The Numismatic Chronicle 171 Offprint - Royal Numismatic Society

370
FRANÇOIS THIERRY
A detailed study of the moral maxims in the light of the practice of taboo characters
(Ch. hui; Viet. húy 諱) explains the removal of particular types during particular
reigns. For example, four types of inscriptions found on coins of the Minh Mạng
era contained taboo characters and were thus discontinued. It was an old tradition
in the sinicised world not to use a character which was present in the personal or
offi cial name of the emperor, the empress or an imperial ancestor. A taboo character
would be replaced with a homonym or a non-orthodox version of that character. 16
Particular respect was paid to the custom of taboo characters during the Nguyễn
dynasty. In an ordinance of the third moon of the second year of Gia Long (1803),
the emperor ordered the Ministry of Rites to distribute information about taboo
characters throughout the empire; all personal or place names which were similar to
a taboo character were to be modifi ed, and replacement characters appropriate to the
context were to be used. 17
Type 28 was discontinued in the Thiệu Trị era because the character Hoa 華 was
declared a taboo character in the ordinance of the second moon of the fi rst year of
Thiệu Trị, on the grounds that it appeared in the personal name of the emperor’s
mother, Hồ Thị Hoa 胡氏華 (1790–1806). 18 Reminders that this was a taboo character
were made several times during the Thiệu Trị era and in the ordinance of the 14th
year of the Tự Đức era. 19
Types 27 and 36 were also absent from the 1871 issue, because the character an
安 had been declared taboo in 1861 (the 14th year of the Tự Đức era). In that year,
the emperor noticed in a petition the name of a certain Lê Tiền Hoàng written with
the character Hoàng 潢, which showed that the taboo on characters in the personal
names of imperial ancestors was not being strictly applied, the imperial ancestor’s
name in this case being Nguyễn Hoàng 潢. It was thus ordered that a list should
be drawn up of all the characters that were taboo, or that should be taboo, with the
intention of making them known in a special ordinance. In this way, 47 characters
were declared taboo, of which 17 were new, including the character An 安, which
was the family name of the mother of Nguyễn Phúc Tần (1648–87). 20
Type 47 was dropped for similar reasons during the Tự Đức era, as it contained the
character thì 時. At his accession to the throne at the end of the Thiệu Trị era, Prince
Nguyễn Hồng Nậm was given the offi cial name Thì, and this character immediately
became taboo in an ordinance of the tenth moon of the seventh year of the Thiệu Trị
era. The ordinance specifi ed that ‘thì in terms such as Thì khắc, is to be replaced with
16 We know that the character bang 邦, which means ‘country’ or ‘state’, and which is the personal
name of the founder of the Han dynasty, Liu Bang (ruled 206–195 BC), was replaced in contemporary
Chinese texts by guo 國 which has a similar meaning. The characters shi 世 and min 民, which were
part of the personal name of Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty (627–49) and which were
frequently used, were also modifi ed so that they could be written without contravening the ritual, see Li
ZG, p. 5, and Soymié, ‘Observations sur les caractères interdits’, pp. 388–90.
17 Đại Nam thực lục, Chính biên, quoted by Ngô DT, p. 325.
18 The daughter of a military man, she was selected as the fi rst wife of the second grade by Đảm
(future emperor Thánh Tổ, Minh Mạng era), but died at the age of seventeen, thirteen days after giving
birth to the future emperor Hiến Tổ, of the Thiệu Trị era.
19 Ngô DT, pp. 348, 350, 357, 365–6.
20 Ngô DT, pp. 365–6.