JīngChǔ suìshí jì 荊楚嵗時記
Record of Seasonal Observances in the Jīng-Chǔ Region by 宗懍 (Zōng Lǐn, ca. 501–565) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 1-juan calendar of seasonal customs and folk-religious observances of the central Yangzi region (the ancient Jīng 荊 and Chǔ 楚 lands, roughly modern Húběi and Húnán), arranged by month and day from New Year’s Day to year-end and the leap month, with thirty-six (originally probably more) discrete entries. Each entry describes a custom or festival with brief authorial prose, followed by interlinear annotations — universally attributed to the Suí scholar Dù Gōngzhān 杜公瞻 — drawing on the Yùzhú bǎodiǎn 玉燭寳典, Lǐjì, Xiàxiǎozhèng, Fēngsú tōngyì 風俗通義, the Yìyuàn 異苑, Mèngzǐ, the Sòushénjì-type tradition, and many other classical and Han-Wei sources. The text is the principal extant pre-Táng source for the calendrical-festival culture of the post-Han South — including the dragon-boat race, qīxī (Double-Seventh), Yúlánpén 盂蘭盆 (Avalambana / Ghost Festival), Cold-Food (hánshí) and Qīngmíng prohibition of fire, Chóngyáng (Double-Ninth), làrì (Là-festival), and many minor village customs. Wilkinson §31.4 and §39.15.1 designates it as the foundational text of Chinese festival historiography.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the JīngChǔ suìshí jì in one juan, with the old text headed “Composed by Zōng Lǐn of Jìn.” The Shūlù jiětí makes him a Liáng man. Examining the Liángshū Yuándì běnjì, it records that in Chéngshèng 3, autumn, seventh month, jiǎchén (554), Zōng Lǐn, then Dūguān shàngshū, was made Lìbù shàngshū. Further, the Nánshǐ Yuándì běnjì records that in the pacification of Wǔlíng the deliberators wished to take advantage of his fleet to move the capital to Jiànyè; Zōng Lǐn and Huáng Luóhàn were both Chǔ people who did not wish to move. This work all records Chǔ customs — it must be that man. The old heading “Jìn person” is in error.
The Táng and Sòng monographs both have one juan, agreeing with the present text; but the Tōngkǎo makes it four juan. Examining the Shūlù jiětí, which records Lǐn’s own preface as saying: “Fù Yuán’s Cháohuì, Dù Dǔ’s Shàngsì, Ānrén’s Qiūxìng zhī xù, Jūndào’s Yú là zhī shù — their composition is already harmonious, but their juxtaposition of matters not yet broad. I therefore made a brief record, to record the seasonal customs and matter-of-fact stories of JīngChǔ — from New Year’s Day to Chúrì, in all over twenty matters.” Then certainly there cannot be four juan: we know the Tōngkǎo is a transcription error. Further, on inspecting the present text it actually has thirty-six matters, and we therefore also know that what Chén Zhènsūn recorded of Lǐn’s preface has, by transcription error, “thirty” written as “twenty.” But Zhōu Mì’s Guǐxīn záshí cites “Zhāng Qiān riding the raft to the Heavenly River, seeing the Weaving-Maid, obtaining the support-loom-stone” matter as coming from the JīngChǔ suìshí jì, and the present text lacks it — so the thirty-six matters are still not the complete text.
The annotations are, by tradition, by Dù Gōngzhān of the Suí, hence they often cite Dù Táiqīng’s Yùzhú bǎodiǎn of Kāihuáng. But the Tángzhì, beneath “Zōng Lǐn JīngChǔ suìshí jì one juan,” further enters “Dù Gōngzhān JīngChǔ suìshí jì two juan.” Could it be that the original work was in one juan and Gōngzhān’s annotations divided it into two juan, and later persons re-merged them? Respectfully proof-read in the fifth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781).
