', 璞 'unworked precious stone'."