刑罚是统治阶级惩戒罪犯、警醒世人的重要手段。据中国历史文献记载,夏朝已经具 备一套成体系的刑罚制度。肉刑的行刑过程离不开各类刀具的使用,因此中国古代的刑罚 与“刀”有着密不可分的关系。《说文解字》包含大量和刑罚有关的汉字,这些汉字对于 明确古代刑罚种类和内容、探究古代文化生活有着重要的意义和价值。《说文解字》刀部 字涉及刑罚的汉字共有8个字。其中“㓷”、“劓”代表“劓刑”,“刖”代表“剕 刑”,“ ”、“刭”和“刎”则是“大辟”的一种。“刵”作为割耳刑罚,与意义相近 的“聝”、“取”等字联系紧密。“㓷”和“劓”作为割鼻刑罚仅在汉代以前使用广泛。 “刖”表示割腿刑罚,古代又有“剕”、“跀”等字表示相同意义,同时又与意义相近的 “膑”有所差别。“ ”、“刭”和“刎”三字均表示砍头的刑罚。“罚”则表示对情节 较轻犯罪行为的处罚,与表示对严重犯罪行为予以惩戒的“刑”字共同构成汉语中的“刑 罚”一词。
Punishment is an important method for the ruling class to discipline criminals and alert people. According to historical records, a systematic punishment system was already existent during the Xia Dynasty. The “Ancient Five Punishments” recorded in Book of Documents occupies an important position in ancient Chinese punishments. Because they were all corporal punishment and the execution methods were extremely cruel so they were abolished in the Han Dynasty. The execution process of corporal punishment depends on the use of various knives. Therefore, punishment in ancient China is closely related to the “knife”. Shuo Wen Jie Zi contains a large number of Chinese characters related to punishment, and they are closely related to the “Ancient Five Punishments”. “刵(Er)”, as an ear-cutting penalty, can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty or even earlier, and has similar meaning with the words “聝(Guo)” and “取(Q u)”. “㓷(Yi)” and “劓(Yi)” are variants of each other, and they were widely used as a penalty for cutting the nose only before the Han Dynasty. “刖(Yue)” means the punishment of cutting the legs, which has same meaning with the words “剕(Fei)” and “跀(Yue)”, but it was different from the word of “膑(Bin)” though they have similar meaning. The three characters “ (Xing)”, “刭(Jing)” and “刎(Wen)” can be explained by each other, and they all refer to the punishment of beheading. “罚(Fa)” means punishment for minor crimes. This word and the word of “刑(Xing)” meaning the punishment for serious crimes constitute the phrase of “刑罚(Xingfa)” in Chinese.