Wúchuán lù 吳船錄
The Boat-Trip-to-Wú Record by 范成大 (撰)
About the work
A 2-juàn travel diary recording Fàn Chéngdà’s 范成大 return journey from Chéngdū (where he had served as Sìchuān zhìzhìshǐ 四川制置使 since 1175) back to Línān 臨安 (Hángzhōu) in 1177, after he was recalled to court. The journey ran by water — down the Mínjiāng 岷江 to the Yangtze, then through the Three Gorges, then through the lower Yangtze to Línān — from the wùchén day of the fifth month (May 1177) to the jǐsì day of the tenth month (October 1177). Hence the title Wúchuán — “the boat to Wú”, since Wújùn 吳郡 (Sūzhōu) was Fàn’s native place and ultimate point of return.
The work is the longest of Fàn’s three travel diaries (alongside Lánpèi lù KR2g0033 and Cānluán lù KR2g0054) and is the most evidentiary in tone — heavy on epigraphic and textual kǎozhèng. Notable features: (i) Fàn’s record of his pilgrimage to Éméishān 峨眉山 — the first detailed Sòng eyewitness description of the Three-Tier Pilgrimage, the fóguāng 佛光 (Buddha-aureole) phenomenon, the famous xiàoguāng (laughing-light) miracle on the summit, and the geography of the Wànniánsì 萬年寺 — Báishuǐsì 白水寺 axis; (ii) the only surviving text of Shì Jìyè 釋繼業’s record of his 964 ce mission to the western regions in search of relics and Sanskrit bèiduōyè 貝多葉 manuscripts (sent by Sòng Tàizǔ in Qiándé 2 with a party of 300 monks); (iii) extensive descriptions of antique paintings then surviving in Sìchuān temples — Sūn Tàigǔ’s 孫太古 Lǐ Bīng fùzǐ 李冰父子 portrait at the Fúlóngguān 伏龍觀 (Dūjiāngyàn 都江堰), his Huángdì jí sānshíèr xiānzhēn 黃帝及三十二仙真 fresco at the Zhàngrénguān 丈人觀 of Qīngchéngshān 青城山, his Lónghǔ jí wánzhōu shí 龍虎及玩舟石 at the Chángshēngguān 長生觀, and a Táng Luóhàn fresco at Yùzhōusì 玉舟寺 — supplementing the gaps in Huáng Xiūfù’s 黃休復 Yìzhōu mínghuà jì 益州名畫記; (iv) emendation of a single character in Dù Fǔ’s 杜甫 Róngzhōu 戎州 poem — the yìnběn (block-print) reading “chóngbì niān chūn jiǔ” 重碧拈春酒 vs. the alternate “gū” 酤, where Fàn cites the Xùzhōu 叙州 stele “niān” 拈 as authoritative against printed gū.
Tiyao
Wúchuán lù in 2 juàn, by Fàn Chéngdà of the Sòng. Chéngdà, in the dīngyǒu year of Chúnxī (1177), was recalled from his post as Sìchuān zhìzhìshǐ, taking the water route to Línān; he therefore composed this diary, recording the things he experienced day by day. Beginning on the wùchén day of the fifth month and ending on the jǐsì day of the tenth month, the diary’s account of gǔjì (antiquities) and xíngshèng (scenic-and-strategic sites) is most thorough; it also makes textual emendations on occasion. As for example: Shì Jìyè 釋繼業’s record of Qiándé 2 (964), when Tàizǔ dispatched 300 monks westward to seek shèlì (relics) and bèiduōyè (Sanskrit palmleaf) scriptures, with the route described — this is something other accounts have not preserved, sufficient to widen one’s range. Also recorded are the antique paintings he saw in Shǔ: such as the Fúlóngguān Sūn Tàigǔ painting of Lǐ Bīng and his son; the Zhàngrénguān Sūn Tàigǔ painting of Huángdì and the thirty-two transcendents; the Chángshēngguān Sūn Tàigǔ painting of dragon, tiger, and Wánzhōushí; and the Yùzhōusì Táng-painted Luóhàn on a single panel. All can supplement what Huáng Xiūfù’s Yìzhōu mínghuà jì did not cover. Also Dù Fǔ’s Róngzhōu poem line “chóngbì niān chūn jiǔ” 重碧拈春酒 — printed editions sometimes have gū 酤 for niān 拈 — and Chéngdà reports that Xùzhōu has a stele recording the character cut as niān: this too is something annotators of Dù’s collection should adduce. Reverently presented in the eleventh month of Qiánlóng 46 (= 1781). Chief Editors: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Wúchuán lù is the latest and longest of Fàn Chéngdà’s three principal travel diaries, and the canonical Sòng source on the Yangtze-Three-Gorges and Sìchuān travel-route. It records his return after his Sìchuān post in 1177 — a journey down the river back to court at Línān. The work is firmly dated 1177 by the diary entries themselves, and was probably circulated in completed form by c. 1180 or shortly before; a defensible composition window is therefore 1177–1180.
