The Xiaoguan Stele of Pan Qian, Magistrate of Liyang

The record

Juan 8, "Literature", of the Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer opens its "Eulogies" division with Zhao Xun's "Eulogy for the Xiaoguan Stele" of the Han (its subject and date come from the text and its closing colophon, not from any heading added by the gazetteer). The eulogy recounts Pan Qian's ancestry and administration and closes:

承沛國銍趙勛字蔓伯。光和四年十月己丑朔二十一日己酉造。

Translated: Made by Zhao Xun of Zhi in the state of Pei, styled Manbo; made in the fourth year of the Guanghe era, tenth month, on the twenty-first day (jisi).

The stele was therefore erected for Pan Qian, magistrate of Liyang, in the tenth month of the fourth year of Guanghe (181 CE), and the eulogy was composed by Zhao Xun of Zhi in Pei. The eulogy states its subject at the outset:

溧陽長潘君，諱乾，字元卓，陳國長平人，蓋楚太傅潘崇之末緒也。

Translated: The magistrate of Liyang, Master Pan, whose personal name was Qian and whose courtesy name was Yuanzhuo, a man of Changping in the state of Chen, a descendant of Pan Chong, Grand Tutor of Chu.

Only the opening line is quoted here; the whole eulogy is not reproduced.

Provenance and the layered transcription

Below the eulogy the gazetteer carries a transcription, which is not the stele text itself but a later, layered record. It begins with the stele's discovery and keeping:

宋紹興十一年，溧水尉喻仲遠，遠得於固城湖濱，置之官舍，今在孔聖之門右。

Translated: In the eleventh year of the Shaoxing era of the Song (1141), Yu Zhongyuan, assistant magistrate of Lishui, obtained it on the shore of Gucheng Lake and placed it in the official quarters, where it now stands to the right of the gate of the Confucian temple.

The transcription then records that Chen Changfang of Changle had written of the stele's discovery but had not seen the transcription; that Hong Shi of Poyang, styled Jingbo, "produced the characters and made a transcription", settling several readings; and that "the remaining illegible characters still number twenty-seven". Later, in the guiyou year of the Zhishun era, Professor Shan Xi of Jiyin added:

今觀首行，自「三（白）［百］」字以下，止「斯」字，凡十有六字，比之洪氏作釋文時又皆不可考。

Translated: Looking now at the first line, from the character 三 (百) through to 斯, sixteen characters in all, they are all again illegible compared with the time when Master Hong made his transcription.

The sixteen characters still legible to Hong Shi had therefore become unreadable by Shan Xi's day, showing how the transcription is layered and the stone progressively effaced. The transcription also dates the stele to "the fourth year of Guanghe of Emperor Ling, the year being xinyou", agreeing with the stele's own "tenth month of the fourth year of Guanghe".

The limits of this library's record

Let it be stated at the outset: the stele was erected for Pan Qian, magistrate of Liyang, and is an object of Liyang, not of Lishui. It enters this library for two reasons only: first, juan 8, "Literature", of the Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer carries its eulogy and appended transcription, and this library records it from that section of the old gazetteer; second, the transcription names as its discoverer Yu Zhongyuan, assistant magistrate of Lishui in 1141. Beyond that single thread this library claims no further connection between the stele and Lishui; it must not be called a stele of Lishui, nor used to connect Pan Qian with Lishui.

As to geography, Gucheng Lake now lies in Gaochun District. Gaochun was detached from the south-western part of Lishui and made a county in the fourth year of Hongzhi in the Ming (1491). The "assistant magistrate of Lishui" who found the stele on the lake shore was therefore acting within the Lishui of Song times; after the Ming split the lake no longer lay in Lishui. This is the only basis on which this library links the discovery to present-day Gaochun, and it says nothing about the stele's own allegiance.

Transcription and textual limits

The source used here is a web transcription (a traditional-character page at shicihui), not a collated edition, and it has not been checked against the printed page. The eulogy contains lacunae shown as block characters (□) and editorial round and square brackets (a round bracket marking a base-text error, a square bracket the correction, as in 三（白）［百］). This entry quotes only short passages and does not reproduce the whole text, which sits in the source layer as public-domain material. All quotations follow that verbatim transcription, not the summary earlier in the source card.

Uncertainties

First, where the stele is today, whether it still stands in its old place, has been moved, or survives at all, is unknown to this library; no material has been found.

Second, the appended transcription cites the Liyang Gazetteer for the reading "Yuanzhen" and argues that this is a forced interpretation built on the name Qian; this library records the old view without adjudicating between them.

Third, the transcription reads "喻仲遠，遠得於"; the second 遠 is redundant, the sense being "Yu Zhongyuan obtained it at...", and the repeated character is likely a transcriptional interpolation, recorded here as such.

Fourth, Hong Shi and "Hong Jingbo" are one person (Hong Shi of Poyang, styled Jingbo); the transcription gives only "Master Hong Jingbo" without the name Shi, and this library supplies "Hong Shi" from common historical knowledge, to be checked against the original should it be consulted.