New Interpretation of the Temple Name of Shang King Pan Keng
商王盘庚庙号新解
Kuang Yu Chen 陈光宇

Abstract 摘要
The Temple Names (廟號) of Shang Kings (ca 1,700 to 1,100 BC) found in the Oracle Bone Writings are remarkably similar to the King List compiled by Ssu-ma Chi'en (ca 145-90 BC), the Grand Historian of Han Dynasty, in the Book of History. The Temple Name of Shang King usually contains only two characters and the last character always corresponds to one of the ten heaven stems (天干). Although several theories have been advanced to offer explanations of the use of heaven stem in the Temple Name, the significance of the first character in the Temple Name has not been discussed in the literature. Here, we argue that the first character 盤 (Pan) in the Temple Name of the 19th Shang King, Pan Keng (盤庚 or 般庚), was given posthumously and that it was given in honor of his lifetime achievement in the massive relocation of the Shang Capital, from Yen (奄) to Yin (殷) and his use of the newly developed hang-tu (夯土) technology in a gigantic city-palace construction work. We further argue that the word 般 was derived directly from the hang-tu (夯土) technology. My argument was based on the following considerations: (i) the structural analysis of the oracle bone character that corresponds to 盤 or 般 ; (ii) the Shang history on Pan Keng as recorded in the Book of Documents, the Bamboo Annals, and the Book of History; (iii) the archeological excavation of the palace and temples remains at Anyang city, the last Shang Capital that Pan Keng established about 3,400 years ago; (iv) the possibility that the phonetic value of Pan was derived from the sound generated during hang-tu production; and (v) the word pan (槃) was used in the Book of Odes to indicate construction work.

在甲骨文中所见商王庙号与汉朝司马迁所作史记中记载基本相同。商王庙号多为两个字，其第二字恒为十个天干之一。以天干为庙号是商代王室特征，与王室继承或吉日祭祀有关。至于商王庙号中第一字之本义，则少见学者讨论。本文利用甲骨文之文字分析，安阳小屯殷墟考古所得有关夯土版筑建筑之资料，「般」与「版」二字音义之比较，以及其它故籍之数据论证商代第十九帝之庙号盘庚（甲骨文中作）中之盘（）字，应为其谥号，用以总结纪念其一生迁殷建都之功业。

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