Gǔwén sìshēng yùn 古文四聲韻
Archaic Graphs Arranged by Four-Tone Rhyme by 夏竦 (Xià Sǒng, 撰)
About the work
A five-juàn re-arrangement of Guō Zhōngshù’s 郭忠恕 Hànjiǎn KR1j0026 gǔwén corpus into four-tone Qièyùn rhyme classes, with the kǎishū (lì) head graph leading and the archaic-script forms grouped underneath. Compiled by Xià Sǒng 夏竦 (985–1051), Northern-Sòng grand councillor, in Qìnglì 4 (1044). Front-matter signature: Kāifǔ yítóng sānsī xíng Lìbù shàngshū zhī Bózhōu jūnzhōu shì Xià Sǒng jí.
Tiyao
Gǔwén sìshēng yùn in 5 juàn; composed by Xià Sǒng of the Sòng. Sǒng’s zì was Zǐqiáo 子喬; a man of Déān in Jiāngzhōu; in Jǐngdé 3 (1006) recommended as Xiánliáng fāngzhèng; rose to Wǔníngjūn jiéduǐshǐ; posthumous title Wénzhuāng 文莊. His career is in his Sòngshǐ biography. Per Wú Qiūyǎn’s Xuégǔbiān, “Xià Sǒng’s Gǔwén sìshēng yùn in 5 juàn — the version with preface and full-title front-matter is the better text; there is also a Buddhist fānběn (re-engraving) which should not be used.” Per Quán Zǔwàng’s Jíqítíng jí, his postface notes the book was borrowed for copy-collation from the Fànshì Tiānyīgé — the Shàoxīng yǐchǒu (1145) re-print by the fútú Bǎodá — i.e., the fānběn mentioned by Wú Qiūyǎn. The present is a rubbing-copy from the Jígǔgé Sòng print, with Xià Sǒng’s own Qìnglì 4 (1044) preface and the front-matter signature. The book sorts the archaic forms (lìgǔ 隸古 and zhuàn seal) by four tones. Quán Zǔwàng’s postface says the 88 sources cited do not exceed Guōshì’s Hànjiǎn by even one, and the work is in essence the Hànjiǎn re-sorted by rhyme — without addition, removal, or variant: “even unwritten it would have done no harm” — that view is right. Yet the Hànjiǎn sorts by radical and the radicals themselves are in gǔwén-script not in clerical, hard to retrieve at sight; this book sorts by rhyme and uses lì as the head, easier to consult. — Like the Shuōwén coexisting with Xú Kǎi’s 徐鍇 Zhuànyùnpǔ KR1j0021, the two are best kept side by side; one cannot be discarded. — But the work is patched together rather than philologically derived; many cases miss the liùshū root. jìn 親 is the original qīn 親; the entry under qīn duly says “ancient Shàngshū writes ”; but a separate entry treats a corruption (mián 宀 changed to xué 穴) as the original yún 雲: under yún the Shuōwén form is given as ; further, under yún the Wáng Cúnyì form is given as ; jù 䀠 is the original qú 瞿 — but under jù the Hànjiǎn is cited as and under qú Cuī Xīyù’s Zuǎngǔ is cited as 以 — and so on for cháo / zhāo 朝鼂, wén / wèn 聞閿, xié / yè 恊叶 etc., countless cases. Kān 龕 cited in the ancient Shàngshū (Xībó kān Lí) is not merged into the kān 戡 entry but listed separately — i.e., he treats one graph as two through ignorance. Chéng 澄 and chéng 澂 are alternate forms (chéng 澄 the biètǐ) — under chéng 澄 the Yúntái stele form is cited; under chéng 澂 the Wáng Shùzǐ stele form is cited; same with cǎi 彩 and cǎi 采, tóng 桐 and tóng 崇, chóng 崈, kuī 窺 and kuī 闚, mó 謩 and mó 謨, xiān 仙 and xiān 僊, yuán 員 and yuán 圓, xī 熙 and xī 㷩, fèng 奉 and pěng 捧, zhǔn 准 and zhǔn 凖, mào 㡌 and mào 冒, KR1313 and jìng 競 — countless cases, again treating one graph as two through inability to