Biàn Shìmíng 辨釋名
Discriminations on the Shìmíng by 韋昭 (撰)
About the work
A modern reconstruction of 韋昭 Wéi Zhāo’s lost Biàn Shìmíng 辨釋名, the principal critical revision of 劉熙 Liú Xī’s late-Hàn etymological dictionary Shìmíng 釋名 (KR1j0007). Wéi Zhāo — chief philologist of the Sūn-Wú 孫吳 court and standard annotator of the Guóyǔ KR2e0001 — composed the Biàn Shìmíng as a corrective, supplying alternative shēng-xùn 聲訓 (phonetic-etymology) glosses where he found Liú Xī’s accounts unsatisfactory, and proposing his own readings for terms Liú Xī had passed over. Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書‧經籍志 records the work in eight juàn; it was lost in the late Táng / Sòng. The CHANT reconstruction (CH2f1207) collates the surviving fragments principally from Yú Shìnán 虞世南’s Běitáng shūchāo 北堂書鈔 and from Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽 / Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚.
Abstract
The Biàn Shìmíng preserves the earliest critical reading of Liú Xī’s etymological method. The surviving entries follow the structure of the Shìmíng itself: head-word + Liú Xī’s shēng-xùn gloss + Wéi Zhāo’s revision marked biàn yún 辨云 (“[my] discrimination says…”). Representative entry from 〈Shì guān 釋官〉:
Gōng 公 [the Three Excellencies] — gòng 貢 (to contribute), [Liú Xī says] talent-and-virtue surpasses any one person, all men contribute him to the king for use. [Wéi Zhāo’s] biàn yún: gōng is like zhí 直 — taking its sense of upright and partial-to-none, hence “gōng graphically derives from 公: bā 八 + 厶, where 厶 is the archaic 私 ‘private,’ and gōng is the negation [bèi 背] of sī 私.”
Surviving topical coverage spans 〈Shì guān 釋官〉 (officials), 〈Shì wáng 釋王〉 (kings), 〈Shì jūnzǐ 釋君子〉, and selected others; the institutional-vocabulary chapters are best preserved through the official-history lèishū tradition. Wéi Zhāo’s general approach is to push back against Liú Xī’s tendency to assign shēng-xùn glosses based purely on phonetic resonance without regard for graphic structure or institutional history — he repeatedly cross-references the Shuōwén 說文 graphic analysis and supplies historical examples (e.g. Huò Guāng 霍光 under Emperor Zhāo of Hàn) to fix the lexicographic claim.
The dating bracket (240–278) reflects Wéi Zhāo’s principal scholarly period at the Sūn-Wú court — between his appointment to the imperial archive and his execution by Sūn Hào 孫皓 in 278.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated Western-language secondary literature located.
- Rén Dàchūn 任大椿, Xiǎoxué gōuchén 小學鉤沈 — Qīng reconstruction on which CHANT depends.
- Mǎ Guóhàn 馬國翰, Yùhánshānfáng jíyìshū 玉函山房輯佚書.
- Roy Andrew Miller, “Some old Chinese etymologies” — discusses Shìmíng-tradition methodology relevant to Wéi Zhāo’s biàn.
Other points of interest
The Biàn Shìmíng is the earliest documented case of a sustained philological corrigendum to a complete Chinese dictionary; the format anticipates the zhèng (correction) and bǔ (supplement) sub-genre that flourishes from the Sòng (e.g. KR1j0026 Hànjiǎn, KR1j0083 Yùn-bǔ zhèng). Wéi Zhāo’s Biàn is also the earliest critique of pure shēng-xùn etymology — a methodological caveat that Qīng scholars (Duàn Yùcái 段玉裁, Wáng Niànsūn 王念孫) would revive when constraining the use of yīn-yì 因聲求義 etymology against graphic and historical evidence.
Links
- Suí shū jīngjí zhì — xiǎoxué: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=613103
- Sānguó zhì — Wú shū (Wéi Zhāo biography): https://ctext.org/sanguozhi