Forest of Learning

Author: Wang Guanguo (Song Dynasty) compiled, Tian Ruijuan edited
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1988-01-01
Features: The 10 volumes of Xuelin contain 358 entries, primarily focusing on the examination of character forms, pronunciations, and meanings. It extensively cites texts from the Thirteen Classics, Records of the Grand Historian, Book of Han, Book of Later Han, Book of Jin, and Book of Tang to analyze ancient poetry, while widely incorporating annotations and interpretations from works such as Shuowen Jiezi, Yupian, Guangyun, and Jingdian Shiwen. The book provides meticulous examination of character forms, pronunciations, and meanings, with comprehensive data collection and precise analysis, making it one of the more academically valuable works from the Song Dynasty. Xuelin has a version from the Wuying Hall Polyglot Edition, and in the 14th year of the Jiaqing era (1809), Chen Chun of Xiaoshan included this book in the Huanghai Tower Series. In the 5th year of the Tongzhi era (1866), the Huanghai Tower Series edition was used as the base text, with revisions based on the Wuying Hall Polyglot Edition. The book includes the preface to Xuelin from the Four Treasuries Catalogue, the postscript to the Huanghai Tower Series edition, Sun Wenyu's Examination of Xuelin, and Yu Yues' Readings on Wang Guanguo's Xuelin from You's Tower Miscellaneous Notes. For easy reference, numbers have been assigned sequentially according to the 10 volumes and 358 entries, and a table of contents has been compiled and placed at the beginning of the book.