ZhōuQín kèshí shìyīn 周秦刻石釋音
Phonological Glosses on the Stone-Engravings of the Zhōu and Qín by 吾丘衍 (Wúqiū Yǎn, 撰)
About the work
A one-juàn edited paleographic-and-phonological compendium of the great pre-imperial stone inscriptions: the Shígǔwén 石鼓文, the ZǔChǔwén 詛楚文, and the Tàishān 泰山 and Yìshān 嶧山 stelae of Qín Shǐhuáng. Compiled by Wúqiū Yǎn 吾丘衍 (d. 1311), zì Zǐxíng 子行, of Qiántáng 錢塘. The author’s preface is dated Yuán Zhìdà 1 (1308). The work is a critical revision of an earlier compendium of the same title by Yáng Wénbǐng 楊文昺 (Sòng Chúnxī era), removing Yáng’s inclusion of the Lángyátái bēi (which Wúqiū Yǎn judged stylistically incompatible with Qín stelae) and revising the readings throughout.
Tiyao
Your servants etc. report: ZhōuQín kèshí shìyīn in 1 juàn; composed by Wúqiū Yǎn of the Yuán. Yǎn’s zì was Zǐxíng 子行; a man of Qiántáng 錢塘. In Sòng Chúnxī, Yáng Wénbǐng 楊文昺 had composed a ZhōuQín kèshí shìyīn containing the Shígǔwén, the ZǔChǔwén, and the Tàishān and Yìshān stele-inscriptions. Wúqiū Yǎn judged that Yáng had wrongly included the Lángyátái stele, which he considered not Qín-style — and so re-edited the work. The Zhìdà 1 (1308) preface says: the Shígǔ is taken from his own copy in the Jiǎxiùtáng túpǔ, with Zhèng Qiáo’s 鄭樵 phonetic gloss removed. The ZǔChǔwén has two graphs corrected. Tàishān and Yìshān combined into the same volume. The original title is retained. — Notes by various commentators are listed at the back. — His ordering of the Shígǔ matches Xuē Shànggōng’s 薛尚功 KR1j0030 and Yáng Shèn’s 楊愼 versions — different from current versions. His annotations of “X lines, X graphs per line, repeated and missing graphs,” that Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 used for his Shígǔ kǎo, depend on a single point-in-time witness; even Pān Dí 潘迪’s Yīnxùn 音訓 (also Yuán-period, contemporary with Wúqiū Yǎn) does not entirely agree on the readings — for inscriptions on metal and stone, the rubbing’s clarity varies and re-mountings shift the apparent layout, hence speaker-to-speaker disagreement is unsurprising. The two corrections to the ZǔChǔwén — bàn 絆 → féng 縫 — has no ancient warrant, and on context and graphic structure neither yields confidence. Hái 還 → suí 遂 — the present ZǔChǔwén stone-print and woodblock prints have neither graph; we do not know what witness Wúqiū Yǎn was working from. But Yǎn is four hundred years removed from us; the witnesses he could see may differ from current ones. We cannot dismiss it merely from current evidence. We record it as one viewpoint, suitable to broaden the audience. Respectfully edited and presented in the eleventh month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781).
Abstract
Wúqiū Yǎn’s revision of Yáng Wénbǐng’s compendium is the canonical Yuán-period treatment of the four most important pre-imperial Chinese stone inscriptions. Notable for: (1) excluding the Lángyátái stele on stylistic grounds (a controversial decision); (2) Wúqiū Yǎn’s removal of Zhèng Qiáo’s earlier phonetic glosses on the Shígǔwén; (3) the corrections of the ZǔChǔwén, which Sìkù compilers note do not match current witnesses but cannot be dismissed since Wúqiū Yǎn worked from Yuán-era rubbings now lost. The book provides the line-and-graph counts of the Shígǔwén later used by Zhū Yízūn for his Shígǔ kǎo. Wúqiū Yǎn’s other major work is the Xuégǔbiān 學古編 (a paleographic and seal-engraving manual, reprinted at KR3l0XXX in the zǐ division), several times cited by the Sìkù compilers in the previous xiǎoxué entries. Dating: Zhìdà 1 (1308) per Wúqiū Yǎn’s own preface — used here as both notBefore and notAfter.
Translations and research
- Mattos, Gilbert L. 1988. The Stone Drums of Ch’in. Sankt Augustin: Steyler. — Standard Western monograph; treats Wú-qiū Yǎn alongside the other Yuán-period readers of the Shí-gǔ-wén.
- Endymion Wilkinson. 2022. Chinese History: A New Manual, §39.