Chūnqiū Xú-shì yīn 春秋徐氏音
Master Xú’s Phonological Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals
by 徐邈 (撰)
About the work
A one-juàn reconstruction of 徐邈 Xú Miǎo’s (344–397) lost Chūnqiū Zuǒshì yīn 春秋左氏音 (also cited as Chūnqiū Xú-shì yīn) — the Chūnqiū member of Xú’s systematic Five-Classics yīn 音 programme, the companion to his parallel reconstructed Lǐjì Xú-shì yīn KR1d0128, Zhōulǐ Xú-shì yīn KR1d0109, and Gǔwén Shàngshū yīn KR1b0061. The CHANT reconstruction (CH2e1129) is drawn principally from 陸德明 Lù Démíng’s Jīngdiǎn shìwén 經典釋文 citations on the Chūnqiū jīng zhuàn jí jiě (KR1e0002), supplemented by 丁度 Dīng Dù’s Jíyùn 集韻.
Abstract
The work survives only as a jíyì 輯佚 reconstruction. Xú Miǎo’s Eastern-Jìn 東晉 yīn commentaries on all of the Five Classics were lost as integral books after the Táng but provided one of the principal authorities upon which Lù Démíng drew when compiling the Jīngdiǎn shìwén in the early Táng. The present compilation extracts every Shìwén lemma marked “Xú yīn” 徐音 or “Xú X-fǎn” 徐X反 (and the small number of complementary Jíyùn citations) and arranges them in canonical Chūnqiū sequence, year by year from Yǐn-gōng 隱公 to Āi-gōng 哀公.
The reconstruction opens with Yǐn-gōng year 5, gloss on Zhèng-rén qīn Wèi 鄭人侵衛: mù, yīn mù 牧音目 (the place-name Mù 牧 is to be pronounced like 目 mù); cited from Lù Démíng’s Shìwén. The substantive content follows characteristic yīn-commentary form: brief fǎn-qiè 反切 glosses (x-y fǎn 反 / 切 切) on phonologically difficult or polyvalent characters in the Chūnqiū and Zuǒzhuàn, occasionally with semantic note (miè yě 滅也, lǎo yě 老也, jiē hū yě 皆呼也) where the reading determines the gloss.
Particular interest attaches to the reading-history notes preserved in the extract: at Xuān 8, fù shēn shū Zhǎn 號申叔展 — hào, hù dào fǎn, yī yīn hù dāo fǎn, hū yě 號戶到反，一音戶刀反，呼也 (giving Xú’s two alternative readings for hào); at Xuān 12, “the present Shìwén base-text has lost the [Xú]-character — the zhèngyì citation of the Shìwén retains it” (今釋文本脫徐字，正義載釋文有之), a textual note from the jíyì compiler indicating that Xú’s gloss has dropped out of the transmitted Shìwén but is preserved in the zhèngyì 正義 of Kǒng Yǐngdá KR1e0003. The compilation accordingly draws not only on extant Shìwén lemmata but on zhèngyì secondary attestations.
The dating bracket (344–397) follows Xú Miǎo’s documented lifespan (cf. 徐邈). For the broader Five-Classics programme of which this is one member see 徐邈’s biographical note and the parallel reconstructed volumes KR1d0128, KR1d0109, KR1b0061.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. See:
- 王力 Wáng Lì, Zhōngguó yǔyán xué shǐ 中國語言學史, on the Eastern-Jìn yīn-yì programme.
- 周祖謨 Zhōu Zǔmó’s studies of Eastern-Jìn phonological scholarship; Xú Miǎo’s readings are a foundational source for the reconstruction of fourth-century southern Mandarin.
- For the Jīngdiǎn shìwén base of the reconstruction: Wáng Yùnxī 王韻熙 (ed.), Jīngdiǎn shìwén huì jiào 經典釋文匯校 (Zhōnghuá).
Other points of interest
The Chūnqiū Xú-shì yīn shares the same jíyì sourcing principle as Xú’s companion reconstructions: the bulk of the material derives from a single Táng-era anthology (the Jīngdiǎn shìwén) that quoted Xú’s individual yīn glosses by name. The pattern of preservation reflects Lù Démíng’s selection-criterion (phonologically difficult or contested readings only), so the reconstructed Xú-shì yīn is necessarily partial — not a continuous yīn commentary, but a selection of points-of-controversy. The work is nonetheless one of the principal extant witnesses to fourth-century Jiāngnán pronunciation of Chūnqiū / Zuǒzhuàn vocabulary.
Links
- Chinese Text Project — Jīngdiǎn shìwén: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=608648