Caoyun bianti 草韻辨體

Caoyun bianti 草韻辨體 is a dictionary on calligraphy allegedly written during the mid-Ming period 明 (1368-1644) by Guo Chen 郭諶 (1476-1534), courtesy name Xinfu 信夫, style Panhu Jushi 盤滸居士. Guo's authorship of the book is attested in Zhou Zhongfu's 周中孚 (1768-1821) Zhengtang dushu ji 鄭堂讀書記.

The book assembles calligraphic variants in grass-script style (caoshu 草書), arranged in a phonetical way borrowed from the dictionary Hongwu zhengyun 洪武正韻. For many characters, only one typical variant is given, while other entries present up to five or six variants written by various authors. The book draws from the calligraphies of 129 persons from the Han 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) to the Yuan period 元 (1279-1368). The dictionary includes no less than 170,000 character variants.

The book was printed during the Wanli reign-period 萬曆 (1573-1619), in 1633 by Min Qiji 閔齊伋 (1580-1662), in 1634 by Lu Fan 潞藩, in 1715 Master Zhao from Shanyin 山陰趙氏, and during the Republican period by the Yinmin Yinshuguan 新民印書館.

Figure 1. Beginning of the Caoyun bianti 草韻辨體

First double-page of the rhyme group dong 東. For most standard characters (written below the grass-script form), only one example of the grass-script version is given. An exception is, for example, the word tong 通 (end of first and top of second column). For some characters the sigla of the calligrapher is provided, e.g., Emperor Cheng (晉)成帝 of the Jin dynasty 晉 (265-420) for the character tong 仝, or Jinfeng 錦峰 (Wang Zhongjiu 王仲九) for tong 童. Source: Harvard Library, Chinese Rare Books.