蠻書

Mánshū 蠻書

Book of the Southern Barbarians (also: Yúnnán Zhì 雲南志) by 樊綽 (撰)

About the work

The Mánshū, in 10 juàn, is the earliest surviving systematic ethnographic and topographical treatise on the Nánzhào 南詔 kingdom (649–902) of present-day Yúnnán, written by 樊綽 Fán Chuò, who served c. 862–864 as a cōngshì 從事 to Cài Xí 蔡襲, the Annam (Ānnán) Military and Surveillance Commissioner during the Nánzhào invasions of the late Yìzōng era. The book treats in turn the six original zhào 詔 (chiefdoms) of Yúnnán, the rise of the kingdom of Nánzhào, the major routes through the southwest, the Liù zhào and Wūmán 烏蠻 / Báimán 白蠻 ethnic groupings, the kingdom’s military organization, agriculture, dress, marriage customs, religion, and language; juàn 8 contains some of the earliest transcriptions of the Yí 彝 / Bái 白 (Tibeto-Burman) languages. Lost in the Míng, the present text is a Sìkù-editor reconstruction from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. It is the principal source behind the XīnTángshū Nánmánzhuàn and parts of the Zīzhì tōngjiàn on Nánzhào.

Tiyao

By Fán Chuò 樊綽 of the Táng. The XīnTángshū yìwénzhì lists it. The Sòngshǐ yìwénzhì lists Fán’s Yúnnán zhì 雲南志 in 10 juàn but does not write it under the title Mánshū. The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn gives it yet another title, Yúnnán shǐjì 雲南史記. The names diverge, but Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōngjiàn kǎoyì, Chéng Dàchāng’s 程大昌 Yǔgòng tú 禹貢圖, and Cài Shěn’s 蔡沈 Shū jízhuàn all cite “Mánshū” with passages matching the present text — so the title in the XīnTángshū Yìwénzhì is the reliable one. The Yìwénzhì also describes Fán Chuò as cōngshì to Lǐngnán xīdào jiēdù shǐ Cài Xí 嶺南西道節度使蔡襲; the Tōngjiàn says rather that Cài Xí was Ānnán jīnglüèshǐ 安南經略使 (Military Surveillance Commissioner of Annam) — and Fán Chuò’s text agrees with the Tōngjiàn against the Xīnshū. Composition is in Xiántōng 咸通 1 (= 860) and just after; Mánshū uses the first-person chén 臣 throughout, and ends with a notice that it was assembled as a record of “the rise and fall of the Six Zhào” 錄六詔始末 in 10 juàn, transmitted by Zhāng Shǒuzhōng 張守忠 to the throne via the route of the Annam jūnzhōu jiāngkǒu 安南郡州江口. The book was therefore presented at court. Annam shares a frontier with Nánzhào; Fán Chuò witnessed the mán matters firsthand as a staff officer; on the Six Zhào, their tribes, their customs, the geography, and the developmental sequence of imperial measures, his account is exceedingly detailed — the most ancient of all yúdì 輿地 texts surviving for that region. Sòng Qí’s 宋祁 Nánmánzhuàn in the XīnTángshū, and Sīmǎ Guāng’s account of Nánzhào in the Tōngjiàn, draw heavily on it. Chéng Dàchāng and others quote its description of the Láncāngjiāng 蘭滄江 in support of the Yǔgòng “Hēishuǐ” 黑水 hypothesis. The Sòng era held the book in great esteem; from the Míng on it disappeared. Even Yáng Shèn 楊愼, that erudite man, says of Fán’s writing that “the catalogue is preserved but the book is gone” — long before our day it was missing. The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserves it, but the text is heavily damaged and not always readable. There are no other recensions to collate against. Programme Lì of the Hóngwǔ era, in his Yúnnán xīxíng jì 雲南西行記, reports that Lìjiāng tōngshǒu Zhāng Hé 張翥 had shown him a copy of Fán’s Yúnnán zhì, which “had many character-errors” — a corruption already at that time. Here we have collated the cited passages in other works to correct what we can; passages that remain unintelligible we mark with a remark ànyǔ 按語 in the lower margin. The result is published in 10 juàn under the XīnTángshū Yìwénzhì title, Mánshū, on the principle of preserving the original heading.

Abstract

樊綽 Fán Chuò (fl. 860s) served as cōngshì to Cài Xí 蔡襲, the Annam Military Surveillance Commissioner, during the Nánzhào invasions of the late Yìzōng 懿宗 era. Composition is dated to c. 862–864 — at the height of the Nánzhào / Táng war. The internal use of chén and the colophon “presented to the throne via Annam jiāngkǒu” identify it as a jìnbiǎo (memorial-presentation) work; its strategic intent is unmistakable. The book’s 10 juàn cover: (1) routes from Yúnnán to Sìchuān and to Annam; (2) further routes; (3) the original Six Zhào; (4) tribal groupings (Wūmán 烏蠻 — Tibeto-Burman Yí — and Báimán 白蠻 — Tibeto-Burman Bái); (5) Yúnnán cities and palaces; (6) Yúnnán zhōu and the great rivers; (7) products and customs; (8) the languages and dialects of the Six Zhào (with brief but invaluable lexica of Báimán and Wūmán — Wilkinson notes “the 16 words in Báimán and the six words in Wūmán” preserved here are some of the earliest external attestations of these Tibeto-Burman languages); (9) Nánzhào military organization and weaponry; (10) relations with Annam, Tibet, and the Pyu (Piào 驃) kingdom of present-day Burma. Lost in the Yuán / Míng (Yáng Shèn already lamented its loss), it was recovered from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn by the Sìkù editors. The standard modern critical edition is Xiàng Dá’s 向達, Mánshū jiàozhù 蠻書校註 (Zhōnghuá, 1962). G. H. Luce’s 1961 The Manshu: Book of the Southern Barbarians is the standard English translation, with extensive ethnographic notes.

Translations and research

• Luce, G. H., tr. 1961. The Man Shu: Book of the Southern Barbarians. Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, Data Paper No. 44. — Complete annotated English translation; the standard reference.
• Xiàng Dá 向達 (ed.). 1962. Mán-shū jiào-zhù 蠻書校註. Beijing: Zhōng-huá. The best Chinese critical edition.
• Backus, Charles. 1981. The Nan-chao Kingdom and T’ang China’s Southwestern Frontier. Cambridge: CUP. — Major Western study of the Nán-zhào kingdom.
• Charles Holcombe, “Early Imperial China’s Deep South: The Viet Regions through Tang Times,” T’ang Studies 15–16 (1997–98).
• Bryson, Megan. 2017. Goddess on the Frontier: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China. Stanford: SUP. — Discusses the Nán-zhào religious context.
• Wilkinson 2018, §61.3.3.2 (under “Manshu” and Nán-zhào).
• No general modern Chinese translation, but multiple modern editions and partial translations exist for the linguistic data.

Other points of interest

The Mánshū preserves the earliest external lexicon of Tibeto-Burman Bái (Báimán) and Yí (Wūmán) languages — sixteen words for Báimán and six for Wūmán — making it a foundational source for historical linguistics of the southwest (cited in this connection by Pulleyblank, Coblin, and others). The Tōngjiàn kǎoyì and Sòng historical scholarship in general would have to be substantially rewritten without it.

Links

• Wikipedia (Chinese)
• Wikidata: Q11103252
• Sìkù tíyào (Kyoto Zinbun)
• ctext.org