Ěryǎ tú zàn 爾雅圖讚
Encomia for the Illustrated Ěryǎ by 郭璞 (撰)
About the work
A modern reconstruction of 郭璞 Guō Pú’s lost Ěryǎ tú zàn 爾雅圖讚 — the verse-encomia (zàn 讚) appended to his (also lost) illustrated edition of the Ěryǎ 爾雅 (KR1j0002). Guō Pú’s Ěryǎ tú 爾雅圖 was the principal illustrated recension of the work in the Six Dynasties — companion to his standard prose zhù 注 transmitted in KR1j0004 — and the zàn are short rhymed praise-poems composed for each principal lemma/illustration. Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書‧經籍志 records the work in two juàn; it was lost in the Tang–Sòng transition. The CHANT reconstruction (CH2f1201) collects the surviving zàn from the Táng leishū Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚, Chūxué jì 初學記, and Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽.
Abstract
The Ěryǎ tú zàn sits at the intersection of three genres: lexicographic primer (Ěryǎ tradition), illustrated treatise (tú tradition), and rhymed encomium (zàn tradition; cf. Guō Pú’s parallel KR2n0030 Shānhǎijīng tú zàn 山海經圖讚, which is the better-preserved companion in the same form). Each surviving fragment is a short rhymed quatrain or hexastich in 4-character lines, glossing the visual symbolism of a single object — a vessel, mineral, animal, plant, instrument, or natural feature.
Representative fragments:
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Dǐng zàn 鼎讚 (encomium for the ritual cauldron) — Jiǔ-mù gòng jīn / Dǐng chū Xià-hòu / Hé-wèi yǎng-xián / Yǐ-wú huà-yǒu / Hè-hè sān-shì / Jiàn-yú fù-… (citing Yìwén lèijù 19): “Nine pastoralists submit metal — the cauldron emerges under Xià Hòu — to harmonize flavors and nurture the worthy — making the something out of nothing — splendid the Three Affairs — mirrored in the [overturned cart].” A canonical statement of the cauldron’s symbolic status as instrument of cosmic and political legitimation.
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Jīn-yín zàn 金銀讚 (encomium for gold and silver) — Wéi-jīn sān-pǐn / Yáng-Yuè zuò-gòng / Wǔ-cái zhī zhēn / Shì-wèi guó-yòng (citing Yìwén lèijù 83).
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Bǐ zàn 筆讚 (encomium for the writing brush) — preserved in the same source.
The illustrations themselves are entirely lost; we have only the verses they accompanied. The fragments are an important source for Six-Dynasties illustrated-natural-history methodology — they show the tú-zàn format applied to the Ěryǎ roster of named natural-historical objects.
Dating: Guō Pú’s lifedates are 276–324; the Ěryǎ tú and Ěryǎ tú zàn belong to his mature scholarly period at the Eastern Jìn court, alongside his Ěryǎ zhù (a separate work, transmitted via KR1j0004).
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated Western-language secondary literature located. Related scholarship:
- Richard E. Strassberg, A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways through Mountains and Seas, University of California Press, 2002 — contains the principal Western-language treatment of Guō Pú’s parallel Shānhǎijīng tú zàn, which is in the same genre and bears directly on the lost Ěryǎ tú zàn form.
- Rén Dàchūn 任大椿, Xiǎoxué gōuchén 小學鉤沈.
- Mǎ Guóhàn 馬國翰, Yùhánshānfáng jíyìshū 玉函山房輯佚書.
Other points of interest
The pairing Ěryǎ tú + Ěryǎ tú zàn is one of the very few attested cases in pre-Táng China of a systematically illustrated lexicographic work with rhymed encomia; the format would not be widely revived until Sòng natural-history compendia like KR1j0011 Lù Diàn’s Píyǎ.
Links
- Suí shū jīngjí zhì — xiǎoxué: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=613103
- Yìwén lèijù: https://ctext.org/yiwen-leiju