御定駢字類編

Yù dìng Pián zì lèibiān 御定駢字類編

Imperially Established Categorized Compendium of Paired Characters

by 吳士玉 (Wú Shìyù, Qīng, 奉敕撰; zǒngcái), 沈宗敬 (Shěn Zōngjìng, Qīng, fēnzuǎn), 張廷玉 (Zhāng Tíngyù, Qīng, jiàoduì), with jiānxiū by 允祿 Yǔnlù (Zhuāng qīnwáng) and Yǔnlǐ 允禮 (Guǒ qīnwáng), commissioned by the 聖祖玄燁 Kāngxī emperor in Kāngxī 58 (1719) and finalized by the 世宗胤禛 Yōngzhèng emperor in Yōngzhèng 4 (1726).

About the work

A massive imperially-commissioned phraseological lèishū in 240 juǎn, the companion volume to the Pèiwén yùnfǔ (KR3k0059). Where the Pèiwén yùnfǔ organizes two-character compounds by the tail character’s rhyme, the Pián zì lèibiān organizes two-character compounds by the head character’s semantic category. The two works together — published one generation apart but complementary in design — form the principal early-Qīng synthesis of pre-1644 gǔwén compound-phrases. Coverage of standard gǔwén compounds, allusions and phrases through the Míng is comprehensive: in the judgement of the Sìkù editors, no allusion or compound from the Classics and standard wényán literature could not be found in either of the two works.

The 240 juǎn are arranged in 13 mén: 天地 (juǎn 1–21), 時令 (juǎn 22–35), 山水 (juǎn 36–56), 居處 (juǎn 57–65), 珍寶 (juǎn 66–77), 數目 (juǎn 78–112), 方隅 (juǎn 113–133), 采色 (juǎn 134–147), 器物 (juǎn 148–175), 草木 (juǎn 176–203), 鳥獸 (juǎn 204–217), 蟲魚 (juǎn 218–224), and a Bǔyí 人事 section (juǎn 225–240). The total is 1,604 zǐmù headed by initial characters; some 40,000 individual compound entries.

Tiyao

We submit the following: the Yù dìng Pián zì lèibiān in 240 juǎn was commissioned by Imperial Order in Kāngxī 58 (1719) by the Shèngzǔ Rénhuángdì (Kāngxī emperor) and brought to completion in Yōngzhèng 4 (1726); the Shìzōng Xiànhuángdì (Yōngzhèng emperor) composed the preface and ordered its dissemination.

We note that the former Jiāngnán dū liángdào Zhōu Liànggōng’s 周亮工 Shū yǐng 書影 records: “The Yùnfǔ qúnyù and the Wǔchē yùnruì both take the luòjiǎo (final-syllable) characters as their lèi organisers. I have long wished to compose a book taking the qǐtóu (initial-syllable) characters as the lèi organisers, arranged by rhyme, that might capture phrases of slightly out-of-the-way provenance not in the Yùnfǔ, and so be useful for consultation.” He cites bái 白 as an example, listing 26 compounds beginning with bái (báitú, báishì, báishì, báiwàng, báidǎ, báixián, etc.) as illustration; but he never completed the project and these remarks remained as theoretical sketches only.

