Concept

Zhenren

Résumé

Zhenren ( or 'person of truth') is a Chinese term that first appeared in the Zhuangzi meaning "Taoist spiritual master" in those writings. Religious Taoism mythologized zhenren, having them occupy various places in the celestial hierarchy sometimes synonymous with xian, while Chinese Buddhism used it to translate Arahant "Enlightened One". The common Chinese word zhen 真 "true; real; authentic" is linguistically unusual. It was originally written with an ideogram (one of the rarest types in Chinese character classification) depicting "spiritual transformation". It originated in the Taoist Tao Te Ching and does not appear in the early Confucian classics. The archaic Chinese character 眞 was reduced into 真, which is the Traditional Chinese character, Simplified Chinese character, and Japanese Kanji. (Note the slight font variation between Chinese 真 and Japanese 真: when enlarged, the Japanese character reveals separation between the central and lower parts.) This modern character 真 appears to derive from wu 兀 "stool" under zhi 直 "straight", but the ancient 眞 has hua 匕 (a reduced variant of 化) "upside-down person; transformation" at the top, rather than shi 十 "10". This antiquated zhen 眞 derives from seal script characters (4th–3rd centuries BCE). It is tentatively identified in the earlier bronzeware script (with 匕 over ding 鼎 "cooking vessel; tripod; cauldron") and unidentified in the earliest oracle bone script. Xu Shen's Shuowen Jiezi (122 CE), the first Chinese dictionary of characters, gives small seal script and "ancient text" forms of zhen 眞, noting origins in Taoism. It defines 眞 as "A xian (Taoist "transcendent; immortal") transforming shape and ascending into Heaven" (僊人變形而登天也), and interprets 眞 as an ideogram with 匕 "upside-down person", 目 "eye", and ∟ "conceal" representing the xian plus 八 representing the conveyance. In Coyle's interpretation, The etymological components suggest transforming to a higher level of character, thus genuineness is to be conceived as fundamentally transformational, that is, as an ongoing process of change.

Source officielle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenren

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