Chen Dongtian

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the previous message I wrote:

    > I can understand that people are reluctant to look at East Asia
    > when there is nothing obviously Chinese in the pictures or texts
    > (at least, not if you look at it in the wrong way... More on
    > that later).
    
Consider the two big red "weirdo" characters on page f1r. The top one
has been tentatively identified as an old symbol for Aries, but the
bottom one has been yet another Voynich mystery.

However, turn the page upside down, so that the binding is on the
right side (as in a modern Chinese book 8-). Those two symbols now
look vaguely similar to Chinese characters -- more precisely, to
Chinese characters copied by someone thoroughly illiterate in Chinese,
as one occasionally sees in Western comic books.

  http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/vms-images/f1r-rot180.jpg

Assuming for the moment that those weirdos are indeed badly copied
ideographs, what could those be?  

I have looked for similar shapes myself in an online Chinese character
dictionary, and also asked a Chinese colleague (Siang Wun Song from
the University of São Paulo) to have a look. We both got independently
the same guesses:

  top:    dong1 (tung)
  http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/vms-images/f1r-winter.gif
  
  bottom: tian1 (tien)
  http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/vms-images/f1r-heaven.gif
  
"Dong1" is a radical meaning "winter".

"Tian1" has several meanings including "heaven" (as in "Tiananmen",
the Gate of Heavenly Peace), "God", and "day".  

The combination "dong1 tian1" is a perfectly valid Chinese compound that
means "winter" or "winter day". (It is in fact one of the 4 only
"dong1" compounds listed in the abovementioned dictionary.)

The bottom symbol could also be "da4"/"dai4" = "big", or "wang1" =
"weak", with a missing tip. However, the dictionary does not list the
combinations "dong1 dai4" or "dong1 wang1".

In the image I have, those two symbols appear to have been drawn with
a quill pen, like the rest of the VMS. However, it seems to me that
the scribe tried to imitate the look of brushed characters. (Quill pen
strokes generally have uniform width and squarish ends; brush strokes
generally have variable width and characteristic flared/hooked/pointed
ends.)

Asked about "Dongtian" and "medicine", Google came up with this:

  http://chineseculture.about.com/library/china/ethnic/blsethnic011.htm
  The Bai ethnic minority 

      Of the 1,598,100 Bai people, 80 per cent live in concentrated
      communities in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan
      Province, southwest China. The rest are scattered in Xichang and
      Bijie in neighboring Sichuan and Guizhou provinces respectively.

      [...] 

      Over the centuries, the Bais have created a science and culture of
      their own. Agriculture was dominant in the Erhai area as early as
      the Neolithic Age. People then knew how to dig ditches for
      irrigation. During the Nanzhao regime, they began the cultivation
      of rice, wheat, broomcorn, millet and several other crops, and
      built the Cangshan water-conservancy project which could bring
      water to tens of thousands of hectares of land. To their credit
      are inventions and advances in meteorology, astronomy, calendar,
      architecture, medical science, literature, music, dancing, carving
      and painting. Among the representative works of the Bai people are
      Transit Star Catalogue for Time Determination by the Ming Dynasty
      scholar Zhou Silian, Collection of Secret Prescriptions by Chen
      DONGTIAN and Tested Prescriptions by Li Xingwei. These classics
      recorded and summarized in detail the valuable experience of the
      Bai people in astronomy and medicine.

But, of course, all this is just another series of completely meaningless
coincidences... 8-)

All the best,

--stolfi