The Piya (Chinese: 埤雅; pinyin: Píyǎ; Wade–Giles: P'i-ya; "Increased [Er]ya") was a Chinese dictionary compiled by Song Dynasty scholar Lu Dian (陸佃/陆佃, 1042-1102). He wrote this Erya supplement along with his Erya Xinyi (爾雅新義 "New Exegesis of the Erya") commentary. Although the Piya preface written by his son Lu Zai (陸宰/陆宰) is dated 1125, the dictionary was written earlier;[1] estimates around the Yuanfeng era (元豐, 1078–1085), and Joseph Needham says around 1096.[2]

Lu Dian arranged the Piya into 8 semantically based chapters that closely correspond with the last Erya chapters 13-19. The only exceptions are Chapter 5 ("Explaining Horses") that is contained in Erya 19 ("Explaining Domestic Animals") and Chapter 8 ("Explaining Heaven") that anomalously corresponds with the first part of the Erya.

Chapter Chinese Pinyin Translation Erya Chapter
1釋魚ShiyuExplaining Fishes16
2釋獸ShishouExplaining Beasts18
3釋鳥ShiniaoExplaining Birds17
4釋蟲ShichongExplaining Insects15
5釋馬ShimaExplaining Horses(19)
6釋木ShimuExplaining Trees14
7釋草ShicaoExplaining Plants13
8釋天ShitianExplaining Heaven8

The preface explains Lu's motives for defining flora and fauna terminology. Since Song officials changed the basis for the Imperial examination from mastering poetry to jingyi (經義/经义 "expounding on a classical quotation"), literati no longer studied the lyrical names for plants and animals.

See also

References

  1. Liu, Yeqiu 刘叶秋 (1963). Zhongguo gudai de zidian 中国古代的字典 [Dictionaries of Ancient China] (in Chinese). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. p. 87.
  2. Needham, Joseph, Lu Gwei-djen, and Huang Hsing-Tsung (1986). Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 6 Biology and Biological Technology, Part 1 Botany. Cambridge University Press. p. 192.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.