A Discussion of "qingxian"(清闲)

There is no agreed account of the connotations of qingxian(清闲),so the word is frequently misunderstood and misspelt as qingkai(清开),qingwen(清问),qingwen(请问) or qingjian(请间),which affect the compilation of ancient books and the proper understanding of the word.qianxian can be traced back to xianju(闲居)and yanju(燕居) in the Han Dynasty,whose distinction lied in avoiding people or not.In the History of the Former Han Dynasty,xianju and yanju were combined into a noun phrase qing zhi xian(清燕之闲) or qing xian zhi yan(清闲之燕),which is short for qingxian,only referring to the private conversation between emperor and his subject.Since the Jin Dynasty,qingxian became a verb which still meant the private conversation but only stressed the private form without any limit on the identity of interlocutors or contents of conversation.In the Earlier Song Dynasty,the dictatorship was consolidated and the remarks of scholars were controlled,so xianju and yanju only referred to qing xian zhi yan of the emperor.In the Yuan Dynasty,the word qingxian was seldom used.