Chapter 34 Section 8: Sui and Tang Dynasties Important Records of Place Names and Research on Place Names

During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, with the development of geography, the study of place names was deepened and improved accordingly.At that time, in addition to "Sui Shu Geographic Chronicles", "Old Tang Shu Geographic Chronicles", and "New Tang Shu Geographic Chronicles", there were also many national general topography, local maps, classics and chronicles and books that recorded a large number of place names. map.Unfortunately, limited by the printing conditions at that time, very few survived.Among them, in the Sui Dynasty, Lang Mao wrote 100 volumes of "Suizhou Juntu Jing" and Cui Zhe [Ze Zhi] and others wrote 1,200 volumes of "Sui District Yu Tu Zhi".Unfortunately, both books have been lost.According to the "Han and Tang Geographical Book Notes", both books contain explanations on the origin and evolution of place names.As explained in the previous book, Zaohu City in Yanmen County and Guye City in Jinling said:

There is Zaohu City in Yanmen County, which was first built and named after the land with many jujube trees; There is Guye City in Jinling, which is the place where Wu foundry. "Kuo Di Zhi" and "Yuanhe County Map" in the Tang Dynasty are also national general annals. "Kuo Di Zhi" was compiled by Li Tai, king of Wei in the early Tang Dynasty, with a total of 555 volumes. It was completed in the 16th year of Zhenguan (AD 642). "Pictures of Yuanhe County and County" was written by Li Jifu, the Prime Minister of the Middle Tang Dynasty. It has 42 volumes and was written in the eighth year of Yuanhe (813 A.D.).In addition to Zhiwen, the book has many maps attached to it, so it is called Tuzhi. The map was lost in the process of spreading (and Zhiwen also lost several volumes), so later scholars called it "Yuanhe County Chronicles".

Judging from the content of these two works and other Yudi books of the same period, new progress has appeared in the study of place names in the Tang Dynasty, mainly in the following aspects: (1) Increase in the number of place name explanations "Hanshu·Geography" contains more than 4,500 place names, which are explained from different angles, including 778 place name origin explanations, accounting for only 21.7%; while "Kuogeography" ( "Compiled Edition) contains more than 2,240 place names, 100% of which are explained from different aspects; "Yuanhe County Chronicles" (residual edition) contains 4,371 place names, and more than 95% of them are explained from different aspects.Among the most prominent features are the addition of etymological and semantic interpretations of place names.

(2) Expansion of the content of place-name interpretation as a national topography. The explanation of place-names in the two books is rich in materials, both of which contain both toponymy and topography.As far as toponymy is concerned, from "Hanshu Geographical Chronicles" to "Yuanhe County Chronicles", in the interpretation of place names, from non-recorded aliases to recorded aliases, this is of course a progress in the study of place names, and it is also a progress in the study of place names. Explain the expansion of the content. (3) Recording and summarizing the origin of place names In terms of summarizing and summarizing the origins of place names, there are only 7 categories in "Hanshu·Geography", 24 categories in "Shui Jing Zhu", and 27 categories in "Yuanhe County Chronicles" .For example, "Yuanhe County Chronicles" explained Xianyang:

The south of the mountain is called Yang, and the north of the water is called Yang. The county is in the south of Beishan and north of Weishui, so it is called Xianyang. "Kuo Di Zhi" explained the dry river in Jiang County: Its water flows dry in winter and flows in summer, so it is called Qianhe. Both the place names Xianyang and Ganhe have dual sources of etymology and semantics. (4) Standardization of pronunciation and writing of place names The standardization of pronunciation and writing of place names is the deepening and development of the two books on "Shui Jing Zhu".Such as the pronunciation of place names, the county was called in the Han Dynasty, "the descendants mistakenly called it Cheng County". "Yuanhe county annals" pointed out that "Wei Zhaoyun, 'Zheng, sound punishment', Zheng and Cheng are the same sound".In the Han Dynasty, there was Luepan Road, and Lepan County was set up in the Tang Dynasty. "Yuanhe County Chronicles" pointed out, "According to Luepan, Lepan, both refer to this city, and the dialect is wrong, so they are different."Regarding the writing of place names, Weichuan County was set up in the Tang Dynasty, "taking the name of the Nanchuan River in the present county", and "Yuanhe County Chronicles" further pointed out the source of the word "Wei", "Wai, modern false for Wei." "Kuodi "Records" pointed out that "Hu [huhu] County is also the country of Hu in Benxia", this kind of difference between ancient and modern place names is also the result of the corruption of place names.It is pointed out that the pronunciation and writing of place names are likely to cause confusion of place names, which in itself is the standardization of pronunciation and writing of place names.

