Tokihiko Nishimura's Contribution to Chu Ci Studies

Tokihiko Nishimura (18651924) is known as a sinologist specialized in Chu Ci stuides in the Meiji and Taischo periods in Japan. His contribution to the studies chiefly includes (A) his collection of over 100 kinds of ancient books on Chu Ci (or Poetry of the Chu) and (B) his collected books largely with his proofreading, textual criticism, prefaces and postscripts, and his four monographs. (A) Of the said collection there are 16 Ming Dynasty blockprinted editions, all being reliable texts according to China national bibliography; 40 Qing Dynasty blockprinted editions (14 reliable texts); and 12 Japanese blockprinted editions and 27 copies hand written by Nishimura, which are all rare to the Chinese scholars. For example: (1) 17 volumes of Supplementary Notes on the Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Chu Ci (collated by Liu Meiqi in 1749), and books (collected in Jiguge Pavilion), which he proof read and punctuated. (2) 17 volumes of Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Chu Ci (collocated by Zhuang Yunyi in 1750), which he punctuated and tried to restore to what Wang Yi's version of Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Chu Ci is like. Those are regarded by Sun Yirang and Liu Shipei as the "perfect editions". (B) In this category, there are (1) 1 volume of handwritten A Study of Wang Yi's Notes on Chu Ci, which Nishimura based on the collation of such 10 editions as the handcopied Variorum of Literary Selections of the Tang Dynasty with Zhuang Yunyi's books, with a view to retaining the original notes by Wang Yi; (2) 4 volumes of handwritten On the Compilation of Chu Ci, 100odd pieces of literature regarding Chu Ci and his author Qu Yuan after the publication of Records of the Historian, which he collected and compiled into an information bank; (3) 2 volumes of handwritten On Prose Poems by Qu Yuan, which, regarded as a survey of Chu Ci and best known to the Japanese scholars for its extensive and meticulous textual research, have the blockprint edition of 12article Volume 1 and contain in 10article Volume 2 such 8 written articles as "Exile", "Life Story", and "Records on Li Sao" (Sorrow after Departure), as well as the other 2 ("Lisao Studies" and "Notes") with no writing at all; and (4) handwritten Collected Commentaries on Chu Ci, which are written on the upper and lower margins of the pages of 17volume Supplementary Notes on the Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Chu Ci, including 5 different items: collected commentaries, classification of differences, explanation of differences, annotations on pronunciation and meaning, and punctuation.