Zhōubì suànjīng yīnyì 周髀算經音義
Phonological and Semantic Glosses on the Gnomon-Classic of the Zhou by 李籍 (撰)
About the work
The Zhōubì suànjīng yīnyì 周髀算經音義 is a short yīnyì 音義 (phonological-and-semantic) commentary in one juàn on the Zhōubì suànjīng 周髀算經 (KR3f0001), the first of the Suànjīng shíshū 算經十書 (Ten Mathematical Classics). Like other yīnyì it is not a discursive commentary but a lexical apparatus: it gives the fǎnqiè spelling and gloss for each technical or unusual graph as it occurs in sequence through the Zhōubì text, providing the reader with the correct reading and the principal alternative meaning. The work is the companion piece to the same author’s Jiǔzhāng suànshù yīnyì 九章算術音義 and is transmitted as an appendix to the Zhōubì itself.
Abstract
The Sìkù compilers list the Yīnyì under 李籍 Lǐ Jí, about whom almost nothing is known beyond his authorship of the yīnyì to the Mathematical Classics. The catalog meta places him in the Sòng; the existing person note in this knowledgebase places him in the Táng. The two positions are not as incompatible as they appear: the yīnyì genre and the Suànjīng shíshū corpus were standardised by 李淳風’s Táng commission of 656, so a Táng fúbǔ (collation) commentator is plausible; on the other hand, the Northern Sòng court re-cut the Suànjīng shíshū for use at the imperial Mathematical Academy (suànxué 算學) in the Yuánfēng era (1078–85), and a number of phonetic-gloss commentaries date from that recutting. The 1213 Bàoyòu 寳祐 / Jiàdìng 嘉定 Sòng edition of the Zhōubì preserved by Bào Huànzhī 鮑澣之 already carries Lǐ Jí’s Yīnyì attached, so the work cannot be later than the early thirteenth century, which gives the notBefore/notAfter bracket adopted here (1084 — the date of the Sòng imperial recutting at which the apparatus could have entered the transmission — to 1208, the last plausible date before Bào’s printing).
The Yīnyì itself glosses about a hundred head-graphs, mostly astronomical or numerical technical terms (xuán 玹, guī 圭, bì 髀, jiàn 鑑, etc.), in the standard fǎnqiè + brief paraphrase format. It is rarely independently studied but is consulted in every modern critical edition of the Zhōubì (the Qīng 阮元 collation, 戴震’s reconstruction, and Chén Zūnguī’s modern edition) as the earliest surviving lexical apparatus for the work.
Translations and research
No independent translation; the glosses are silently absorbed in the textual apparatus of:
- Cullen, Christopher. 1996. Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China: The Zhou bi suan jing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — the standard English study and translation of the parent text.
- 錢寳琮 Qián Bǎocóng (ed.). 1963. Suànjīng shíshū 算經十書. Beijing: Zhōnghuá shūjú. The standard modern critical edition of the Ten Mathematical Classics; the Yīnyì is printed below the corresponding lines of the Zhōubì in volume 1.
- Guo Shuchun 郭書春 and Liu Dun 劉鈍 (eds.). 1998. Suànjīng shíshū jiàozhèng 算經十書校證. — alternative collation, with the Yīnyì included.
Links
- Parent text: KR3f0001 Zhōubì suànjīng 周髀算經.
- Companion yīnyì: Jiǔzhāng suànshù yīnyì 九章算術音義 (also by Lǐ Jí), appended to KR3f0002 Jiǔzhāng suànshù 九章算術.
- Wikipedia: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/周髀算经