Píyǎ 埤雅
Supplementary Yǎ by 陸佃 (Lù Diàn, 撰)
About the work
A twenty-juàn expansion of the Ěryǎ tradition by Lù Diàn 陸佃 (1042–1102), focused on natural-history vocabulary: shìyú 釋魚 (2 juàn), shìshòu 釋獸 (3), shìniǎo 釋鳥 (4), shìchóng 釋蟲 (2), shìmǎ 釋馬 (1), shìmù 釋木 (2), shìcǎo 釋草 (4), shìtiān 釋天 (2). The title Píyǎ — “yǎ in supplementation” — is the author’s own coinage, declared in the postface by his son Lù Zǎi 陸宰 to be “auxiliary to the Ěryǎ” (為爾雅之輔也). Together with Luó Yuàn’s KR1j0012 Ěryǎ yì 爾雅翼 the Píyǎ defines the Northern-Sòng natural-history strand of the yǎ-tradition.
Tiyao
Your servants etc. report: Píyǎ in twenty juàn, composed by Lù Diàn of the Sòng. Diàn’s zì was Nóngshī 農師; he was a man of Shānyīn 山陰 in Yuèzhōu. As a youth he studied under Wáng Ānshí 王安石. In Xīníng 3 (1070) he placed in the upper third of the jìnshì and was appointed Càizhōu tuīguān; selected as Yùnzhōu jiàoshòu; summoned and appointed Guózǐjiàn zhíjiǎng; rose to shàngshū zuǒchéng; soon dismissed and made Zhōngdàfū; sent out as Prefect of Bózhōu and died in office. His Sòngshǐ biography praises him as accomplished in the ritual-tradition’s “names-and-numbers” learning and as having authored 242 juàn of works — among them the Píyǎ, the Lǐxiàng 禮象, and the Chūnqiū hòuzhuàn 春秋後傳, all transmitted to his time. Wáng Yìnglín’s 王應麟 Yùhǎi records his Shuōwén jiězì-work, and his son Lù Zǎi’s preface to the Píyǎ further records the Shī jiǎngyì 詩講義 and the Ěryǎ zhù. Today the Ěryǎ xīnyì 爾雅新義 survives only in scattered citations within the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn; the rest are lost; only this present book is still transmitted. The book has shìyú 2 juàn, shìshòu 3, shìniǎo 4, shìchóng 2, shìmǎ 1, shìmù 2, shìcǎo 4, shìtiān 2; the printed text shows missing characters at the end of shìtiān — the original was longer. Lù Zǎi records that Diàn during Shénzōng’s reign assisted in revising the Shuōwén, presented his draft and was summoned to court audience; the conversation turned to the natures of things, and he submitted the two piān “On Fish” and “On Trees” — and afterward continued to add and emend. Originally titled Wùshēng ménlèi 物生門類; later, after he had finished the Ěryǎ zhù, he revised the present work and renamed it Píyǎ, calling it “an auxiliary to the Ěryǎ.” His treatment of the natural-history terms generally skips formal description in favor of names-and-meaning; he tracks character-elements and xíngshēng phonetic series, seeking the rationale of the original naming, and then expands and ranges to reinforce the etymology. He cites Wáng Ānshí’s Zìshuō 字說 frequently. Lù Diàn was on the Yuányòu black-list because he refused to support the New Policies, but his learning never differed from Wáng Ānshí’s. Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武 said: “He does not exclusively follow Wáng’s school, and seems to stand on his own” — this is to mistake [a verdict on] the man for [a verdict on] the book. Respectfully edited and presented in the fourth month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779).
Abstract
The Píyǎ is the most influential of the Northern-Sòng yǎ-style natural-history dictionaries. Lù Diàn was a Wáng Ānshí student who participated in the imperial Shuōwén revision; the etymological method of the Zìshuō (Wáng’s idiosyncratic character-analysis) is the lens through which he glosses fauna, flora, and astronomical terms. His method is anti-descriptive: rather than detailing the appearance of an animal or plant, he reasons from the name (its xíngshēng analysis, the cognate words it may relate to) toward the raison d’être of the term. The Píyǎ was Lù Diàn’s revision of an earlier Wùshēng ménlèi and was completed alongside (and complementary to) his now-lost Ěryǎ zhù. Lù Diàn was placed on the Yuányòu black-list of New Policies opponents — the Sìkù compilers note that this is political rather than scholarly divergence: his xíngshēng-driven etymological method is squarely in the Wáng Ānshí tradition. Together with Luó Yuàn’s Ěryǎ yì and the much later Píyǎ guǎngyào 埤雅廣要, the Píyǎ established the yǎ-style natural-history sub-genre that fed into both Míng běncǎo and Qing nature-philology.
Translations and research
- Schäfer, Dagmar. 2006. “The Power of Words: Lu Dian’s Erya New Commentary.” (Conference paper.) — Brief modern study of Lù Diàn’s lexicographical method.
- Métailié, Georges. 2015. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 6 part 4: Traditional Botany: An Ethnobotanical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — Discusses the Píyǎ in the history of Chinese botany.
- Endymion Wilkinson. 2022. Chinese History: A New Manual, §6.2.1.