Chūnqiū shìzú pǔ 春秋世族譜
Genealogical Tables of the Spring and Autumn Period by 陳厚耀 (撰)
About the work
A genealogical reference work in 2 juǎn by Chén Hòuyào 陳厚耀 (1648–1722), reconstructing the lineages of the Zhōu royal house and the feudal states for the 春秋 period. Each section opens with the ducal succession-table for one state and is followed by tables of the qīng and dàfū lineages within that state. The arrangement runs: Zhōu (and Zhōu-court ministers); Lǔ; Jìn; Wèi; Zhèng; Qí; Sòng; Chǔ; Qín; Chén; Cài; Cáo; Jǔ; Qǐ; Téng; Xǔ; Zhū; Wú; Yuè; minor states. Persons attested in the canon and zhuàn but not assignable to a known lineage are gathered into a final section “Zá xìng shì míng hào” 雜姓氏名號. The reconstruction is anchored in Kǒng Yǐngdá’s Zhèng yì, with broad supplementation from other sources.
Tiyao
Imperially edited Sìkù quánshū, Classics, Chūnqiū category. Chūnqiū shìzú pǔ in 2 juǎn. Composed in the present dynasty by Chén Hòuyào. In the 春秋 age, from the royal court down to the feudal lords and their dàfū, the lineages of surnames and clan-names each had their own genealogical streams; the persons appearing in the canon and the zhuàn are too many to count one by one. In the HànSòng period there was the Shì běn 世本 in 4 juǎn, still circulating in the Táng; today only Kǒngshì Zhèng yì preserves a few quotations, but the book itself was long ago lost. The Suí shū jīng jí zhì 隋書經籍志 lists Chūnqiū Zuǒshì zhū dàfū shìpǔ 春秋左氏諸大夫世譜 in 13 juǎn, by an unknown author — also no longer extant. Dù Yù 杜預’s Chūnqiū shìlì 春秋釋例 contained a Shìzú pǔ preserving in detail the genealogical and zhāomù sequence — but it was already lost from the Sòng. Now, by the gracious imperial program of recovering literary remnants, the Shìlì itself has been reassembled from fragments preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn — yet the Shìzú pǔ portion has come down only as a few entries, still gravely incomplete.
Chén Hòuyào, when he was working, did not yet have access to the recovered Shìlì original; he therefore compiled his own from Kǒngshì Zhèng yì with side-references to other works. The format throughout is the bānghángxiéshàng (sideways-and-stepped-up) genealogical table format. Recently Gù Dònggāo 顧棟高 in his Chūnqiū dàshì biǎo (KR1e0114) made a Shìxì biǎo 世系表 in 2 juǎn with a similar conception, though the documentation differs from this book. For instance, in the Zhōu ministers section, Zhōugōng Jìfù 周公忌父, Tái Zhuānggōng 臺莊公, etc., are documented less fully here than in Gù; the missing genealogy of the Wángshū 王叔 family is also a deficiency relative to Gù.
But Gù makes detailed entries only for those persons whose lineage can be securely reconstructed; he simply omits the unrecoverable ones. Chén, by contrast, attempts to register every individual mentioned in the canon and zhuàn even when only the official title or zì is preserved, leaving nothing aside. This is what Gù’s edition does not have. A reader of the Chūnqiū who studies the two together has nearly the whole of Chūnqiū clan-genealogy in hand. Submitted on the Qiánlóng 46th year, 11th month (= 1781, December). Editors-in-chief: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief proofreader: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Chūnqiū shìzú pǔ is the immediate precursor of the genealogical reconstruction made by Gù Dònggāo for the Chūnqiū dàshì biǎo (KR1e0114) and the most thorough early-Qing reconstruction of the Chūnqiū prosopography from the surviving fragments of the lost HànJìn genealogical literature. The author’s preface (signed Shǔfēng 曙峰 — Chén’s hào) is preserved in the Sìkù edition: he reports that, while editing Zuǒshì materials for the imperial editorial bureau (where he had been seconded by special grace), he found that he could not obtain a complete copy of Dù Yù’s Chūnqiū shìlì from southern collections. He therefore privately undertook to fill the gap, drawing on Kǒngshì Zhèng yì. The accompanying Cháng lì (KR1e0112) was composed concurrently in the bureau’s office. The seven-draft revision finally finished in Dīngyǒu (1717), 12th month — fixing the terminus ante quem tightly.
The work’s enduring value lies in its inclusion of fragmentary persons (those known only by office title, only by zì, only by isolated mention) — exactly the persons Gù Dònggāo’s later Shìxì biǎo declines to enter. The two works are therefore complementary: Gù for fully-attested lineages, Chén for the long tail of fragmentary attestation. Wilkinson (Chinese History: A New Manual, p. 706) notes Chén Hòuyào as a paradigmatic example of the Kāngxī-era astronomer-historian whose mathematical work also produced major historical-genealogical and chronological reference works.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. Modern Chinese scholarship on Chūnqiū prosopography draws routinely on Chén; for an entry-point see Yáng Bójùn 楊伯峻, Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn cí diǎn 春秋左傳詞典 (Zhōnghuá, 1985), and the prosopographic apparatus to his Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn zhù 春秋左傳注 (Zhōnghuá, 1981).
Other points of interest
The author’s preface explicitly catalogs the trio of his Chūnqiū projects — Cháng lì (calendar), Shìzú pǔ (genealogy), and a planned territorial-geography volume drawing on Gāo Shìqí’s Chūnqiū dìmíng kǎo lüè (KR1e0105) materials — under the rubric of completing Dù Yù’s lost Shìlì. The implicit lineage claim is to Dù Yù as the foundational Zuǒshì historian, with Chén positioning himself as the modern continuer. The seven-draft revision history is unusually well documented for an early-Qing private compilation.
Links
- Wikidata: Chén Hòuyào — Q47125000
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (2018), § 51, p. 706
- ctext.org: Chūnqiū shìzú pǔ (Sìkù WYG facsimile)