Liùshū zhèngé 六書正譌
Correcting the Errors of the Six-Script Doctrine by 周伯琦 (Zhōu Bóqí, 撰)
About the work
A five-juàn orthographic dictionary by Zhōu Bóqí 周伯琦 (1298–1369), companion to his Shuōwén zìyuán KR1j0040 in 1 juàn. Internally arranged by Lǐbù yùnlüè 206 rhyme classes, with xiǎozhuàn small-seal as head graph; first the structural rationale of the graph is given, and below “lìzuò X-X, súzuò X-X” (clerical writes X-X, vulgar writes X-X) for distinguishing — broadly modeled on Zhāng Yǒu’s 張有 Fùgǔ biān KR1j0031.
Tiyao
[The Sìkù tíyào on this work is included in the same tíyào as the Shuōwén zìyuán — see KR1j0040 for the full text. The relevant portion concerning the Liùshū zhèngé:] “His Liùshū zhèngé takes the Lǐbù yùnlüè sub-classes for arrangement, with xiǎozhuàn as head graph; first the structural rationale of the graph is given, and below ‘lìzuò X-X, súzuò X-X’ (clerical writes X-X, vulgar writes X-X) for distinguishing — much like Zhāng Yǒu’s Fùgǔbiān’s scheme. — In all, Bóqí’s two books extend the Shuōwén by half and add personal opinion by half; merits and demerits side by side, illumination and obscurity blocking each other. Not as precise as Zhāng Yǒu’s Fùgǔbiān; not as garbled as Yáng Huán’s 楊桓 Liùshū tǒng KR1j0037. Cǎi fēng cǎi fēi wú yǐ xià tǐ — preserve [the works] as one variant interpretation, in the catholic spirit. Respectfully edited and presented in the twelfth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781).”
Abstract
The Liùshū zhèngé is the second of Zhōu Bóqí’s two paired late-Yuán paleographic monuments. Where the Shuōwén zìyuán re-arranges the 540 Shuōwén radicals to bring cognates into adjacency, the Liùshū zhèngé re-organizes the actual graph corpus by rhyme class, in the manner of Zhāng Yǒu’s Fùgǔ biān. The work distinguishes zhèngtǐ, lì-script, and sútǐ forms for each lemma. Sìkù compilers’ overall judgment: more precise than Yáng Huán 楊桓 but less so than Zhāng Yǒu. Note that the source directory /home/Shared/krp/KR1j/[[KR1j0041]]/ is missing in the KRP source tree; the tíyào is preserved within the KR1j0040 file (the two works share an editorial unit in the WYG). Dating bracket notBefore 1340 to notAfter 1369 (Zhōu’s death) covers his mature scholarly career. The catalog meta gives the custom_id as ZB1j0037a — the suffix marking it as a paired entry to KR1j0040.
Translations and research
- Bottéro, Françoise. 1996. Sémantisme et classification dans l’écriture chinoise. Paris: Collège de France.
- Endymion Wilkinson. 2022. Chinese History: A New Manual, §2.4.
Other points of interest
The KRP source directory for this entry is missing, but the tíyào survives within the Shuōwén zìyuán WYG file because the two works are presented together as a single editorial unit (a common Sìkù practice for paired works by one author).