Guǎng Cāng 廣蒼
Expanded Cāngjié [Primer] by 樊恭 (撰)
About the work
A modern reconstruction of 樊恭 Fán Gōng’s lost Guǎng cāng 廣蒼, a Three Kingdoms-era character primer in three juàn (per Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書‧經籍志, xiǎoxué) in the Cāngjié piān lineage. The title — “Expanded Cāng” — declares the work an enlargement of the foundational Lǐ Sī 李斯 Cāngjié piān 倉頡篇 and its Hàn supplements (the Cāng-Yǎ 蒼雅 suite to which Zhāng Yī’s KR1j0098 Pí cāng also belongs). The work was lost in the Sòng. The CHANT reconstruction (CH2f1211) collects fragments from 顏之推’s Yánshì jiāxùn 顏氏家訓 (the Shū-zhèng 書證 chapter), 顧野王 Gù Yěwáng’s Yùpiān 玉篇 (KR1j0022), the Guǎngyùn 廣韻, the Sòng Guǎngyǎ 廣雅 commentaries, and Shì Xuányìng 釋元應’s Yīqièjīng yīnyì 一切經音義.
Abstract
The surviving fragments of the Guǎng cāng are short head-graph + paraphrastic gloss entries; the work’s Cāngjié-tradition format calls for rare and difficult characters with practical readings.
Representative entries: qí 㩻 read jiǔ-wěi fǎn 九偽反 (cited in 顏之推’s Yánshì jiāxùn ‧ Shū-zhèng via the Yào-yòng zì-yuàn 要用字苑 KR1j0104 — “also seen in Guǎngcāng, Guǎngyǎ, and Chén Sī-wáng jí 陳思王集”); 𨛌 = “Bīng-xiāng zài Lán-tián 𨛌鄉在藍田 (Bīng village is in Lántián)” cited from Gù Yěwáng’s Yùpiān ‧ Yì-bù 玉篇‧邑部. The cross-attestation by 顏之推 in the late sixth century is the principal evidence for the work’s continuous reception across the Six Dynasties.
The dating bracket (220–265) covers Fán Gōng’s broad Three-Kingdoms (probably Wèi) fl.; no firm internal dating evidence preserved. The CHANT cataloging convention places the work in the same Wèi-era Cāngjié-supplement cluster as Zhāng Yī’s Pí cāng KR1j0098 and Gǔjīn zì gǔ KR1j0099 — together the principal Wèi character-primer corpus.
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.
Other points of interest
The Guǎng cāng is one of the few pre-Suí character primers from which substantive examples are preserved in 顏之推’s Yánshì jiāxùn — and so important evidence for the southern Liáng xiǎoxué milieu’s continued use of Wèi-period reference works three centuries after their composition.
Links
- Suí shū jīngjí zhì — xiǎoxué: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=613103
- Yánshì jiāxùn ‧ Shū-zhèng: https://ctext.org/yan-shi-jia-xun