In the Pei-t'ang shu-ch'ao compiled by Yu Shih-nan in 虞世南 the reign of Yang-ti 煬帝, 2nd Emperor of the Sui dynasty, there are six quotations from P'ei Yuan's Nan-hai-chi. However, if compared with the quotations found in the Ch'i-min yao-shu 齊民 要術 or in the T'ai-p'ing yu-lan 太平御覧, it becomes clear that the quotations in the Pei-t'ang shu-ch'ao are not from the Nanhai-chi but from the Kuang-chou-chi. The reason why only the Peit'ang shu-ch'ao adopted the title "Nan-hai-chi" instead of "Kuang-chou-chi" is that the Kuang-chou-chi was retitled as Nan-hai-chi by Yu Shihnan, subject of Emperor Yang, who gave considerations to the fact that as the then Emperor Yang's real name was Yang Kuang 楊広, according to the Chinese traditional custom, any usage of the Chinese character "kuang " was generally refrained and accordingly Kuang-chou was renamed as Nan-hai. In the Pei-t'ang shu-ch'ao, there can be found one quotation from P'ei-shih's Kuang-chou-chi 裴淵廣州記 and also in this case the correct source is Pei Yuan's Kuang-chou-chi 裴淵廣州記. Considering that Yu Shih-nan had no reason to refrain himself from using the character "Yuan ", this changing of the title must have been made in the T'ang period when "yuan" was a tabooed word because of the first Emperor Kao-tsu's 高祖 real name Li Yuan 李淵. Such being the case, the present author comes to the conclusion that in the P'ei-t'ang shu-ch'ao now extant, are contained some portions revised by a T'ang compiler.

松本信廣先生古稀記念