Liǎng Hàn bówén 兩漢博聞
Wide-ranging Notes on the Two Hàn Histories by 楊侃 (compiler)
About the work
Liǎng Hàn bówén is a Northern Sòng shìchāo 史鈔 (“history-extract”) in 12 juàn — seven of Hànshū 漢書 and five of Hòu Hànshū 後漢書 material — compiled by Yáng Kǎn 楊侃 (964–1032, later Yáng Dàyǎ 楊大雅 after the Zhēnzōng taboo). The book selects striking phrases, allusions and short narrative items from the two Hàn histories, places them under brief catchword headings, and reproduces beneath each the original passage together with the standard commentaries — Yán Shīgǔ 顏師古 顏師古 for the Hànshū and Tang Crown Prince Lǐ Xián 李賢 李賢 (Zhānghuái tàizǐ 章懷太子) for the Hòu Hànshū. It does not classify the entries by topic, nor does it add an editorial voice; it is, in effect, a quotation- and gloss-book intended as an aide-mémoire for readers of the two Hàn histories — a forerunner of Shěn Míngsūn and Zhū Kūntián’s later NánBěi shǐ shíxiǎo lù 南北史識小錄 KR2h0003, which explicitly cites it as its model.
Tiyao
Your servants and others respectfully report. Liǎng Hàn bówén in twelve juàn. The Jiājìng-era (mid-16th-century) Huáng Lǔzēng 黃魯曾 block-print bears no compiler’s name, but according to Cháo Gōngwǔ’s 晁公武 Dúshū zhì 讀書志 it is the work of Yáng Kǎn 楊侃 of the Sòng. Kǎn was a man of Qiántáng who took the jìnshì during the Duāngǒng era (988–989) and rose to Academician of the Hall of Worthies (集賢院學士). In late life he served as Drafting Edict-Composer (制誥); to avoid Zhēnzōng’s old taboo name he changed his given name to Dàyǎ 大雅. The work selectively excerpts the two Hàn Histories, neither following the original chapter-order nor sorting by category: it simply picks out striking words and incidents and lists them as catchword headings, then sets out below each the relevant Yán Shīgǔ and Crown Prince Zhānghuái commentary. The Hànshū portion fills seven juàn, the Hòu Hànshū five. Although it is, properly speaking, of no real consequence for historical scholarship, by comparison with other category-books that gather miscellaneous tales it is altogether more sober and decorous. In the Hòu Hànshū section, where a Hànshū item is brought in, it is always marked off as Yán Shīgǔ’s; but where the Liáng-era Liú Zhāo’s 劉昭 commentary on the Continued Hànshū zhì 續漢志 is quoted, it is not distinguished from Lǐ Xián’s — a slight infelicity of method. The jìzhuàn chapter titles given in headings, too, are often garbled. And yet, take for example the entry under “Sì Hào” 四皓 (the Four Hoaryheads), which quotes Yán Shīgǔ as saying: “The designation ‘Four Hoaryheads’ originates here. Beyond it there are no surnames or given names that may be cited. They were recluses who hid their tracks, fled afar from harm, refused to make themselves conspicuous, and kept their family lineages secret; thus the histories and traditions could record nothing in detail. The accounts of Huángfǔ Mì 皇甫謐 and Quān Chēng 圈稱 and others — and in any case all the geographical books — go so far as to assign these four men surnames and personal names, which contradict each other and do not bear scrutiny. Mr. Bān [Gù] would not enter such matter into his book; the various commentators are simply guessing. Here all of it is rejected and none retained.” The Míng Imperial Academy edition (監本) of the Hànshū commentary has lost this passage entirely; only thanks to the present work does it survive. So the book is not without value for textual-critical evidence after all.
Reverently collated and presented, ninth month, forty-third year of Qiánlóng (1778).
Chief editors: your servants Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General collator: your servant Lùfèi Chí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The work is firmly attributable to Yáng Kǎn (later Yáng Dàyǎ) on the testimony of Cháo Gōngwǔ’s 晁公武 (c. 1105–1180) Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì 郡齋讀書志, the earliest catalog to list it; the Sòngshǐ 宋史 (j.300) biography of Yáng Kǎn likewise enumerates the Liǎng Hàn bówén among his compositions. Yáng Kǎn took the jìnshì in Duāngǒng 2 (989) and died in 1032; the compilation must therefore fall within those dates, and most plausibly belongs to his middle years at the Hall of Worthies (集賢院) when he had institutional access to the Hàn histories and their standard commentaries. There is no datable internal preface that would tighten this further.
The transmission history is less secure than the attribution. The Sòng and Yuán woodblock printings have not survived; the work re-enters the textual record only with Huáng Lǔzēng’s 黃魯曾 黃魯曾 Jiājìng wùwǔ (1558) Chángzhōu printing, and that printing is itself almost lost — most later witnesses descend from Huáng’s own preface attached to a body of text whose original colophon and compiler-name had been effaced. As the Sìkù tíyào notes, the Zhèjiāng provincial submitter consequently mis-attributed the Jiājìng print to Huáng Lǔzēng himself, an error already corrected in Cháo Gōngwǔ’s catalog and now restored by the Sìkù. The Qiánlóng emperor’s own poem (the Yùzhì tí prefixed to the WYG juàn zero, with characteristically erudite interlinear annotations) makes the same point and adds the touching aside that Zhōu Hòuyù 周厚堉 — the bookman whose collection had supplied the manuscript — kept his library in a Hall called Lái Yǔ 來雨樓, “Coming Rain”, a name that the emperor, then waiting on a much-needed summer rain, found auspicious enough to work into his closing couplet.
The catalog meta records 楊侃 d. 521; this is an evident slip conflating the Sòng compiler with the unrelated Northern Wèi figure Yáng Kǎn 楊侃 (488–531, Wèishū j.58), whose career had nothing to do with Hànshū studies. The Sòng dates 964–1032 followed here are those of the Sòngshǐ and the Sòngrén zhuànjì zīliào suǒyǐn tradition, with Ōuyáng Xiū’s 歐陽修 epitaph (Ōuyáng wénzhōnggōng jí j.61) as the underlying primary source.
Genre-wise the work is the earliest surviving Sòng shìchāo of the Hàn histories and stands in the category Wilkinson treats under §49.6.1 as “history-excerpts” — a category he characterizes as a major if often-undervalued route into historical knowledge for Chinese literati who could not face the bulk of the Standard Histories whole.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. The Sìkù tíyào itself remains the most-cited critical notice; Huáng Lǔzēng’s 1558 preface is the principal external testimony to the Míng-period transmission. Modern bibliographers (e.g. Zhāng Xīnchéng 張心澂, Wěishū tōngkǎo 偽書通考) accept the Sòng attribution.
Other points of interest
The Qiánlóng Yùzhì tí poem prefixed to the WYG copy is more than ornamental: its interlinear notes contain a small philological essay on the textual history (the loss of the Sòng print, the Jiājìng recovery, the wrong attribution to Huáng Lǔzēng) that anticipates and partly underwrites the Sìkù tíyào. The tíyào’s observation about the lost “Sì Hào” Yán-commentary preserved only in this book is also a useful reminder that shìchāo of this sort sometimes have a source-critical value out of all proportion to their modest scholarly aims.
Links
- 兩漢博聞 (四庫全書本) — Wikisource
- 楊大雅 — 維基百科
- 兩漢博聞 — 識典古籍
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §49.6.1 Shichao.