祝

When we were studying 兄, I mentioned about 祝 which can be used to help understanding how 兄 was created. Today we continue to examine 祝 to complete the puzzle.

Some of you should have already seen that 祝 is composed of Radical 礻 and 兄.  礻 is actually how 示 is written when it is used as Chinese Radical. We can confirm it with 祝 's ancient scripts.

Evolution history of 祝

We can see that in Oracle Script period,   (兄 ) was directly used as 祝 in certain cases. To differentiate 兄 and 祝, Chinese ancestors started to add 示 to 兄 to make it clear that they are two different characters, for example:  and .  then eventually during Clerk Script period, 祝 was simplified to , which is almost the same as Regular Script we are writing today: 祝.

So what does  represents? most likely as shown as below image (taken from )http://www.guoxuedashi.com/:

Pray before altar

In Chinese tradition, during a worship or memorial ceremony, family or clan leader (兄) would pray for the others.  祝 thus has the meaning of pray to gods or wish for good fortune. for example 祝福.

And 祝 can also be used as noun, referring to wizards, monks or someone-alike who pray for their believers. for example 庙祝.

 That is all for 祝, time to enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 祝 inside:

但愿温恭直谅之友来。。。<<客座私祝>>