Zhōulǐ Liú-shì yīn 周禮劉氏音
Master Liú’s Phonological Commentary on the Zhōulǐ
by 劉昌宗 (撰)
About the work
A two-juàn reconstruction of 劉昌宗 Liú Chāngzōng’s (fl. mid-fourth century) lost Zhōulǐ Liú-shì yīn 周禮劉氏音 — the most extensive of the four reconstructed Zhōulǐ phonological commentaries in this corpus. Liú Chāngzōng was an Eastern-Jìn phonological-glossator working in parallel with 徐邈 Xú Miǎo (cf. KR1d0109) and 李軌 Lǐ Guǐ (KR1d0110). The CHANT reconstruction (CH2e1076) draws citations primarily from Lù Démíng 陸德明’s Jīngdiǎn shìwén 經典釋文 and additionally from Dīng Dù 丁度’s Sòng-period Jíyùn 集韻.
Abstract
At 7179 lines in the source-text, this is by far the most substantial of the four Zhōulǐ yīn reconstructions, organised as a juàn-shàng / juàn-xià (upper / lower volume) division. The structure follows the canonical Liù-guān (six-office) order, with each canonical-text section followed by fǎn-qiè glosses on difficult readings.
The opening preserved fragment is for Tiānguān zhǒngzǎi: “biàn fāng zhèng wèi” 辨方正位 with biàn glossed fāng-miǎn fǎn 方免反 (the same reading as Xú Miǎo), plus a second gloss “bāng-miǎn qiē, bié yě” 邦免切，別也 cited from Jíyùn — confirming that Sòng-period reference works also drew on Liú Chāngzōng’s tradition. The two-juàn extent reflects the unusually comprehensive coverage compared to the parallel works.
Liú Chāngzōng is also the author of KR1d0129 Lǐjì Liú-shì yīn — a parallel phonological commentary on the Lǐjì — and was widely cited by Lù Démíng across the Sānlǐ corpus. He represents the Liù-cháo phonological-commentary tradition that synthesised Eastern-Jìn southern and Northern Wèi northern pronunciation systems before Lù Démíng’s authoritative consolidation.
The dating bracket (317–419) reflects the broad Eastern-Jìn / Northern Dynasties span; Liú Chāngzōng’s exact birth and death years are not preserved in standard biographical sources.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. See:
- 王力 Wáng Lì, Zhōngguó yǔyán xué shǐ.
- 周祖謨 Zhōu Zǔmó’s studies of Eastern-Jìn phonological scholarship.
Other points of interest
The cross-citation by Dīng Dù’s Jíyùn — a major Sòng-period rhyme-dictionary — shows that the Liú Chāngzōng phonological tradition remained an active reference into the eleventh century, four hundred years after the original work was composed.
Links
- Chinese Text Project — Jīngdiǎn shìwén: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=608648
- Chinese Text Project — Jíyùn: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=608660