Klementeva T. Common Characteristics of the Tong Yi (“Penetrating into the Meaning”) Texts in the Han Dynasty // Manuscripta Orientalia. — June 2026. — Vol. 32. — No. 1. — P. 39–45. DOI: 10.31250/1238-5018-2026-32-1-39-45
The article examines texts bearing the compound tong yi in their titles that were produced during the Han dynasty (202 BCE — 9 CE, 25—220 CE). Through a comparative analysis of three works — Bai hu tong yi, ascribed to Ban Gu (32—92 CE), Ying Shao's (d. before 204) Feng su tong yi, and the extant fragments of Wu jing tong yi written by Liu Xiang (77—6 BCE), the study aims to identify their shared structural and thematic features. It is shown that these texts
sought to generalise broad domains of knowledge and cover every aspect of them. Each author heavily relied on sound glosses, definitions and citations from Classical texts in order to restore the correct meanings of words. The emergence of such works corresponded to the tendency to systematise the knowledge that had also manifested itself in other fields of learning during the Eastern Han.
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