Bianzhu 編珠

Bianzhu 編珠 "Composition of pearls" is an encyclopaedia compiled on imperial order during the Sui period 隋 (581-618). Authorship of the book was traditionally attributed to Du Gongzhan 杜公瞻 (preface of 611) but is first mentioned in Song-period 宋 (960-1279) bibliographies.

It was lost soon. The Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Gao Shiqi 高士奇 (1645-1703) discovered it among a pile of wastepaper of the household administration of the heir apparent and tried to reconstruct it based on quotations in other sources. This part is called Xu Bianzhu 續編珠, and a further collection of fragments is called Buyi 補遺. The Bianzhu has a length of 2 juan and consists of 14 parts. The two supplements by Gao Shiqi are 2-juan-long each. A source is indicated for each lemma in the Bianzhu. Gao Shiqi's reconstructions are marked.

Typical for the conception of the book are the lemmata or keywords of the Bianzhu that consist of parallel four-syllable expressions, like tianzhu dizhou 天柱地軸 "Heaven's pillar and the axis of the earth", tianwei dimai 天維地脈 "Heaven's threads and the veins of the earth", riche yueyu 日車月馭 "The sun's chariot and the moon's carriage", or the double expression rihui wuyi, yun qi yu lin 日迴烏翼，雲起魚鱗 "The sun returns with the ravens' wings, and clouds rise like fish scales".

The Bianzhu is only preserved in quotations; prints are rarely found. There is a manuscript copy in the library of the Imperial Household from the Qing period and a print from the Qingyin Hall 清吟堂 of Master Gao 高氏 in Qiantang 錢塘, Zhejiang, from 1698. Unfortunately, they only contain the first five chapters. These copies were the base for the edition in the official series Siku quanshu 四庫全書.

There is a book called Xianyuan bianzhu 仙苑編珠, which is a collection of Daoist biographies and writings compiled by Wang Songnian 王松年, who lived during the 10th century.