Director-General compilers (chén /) Jǐ Yún, (chén /) Lù Xīxióng, (chén /) Sūn Shìyì; Director-General proof-reader (chén /) Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The JīngChǔ suìshí jì is the foundational document for the historical anthropology of the Chinese annual calendar and one of the most important pre-Táng sources for the customs of southern China. It was composed by Zōng Lǐn 宗懍 (ca. 501–565), a Liáng-court official from Jiānglíng 江陵 in Jīngzhōu, who served as Dūguān shàngshū under Liáng Yuándì 元帝 and was made Lìbù shàngshū in Chéngshèng 3 (554), as recorded in Liángshū Yuándì běnjì. The compilation date is therefore in the late 540s or early 550s, before the fall of Jiānglíng in Chéngshèng 3 (554); after the city’s destruction Zōng Lǐn was deported to Chángān, where he served the Northern Zhōu and died in Bǎodìng 5 / Tiānhé 1 (565).
The Sìkù tíyào notes (i) the misattribution to “Jìn” Zōng Lǐn in some old texts (an obvious palaeographic error: the Jìn dynasty had no man of this name); (ii) the difference between Tōngkǎo (4 juan) and the standard 1-juan recension, which is corrected as a transcription error; (iii) the discrepancy between Zōng Lǐn’s own preface (twenty-some matters) and the received text (thirty-six matters); (iv) the citation in Zhōu Mì’s Guǐxīn záshí of a Zhāng Qiān raft passage no longer in the received text — proving that even thirty-six matters is not the complete original. The annotations are universally given to the Suí scholar Dù Gōngzhān 杜公瞻; their citation of Dù Táiqīng’s Yùzhú bǎodiǎn (compiled 605–610) places the annotation layer in the early Suí.
The work is the principal pre-Táng witness for the formation of the Chinese annual calendar. Wilkinson notes that it lists 24 festivals — the basis for later medieval festival calendars — but with significant later omissions: the lantern festival (lìyuán shàngyuán 上元), Qīngmíng 清明, and Zhōngqiū 中秋 had not yet taken shape; the birthday of the Buddha (4/8) is recorded but those of Confucius and the reigning emperor are not; the Duānwǔ 端午 commemoration of Qū Yuán is here recorded for the first time, 500 years after Qū Yuán’s death (Andrew Chittick has used this gap to argue that the QūYuán association was a 6th-century projection onto a much older summer solstice fertility festival of the south).
The work is preserved in Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 589.2) and is included in the Suìshí xísú yánjiū zīliào huìbiān (Yìwén, Taipei, 1970).
Translations and research
- Andrew Chittick, “Pride of place: the advent of the Duanwu festival in early imperial Hubei,” in Tang Studies 21 (2003) and the relevant entry in EMCT.
- Derk Bodde, Festivals in Classical China: New Year and Other Annual Observances during the Han Dynasty (Princeton, 1975) — establishes the Han baseline against which Zōng Lǐn’s text records sixth-century Southern continuity and innovation.
- Patricia Buckley Ebrey and Maggie Bickford, eds., Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China (Harvard, 2006), several papers on the Sòng-period reception of Jīng-Chǔ suìshí jì.
- Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Harvard, 1992), brief discussion.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §31.4 and §39.15.1 (with bibliography).
- Critical Chinese editions: Wáng Yúkē 王毓珂, Jīng-Chǔ suìshí jì jiào-zhù 荊楚歲時記校注 (Wǔhàn: Húběi rénmín, 1985); Sòng Jīnlóng 宋金龍, Jīng-Chǔ suìshí jì jiào-zhù (Tài-yuán: Shānxī rénmín, 1987).
- Ōba Osamu 大庭脩, ed., Sōrin Keiso saijiki no kenkyū (Kansai University, multiple volumes) — the principal Japanese critical study.
Other points of interest
The work’s annotation layer by Dù Gōngzhān 杜公瞻 is itself a historically important witness, citing pre-Suí calendrical and ritual texts that are otherwise lost: the Yùzhú bǎodiǎn, Liánhuà huàjīng, Sōushén jì, Yìyuàn, Wǔjīng yìyì by Xǔ Shèn 許慎, the Hétú yùbǎn and the Lóngyú hétú, the Jīngǔyuán jì, and many others.
Links
- Wikidata
- Wilkinson §31.4 and §39.15.1
- Andrew Chittick, EMCT entry s.v.