When our Shèngzǔ Rénhuángdì commanded the compilation of this work, he adopted Zhōu Liànggōng’s principle exactly, so that the new compendium and the Pèiwén yùnfǔ should function as warp and weft together — one organising by the final character, the other by the initial — and mutually support each other. The work is divided into 13 mén (Heaven-Earth, Time, Mountain-Water, Residences, Treasures, Numbers, Orientations, Colours, Implements, Vegetation, Birds-Beasts, Insects-Fish) plus a Bǔyí Rénshì supplement; the zǐmù-heading characters number 1,604. Each entry’s citations are arranged in the order JīngShǐZǐJí, identical with the Pèiwén yùnfǔ; in addition, when a book is cited the piān name must be given, and when poetry or prose is cited the original title must be given (and where a single title contains multiple pieces, which numbered piece is being cited). The tǐlì is therefore more refined still than the Pèiwén yùnfǔ’s. A scholar holding the two works in tandem and looking up any character can have what he needs to hand — compared to the ménmù fēnfán (categorically tangled) other lèishū, where any one event might be located in this or that category and one cannot easily pin its compartment, the difference in ease of pīxún (consultation) is enormous.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng [1778].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The Pián zì lèibiān is the second of the two great KāngxīYōngzhèng phraseological compendia and the companion-piece to the Pèiwén yùnfǔ (KR3k0059). Commissioned by the Kāngxī emperor in 1719 (the year after the Pèiwén yùnfǔ supplement project was begun), it was carried through to completion under his son the Yōngzhèng emperor and printed in 1726. The principal zǒngcái was Wú Shìyù 吳士玉 (1669–1733; CBDB 58867), Gōngbù zuǒ shìláng; the jiānxiū (overall supervisors) were the Kāngxī emperor’s sixteenth and seventeenth sons, the Zhuāng qīnwáng Yǔnlù 允祿 (1695–1767, who also directed the Lǜlì yuānyuán astronomy-music-mathematics project) and the Guǒ qīnwáng Yǔnlǐ 允禮. The senior jiàoduì was 張廷玉 Zhāng Tíngyù, the dominant Yōngzhèng-court official.

The work’s design principle, recorded in the Sìkù tíyào, traces back to the late-Míng / early-Qīng bibliographer Zhōu Liànggōng’s 周亮工 Shū yǐng 書影 — Zhōu sketched the idea of organizing compound-phrases by the initial character rather than by the final character (the principle of the Yùnfǔ qúnyù and Wǔchē yùnruì tradition), but never executed it. The Pián zì lèibiān realizes Zhōu’s plan on imperial scale, designed from the outset as a jīngwěi (warp-and-weft) complement to the Pèiwén yùnfǔ: that work organizes compounds by tail-rhyme for the use of poets composing matched couplets; this work organizes compounds by head-character semantic category for the use of writers searching for the right two-graph compound on a given topic.

Two methodological refinements over the Pèiwén yùnfǔ are noted in the fánlì: (1) when citing a book, the chapter or section name must also be given; when citing a poem or fù, the title of the piece and, in multi-piece titles, the numbered piece. This more rigorous citation discipline makes the Pián zì lèibiān genuinely useful as an index to source-locations rather than merely as a phrase-bank. (2) The new sections — Shùmù 數目 (Numbers; 35 juǎn), Fāngyú 方隅 (Orientations; 21 juǎn), and Cǎisè 采色 (Colours; 14 juǎn) — are without precedent in earlier lèishū and form one of the work’s distinctive contributions: a systematic gathering of number-, direction-, and colour-based compounds.

Wilkinson’s Manual (§6.2.1.7) describes the Pián zì lèibiān as the indispensable complement to the Pèiwén yùnfǔ and notes the Sìkù editors’ judgement that the two works together exhaust the gǔwén compound-phrase corpus. Both works are now fully searchable in the e-Sìkù database.

Translations and research

• Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (Harvard, 2018), §6.2.1.7 — the standard English treatment.
• Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Qīng.
• Zhāng Dí-huá, Lèishū liú-bié (Shāng-wù, rev. ed. 1985).

No European-language complete translation.

Other points of interest

The Pián zì lèibiān is one of the small handful of imperial-Qīng compendia that the Yōngzhèng emperor brought to completion from his father’s unfinished projects. The Yōngzhèng yùzhì preface explicitly frames the work as fulfilment of his father’s xiānzhì (prior intent), parallel to his completion of the Zǐshǐ jīnghuá (KR3k0058) and the Gǔjīn túshū jíchéng. The pairing with the Pèiwén yùnfǔ — initial-character vs. final-character access into the same compound-phrase corpus — is one of the most elegant indexing-system designs in the entire history of premodern Chinese reference-book compilation.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Yù dìng Pián zì lèibiān entry.
• Wilkinson §6.2.1.7.
• Wikidata: Q11102935.