Cangjie Creating Chinese Characters

Huainanzi(Masters in the Kingdom of Huainan) says that it was because of the characters Cangjie made that the Heaven rained grains and the ghosts cried at night.Xunzi(Hsun Tzu) andShijing(The Book of Odes) and other ancient books also record he legend of Cangjie creating Chinese characters. By the Qin (221-206BC) and Han (206BC-220AD) dynasties, the legend had become more widespread and had more far-reaching influence.

Historians in the past once tried to prove whether there was a person named Cangjie in the history, and if there was one, when he lived, but they failed to draw a conclusion due to lack of irrefutable proofs.

Some people guessed that Cangjie was the historiographer of the Yellow Emperor. Xunzi thought Cangjie must have been a prehistoric wise man who sorted out and standardized the characters that had already been in use.

Evidently the legend of Cangjie creating Chinese characters cannot be accepted as the truth, for any script can only be a creation developed by the people to meet the needs of social life over a long period of trial and experiment. Chinese characters are a huge and complicated system, and it could only come into being after a long period of creation and development.