華陽國志

Huáyáng Guózhì 華陽國志

Treatise on the States South of Huá-shān by 常璩 (撰)

About the work

The Huáyáng Guózhì, in twelve juàn (with a one-juàn appendix), is the earliest surviving regional history (dìfāngzhì 地方誌) of southwest China — covering Bā 巴, Shǔ 蜀, Hànzhōng 漢中, and Nánzhōng 南中 (modern Sìchuān, southern Shǎnxī, Yúnnán, and Guìzhōu) from the most ancient times through the Eastern Jìn. Its title takes the literal sense “The states on the yáng (sunny / southern) side of Huáshān 華山,” that is, the territory of Liángzhōu 梁州 in the Yǔgòng 禹貢. Its author 常璩 (Cháng Qú, zì Dàojiāng 道將, c. 291–361) was a native of Jiāngyuán 江原 (modern Chóngzhōu 崇州, Sìchuān) and senior official under Lǐ Shì 李勢 (the last ChéngHàn 成漢 ruler); he was among those who urged Lǐ Shì to surrender to Huán Wēn 桓溫 in 347. The first part of the book is an extensive geographical treatment, the second a sequence of historical-biographical chapters down to the suppression of ChéngHàn (i.e., to 347), and the third a series of xiánshèng / sìnǚ 賢聖 / 士女 worthies-and-women lists. The book is the principal premodern source for southwestern regional history, ethnography, and topography.

Tiyao

[Translated from the Sìkù tíyào hosted at Kyoto Zinbun. The Wényuān source file in this corpus is the SBCK base edition; its _000.txt carries the Yuán prefaces, not the SKQS tíyào.]

By Cháng Qú 常璩 of the Jìn. Qú’s zì was Dàojiāng, of Jiāngyuán. Under Lǐ Shì he rose to Sǎnqí chángshì 散騎常侍. The Jìnshū records that the man who urged Shì to surrender to Huán Wēn was Qú himself; he is therefore in the line of Qiáo Zhōu 譙周 (the man who advised Liú Shàn to capitulate to Wèi). The Suízhì lists in its Bàshǐ 霸史 category the Hànzhī shū 漢之書 in ten juàn and the Huáyáng Guózhì in twelve, both by Qú; the Hànzhī shū was still listed in the Táng but is now lost. The Huáyáng Guózhì’s twelve-juàn count agrees with the Suízhì and the JiùTángzhì; the XīnTángzhì gives thirteen, presumably a copyist’s error. The book opens with the opening of heaven and earth and ends at Yǒnghé 永和 3 (347 CE). Its chapter sequence: Bāzhì, Hànzhōng zhì, Shǔzhì, Nánzhōng zhì, Gōngsūn Liú èrmù zhì (公孫述 and the two Liú prefects), Liú xiānzhǔ zhì (Liú Bèi), Liú hòuzhǔ zhì (Liú Shàn), Dàtóng zhì (the great unification, i.e., Hàn / Jìn re-conquest of Shǔ), Lǐ Tè / Xióng / Qī / Shòu / Shì zhì (the ChéngHàn rulers), Xiānxián shìnǚ zǒngzàn lùn, Hòuxián zhì, Xùzhì, Sānzhōu shìnǚ mùlù. In the Northern-Sòng Yuánfēng 元豐 era, Lǚ Dàfáng 呂大防 had it printed at Chéngdū with his own preface; in Jiātài 嘉泰 jiǎzǐ (= 1204) Lǐ Sī 李𡉙 (the Sìkù editors render the name with a 17-stroke variant; the standard form is 李𡉙) added a second preface, complaining that the Lǚ printing was already mutilated and unreadable, and reconstructed corruptions by collation with the Hànshū, HòuHàn shū, Chén Shòu’s Shǔshū, and the Yìbù qíjiù zhuàn 益部耆舊傳, also rearranging passages where order had been disturbed and excising redundant matter. Lǐ further added at the end of juàn 9 a notice that LǐShìzhì 李勢志 had been transcribed with omissions, and supplied a continuation. The book in our hands is therefore Cháng Qú revised, supplemented and rearranged by Lǐ Sī. The Lǐ printing has not survived; what circulates is a manuscript copy of it, plus three Míng prints — Hé Táng’s 何鏜 HànWèi cóngshū, Wú Guǎn’s 吳琯 Gǔjīn yìshǐ, and Hé Yǔdù’s 何宇度 separate edition. The Hé and Wú prints carry Zhāng Jiāyǔn’s 張佳允 reconstruction of the Jiāngyuán Chángshì shìnǚzhì 江原常氏士女志 in one juàn but are missing the Shǔjùn, Guǎnghàn, and Qiánwéi shìnǚ lists (Lǐ Sī divided juàn 10 into upper, middle, and lower portions, of which Hé Táng et al. printed only the lower). In the Hòuxián zhì twenty figures have zàn but the rest do not; in Lǐ Sī’s recension a total of 194 shìnǚ of Shǔjùn, Guǎnghàn, Qiánwéi, Hànzhōng, and Zǐtóng have zàn, and Hé Yǔdù’s print (drawn from Lǐ Sī) preserves them. The Sìkù editors here adopt Lǐ Sī’s text but note Lǐ’s mistake of placing the Xùzhì at the front (it belongs at the end), and they restore Zhāng Jiāyǔn’s nineteen Chángshì worthies as well to fill out the missing material.

