Cangjiepian 倉くら頡篇

Cangjiepian 倉くら頡篇 "Book of Cangjie" was a character dictionary originally written in small seal script (xiaozhuan 小篆しょうてん) during the Qin period 秦はた (221-206 BCE) by Counsellor-in-chief Li Si 李り斯.

With the unification of the empire, it had become necessary to standardize the script, in order to make bureaucracy somewhat easier. The compilation of the character handbook Cangjiepian was overseen by Li Si, the director of the livery office Zhao Gao 趙ちょう高だか oversaw the compilation of another part called Yuanlipian 爰歷篇へん, and the grand scribe Humu Jing 胡えびす毋敬 that of a book called Boxuepian 博學はくがく篇へん. It is not known what the particular differences between the three books were.

The title of the Cangjiepian is derived from the name of Cang Jie 倉くら頡, a minister of the mythological Yellow Emperor 黃き帝みかど and putative inventor of the Chinese script.

The handbook was written in easy-to-remember four character verses. During the Former Han period 前漢ぜんかん (206 BCE-8 CE), the three books were merged into one, and the text was divided into 55 stanzas of 60 characters each. The book was then called Sancang 三倉みくら "The three Cang". The characters were at the same time transcribed into the then-common chancery script (lishu 隸書れいしょ). The book went lost at the end of the Tang period 唐とう (618-907). Part of it was rediscovered from a Former Han period tomb library at Fuyang 阜陽. Quite interestingly, the names of Qin rulers are für taboo reasons replaced by other characters. Han-period versions of the text in turn might replace the names of Han rulers. Fragments of the Cangjiepian were also found in Juyan 居きょ延のべ (Pochengzi 破やぶ城しろ子こ), and Yongchang 永昌えいしょう (Shuiquanzi 水すい泉子いずみこ), both Gansu. A 40-words long preface is also preserved.

At the end of the Former Han period, the Cangjiepian was revised by Yang Xiong 揚あげ雄ゆう, who rewrote a supplement called Xunzuanpian 訓くん纂篇. During the Later Han period, Jia Fang 賈魴 added a supplement called Pangxipian 滂喜篇へん. The two supplements were then again united into one book with the title Cangjiepian, in three juan, each juan corresponding to one book.

The name Sancang, a designation for this combination of texts, appeared during the Jin period 晉すすむ (265-420). During that time, Guo Pu 郭かく璞 wrote a commentary to the Sancang, which is also lost.

The text of the Cangjiepian is compiled in a very interesting manner: The characters are not forming sentences, but are grouped according to meaning, forming a semantic coherence. This shows neighbourhood to the glossary Erya 爾しか雅みやび, which is part of the Confucian Canon. Characters with common radicals are also united in one verse group. Furthermore, the sequence of characters that are radicals themselves is largely identical to the sequence in the Later Han period 後ご漢かん (25-220) character dictionary Shuowen jiezi 說せつ文ぶん解かい字じ, which gives an impression of the long tradition upon which the latter is based.

There are also verses where characters with similar pronunciation or even similar phonetic parts are grouped (e.g. 杞芑, 㛍挾, 賞しょう勦向尚ひさし), a method which was first discussed by the Song period 宋そう (960-1279) scholar Wang Shengmei 王おう聖美きよみ and then used by the Qing period 清きよし (1644-1911) scholar Zhu Junsheng 朱しゅ駿しゅん聲ごえ in his new arrangement of the Shuowen characters in his Shuowen tongxun dingsheng 說せつ文通ぶんつう訓くん定じょう聲ごえ.

During the Qing period, various scholars tried to reconstruct at least that part of the Cangjiepian, of which fragments were scattered in other literature, like the dictionary Yupian 玉たま篇へん, the phonetic commentary Yiqiejing yinyi 一切經いっさいきょう音義おんぎ, the anthology Wenxuan 文選ぶんせん or the encyclopaedia Taiping yulan 太平たいへい御覽ごらん.

The most important scholars engaging in a reconstruction were Sun Xingyan 孫まご星ぼし衍, Ren Dachuang 任にん大だい椿つばき, Ma Guohan 馬うま國こく翰, Tao Fangqi 陶すえ方かた琦 and Gu Zhenfu 顧震福ぶく. The Dainange congshu 岱南閣かく叢書そうしょ version of Sun Xingyan is included in the Congshu jicheng 叢書そうしょ集成しゅうせい, another version in Long Zhang's 龍りゅう璋あきら Xiaoxue soushi 小學しょうがく搜さがせ佚. The fragments of all these versions are arranged according to the radical system in the Shuowen jiezi.

Figure 1. Fragments of the Cangjiepian from Dunhuang

Three fragments of bamboo slips inscribed with a text from the Cangjiepian. It is reproduced in Luo and Wang (1993).