Míngchén bēizhuàn wǎnyǎn zhī jí 名臣碑傳琬琰之集
Anthology of Stelae and Biographies of Great Ministers, in [Three] Jade-Coloured Volumes edited by 杜大珪 (編)
About the work
A 107-juàn anthology of biographical stelae and biézhuàn of Northern-Sòng great officials, compiled by Dù Dàguī 杜大珪 of Méishān 眉山. Dù’s preface is dated Shàoxī jiǎyín (= 1194). The work is in three sections: shàngjí 上集 (27 juàn) of shéndào bēi 神道碑 (spirit-way stelae); zhōngjí 中集 (55 juàn) of zhìmíng 誌銘 (epitaphs) and xíngzhuàng 行狀 (career-summaries); xiàjí 下集 (25 juàn) of biézhuàn 別傳 (separate biographies). The coverage runs from Jiànlóng 建隆 / Qiándé 乾德 (early Sòng) down to Jiànyán / Shàoxīng (Southern-Sòng beginnings). The arrangement is loose (“compiled as material was acquired, not strictly chronological”) but the ordering principle is by category: stelae in shàng, epitaphs and career-summaries in zhōng, separate biographies in xià. The work draws principally from the biéjí (literary collections) of leading Sòng writers — including Hán Yù, Lǐ Fán, et al. — but also occasionally from the shílù and the dynastic history. It is the principal Sòng-period source for biographical-stele literature on Northern-Sòng officials and was used directly by Lǐ Tāo 李燾 (Xù Zīzhì tōngjiàn chángbiān) and Lǐ Xīnchuán 李心傳 (Jiànyán yǐlái xìnián yàolù).
Tiyao
Míngchén bēizhuàn wǎnyǎn jí in 107 juàn, edited by Dù Dàguī of the Sòng. Dàguī was a man of Méishān; his career is unverifiable; his self-attribution as “jìnshì”; the preface is dated Shàoxī jiǎyín, so a Guāng-zōng-period figure. Tomb-stelae began to flourish in the Eastern Hàn; biézhuàn in the HànWèi period. Zhāng Yàn 張晏 annotated the Shǐjì on the basis of tomb-stelae to know that Fú Shēng’s name was Shèng. Sīmǎ Zhēn 司馬貞 made the Suǒyǐn of the Shǐjì on the basis of Bān Gù’s Sìshàng tíngzhǎng bēi to know that Zhāolíng fūrén’s surname was Wēn. Péi Sōngzhī 裴松之 annotated the Sānguózhì and frequently cited biézhuàn. The fragments and surviving anecdotes often supplement the regular history; therefore lecturers on history have always used them for verification. By the Táng and Sòng such writings became more abundant; though Hán Yù’s setting-down of the brush is not without flattery, and Lǐ Fán’s spreading of words is not without false reports, yet on disagreements of arguments, on the order of transfers and successions, on the year-and-month of appointment and dismissal, they are more accurate than the historians. So Lǐ Tāo’s Xù Zīzhì tōngjiàn chángbiān and Lǐ Xīnchuán’s Jiànyán yǐlái xìnián yàolù often draw upon them. But the original stele-rubbings cannot in every case be obtained; the literary collections are scattered and difficult to consult — and so Dàguī gathered the various pieces into three sections in 27, 55, and 25 juàn (shàng, zhōng, xià), running from Jiànlóng and Qiándé to Jiànyán and Shàoxīng, generally compiling as material became available without strict adherence to era-order. Roughly: shàngjí contains shéndào bēi, zhōngjí zhìmíng and xíngzhuàng, xiàjí biézhuàn. Many pieces are taken from various men’s biéjí, and occasionally from the shílù and the guóshǐ. The career-outline of every great minister of an entire dynasty is broadly here. Among them, Dīng Wèi 丁謂, Wáng Qīnruò 王欽若, Lǚ Huìqīng 呂惠卿, Zhāng Dūn 章惇, Zēng Bù 曾布 — figures called jiānxié in their own time — are placed alongside Hán Qí, Fàn Zhòngyān and the like as if they too were great ministers; this selection is not entirely just. But Zhūzǐ’s Míngchén yánxíng lù and Zhào Rǔyú’s 趙汝愚 Míngchén zòuyì also include Dīng Wèi, Wáng Ānshí, Lǚ Huìqīng and the rest — when the era is recent, gratitude and resentment still survive, and the discrimination is naturally not as fair as in later ages. This is the constant pattern of human affairs and the worthy man cannot avoid it; we cannot single out Dàguī for blame. Reverently presented in the second month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). Chief Editors: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Dù Dàguī’s Míngchén bēizhuàn wǎnyǎn zhī jí is the largest single Sòng-period anthology of biographical stelae and is the principal working source for Sòng-prosopography down to the present. It preserves a great deal of material from now-lost Sòng biéjí and from inscriptions whose stones have not survived. The compilation date is fixed by Dù Dàguī’s own preface to Shàoxī jiǎyín = 1194 (catalog meta gives “fl. 1194”). Dù’s career details are otherwise unverifiable; he is named only in his own preface as a jìnshì, no further biographical record. The work is the immediate predecessor of the Sòngyuán xuéàn tradition and was a working source for the Sòngshǐ compilers. The catalog meta gives only a 26-book count corresponding to the WYG’s reorganization of the original three sections into the Sìkù’s book-binding scheme; the substantive structure is shàng / zhōng / xià-jí.
Translations and research
- Standard reference for Sòng prosopography (in particular for the CBDB project at Harvard, which uses Dù’s stelae as a primary input alongside the Sòng-shǐ and the Sòng-rén zhuàn-jì zī-liào suǒ-yǐn).
- See John W. Chaffee, The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China (CUP, 1985); Patricia B. Ebrey and James L. Watson, eds., Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China (UCP, 1986).
- The Sì-kù tíyào notice is in Sì-kù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 史部·傳記類三·總錄之屬.
Other points of interest
The pun in the title — wǎnyǎn 琬琰 (“jade-coloured tablets” — wǎn and yǎn are two kinds of jade tablet used as ritual sceptres) — implicitly compares the volumes to the imperial guī and zhāng held by ministers at court, casting the anthology of stelae as a documentary equivalent of the ministers’ visible insignia of office.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.