Yùn lüè 韻略
A Compact Rhyme [Handbook] by 陽休之 (撰)
About the work
A modern reconstruction of 陽休之 Yáng Xiūzhī’s lost Yùn lüè 韻略, a brief rhyme-handbook circulating in the immediate pre-Qièyùn generation. Yáng Xiūzhī’s career-arc spans five regimes (Northern Wèi → Eastern Wèi → Northern Qí → Northern Zhōu → Suí), placing him among the great philological survivors of the Six-Dynasties collapse parallel to 顏之推 Yán Zhītuī. Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書‧經籍志 records the Yùn lüè in one juàn; it was lost in the Sòng. The CHANT reconstruction (CH2f1226) draws from Guǎngyùn 廣韻 lemma annotations and Buddhist yīnyì citations.
Abstract
The Yùn lüè — its title “Compact Rhyme [Handbook]” — is a brief practical rhyme-handbook, smaller in scale than the KR1j0111 Yùn jí (5 juàn) or KR1j0112 Yīn pǔ (4 juàn) but in the same Northern-dynasties lineage. Surviving fragments show short head-graph + paraphrastic gloss entries.
Representative entries: yí 弬 = “gōng míng 弓名, the name of a bow” (cited from Guǎngyùn upper-level-tone 7 zhī yí character note); suí-hú / suí-xiāng 荾胡、荾香 = “cài yě 菜也, vegetable” (cited via Shì Xuányìng’s Shí-sòng lǜ yīnyì 十誦律音義).
The textual format pairs Yáng Xiūzhī’s brief glosses with attestations from the Buddhist lǜ (vinaya) translation literature — confirming that the Yùn lüè was actively used as a reference work by Táng-period Buddhist translators despite its brevity.
The presence of Yùn lüè in the Northern-Qí pre-Qièyùn cluster (KR1j0112 Yīn pǔ, present work, KR1j0108 Zì lüè) is the principal northern parallel to the southern Liáng xiǎoxué phonological work. The Lù Fǎyán Qièyùn conference (601) would draw from both northern and southern lineages.
Dating bracket (509–582): Yáng Xiūzhī’s full lifespan.
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 title 韻略 Yùn lüè of Yáng Xiūzhī is the earliest documented use of this title in the Chinese rhyme-book tradition — long predating Dīng Dù 丁度’s much more famous Sòng-period Lǐ-bù yùn-lüè 禮部韻略 (KR1j0060). The Sòng title is borrowed (and its diminutive lüè “compact” sense partly displaced) from Yáng Xiūzhī’s Northern-Qí original.
Links
- Suí shū jīngjí zhì — xiǎoxué: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=613103
- Běi Qí shū — Yáng Xiūzhī biography: https://ctext.org/bei-qi-shu