distinguish sú (vulgar) variants. Hán 函 in the tán rhyme = “container”; hán 函 in the xián rhyme = “Hángǔ pass” — both are cited as Nányuèbēi form . Xiān 鮮 in the xiān rhyme = fresh-fish (in archaic should be three-fish 魚); xiān 鮮 in the xiǎn rhyme = “rare” (in archaic should follow shǎo 少): both cited under “ancient Lǎozǐ writes ” / “Yán Huángmén writes ” / “ancient Shàngshū writes .” The Shuōwén glosses huāng 㠩 as “great” and huāng 荒 as “wasteland” — two different graphs; but the ancient Shàngshū huāng 荒 and the Zhòuyùn huāng 㠩 are listed together under huāng 荒 — i.e., not distinguishing sound and meaning, two graphs collapsed into one. Numerous similar cases. — Si and sì 亖 both come from the Shuōwén; but only the form is given as Shuōwén; the 亖 form is given as “from the Bèiqiūcháng stele, ancient Lǎozǐ”; the gǔwén 亖 form he gives as “from the Tiāntái sūtra-pillar.” Numerous further cases. — Shì 室 — supposedly from the Jìzhá tomb-inscription — but the Jìzhá tomb-inscription has no graph shì — pure invention. Cases like / 鱻 / 銕 / / 諐 standing in pairs are basically one in seal one in clerical. Under bǎo 保 — “Cuī Xīyù has gǔ 古 writes bǎo”; under yàn 鴈 — “Zhòuyùn writes yàn” — purely lì-script, not different from current usage. — One must not take this book as wholly authoritative. The rhyme-classes used (per the preface) follow Táng Qièyùn, with xuān 宣 added after xiān 仙 (= Xú Kǎi’s Yùnpǔ); tán, tán 覃談 after má 麻 and before yáng 陽; zhēng 蒸, dēng 登 after tiān 添 and before xián 咸 (= Yán Yuánsūn 顏元孫’s Gānlù zìshū KR1j0023) — Táng practice. After qí 齊 and before jiā 佳 there is yí 移 — different from those two books. Perhaps the Tángyùn itself was not unitary. Respectfully edited and presented in [Qiánlóng …, year missing in source].
Abstract
The Gǔwén sìshēng yùn is the principal Northern-Sòng phonologically-organized presentation of the archaic-script (gǔwén) corpus. The author Xià Sǒng — also known as a senior statesman and a powerful prose-stylist — completed the work in Qìnglì 4 (1044). Its primary contribution, per Quán Zǔwàng and the Sìkù tíyào, is conversion of Guō Zhōngshù’s 郭忠恕 Hànjiǎn KR1j0026 from a radical-organized format into a rhyme-organized format with kǎishū head graphs, making the same gǔwén dataset radically more usable. The Sìkù compilers are sharply critical of the work’s defects of method — repeated double-entries that confuse alternate forms and original-vs-borrowed graph pairs, mis-attribution of gǔwén sources, even an outright invented citation (the shì 室 entry from a non-existent passage of the Jìzhá tomb-inscription). The book is nevertheless indispensable as a Sòng witness to the gǔwén tradition, particularly as cross-checked against the Hànjiǎn. Modern paleography (Lǐ Líng, Huáng Xīquán) treats both texts together. Dating: Qìnglì 4 (1044), per Xià Sǒng’s own preface — used here as both notBefore and notAfter.
Translations and research
- Huáng Xī-quán 黃錫全. 1990. Hàn-jiǎn zhù-shì. Wuhan: Wuhan daxue. — Treats the Gǔwén sì-shēng yùn in tandem with the Hàn-jiǎn.
- Lǐ Líng 李零. 1985. “Hàn-jiǎn yǔ Sòng-dài de gǔwén-xué.”
- Endymion Wilkinson. 2022. Chinese History: A New Manual, §2.2.