Piya

The Piya was a Chinese dictionary compiled by Song Dynasty scholar Lu Dian . He wrote this ''Erya'' supplement along with his ''Erya Xinyi'' commentary. Although the ''Piya'' preface written by his son Lu Zai is dated 1125, the dictionary was written earlier; Liu estimates around the Yuanfeng era .

Lu Dian arranged the ''Piya'' into 8 semantically-based chapters that closely correspond with the last 13-19. The only exceptions are Chapter 5 that is contained in ''Erya'' 19 and Chapter 8 that anomalously corresponds with the first part of the ''Erya''.

Chapter		Pinyin	Translation	Erya Chapter
1	釋魚	Shiyu	Explaining Fishes	16
2	釋獸	Shishou	Explaining Beasts	18
3	釋鳥	Shiniao	Explaining Birds	17
4	釋蟲	Shichong	Explaining Insects	15
5	釋馬	Shima	Explaining Horses
6	釋木	Shimu	Explaining Trees	14
7	釋草	Shicao	Explaining Plants	13
8	釋天	Shitian	Explaining Heaven	8

The preface explains Lu's motives for defining flora and fauna terminology. Since Song officials changed the basis for the Imperial examination from mastering poetry to ''jingyi'' , literati no longer studied the lyrical names for plants and animals.