Word Forest Research

Zilin, authored by lvchen of Jin Dynasty, is a dictionary of great importance in China's reference book compilation history. It is regarded by later scholars as a book which serves as a link between Shuowen and Yupian. Studies of Zilin enjoyed the same reputation as that of Shuowen in Tang Dynasty, but as time passed, they were on the wane. Today, there is no complete version of this book. What can be seen at present is only 1/6 of the dictionary made up of 1660 entries compiled by intellectuals in Qing Dynasty and fragmentary parts collected by contemporary scholars, say, Ren Dachun, whose well-known book, Zilinkaoyi, contains over 1500 entries. All these precious materials facilitate the research on Zilin for later generations.According to the unconnected records on Lvchen's life still available now, the author is trying to deduce roughly the period during which Lvchen was alive. Zhongjingyinyi, an explanation book of the words in Buddhist sutras written by Xuanying in Tang Dynasty, contains pieces of many ancient books as well as quotations from Zilin. For this reason, the author has searched for and collected all the quotations and has made detailed comparison and contrast between these quotations in different versions of Zhongjingyinyi and Ren Dachun's book in order to decide which part is correct and which is not. Based on Ren Dachun's Zilinkaoyi and the pieces of Zilin he's compiled, the author would also like to describe the original look of Zilin in terms of entries, explanation of meaning and phonetic notation and to make a comparison between Zilin and Shuowen by discussing in detail the characteristics of word entries of the two books. At the end of the thesis, the author introduces the process from Zilin's popularization to its disappearance, and its value in China's history of ancient book collation, of reference book compilation, and of linguistics and philology.