The Function of Variant Forms of A Chinese Character in Making Explanatory Notes on Ancient Chinese

Variant forms of a Chinese character cause error and confusion in usage and propagation, as well as difficulty in literacy, but they offer us more forms of the character in textual criticism of the pronounciation and meaning of the word, too. For this reason, their function can not be ignored in making explanatory notes on ancient Chinese. They are mainly used to: discriminate original meaning, explain the abnormal way of using words, identify Tongjia (通假) and search for the origin of a word.