方輿勝覽

Fāngyú shènglǎn 方輿勝覽

Overall Survey of Topography by 祝穆 (撰)

About the work

A 70-juan Southern Sòng cultural-geographical compendium of the lands under Sòng control as of the 1230s, by Zhù Mù 祝穆 (zì Hégǔ 和甫 / Hǔfǔ 虎甫, hào Zhānxīng wēng 樟性翁?, native of Jiànyáng 建陽), with a preface by Lǚ Wǔ 呂午 dated Jiāxī 3 (1239 jǐhài). The work is organised by the seventeen lù of the Southern Sòng plus the xíngzàisuǒ 行在所 (the temporary capital at Línān 臨安), and emphasises míngshèng gǔjì 名勝古蹟 (scenic and historic sites) and the tíyǒng 題詠 (poems and inscriptions) attached to them. The Sìkù editors describe it explicitly as nominally a gazetteer but in fact a lèishū 類書 (encyclopaedia) for the use of literati composing dēnglín tíyǒng 登臨題詠 verse on travel and famous places. The work was popular and frequently consulted in the late Sòng, Yuán, and Míng for verse-composition reference, but is criticised by the Sìkù editors for its negligible engagement with administrative and fiscal-topographical content.

Tiyao

We respectfully note: the Fāngyú shènglǎn in 70 juan is by Zhù Mù of the Sòng. Mù, zì Hégǔ 和甫, was a man of Jiànyáng. The Jiànníng fǔ zhì records that Mù’s father Kāngguó 康國 had followed Master Zhū Xī to live in Chóng’ān 崇安; in his youth Mù was named Bǐng 丙, and along with his younger brother Guǐ 癸 received instruction from Master Zhū. The chief ministers Chéng Yuánfèng 程元鳳 and Cài Háng 蔡杭 transcribed his writings to be presented at court; he was thereby appointed Dígōng láng 迪功郎 and made shānzhǎng 山長 of the Hánjiāng 涵江 Academy in Xīnghuà commandery. The book bears a preface by Lǚ Wǔ dated jǐhài of the Jiāxī era (1239), and was thus written in Lǐzōng’s reign. The matter described falls under seventeen lù, with the prefectures, military prefectures (jūn), and prefectural towns of each ranged below; and the Xíngzàisuǒ — Línān fǔ — is placed first, since the central plain was already cut off and had long ago dropped out of the yúdì (geographical world) and only the post-southward-crossing territories are described.

The work’s general arrangement, in matters such as administrative establishment, yán’gé, territorial extent, route distances, taxes, household registers, and frontier and pass strategy — categories that other gazetteers go into in detail — is throughout cursory; only on míngshèng gǔjì (scenic and historic sites) is much listed, and on shīfù xùjì (poems, fù, prefaces, and inscriptions), the entries are uniquely full. This is because the work was set up for dēnglín tíyǒng (climbing-and-gazing verse-composition) rather than for evidential research. It is called a geographical record, but is in fact a lèishū. Yet its gathering is fairly ample; though it offers nothing for institutional knowledge (zhǎnggù 掌故), it is helpful for literary composition. The fashioners of polished phrase have frequently drawn on it; from the Sòng and Yuán down to today, the workshop of belletristic composition has not stopped using this book.

According to Yè Shèng’s 葉盛 Shuǐdōng rìjì 水東日記, the inscription of Yuán Jiàng’s 元絳 “Mǐnzhōng” 閔忠 poem is on stone at Kāngzhōu 康州, while the Fāngyú shènglǎn puts it at Fēngzhōu 封州 and additionally misattributes the poem to Wèi Gāng 魏矼; further, several characters are erroneous. Fortunately, the original incised stone still survives in the Sānzhōu Cave 三洲巖, so these small slips and the others scattered through the work also do not escape; but they do not damage its general lavishness.

(The Wényuāngé prefatory matter for this text contains only a 目錄 / table of contents and no Sìkù tíyào; the translation above is from the Kyoto Zinbun digital Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào fallback. The substance was reverently submitted by Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅 with general collation by Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.)

