Guangcang 廣倉

Guangcang 廣倉 "Extended Cang[jie]" is a short character dictionary written during the Liang period 梁 (502-557) by Fan Gong 樊恭.

It was already lost during the Tang period 唐 (618-907), at least according to some sources like the imperial bibliography Jingji zhi 經籍志 in the official dynastic history Suishu 隋書. Yet some Tang-period writers, nevertheless, quoted from the Guangcang, which gives evidence that it must still have been available.

The Guangcang imitated the old standard character dictionary Cangjiepian 倉頡篇 from the Qin 秦 (221-206 BCE) and Han 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) periods.

The Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Ren Dachun 任大椿 (1738-1789) collected fragments of the Guangcang which are published in the series Xiaoxue gouchen 小學鈎沉. Ma Guohan 馬國翰 (1794-1857) published his collection of fragments in the series Yuhan shanfang jiyi shu 玉函山房輯佚書. The Xiaoxue gouchen xubian 小學鈎沉續編 includes the fragment collection by Gu Zhenfu 顧震福 (fl. 1892). There is yet another collection of fragments by Huang Shi 黄奭 (1809-1853), published in the Huangshu yishu kao 黄氏逸書考. The largest collection is that of Gu Zhenfu, with 48 fragments.

The fragments of the Guangcang were published in two modern books, in Tao Dong's 陶棟 Jiyi congkan 輯佚叢刊, and in Long Zhang's 龍璋 (1854-1918) Xiaoxue souyi 小學搜佚.