Qièyùn zhǐzhǎngtú 切韻指掌圖
Charts for Spelling-Rhymes Held in the Palm by 司馬光 (Sīmǎ Guāng, 1019–1086, 撰); appended Jiǎntú zhī lì 檢圖之例 by 邵光祖 (Shào Guāngzǔ, zì Hóngdào 宏道, fl. 1390)
About the work
The earliest extant fully-developed děngyùn (phonological-grade chart) text in the Chinese tradition. 20 charts (later 19 with one rearrangement) covering all 206 Guǎngyùn / Jíyùn rhymes, organising every entry-graph into a four-by-four matrix of 36 zìmǔ (initial consonant categories) crossed with the four děng (phonological grades) — the first fully systematic Chinese phonological chart-book to survive in textual transmission, recovered from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn by the Sìkù compilers. Composed by Sīmǎ Guāng as the analytical companion to his completion of the Jíyùn KR1j0057 of 1067; in his preface he describes how, “in idle hours” after submitting the Jíyùn, he organised the rhymes into the 20 charts. The 1-juàn Jiǎntú zhī lì (Worked-Examples for Consulting the Charts) is by the early-Míng yímín Shào Guāngzǔ of Wú (Sūzhōu), zì Hóngdào, fl. 1390, who replaced an earlier jiǎnlì he judged inconsistent with the charts. The book defines several technical phonological-pairing types — yīnhé 音和 (regular-spelling), lèigé 類隔 (cross-class spelling), shuāngshēng 雙聲 (alliterative pair), diéyùn 疊韻 (rhyming pair), píngqiē 憑切 (homorhyme but split-spelling), píngyùn 憑韻 (homophonous-spelling but split-rhyme), jìshēng 寄聲, jìyùn 寄韻 — that became the core technical vocabulary of subsequent děngyùn studies, especially in Liú Jiàn’s 劉鑑 Jīngshǐ zhèngyīn qièyùn zhǐnán KR1j0067 (Yuán, 1336).
Tiyao
The Qièyùn zhǐzhǎngtú in 2 juàn with 1 juàn of Jiǎntú zhī lì. Sīmǎ Guāng of the Sòng composed the charts; the Jiǎntú zhī lì was supplied by Shào Guāngzǔ. — Sīmǎ Guāng has the Wēngōng yìshuō already recorded. — Shào Guāngzǔ, zì Hóngdào, calls himself a man of Luòyì 洛邑; the start and end of his life are unclear. The Jiāngnán tōngzhì “Rúlín zhuàn” records a Yuán Shào Guāngzǔ, zì Hóngdào, of Wú, well-versed in classical scholarship, having taught nearly 30 years, expert in three Classics and author of a Shàngshū jíyì; this is presumably the same person — Luòyì being his ancestral place. From Wáng Xíng’s postface dated Hóngwǔ 23 (1390), and noting that Shào had died “several years earlier”, he was a Yuán yímín still living into the early Míng. — Sīmǎ Guāng’s book uses the 36 zìmǔ and divides aspirations and tones into 20 charts — first the dúyùn (independent rhymes), then the kāihé yùn (open-and-closed rhymes); within each class, ordering by relative frequency of the four děng forms — hence 高 heads the dúyùn set and 干 / 官 head the kāihé set. The earlier jiǎnlì, Shào judged, completely disagreed with the charts and could not be Sīmǎ Guāng’s; he therefore composed his own Jiǎntú zhī lì and appended it. Per Sīmǎ Guāng’s own preface, the charts were derived from the Jíyùn; Shào, however, says the Guǎngyùn has 25,300 graphs, of which 3,890 take spellings, and of these the charts retain 3,130 in the 20 charts, the remaining 760 being directable to the same-initial / same-rhyme charts already entered — i.e., the charts are based on the Guǎngyùn. Yet since Shào built his examples on Sīmǎ Guāng’s charts, his examples agree with the charts; the examples noting the 760 dàizì and zìmǔ are a real supplement. The fǎnqiè methodology of Sīmǎ Guāng’s book follows the Jǐngdìngguǐhài (1263) preface of Dǒng Nányī: dìyòng (sequential pairing) is yīnhé; bàngqiú (cross-class pairing) is lèigé; same-initial pairs are shuāngshēng; same-rhyme pairs are diéyùn; same-rhyme but split-spelling is píngqiē; same-spelling but split-rhyme is píngyùn; missing graphs marked by a dot are jìshēng; missing rhymes filled by a near-neighbour are jìyùn. The shuāngshēng / diéyùn set matches Liú Jiàn’s Zhǐnán doors; the yīnhé / lèigé however differs sharply: Sīmǎ Guāng’s example says “regular-spelling means same-initial, same-rhyme, same-grade”; “cross-class spelling means three classes — labial heavy/light, dental tongue-tip/tongue-blade, sibilant alveolar/post-alveolar — with same aspiration”; thus yīnhé covers all 36 zìmǔ and lèigé covers labial / dental / sibilant 26 mǔ. Liú Jiàn’s Zhǐnán by contrast restricts yīnhé to 見 / 溪 / 