Abstract

The Fāngyú shènglǎn is the principal extant Southern Sòng cultural-geographical compendium and one of the most heavily reprinted gazetteer-genre works of the late imperial period. Zhù Mù was a Jiànyáng (Mǐnběi) Zhū-school disciple — a zàicuán (re-grandson) of Zhū Xī’s circle through his father Zhù Kāngguó’s residence in Chóng’ān — but never held substantive office; his appointment as shānzhǎng of the Hánjiāng Academy was honourary, in recognition of his compilations. The work was completed in 1239 (Jiāxī 3) on the basis of his Fāngyú shènglì zhī tújì 方輿勝歷之圖記 manuscript and was issued in printed form during his lifetime. The structure is uniform: each prefecture or jūn is opened with the jùnmíng 郡名, fēngsú 風俗, xíngshèng 形勝, tǔchǎn 土產, shānchuān 山川, xuéguǎn 學館, tángyuàn 堂院, tíngtái 亭臺, lóugé 樓閣, xuānxiè 軒榭, guǎnyì 館驛, qiáoliáng 橋梁, sìguàn 寺觀, címù 祠墓, gǔjī 古跡, mínghuàn 名宦, rénwù 人物, míngxián 名賢, tíyǒng 題詠, and sìliù 四六 (Tang-style six-and-four parallel prose) headings. The verse and prose appendices for each named site are typically drawn from local míngjiā (named writers) and from anthologies of literati travel writing; the work thus functions as a geographically-organised anthology of Southern-Sòng míngshèng poetry.

The Wényuāngé Sìkù copy descends from the LiǎngHuái yánzhèng 兩淮鹽政 cǎijìn presentation copy. A complete Sòng print survives in fragments and was the basis for the photolithographic facsimile in the Shànghǎi gǔjí 1991 four-volume reprint (vol. 4 includes indexes of personal names, place names, and book titles); the Zhōnghuá shūjú 2003 punctuated edition is the standard modern critical edition. A separate Yuán-period adaptation by Liú Yìnglǐ 劉應李, the DàYuán hùnyī fāngyú shènglǎn 大元混一方輿勝覽 (re-edited by Zhān Yǒuliáng 詹友諒; modern critical edition by Guō Shēngbō 郭聲波, Sìchuān dàxué chūbǎnshè 2003), preserves a Yuán recension of the same text adapted to the unified Yuán empire.

The Sìkù tiyao’s central judgment — that the work is structurally a lèishū clothed as a gazetteer — is repeatedly confirmed by modern scholarship. Wilkinson lists the work explicitly under “cultural geography” rather than under empire-wide gazetteers (CHNM §62.3.3.1; the standard sequence of imperial gazetteers at §16.3.3 omits the Fāngyú shènglǎn for this reason). The work is nevertheless a major repository of Southern-Sòng poetry on local sites, and is a standard primary source for Sòng yóujì 遊記 and míngshèng 名勝 studies.

Translations and research

• Shī Hé 施和金, ed. Fāngyú shènglǎn 方輿勝覽. 4 vols. Shànghǎi gǔjí, 1991. The standard modern facsimile reprint; vol. 4 contains indexes of personal and place names and book titles.
• Fāngyú shènglǎn 方輿勝覽. Punctuated edn. Zhōnghuá shūjú, 2003. The standard modern critical edition.
• Guō Shēngbō 郭聲波, ed. Dà-Yuán hùn-yī fāngyú shènglǎn 大元混一方輿勝覽. Sìchuān dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2003. Critical edition of Liú Yìnglǐ’s Yuán adaptation.
• Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual, 6th ed., §§16.3.3, 62.3.3.1.
• Hilde De Weerdt, “What Did Su Hui’an’s Map Look Like? The Eleventh-Century Origins and the Twelfth-Century Reception of the Yu Gong Geography”, in T’oung Pao 95 (2009) — incidentally cites the Fāngyú shènglǎn as a Southern-Sòng cultural-geographical text contemporaneous with the late Sòng Yùgòng commentaries.
• No book-length European-language study of the work itself located.

Other points of interest

The Fāngyú shènglǎn is the principal Southern-Sòng source for the names of pavilions, gardens, and post-stations on the standard literati travel circuits of Mǐn, LiǎngZhè, and the Yangtze valley; it is widely cited in modern Chinese poetry annotation for the localisation of place-references in Lǐzōng-period verse. The Yuán adaptation by Liú Yìnglǐ — the DàYuán hùnyī fāngyú shènglǎn — is a witness to the work’s continuing utility as a verse-composition reference under the Yuán.

Links

• Wikidata
• ctext.org Wikisource
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (6th ed., 2022), §§16.3.3, 62.3.3.1.