Cuan Longyan Stone Tablet is an important historical relic in Yunnan province. Compared with Cuan Baozi Tablet, it is much larger with the height of 3.88 meters and width of 1.46 meters. The number of characters inscribed is also more. Except for the names in the back of the stone tablet, the existing characters are as more as 900 characters. If you attend to school in Kunming to study Chinese, teachers would tell you that it is one of the most valuable existing tablets in Yunnan from Jin and Song periods.
Being constructed in Song period (the year of 458), Cuan Longyan Stone Tablet is located in the school yard of Zhen Yuan Bao Primary School in Luliang of Qujing city. The inscriptions trace the history of Cuan family and record the deeds of Cuan Longyan. Therefore, it provides valuable information to the later generations to research the Cuan family and the history of Yunnan in Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
According to the record in the tablet, the ancestor of Cuan clan was originally Zhuan Xu, and Ying Chu in the Warring States, Ban Gu in Han Dynsaty and became Cuan in the late of the Eastern Han period. Even though it is hard to test whether the ancestor was Zhuan Xu, Ying Chu or Ban Gu or not, foreigners who learn Chinese online free should know that Cuan clan belongs to the Han people in central China.
The words in Cuan Longyan Tablet were rich and concise and expressive, reflecting the intellectuals in the southwestern China had a very high literary accomplishment. In the aspect of the calligraphy, the characters are vigorous with dense structure, inheriting the style of the clerical script. Some people even compared it with the inscriptions of Songgao Mausoleum. Many famous men of letters and calligraphers speak highly of the inscriptions of Cuan Longyan Tablet. It is regarded as the originator of the calligraphy.
Kang Youwei praised it as the top of the calligraphy on the style of the inscriptions. Since the inscriptions so famous, many scholars from far away came for rubbing from the tablet to imitate the calligraphy style. Some of the foreigners who study Chinese may hear it was recorded in Daoguang period that people went there for calligraphy style learning. From those records, you can feel the uniqueness of the inscriptions on Cuan Longyan Stone Tablet.