Chóngxiū Yùpiān 重修玉篇
The Revised Yùpiān by 顧野王 (Gù Yěwáng, 撰), 孫強 (Sūn Qiáng, 增補), and 陳彭年 (Chén Péngnián), 丘雍 (Qiū Yōng) et al. (重修)
About the work
The post-Sòng-revision form of the Yùpiān 玉篇, the foundational post-Shuōwén Chinese character dictionary. Originally composed by Gù Yěwáng 顧野王 (519–581) of the Liáng dynasty in Dàtóng 9 (543); enlarged in the Táng (Shàngyuán 1, 674) by Sūn Qiáng 孫強 of Fùchūn 富春; comprehensively revised on imperial command in the Northern Sòng Dàzhōngxiángfú 6 (1013) by Chén Péngnián 陳彭年, Wú Ruì 吳銳, Qiū Yōng 丘雍 and others. The standard recension covers 30 juàn under 540 bùshǒu (the Shuōwén radicals, slightly reorganized). The Sòng revisers re-titled it Dàguǎng yìhuì Yùpiān 大廣益會玉篇 KR1j0056 in the SBCK transmission; the Sìkù WYG follows the same revised-text line. Cross-version differences with the original Liáng Yùpiān are visible in Yǒnglè dàdiǎn citations.
Tiyao
Yùpiān in 30 juàn. Composed by Huángmén shìláng and Tàixué bóshì Gù Yěwáng of the Liáng in Dàtóng 9 (543). In Táng Shàngyuán 1 (674), Sūn Qiáng of Fùchūn 富春 added graphs. In Sòng Dàzhōngxiángfú 6 (1013), Chén Péngnián, Wú Ruì, Qiū Yōng and others jointly revised it. Total 540 radicals. Three editions circulate today: (1) Zhāng Shìjùn 張士俊’s print, prefixed with Gù Yěwáng’s preface and qǐ memorial, ending with Shén Gǒng’s 釋神珙 fǎnniǔtú and the fēnháo zìyàng; Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 prefaced this print, claiming it to be the Shàngyuán (Sūn Qiáng) edition. (2) Cáo Yín 曹寅’s print — identical with Zhāng’s but for an additional Dàzhōngxiángfú imperial chìdié and the title Chóngxiūběn. (3) Míng Inner-Court print — same character-count but different ordering within radicals, slightly briefer glosses, also titled the Dà-zhōng-xiáng-fú-revised. The Wénxiàn tōngkǎo records Yùpiān in 30 juàn citing Cháo Gōngwǔ’s note: “Liáng Gù Yěwáng’s recension; Táng Sūn Qiáng added graphs; Shén Gǒng’s fǎnniǔtú appended”; and separately Chóngxiū Yùpiān in 30 juàn citing the Chóngwén zǒngmù: “Hànlín xuéshì Chén Péngnián together with Shǐguǎn jiàokān Wú Ruì and zhí Jíxiányuàn Qiū Yōng et al. re-collated and finalized it” — i.e., the Sòng Yùpiān originally had two distinct configurations. Chén Péngnián’s Memorial of Presentation says: “We humbly received the imperial regulation, and proceeded to a thorough review; we corrected all errors and supplied missing details where coverage was thin”; the imperial chìdié records — old [Yùpiān] 156,041 graphs of explanation; new 51,129; new and old together 209,770; gloss-text in 407,530 graphs. So Chén Péngnián’s revision is much larger than Sūn Qiáng’s text. Hence the Míng Inner-Court print and Cáo Yín’s both call themselves Chóngxiū; Zhāng’s print, while being the same as Cáo’s, deletes the chóngxiū note and falsely claims the Shàngyuán-edition status; but the Dàzhōngxiángfú title Dàguǎng yìhuì and the front-matter graph-counts have not been altered — a clumsy forgery. Zhū Yízūn’s preface saying it is “superior to the Dàguǎng yìhuì” was evidently written without checking. Yuán Lù Yǒurén’s Yánběi zázhì records: “Of Gù Yěwáng’s Yùpiān, only the Yuè edition is best; at the end is signed ‘Wúshì Sānyīniáng of Kuàijī wrote it’ — calligraphy especially fine.” The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn under each graph cites both “Gù Yěwáng Yùpiān” and “Sòng Chóngxiū Yùpiān” — i.e., in early Míng the Shàngyuán edition still survived. Yet within the Dàdiǎn’s rhyme arrangement only the Dàguǎng yìhuì is included as the running text — the original GùSūn cannot be reconstructed. Apparently the editors valued bulk over purity. The closing material includes Shén Gǒng’s Wǔyīn shēnglùn and Sìshēng wǔyīn jiǔnòng fǎnniǔtú — these are foundational sources for děngyùn studies. Recent Dài Zhèn 戴震 of Xiūníng in his Shēngyùn kǎo has shown that fǎnqiè begins not with Shén Gǒng but with Wèi-state Sūn Yán 孫炎; that point is correct. But Dài’s claim that zìmǔ doctrine is post-Táng and that Shén Gǒng plagiarized rú-tradition while pretending the doctrine came from the Western Regions — that is mistaken: the Suíshū jīngjízhì records “Póluómén shū uses fourteen sounds to thread the entire range of human language” — the doctrine was already present. (Translated from Sìkù tíyào, abridged.)
Abstract
The Yùpiān is the second great Chinese character dictionary, after the Shuōwén jiězì — and the first to be organized for genuine reference use rather than philological-archeological exposition. Gù Yěwáng wrote it under the Liáng (presented 543) and reduced the Shuōwén’s radicals by some twenty while supplying kǎishū head graphs, contemporary glosses, and fǎnqiè readings, abandoning the seal-script orientation of Xǔ Shèn. Sūn Qiáng’s Táng-period augmentation (674) and Chén Péngnián’s full-scale Northern-Sòng revision (Dàzhōngxiángfú 6, 1013, the date used here as both notBefore and notAfter for the present recension) made it the standard medieval dictionary; the Sìkù tíyào gives the imperial graph-count totals (209,770 graphs of explanation in 407,530 gloss-graphs). The original LiángSūn recension was effectively lost when the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn compilers chose to incorporate only the Dàguǎng yìhuì (= Chóngxiū) line. The Sìkù compilers correct the textual mis-attributions of Zhāng Shìjùn’s “Shàngyuán” claim. Shén Gǒng’s Wǔyīn shēnglùn and fǎnniǔtú appended to the dictionary are foundational documents for the děngyùn 等韻 (phonological-grade) tradition. The work uses the same 540 radicals as the Shuōwén with minor reordering; this set was not reduced to the 214-radical scheme of the Zìhuì and Kāngxī zìdiǎn until the Míng.
Translations and research
- Bottéro, Françoise. 1996. Sémantisme et classification dans l’écriture chinoise. Paris: Collège de France.
- Liú Yèqiū 劉葉秋. 1983. Zhōngguó zì-diǎn shǐ-lüè. Beijing: Zhonghua. — Surveys the Yùpiān tradition.
- Endymion Wilkinson. 2022. Chinese History: A New Manual, §6.2.1.
Other points of interest
The appended Shén Gǒng fǎnniǔtú is one of the earliest tabular phonological documents in Chinese and a key piece of evidence for the medieval děngyùn tradition.