Jìnbiǎn 禁扁
Plaques of the Forbidden Precincts by 王士點
About the work
A five-juan Yuán-dynasty topographical compendium of the names — palace, hall, gate, observatory, pond, lodge, park, and enclosure — borne by historic imperial residences from antiquity through the Yuán, by the tōngshì shèrén 通事舍人 (Audience Usher) Wáng Shìdiǎn 王士點 of Xūjù 須句 / Dōngpíng 東平. The 116 entries are distributed across 15 piān and arranged into the five sections labelled jiǎyǐbǐngdīngwù 甲乙丙丁戊. The work supplements the Sānfǔ huángtú (KR2k0001) with non-Hàn material and is among the principal Yuán-period contributions to the genre of “names of palaces and gates”.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Jìnbiǎn in five juan is by Wáng Shìdiǎn of the Yuán. Shìdiǎn, zì Jìzhì 繼志, was a man of Dōngpíng. The book has 116 entries in fifteen piān, divided into the five juan labelled jiǎ, yǐ, bǐng, dīng, wù. He Yàn’s 何晏 Jǐngfú diàn fù 景福殿賦 says, “Then there are the jìnbiǎn 禁楄, ranged like spreading wings”; the commentary, citing the Shuōwén 說文, says: “Biǎn 扁 — the character with 戶 over 冊 — is the inscribed plaque on a doorway”; biǎn 扁 and biǎn 楄 are interchangeable. This book records in detail the names of palaces, halls, gates, observatories, ponds, lodges, parks, and enclosures of successive ages, and so takes its title from this. Prefixed are an Zhìshùn 至順 gēngwǔ (1330) preface by Ōuyáng Xuán 歐陽玄 and an Zhìshùn guǐyǒu (1333) preface by Yú Jí 虞集, both praising the work’s comprehensiveness. Within, e.g. its treatment of the eastern and western xiāng 廂 (with the xīqīng 西清 attached to the western xiāng) follows the Hànshū commentary on Sīmǎ Xiāngrú which equates xīqīng with western xiāng, while its separate treatment of the eastern and western xù 序 as a different category is mistaken: in the Jǐngfú diàn fù, “the western xiāng lingers and opens the banquet; the eastern xù runs deep and is secret and recondite”, with the commentary explaining that western xiāng is just western xù, and eastern xù is just eastern xiāng — these are mutually defining terms, and to split them into two locations betrays incomplete study of the layout of the palaces. Again, in glossing the Qín Yúnyáng gōng 雲陽宮 the work says it was also called Línguāng 林光 and Gānquán 甘泉. Chéng Dàchāng’s Yōnglù 雍錄 had already shown that the Hàn Gānquán lay at Yúnyáng north of the Wèi, and the Qín Gānquán at Hùxiàn south of the Wèi: to identify Qín Gānquán with Yúnyáng is decidedly an error. Mèng Kāng’s commentary on the Jiāosì zhì says the Hàn Gānquán was also called Línguāng; Yán Shīgǔ explains that the Hàn built a Gānquán palace alongside the old Qín Línguāng palace, so identifying Hàn Gānquán as a synonym of Línguāng is also wrong. Here, then, the work occasionally lapses on the geographical side. As to the Qín Qínián gōng 祈年宮: the Sānfǔ huángtú makes it a foundation of Duke Mù 穆公; this work alone, following the Hànshū and the Shuǐjīng zhù, attributes it to Duke Huì 惠公, which seems not without warrant. With items like the Qǔtái gōng 曲臺宮, it draws on the Yōnglù to supplement the gaps of the Huángtú, and is a useful comparative resource. Appended at the end is a Míng shì 名釋 (Explanation of names) section whose glossing is exact and authoritative. Though here and there uneven, the work is not without value to the student of history. Reverently collated and submitted, twelfth month, Qiánlóng 46 (early 1782). Editors-in-chief: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General collation officer: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The Jìnbiǎn is the only surviving Yuán contribution to the gōngdiàn bù 宮殿簿 sub-genre — alphabetised or grouped lists of the personal names of imperial palaces, halls, gates, towers, ponds, and parks. Wáng Shìdiǎn (d. 1359?), a Dōngpíng / Xūjù 須句 native, served as tōngshì shèrén (audience usher) at the Yuán court and was concurrently zhāngyín 掌印 (seal-keeper) of the Mìshū jiān 秘書監; he is best known as the compiler of the Mìshū jiān zhì 秘書監志 (an institutional treatise of the imperial library that Wilkinson cites for the genesis of the DàYuán dà yītǒng zhì 大元大一統志, CHNM §16.3.3). Wáng wrote the Jìnbiǎn during his service in Dàdū, completing it sometime before the Zhìshùn era prefaces (1330 and 1333). The 116 entries are organised by category of named site (palace, hall, observatory, pond, lodge, etc.), with each entry identifying parent dynasty, location, and the texts in which the name first appears. The closing Míng shì 名釋 is a glossary of the architectural terms themselves (xiāng, xù, jǐ, qīng, miàn, shǔ, etc.), drawing on the Shuōwén, the Ěryǎ, and Hàn fu-commentary.
The Wényuāngé recension preserves the prefaces by Ōuyáng Xuán (Zhìshùn 1, 1330) and Yú Jí (Zhìshùn 4, 1333), which are the basis for the date bracket given here. The Sìkù tiyao (translated above) accepts the Jìnbiǎn’s priority over the Sānfǔ huángtú on the Qín Qínián gōng and credits its use of the Yōnglù to fill the Huángtú’s lacunae for the Hàn Qǔtái gōng and other sites. The work is principally a HànWèiTáng compendium; coverage of Yuán palace names is comparatively thin, since these were politically sensitive at the time of composition.
The work is registered in the Yuán shǐ yìwén zhì 元史藝文志 dìlǐ lèi. The Wényuāngé Sìkù copy was based on the LiǎngJiāng zǒngdū 兩江總督 cǎijìn běn presentation copy.
Translations and research
- Jìnbiǎn jiàozhèng 禁扁校證, Lǐ Xiùshēng 李修生 et al., eds. Included in the Quán Yuán wén 全元文 supplementary volumes (Jiāngsū gǔjí, 1999–2004), as Wáng Shìdiǎn’s principal extant work alongside the Mìshū jiān zhì.
- Cited extensively in Wú Hóng 巫鴻 (Wu Hung), The Wu Liang Shrine (Stanford UP, 1989) and Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture (Stanford UP, 1995) for Hàn palace nomenclature.
- No book-length European-language study located.
Other points of interest
The Jìnbiǎn is the principal source for the Yuán palace names of Dàdū (the Dàmíng diàn 大明殿, Yánchūn gé 延春閣, etc.), and is therefore one of the keystone texts for any reconstruction of the architectural plan of Khan-baliq.
Links
- Wikidata
- ctext.org Wikisource
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (6th ed., 2022), §16.3.3 (citation of Wáng Shìdiǎn’s Mìshū jiān zhì).