Pí Cāng 埤蒼
Supplementing the Cāngjié [Primer] by 張揖 (撰)
About the work
A modern reconstruction of 張揖 Zhāng Yī’s Pí cāng 埤蒼 (also written 埤倉), the first of his three Wèi-period lexicographic compilations together with the Gǔjīn zì gǔ 古今字詁 (KR1j0099) and the Guǎngyǎ 廣雅 (KR1j0008 — the only one that survives entire). The title — “Pí” 埤 = “supplement, augment” plus “Cāng” 蒼 — declares the work a supplement to the Late-Hàn Cāng-Yǎ 蒼雅 lexicographic suite (the Cāngjié piān 倉頡篇 of Lǐ Sī 李斯 plus its derivatives). Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書‧經籍志 records the work in three juàn; lost between the Táng and Sòng. The CHANT reconstruction (CH2f1208) collates surviving citations principally from the Guǎngyùn 廣韻 lemma annotations, Sīmǎ Zhēn 司馬貞’s Shǐjì suǒyǐn 史記索隱, Gù Yěwáng 顧野王’s Yùpiān 玉篇 (and the Sòng Chóngxiū Yùpiān KR1j0022), and the Buddhist Yīqièjīng yīnyì 一切經音義 of Shì Xuányìng 釋元應 / Huìlín 慧琳.
Abstract
The Pí cāng extends the Cāngjié primer tradition into a more discursive paraphrastic format. Surviving fragments are mostly head-character + short meaning gloss (often plus fǎn-qiè spelling), with the lexical attestation source given by the Táng or Sòng commentator who preserves it.
Representative entries: mì-mì 秘宓 (cited from Guǎngyùn entering-tone 5 zhì mì character note); jī 禨 = “yāo-xiáng yě 妖祥也, ominous portent” (cited from Sīmǎ Zhēn’s Shǐjì suǒyǐn on Wǔzōng shìjiā 五宗世家); jǐng 璟 = “yù guāng-cǎi 玉光彩, the luster of jade.”
The lexical-coverage emphasis on rare-graph and rare-meaning items (rather than on common-vocabulary) marks the Pí cāng as already a kǎojù-style scholarly supplement rather than an elementary primer — anticipating Zhāng Yī’s much fuller Guǎngyǎ in the same generation.
The dating bracket (220–240) follows Zhāng Yī’s documented fl. under Wèi Míngdì 魏明帝 (Tàihé era, 227–232), where he held the post of bóshì 博士 (Imperial Academician).
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated Western-language secondary literature located.
- 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.
- Wáng Yìnzhī 王引之 (1766–1834), various Pícāng notes in his Jīngyì shùwén 經義述聞 — the most rigorous Qīng treatment of the surviving fragments.
Other points of interest
The Pí-Gǔ-Guǎng three-work series of Zhāng Yī represents one of the most ambitious philological projects of the Three Kingdoms; even with two of the three reduced to fragments, it secures Zhāng Yī’s standing alongside Xǔ Shèn 許愼 and Lù Démíng 陸德明 as a cornerstone figure of pre-Táng xiǎoxué. The CHANT reconstruction’s heavy reliance on Buddhist yīnyì citations confirms how thoroughly the early Six-Dynasties Buddhist translation apparatus depended on Zhāng Yī’s vocabulary work.
Links
- Suí shū jīngjí zhì — xiǎoxué: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=613103
- Guǎngyùn: https://ctext.org/guangyun