Dharani leak the sound change

Claim (verbatim)

Dharani leak the sound change. Ritual efficacy makes transliteration the fast phonological channel: a dharani works only if pronounced right, so spell-transcription is re-tuned to the living mouth generation by generation — Amoghavajra's 8th-century re-transcriptions replacing older ones is the institution admitting as much. Regulated verse rhymes to the book, the Qieyun tradition frozen by examination culture. Any medieval change in finals should therefore surface in Buddhist transliteration equivalences generations before poets are willing to rhyme it — the monk's mouth outruns the examiner's dictionary.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

For two datable changes in finals — the -m/-n coda merger and the weakening of entering-tone stop codas — date (i) the first systematic new-value equivalences in dated dharani transliteration corpora and (ii) the first tolerated cross-category rhymes reaching a 1 percent rate among dated poems. Primary clause (verdict follows it): for both changes, attestation (i) precedes attestation (ii) by at least 150 years. Secondary: within verse, exam-anchored regulated shi lag ci and popular song in tolerating the same rhymes.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Kill: CBETA/SAT dated esoteric transliteration corpora (the Amoghavajra-era dharani texts with Taisho numbers) against the Sou-yun rhyme database over the Quan Tang shi and Quan Song ci electronic corpora. Resolvable against open corpora without new ingestion.

Novelty / leakage triage

provisional — model-triaged, shepherd review pending

A provisional first pass authored by the model (Opus), not yet confirmed by the shepherd. It carries the same dated-search requirements as an authoritative verdict but is excluded from every headline figure and cannot underwrite a prediction until a shepherd confirms it. Provisional reading: Adjacent (closely related prior work exists).

The channels the item contrasts are both established: Buddhist transliteration (dharani transcription, re-tuned generation by generation -- Amoghavajra re-transcribing older spell-texts) is used as evidence for LIVING Middle Chinese pronunciation, while the poetic rhyme tradition is conservative, anchored to the Qieyun frozen by examination culture. Not located: the item's specific LEAD-TIME measurement -- that for the -m/-n coda merger and the weakening of entering-tone stops, the first systematic new-value equivalences in dated dharani corpora precede the first tolerated cross-category rhymes (>=1% among dated poems) by at least 150 years, with regulated shi lagging ci and popular song. The fast-transliteration/slow-rhyme asymmetry is recognized; the >=150-year lead as a measured quantity is unrun.

• Study of Kumarajiva's/Amoghavajra's dharani transliteration and its ritual-phonetic re-tuning (Brill, Buddhist Encounters and Identities Across East Asia, ch. 5); Middle Chinese phonology using Buddhist transcription alongside conservative rhyme evidence — Transliteration as the fast phonological channel vs the conservative Qieyun/rhyme tradition -- the established asymmetry
• CBETA/SAT dated esoteric transliteration corpora against the Sou-yun rhyme database over Quan Tang shi / Quan Song ci — The kill dataset for the transliteration-leads-rhyme lead-time; resolvable against open corpora

Predictions

No prediction registered yet.