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The Qianziwen 千字文 "Thousand-characters text" is a character text book for elementary learning. There are two books with that title, namely one from the Liang period 梁 (502-557) writer Prince Xiao Zifan 蕭子範, which is already lost, and one by Zhou Xingsi 周興嗣 from the same period. The book was compiled on imperial order by using one thousand characters of the oeuvres of the famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi 王羲之 from the Eastern Jin period 東晉 (317-420). Zhou selected one thousand different, often used characters and composed them to a long poem, of which each verse is 4 words or characters long. Each two verses rhyme, so that they are easily to remember. The words cover all aspects of nature and human life, and thus also serve to learn the most important characters of all fields, like the universe, history, self-cultivation, learning, eating and drinking, living, gardens, sacrifices, and much more.
The characters of the Qianziwen serve for numbering a large amount of chapters, books or other data. Each character represents a number, like 天=1, 地=2, 玄=3, 黃=4, 宇=5, 宙=6, 洪=7, 荒=8,... 焉=997, 哉=998, 乎=999, 也=1000. One example for this method is the numbering of the juan "scrolls" in some editions of the Daoist Canon Daozang 道藏.
The Qianziwen was so popular that it was translated into Manchurian during the Qing period 清 (1644-1911).
There were several supplements or alternatives written, like Shi Qiwei's 侍其瑋 Xu qianwen 續千文 and Ge Gangzheng's 葛剛正 Chongxu qianwen 重續千文 and Ge Gangzheng's 葛剛正 Sanxu qianwen 三續千文 from the Song period 宋 (960-1279), Zhou Lüjing's 周履靖 Guangyi qianwen 廣易千文 and Li Deng's 李登 Zhengzi qianwen 正字千文 from the Ming period 明 (1368-1644), and He Guizhen's 何桂珍 Xunmeng qianziwen 訓蒙千字文 from the Qing period. The Xu qianwen is included in the collectaneum Yunzizaikan congshu 云自在龕叢書 and the Yiyuan bilu chuke 藝園秘錄录初刻.
Some small texts imitating the pattern of the Qianziwen are:
Xu gu qianwen 敘古千文 by the Song period scholar Hu Yin 胡寅, with a commentary by Huang Hao 黃灝; Jiejing zazi 捷徑雜字; Baoju zazi 包舉雜字; and Nongcun zazi 農村雜字.
Source:
Jiaoyu da cidian bianzuan weiyuanhui 教育大辭典編纂委員會 (1991). "Qianziwen 千字文", in: Jiaoyu da cidian 教育大辭典, vol. 8, p. 209. Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe.
Li Ming 黎明 (1993). "Qianziwen 千字文", in: Zhongguo xiaoxue jiaoxue baike quanshu 中國小學教學百科全書, Yuwen 語文, p. 89. Shenyang: Shenyang chubanshe.
Zhao Hankun 趙含坤 (2005). Zhongguo leishu 中國類書, p. 151. Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe.
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