群 / 疑 only and adds “yīsì yīnhé” / “sìyī yīnhé”; restricts lèigé to 端 / 知 8 mǔ and adds “輕重重輕交互” / “照精精照互用” — an apparently more elaborate but less elegantly compressive system. The Sìkù compilers prefer the original Guǎngyùn lèigé jīngēng yīnhé one-line classification: take the same-initial graph for the qiè head, take the same-rhyme graph for the yùn tail. Yet the lái and rì initial discussion (saying rì connects with ní / niáng sub-mothers) and the xiá / yù initial discussion (“xiá missing in 三 / 四 děng, find in yù; yù missing in 一 / 二 děng, find in xiá”) — i.e. the so-called yěmǎ tiàojiàn (wild-horse leaping-the-stream) door — are forced. — Furthermore the system covers 10 zìmǔ (疑 / 泥 / 娘 / 明 etc.) but here only 5 (日 / 泥 / 娘 / 匣 / 喻) are exemplified — incomplete. The original procedure is then loose. — Děngyùn doctrine entered with Buddhist scripture in the Hàn; the Suíshū mentions only 14 sounds without examples, and the Huáyán 42 zìmǔ is Sanskrit, not coupled to Chinese graphs. Two charts of Shén Gǒng appended to the Yùpiān, one chart appended to the Guǎngyùn — both are coarse outlines without detailed entries. As a complete děngyùn book transmitted to today, this work of Sīmǎ Guāng is the oldest. Sūn Yì’s Shì’ér biān discusses the spelling 不 = būgǔ qiè, citing only Sīmǎ Guāng — proving the Sòng treated this as the canonical rhyme-source. — Sīmǎ Guāng’s Jiājí records minor works down to Tóuhú xīngé; this book however is missing — the transmission must have lapsed. The book survives complete only in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn; here we collate it carefully and re-publish, so that the original děngyùn manual is preserved, and so it is shown that děngyùn practice originated from the Jíyùn, not vice versa. Subsequent confusions are the work of those over-fond of innovation.
Abstract
The Qièyùn zhǐzhǎngtú, by Sīmǎ Guāng, is the oldest surviving complete Chinese děngyùn (phonological-grade chart) text. Composed sometime between his completion of the Jíyùn (1067) and his death (1086), the book was lost from independent transmission for several centuries and survived only in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn; the Sìkù compilers recovered it. 20 (later 19) charts cover the entire Guǎngyùn / Jíyùn rhyme-set in a 36 zìmǔ × 4 děng matrix, the first systematic visualization of Middle-Chinese phonology in Chinese sources. The technical vocabulary defined in Dǒng Nányī’s Jǐngdìng 4 (1263) preface — yīnhé, lèigé, shuāngshēng, diéyùn, píngqiē, píngyùn, jìshēng, jìyùn — became the core terminology of post-Sòng děngyùn studies. The 1-juàn Jiǎntú zhī lì by Shào Guāngzǔ (an early-Míng Wú scholar, fl. 1390) replaces an earlier jiǎnlì judged inconsistent with the charts. Modern děngyùn scholarship (Lǐ Xīnkuí 李新魁 1981; Lǐ Róng 李榮 1956) treats the Zhǐzhǎngtú as a transitional document between Qièyùn / Guǎngyùn phonology and the later 36-mǔ děngyùn tradition culminating in Liú Jiàn’s KR1j0067 Zhǐnán. The Sìkù tíyào dates notBefore implicitly at 1067 (after Sīmǎ Guāng’s Jíyùn completion) and notAfter at 1086 (Sīmǎ Guāng’s death).
Translations and research
- Lǐ Xīn-kuí 李新魁. 1981. Hàn-yǔ děng-yùn xué 漢語等韻學. Beijing: Zhōnghuá. — Standard modern survey of děng-yùn studies; treats the Zhǐ-zhǎng-tú as the founding chart-book.
- Zhào Yìn-táng 趙蔭棠. 1957. Děng-yùn yuán-liú 等韻源流. Beijing: Wén-zì-gǎi-gé. — Tradition history.
- Pulleyblank, Edwin G. 1984. Middle Chinese: A Study in Historical Phonology. Vancouver: UBC. — Uses děng-yùn charts (with the Yùn-jìng and Qī-yīn-lüè as parallel witnesses) as the basic distributional framework.
- Coblin, W. South. 1983. A Handbook of Eastern Han Sound Glosses. Hong Kong: CUHK Press. — Discusses the děng-yùn tradition’s textual lineage.
Other points of interest
There has long been a scholarly debate about whether the Zhǐzhǎngtú is genuinely Sīmǎ Guāng’s, given that his own Jiājí does not include it. The Sìkù compilers accept the attribution on internal evidence (it pairs naturally with the Jíyùn) and on Sūn Yì’s Shìér biān citation. Modern scholars (Yáng Jūn 楊軍 2007, Yùnjìng yánjiū) leave the question open and treat the work as plausibly Sīmǎ Guāng’s but possibly an early-Sòng anonymous compilation later attributed to him.