Abstract

Composition is conventionally placed at c. 348–354, in the years immediately after Cháng Qú’s surrender of ChéngHàn to Huán Wēn in Yǒnghé 永和 3 (347). The internal terminus ad quem is Yǒnghé 3 itself, which is the latest event narrated; the terminus a quo is fixed by Cháng Qú’s relocation to the lower Yangtze under Eastern Jìn auspices. Cháng Qú had previously written a Hànzhī shū 漢之書 (also known as ShǔLǐ shū 蜀李書) in ten juàn — a court-history of the ChéngHàn dynasty — and the Huáyáng Guózhì repurposes much of that material under a frame organized by zhōu (Liáng, Yì, Níng) and prefecture rather than by reign. As Wilkinson notes, this is the first regional history to survive intact in Chinese literature; for the early imperial history of Sìchuān, Yúnnán, Guìzhōu, and adjacent Hànzhōng / Nánzhōng it is the principal source, drawn on heavily by all later geographers including Lì Dàoyuán 酈道元 (Shuǐjīng zhù) and Lè Shǐ 樂史 (Tàipíng huányǔ jì KR2k0029). The book also preserves a unique stratum of biography for the sub-elite of the southwest — including women (the shìnǚzhì, organized by commandery) — that has no parallel in the standard histories. The standard modern edition is Rén Nǎiqiáng 任乃強, Huáyáng Guózhì jiàobǔ túzhù 華陽國志校補圖注 (Shanghai: Shànghǎi gǔjí, 1987).

Translations and research

• Farmer, J. Michael. 2007. The talent of Shu: Qiao Zhou and the intellectual world of early medieval Sichuan. Albany: SUNY Press. — Extensive use of and commentary on the Huá-yáng Guó-zhì.
• Farmer, J. Michael. “Huayang guo zhi 華陽國志”. In Albert E. Dien, Keith N. Knapp, et al. (eds.), Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (EMCT). Berkeley: IEAS, 2015.
• Rén Nǎi-qiáng 任乃強 (ed.). 1987. Huá-yáng Guó-zhì jiào-bǔ tú-zhù 華陽國志校補圖注. Shanghai: Shànghǎi gǔjí. Standard critical edition.
• Liú Lín 劉琳 (ed.). 1984. Huá-yáng Guó-zhì jiào-zhù 華陽國志校注. Chéngdū: Bā-Shǔ shū-shè. Alternative critical edition.
• Wilkinson 2018, §60.3 (under zǎijì / regional histories).
• Concordance: Wèi-Jìn Nán-běi-cháo Concordance 24 (CUHK Institute of Chinese Studies).
• No complete English translation; Eric Henry, “Continuity and Discontinuity in Sichuan Historiography: Chang Qu and Chang Jian,” and other shorter studies have appeared.

Other points of interest

The Bāzhì and Shǔzhì are the principal early sources for the indigenous, non-Hàn populations of the southwest (the Cóng 賨, Pánhú 槃瓠, Bīn 賓, Sǒu 叟 peoples) and for the linguistic situation of late-Hàn / early-Jìn Sìchuān. The Nánzhōng zhì preserves uniquely the early geography and ethnography of what would become Yúnnán, including details on the Bó 僰 of Diān 滇 and on Zhūgě Liàng’s 諸葛亮 southwest campaigns.

Links

• Wikipedia (Chinese)
• Wikidata: Q1788334
• Sìkù tíyào (Kyoto Zinbun)
• ctext.org