Sānfǔ huángtú 三輔黃圖
Yellow Plan of the Three Capital Districts by 闕名 (anonymous)
About the work
A six-juan topographical handbook on the palaces, gates, towers, parks, and ritual sites of the Qín–Hàn capital region — the sānfǔ 三輔 of Cháng’ān, that is, the Jīngzhào 京兆, Zuǒ Píngyì 左馮翊, and Yòu Fúfēng 右扶風 commanderies. Despite the catalog dynasty tag (here defaulted in the meta to ”—” / 闕名), the work is now generally placed in the mid-to-late Táng on internal evidence; the Sìkù editors (following Chéng Dàchāng 程大昌) argue conclusively that it cannot be earlier than Sùzōng’s 肅宗 Zhìdé 至德 era (756–758). It is one of the foundational sources for the historical topography of Cháng’ān and the Hàn imperial palaces, and remains a routine reference in Western Hàn architectural and ritual history.
Tiyao
The Sānfǔ huángtú in six juan does not bear the name of its compiler. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s 晁公武 Dúshū zhì 讀書志, citing material drawn from Liú Zhāo’s 劉昭 commentary to the Xù Hàn zhì 續漢志, dated it to a man of the Liáng or Chén period. Chéng Dàchāng’s 程大昌 Yōnglù 雍錄 argues, however, that the various Huángtú passages cited by Jìn Zhuó 晉灼 are mostly absent from the present text, while the present text’s entries on Jiàntái 漸臺, Biāochí 彪池, the Gāomiào 高廟, and the Yuánshǐ jìshèjì yí 元始祭社稷儀 all expressly invoke an “older Plan” (jiù tú 舊圖). This shows that the present text is not what Jìn Zhuó saw. Furthermore, since the present text reflects the renaming of Huáilǐ 槐里 as Xīngpíng 興平 — an event of Zhìdé 2 (757) — the compiler must postdate the reign of Sùzōng (r. 756–762). Chéng’s argument is more firmly grounded than Cháo’s. In the present recension, only the Gāomiào entry fails to cite the older Plan; the Cāngchí 滄池 entry does cite it, though Chéng overlooked this. The remaining three entries agree. This is presumably the very recension Chéng saw, with Cāngchí miscopied as Gāomiào.
The book throughout records the antiquities of Cháng’ān, occasionally bringing in Zhōu-period sites such as the Língtái 靈臺 and Língyòu 靈囿; but the Hàn is its principal subject, and it occasionally reaches as far as the Héjiān Rìhuá Palace 河間日華宮 and the Liáng Yàohuá Palace 梁曜華宮, while keeping the imperial capital its main concern. Hence the title Sānfǔ huángtú: the sānfǔ (so called by Yán Shīgǔ 顏師古 in his commentary to the Hànshū) are Cháng’ān-east as Jīngzhào, Cháng’ān-north as Zuǒ Píngyì, and Wèichéng 渭城-west as Yòu Fúfēng. Its description of palace, hall, park, and walled enclosure is set forth in detail and is regularly drawn upon by students of antiquity. It does, however, indiscriminately quote forged works such as the Xījīng zájì 西京雜記 and the Hàn Wǔ gùshì 漢武故事, along with informal narrative compilations such as the Dòngmíng jì 洞冥記 and the Shíyí jì 拾遺記; this fondness for the curious has in places compromised its critical accuracy and is the work’s one notable blemish.
Abstract
The text describes itself as a record of the imperial residences and ritual sites of the Western Hàn capital, opening with the Sānfǔ yán’gé 三輔沿革 and zhìsuǒ 治所, then surveying the palaces of Qín and Hàn, the city walls, gates, and markets of Cháng’ān, the Hàn-period palace complexes (Chánglè 長樂, Wèiyāng 未央, Jiànzhāng 建章, Guì 桂, Běi 北, Gānquán 甘泉), and the imperial parks, ponds, and terraces. The standard Sòng and Yuán traditions ascribed it variously to a Liáng–Chén compiler, to Mèng Kāng 孟康 of the third century, or to an anonymous Hàn–Wèi figure. The Sìkù editors definitively place the received recension in the late Táng (post-757) on the basis of the Huáilǐ → Xīngpíng renaming. Modern scholarship (Hè Cìjūn 賀次君, Chén Zhí 陳直) tends to view the work as a layered composition, with a Wèi–Jìn substrate enlarged or reworked under the late Táng or possibly the early Sòng — a position implicit already in the Sìkù tíyào’s reference to a “former Plan” (jiù tú) cited by the present text.
The earliest extant printed edition, the Fǔzhōu prefectural school imprint 撫州州學刻 of Shàoxīng 23 (1153), with the postface by Miáo Chāngyán 苗昌言 dated the seventh month of guǐyǒu of Shàoxīng (1153), is preserved in the Sìbù cóngkān facsimile (the source of the digitized text used here). The Wényuāngé Sìkù copy (V468.1) is a later transcription. The Héjiān Rìhuá and Liáng Yàohuá episodes — both quoted from forged or semi-forged paratexts — illustrate the Sìkù editors’ criticism that the work’s eclecticism overrode its philological caution. Despite this, no Cháng’ān topographer can do without it, and Yán Shīgǔ already cited the Huángtú extensively in his Hànshū commentary; Rú Chún 如淳 of the Wèi likewise quoted “this Plan” as authority.
The work is registered in the Xīn Tángshū yìwén zhì 新唐書藝文志 dìlǐ lèi at one juan (anonymous), and was already by Sòng times divided into three or six juan; the present six-juan structure is the standard Sòng-onward division.
Translations and research
- Hè Cìjūn 賀次君, ed. Sānfǔ huángtú jiàozhèng 三輔黃圖校證. Shǎnxī rénmín, 1980. Standard collated edition; reconstructs early citations and assesses authorship.
- Chén Zhí 陳直, ed. Sānfǔ huángtú jiàozhèng 三輔黃圖校證. Shǎnxī rénmín, 2006. Reissue with extensive philological notes by the leading Wèi–Jìn historian, identifying the work’s quotations of forged paratexts.
- Hé Qīnggǔ 何清谷, Sānfǔ huángtú jiàoshì 三輔黃圖校釋. Zhōnghuá shūjú, 2005. The most accessible modern critical edition.
- Sage, Steven F. Ancient Sichuan and the Unification of China. SUNY Press, 1992 — uses the Sānfǔ huángtú extensively for Hàn imperial spatial organization.
- Wú Hóng 巫鴻 (Wu Hung). Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture. Stanford UP, 1995 — repeatedly cites the work for descriptions of Wèiyāng and Jiànzhāng palaces.
Other points of interest
The Sānfǔ huángtú preserves architectural and ceremonial details of Wèiyāng, Jiànzhāng, and the Gānquán complex that survive nowhere else: the Qílín gé 麒麟閣 portrait gallery, the Tiānlù gé 天祿閣 imperial archive, the Yúchí 魚池 and Tàiyè chí 太液池 ponds, the artificial mountain Xī shān 西山 inside the imperial park, and the Jīnmǎ mén 金馬門. These passages have been the basis of every modern reconstruction of Hàn palatial architecture, including the influential one by Adachi Kiroku 足立喜六 (1933).