In lost books, some important content is often quoted in other books and preserved.Some people collect and compare these quotations into a book, still using the original title, which is called compilation work.For example, "Suizhou County Tujing" compiled by Wang Mo of the Qing Dynasty, and "Kuo Dizhi" compiled by Sun Xingyan are both good books.Today we praise the Yinchuan Plain in Ningxia as "the front of the south of the Yangtze River", thinking that this is a modern thing, but according to the records of "Suizhou County Tujing", the Northern Zhou Dynasty and the Jiangnan Chen State fought in Xuzhou, and more than 100,000 southern soldiers were captured. Some of the officers and soldiers from Jiangnan were placed in Lingzhou (now Lingwu) for reclamation, so the phrase "Jiangnan on the frontier" appeared. The reason why "Suizhou Juntu Jing" explained "Shangjiang Jiangnan" in this way may have been known as the Yinchuan Plain as early as before the Sui Dynasty.

The Suizhou County Tujing, Kuo Di Zhi and Yuanhe County Tu Zhi, the three great works of the Sui and Tang dynasties, were probably the books with the most place names at that time, and they all helped us to understand ancient place names. Understand, of course, corruption is inevitable. "Yuanhe County Tuzhi" not only said that Chu general Zhong Limei was from Qu County (in today's Lianyungang City), but also said that his hometown Yilu was the ancient Zhonglu County in the northwest of Xiangfan City, Hubei Province.There are still some mistakes that fail the assessment like this.Li Jifu holds an important position in the government, so it is inevitable to rely on some assistants in his academic activities. The sources of information are different, and corruption is inevitable.He also wrote three volumes of "Place Names in Ancient and Modern Times", but unfortunately they have long been lost.

In addition, according to the "Old Book of Tang Xuanzong Benji", the government of the Tang Dynasty also changed 110 counties with duplicate or unstable names in the first year of Tianbao (742 A.D.).In short, the content and fields involved in the study of place names in the Tang Dynasty in my country have expanded significantly compared with the past. In terms of using maps to reflect the historical changes of place names, Jia Dan, a scholar in the Tang Dynasty, pioneered the cartographic technique of "ancient ink and modern Zhu" and two-color annotations, which provided a reliable technical means for compiling historical maps and accurately reflecting changes in administrative divisions and evolution of place names. .Jia Dan used this technology to draw the famous historical map "Hainei Huayi Map". The two-color annotation of place names and related cartographic techniques of "Ancient Mo Jin Zhu" has long been inherited and used by later generations of scholars.To this day, the Atlas of Chinese History edited by Tan Qixiang and the Atlas of Beijing History edited by Hou Renzhi still use this cartographic technique created by Jia Dan in the Tang Dynasty.

Tang Dynasty eminent monk Xuanzang's "Da Tang Western Regions" is an important book that records the names of places outside the region. He studied in India for 17 years, and first studied in Nalanda Temple, the center of Buddhism at that time. The temple is located 90 kilometers southeast of Patna today. .Before returning to China, he made a central speech at a debate conference attended by 18 kings and more than 6,000 monks. No one dared to disagree, which shows his profound and profound research on Buddhism.He traveled all over the five Indias, and returned to Chang'an by land on his return journey.In the book "Da Tang Western Regions", there are 137 countries (including some places that are currently in our country or under the jurisdiction of Longxi Road in the Tang Dynasty), and there are of course many subordinate place names.

Dangtui Jiadan's "Guangzhou Tonghaiyi Road", which is more important for recording maritime place names, is attached to the "New Book of Tang Geography" compiled by the Song Dynasty, including mountains, stones, countries, continents, rivers, seas, cities, etc. The name is an important information for exploring the place names in this area.