Piya


The Piya was a Chinese dictionary compiled by Song Dynasty scholar Lu Dian. He wrote this Erya supplement along with his Erya Xinyi commentary. Although the Piya preface written by his son Lu Zai is dated 1125, the dictionary was written earlier; Liu estimates around the Yuanfeng era, and Joseph Needham says around 1096.
Lu Dian arranged the Piya into 8 semantically based chapters that closely correspond with the last Erya chapters 13-19. The only exceptions are Chapter 5 that is contained in Erya 19 and Chapter 8 that anomalously corresponds with the first part of the Erya.
ChapterChinesePinyinTranslationErya Chapter
1釋魚ShiyuExplaining Fishes16
2釋獸ShishouExplaining Beasts18
3釋鳥ShiniaoExplaining Birds17
4釋蟲ShichongExplaining Insects15
5釋馬ShimaExplaining Horses
6釋木ShimuExplaining Trees14
7釋草ShicaoExplaining Plants13
8釋天ShitianExplaining Heaven8

The preface explains Lu's motives for defining flora and fauna terminology. Since Song officials changed the basis for the Imperial examination from mastering poetry to jingyi, literati no longer studied the lyrical names for plants and animals.