2024 Volume 20 Issue 1 Pages 18-34
The Wagokuhen (倭玉篇) is a general term for kanji dictionaries, compiled and established in the Muromachi period. A lot of printed editions of the Wagokuhen are still existent but only a very few of its manuscripts survive. In the study of the Wagokuhen the emphasis has traditionally been placed on the compositional aspects of the text, such as the arrangement of sections, while the study of wakun (和訓), i.e. Japanese equivalent words given to individual kanji, has been neglected. However, it is by investigating the sources of the individual wakun that we can gain a better understanding of the system of various texts in the Wagokuhen and the process of their formation.
From this perspective, the paper investigates the wakun in five representative texts of Wagokuhen, namely Kōjininen-bon (弘治二年本), Gokuhen-yōryakushū (玉篇要略集), Gokuhenryaku (玉篇略), Shūhenmokushū (拾篇目集), and Yonezawabunko-bon (米沢文庫本), and shows that the wakun in the Kōjininen-bon, unlike that in the other books, was greatly influenced by the wakun of Monzen (文選) and Irohajiruishō (色葉字類抄). The Monzen was extremely respected as an anthology of the Chinese classics in Japan. By examining individual cases, moreover, we prove that there is no possibility that the wakun of Monzen derived from elsewhere.
