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be called the first systematic dictionary of Chinese, and its classification of words by radical would be used in Chinese dictionaries for a millennium and a half. But when the Erya was compiled, those systems had not yet been developed, so the anonymous creator of the Erya organized the work by subject. This places the work in a middle ground between dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopedia: it gave not only definitions but clusters of thematically related words, and therefore gestures out to the larger world.
    TITLE: Erya
    COMPILER: Unknown
    ORGANIZATION: Primarily topical
    PUBLISHED: third century B.C.E. ?
    ENTRIES: 2,094
    TOTAL WORDS: 13,113
    The book came in two parts: the first, chapters 1–3, focuses on common words, especially verbs and particles; the second, chapters 4–19, on specialized terms, mostly nouns. The nouns were divided into sixteen sections, grouped by topic: kinship, implements, architecture, geography, and so on. 7 The approach to defining was distinctive. “In the first section,” one critic observes, “entries are defined by combining words of the same or similar meaning and then explaining them in terms of a word more commonly used at that time. If one of the words had an additional meaning, there would be an additional explanation.” 8 A typical entry shows the associative logic that structures the whole work:
    EXPLAINING THE HEAVEN
    Round-hollow and very blue, this is Heaven. In springtime, Heaven is blue; in summertime, bright; in autumn, clear; in wintertime, Heaven is wide up. These are the four seasons.
    In springtime, there is a greening sun-warmth; in summer, a reddish enlightening; in autumn a blank storing; and in winter adark blossom. If all these expressions are harmonious, [the year] is called “jade candle.” The spring gives birth; the autumn grows the adult; in autumn the harvest is completed; and in winter there is a peaceful tranquillity. If the harmony of the four seasons is thorough and correct, [the year] is called “illustrious wind.” If the sweet rain comes down to the right time, the many things are at their best, it is called “sweet spring.” This means luck.

    As we might expect for an early work in any genre, Erya has its weaknesses. The definitions are short, and they often do little to explain the meanings of the words. The organization of words into thematic clusters is an interesting effort to make sense of the universe, but later eras have found it counterintuitive and hard to consult. But it was groundbreaking in its day, and it remains illuminating even long after it was superseded by other dictionaries. Moderns find Erya a valuable source for identifying the animals and plants, for instance, that appear in older Chinese literature. Even more important, it reveals how early Chinese writers organized their understanding of the social world, the natural world, and the divine world.
    The original Erya led to a wide array of editions and annotations. The earliest is the Hsiao erya , or Abbreviated Approaching Elegance . There was also a Kuang-ya , or Expanded Elegance . In the third century C.E. came Guangya , or Extension of Erya , by Zhang Yi, with 2,345 entries. Early in the fourth century, Go Pu wrote Erya zhu , or Annotations on Erya , and around the year 1000, Xing Bing turned out Erya shu , Explanations of Annotations on Erya . As late as 1775, Chinese scholars were working on new versions of and annotations on the Erya , including Hao Yixing’s Erya zhengyi , or Meaning Verification of Erya , and Wang Niansun’s Guangya Shuzheng , or Annotations and Textual Criticism of Guangya . 9
    The Erya also prompted imitations, new dictionaries that attempted the task of defining words from scratch rather than extending the original work. Probably in the early third century C.E. , Liu Xi wrote his Shiming , or Explanation of Names , a collection of 1,502 definitions in eight volumes and twenty-seven chapters. As Xue Shiqui explains, “its special feature is