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古文尚書音

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Text ID
KR1b0061
Date
372–397
Dynasty
東晉

Gǔwén Shàngshū yīn 古文尚書音

Phonological Glosses on the Old-Text Shàngshū by 徐邈 (Xú Miǎo, 344–397, 東晉, 撰) and 馬國翰 (Mǎ Guóhàn, 1794–1857, 清, 輯)

About the work

A 1-juàn collection of phonological glosses (yīn 音) on the Gǔwén Shàngshū 古文尚書, originally composed by the Eastern-Jìn court scholar Xú Miǎo as part of his programme of zhèngyīn shìyì 正音釋義 for the Five Classics. The integral text was lost after the Táng; what circulates today, and what the Kanripo source file transmits, is the Qīng reconstruction (輯佚) by Mǎ Guóhàn in his Yùhán shānfáng jíyì shū 玉函山房輯佚書 (mid-19th c.). Mǎ assembled the work entry-by-entry from citations preserved in 陸德明 Lù Démíng’s Jīngdiǎn shìwén 經典釋文 KR1j0070 and from the Shàngshū lemma-notes in 丁度 Dīng Dù’s Jíyùn 集韻 KR1j0006, arranging the fragments under their parent Shàngshū chapters (《尚書序》, 《堯典》 down through 《秦誓》). Each entry quotes the lemma in Shàngshū order, gives Xú’s fǎnqiè 反切 or direct-sound (zhíyīn 直音) gloss, and cites by name the surviving witness (《釋文》 or 《集韻》).

Tiyao

No tiyao found in source. The work is not in the 《四庫全書》, and the Kanripo source file transmits the bare reconstructed text without prefatory matter or 馬國翰’s own xù 序 / àn 案. The work’s place in the canon-history of Shàngshū phonology is treated in the standard Yùhán shānfáng jíyì shū prefaces to the Shàngshū section.

Abstract

The historical layering must be kept distinct. The 《後漢書·杜林傳》 records four Eastern-Hàn exegetical labours on Dù Lín’s 杜林 lacquer-text Gǔwén Shàngshū: 衞宏 wrote 《古文尚書訓旨》, 徐巡 wrote 《古文尚書音》, 賈逵 wrote 《古文尚書訓》, and 馬融 / 鄭玄 added 《傳》 and 《注》. Xú Xún’s 徐巡 work of the same title is the Hàn-period antecedent and is not what survives here. The present text is the Eastern-Jìn 《古文尚書音》 of 徐邈 Xú Miǎo (344–397), one of three phonological authorities (along with 李軌 and 劉昌宗) most heavily quoted by 陸德明 Lù Démíng in the 《經典釋文·尚書音義》. Xú’s readings, alongside those of 鄭玄 Zhèng Xuán and 王肅 Wáng Sù, were the principal Six-Dynasties materials on which Lù based his Shàngshū phonology two centuries later.

The integral Jìn work was lost by the late Táng. 馬國翰 Mǎ Guóhàn (1794–1857), the most ambitious of the Qīng jíyì compilers, reconstructed it in 1 juàn for his 《玉函山房輯佚書》 — published in successive Hóngwéntáng 宏文堂 / Cháng-shā 長沙 cuts beginning in the 1850s and reaching final form posthumously in 1883. The Kanripo file follows that recension. Because each fragment retains its Shìwén or Jíyùn citation, the work doubles as a methodological exhibit of Qīng jíyì practice: the lemma-by-lemma arrangement under Shàngshū chapter headings preserves the original yīn structure inferred from Lù Démíng, while the citations of Dīng Dù’s 1037 Jíyùn serve to fill gaps and confirm readings independently transmitted into the Sòng. The composition window in the frontmatter (372–397) brackets Xú’s productive years at the court of 孝武帝; the form of the text in front of the reader, however, is a Qīng compilation.

The position of this work within the broader Shàngshū yīn corpus is summarised by Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §§28.1.4–28.2 (Classics → Shàngshū): post-Hàn phonological glosses on the Shàngshū are preserved chiefly through the Jīngdiǎn shìwén, with Qīng jíyì compilations restoring a degree of independent visibility to the individual Six-Dynasties masters.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. In Chinese scholarship the work figures principally as a data-source for the historical phonology of Eastern-Jìn southern Mandarin: see e.g. 周祖謨, 問學集 (Běijīng, 1966) on Xú Miǎo’s fǎnqiè system; and Chen Jianchu 陳建初, 〈徐邈能辨別唇音輕重之再商榷〉, 中國語文研究 (1986), on Xú’s labial distinctions and the yòuyīn 又音 conventions of the Shìwén. The fragments collected here are routinely cited in Qīng and modern Shàngshū exegetical and phonological studies but the text itself has not, to my knowledge, been the object of an independent monograph.

Other points of interest

The juxtaposition within each entry of an Eastern-Jìn fǎnqiè (transmitted via Táng Shìwén) and a Northern-Sòng fǎnqiè (from Jíyùn) on the same Shàngshū lemma offers a compact diachronic dataset of three to seven centuries of phonological development; Mǎ Guóhàn’s editorial decision to cite both witnesses for each lemma — rather than collapsing them — preserves that contrast and is one of the methodological strengths of the Yùhán shānfáng jíyì compared with earlier Qīng reconstructions.

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