The work’s lasting contributions are several: (i) it is the principal Sòng eyewitness source on Éméishān as a pilgrimage destination — Fàn’s account of the summit fóguāng miracle, the surrounding monasteries, and the route up has been the foundational text for all subsequent histories of the mountain (translated and annotated by Hargett 2006); (ii) it preserves the sole surviving fragment of Jìyè’s 964 ce embassy to the West — a major source for Northern Sòng Buddhist exchanges with Central / South Asia, predating the better-known Wáng Yándé 王延德 mission of 982; (iii) the painting-history information supplements Huáng Xiūfù’s Yìzhōu mínghuà jì by recording the actual physical condition and location of works that Huáng had only summarized; (iv) it provides extensive epigraphic and antiquarian kǎozhèng on the Mínjiāng / Yangtze corridor, including emendations to Dù Fǔ’s collected poems and notes on Three-Gorges sites that became standard reference for later commentators.
The Wúchuán lù — together with Cānluán lù and Lánpèi lù — established the Southern Sòng rìjì-style diary as a major prose genre. Its influence on the Rùshǔ jì 入蜀記 of Lù Yóu (KR2g0056), composed in 1170 and tracing the upstream version of the same journey, is reciprocal: Fàn knew and used Lù Yóu’s diary; their two texts together constitute the principal Sòng record of the Three-Gorges-and-Yangtze travel corridor.
Translations and research
- James M. Hargett, Riding the river home: A complete and annotated translation of Fan Chengda’s (1120–1193) diary of a boat trip to Wu (Wuchuan lu 吳船錄*)* (Chinese University Press, 2008) — the standard complete English translation, with extensive critical apparatus. (Hargett’s birth-year of 1120 is corrected to 1126 here per CBDB.)
- James M. Hargett, Stairway to Heaven: A Journey to the Summit of Mount Emei (SUNYP, 2006) — translates and analyses the Éméi-shān portion of the diary.
- James M. Hargett, Jade Mountains and Cinnabar Pools: The History of Travel Literature in Imperial China (UWP, 2018), the standard modern history of yóu-jì writing.
- James M. Hargett, “On the Date, Provenance, and Function of the Sung Travel Record Lan-p’ei lu”, Bulletin of Sung-Yüan Studies 19 (1987), pp. 47-57.
- The Sì-kù tíyào notice is in 史部·傳記類四·雜錄之屬.
Other points of interest
The Jìyè manuscript fragment (recording the 964 mission of 300 monks westward by imperial command) is the work’s most singular prize: aside from a parallel passage in Wáng Yìnglín’s 王應麟 Yùhǎi 玉海, it is the only Sòng-period detailed itinerary of a westward Buddhist pilgrimage by a court-sponsored party, predating the better-known Wáng Yándé mission to the Uyghur kingdom of Gāochāng. Edward Schafer used the Jìyè text in his 1963 Golden Peaches of Samarkand, and it remains a key source for early Sòng overland connections to South Asia.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §62.3.3.3 (Sòng diaries); §47.5 (Éméishān).
- Hargett 2006, 2008, 2018 (as above).
- CBDB person id 7211 (Fàn Chéngdà 范成大, 1126–1193).