一切經音義 35.79

35.79

Swirling gale (The second character is pronounced lán. Xuánlán means a violent storm wind. During the reign of Emperor Xiaochang of the Northern Wei, vulgar usage followed convention in writing this character. It is also a word from the Northern Di Tujue language, because the northern lands have mountainous terrain with much wind. Originally derived from Kelan Town in Lan Prefecture, which the Later Zhou changed to Lan Prefecture, the characters Kelan thus became widespread among people; kě is pronounced kě. None of the earlier character books had these two characters; upon browsing history books, I saw the meaning in the Book of Later Wei and thus knew it, so I set it out to show its origin. Today it is widely in use).