The Yupian is a circa 543 CE Chinese dictionary

Chinese dictionary

Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for Chinese, and this article will introduce some of the most important...

 edited by Gu Yewang (顧野王; Ku Yeh-wang; 519-581) during the Liang Dynasty

Liang Dynasty

The Liang Dynasty , also known as the Southern Liang Dynasty , was the third of the Southern dynasties in China and was followed by the Chen Dynasty...

. It arranges 12,158 character entries under 542 radicals

Radical (Chinese character)

A Chinese radical is a component of a Chinese character. The term may variously refer to the original semantic element of a character, or to any semantic element, or, loosely, to any element whatever its origin or purpose...

, which differ somewhat from the original 540 in the Shuowen Jiezi

Shuowen Jiezi

The Shuōwén Jiězì was an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary , it was still the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them , as well as the first to use the...

. Each character entry gives a fanqie

Fanqiè

In Chinese phonology, fanqie is a method to indicate the pronunciation of a character by using two other characters.-The Origin:...

 pronunciation gloss and a definition, with occasional annotation.

Baxter describes the textual history:

The original Yùpiān was a large and unwieldy work of thirty juàn ["volumes; fascicles"], and during Táng and Sòng various abridgements and revisions of it were made, which often altered the original fănqiè spellings; of the original version only fragments remain (some two thousand entries out of a reported original total of 16,917), and the currently-available version of the Yùpiān is not a reliable guide to Early Middle Chinese phonology. (1992: 40-41)

In 760, during the Tang Dynasty

Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...

, Sun Jiang (孫強; Sun Chiang) compiled a Yupian edition, which he noted had a total of 51,129 words, less than a third of the original 158,641. In 1013, Song Dynasty

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

 scholar Chen Pengnian (陳彭年; Ch'en P'eng-nien) published a revised Daguang yihui Yupian (大廣益會玉篇; "Expanded and enlarged Jade Chapters"). The Japanese monk Kūkai

Kukai

Kūkai , also known posthumously as , 774–835, was a Japanese monk, civil servant, scholar, poet, and artist, founder of the Shingon or "True Word" school of Buddhism. Shingon followers usually refer to him by the honorific titles of and ....

 brought an original version Yupian back from China in 806, and modified it into his circa 830 Tenrei Banshō Meigi

Tenrei Bansho Meigi

The is the oldest extant Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters. The title is also written 篆隷万象名義 with the modern graphic variant ban for ban ....

, which is the oldest extant Japanese dictionary.

External links

• A Prospect for the Restoration of the Original Text of Yu p'ien, Mojikyo Institute's collaborative project
• A Database for Tenrei-Bansho-Meigi 篆隷万象名義データベース, Ikeda Shoju (in Japanese)