Dōngjīng mènghuá lù 東京夢華錄
Records of a Dream of Splendours Past in the Eastern Capital by 孟元老 (Mèng Yuánlǎo, fl. 1136–1147) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A 10-juan Southern-Sòng nostalgic reconstruction of the topography, urban life, court ceremonies, markets, customs, festivals, and food culture of the Northern-Sòng capital Biànjīng / Dōngjīng 東京 (modern Kāifēng) before its sack by the Jīn in Jìngkāng 2 (1127). Composed at Hángzhōu by Mèng Yuánlǎo (hào Yōulán jūshì 幽蘭居士, otherwise undocumented; per his own preface he had moved to Biànjīng in Chóngníng 2 guǐwèi (1103), settled at the western Jīnliáng qiáo, and lived through the entire Northern-Sòng glory period before the catastrophe of 1127), with the autograph preface dated New Year’s Eve, Shàoxīng 17 (early 1148, =丁卯歲除日 = the last day of dīngmǎo year). The work is the principal documentary source for the urban and ceremonial life of the late Northern Sòng — markets, restaurants, opera, theatre, brothels, religious processions, the imperial jiāo (suburban sacrifice), the Lantern Festival, the Qing-míng festival, and the great Sòng court ceremonies — and is the indispensable companion to Zhāng Zéduān’s 張擇端 Qīngmíng shànghé tú 清明上河圖 painting.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Dōngjīng mènghuá lù in ten juan was composed by Mèng Yuánlǎo of Sòng. The Tōngkǎo says Yuánlǎo we do not know whence he is. From the metropolis’s wards-and-markets and customs, down to the period’s protocols, ceremonies and guards, none is unrecorded. What is recorded has not infrequent divergences from the Sòngzhì. For example: in the Sòngzhì’s nánjiāo yízhù it says that three days before the jiāo sacrifice the emperor merely fasts at Dàqìng diàn, the Imperial Ancestral Temple, and the Qīngchéng zhāigōng; but this work records the lodging of the imperial carriage at Dàqìng diàn, the lodging of the carriage at the Ancestral Temple, the carrying-out of the spirit-tablets, and the carriage’s progress to the Qīngchéng zhāigōng — all in detailed delicacy.
Again, on the dismantling of the security cordon after the jiāo sacrifice, the Sòngzhì says merely that the emperor mounts the Xuāndé mén and proclaims an amnesty; but this work records the amnesty-proclamation rite, also extremely thorough.
Only in the matter of the ceremonial-rite notes: the Sòngzhì has the emperor first ascend the altar, offer incense, present the jade and silk, descend, perform the guànxǐ, then ascend again and only then perform the first libation; this work has the emperor’s carriage ascend the altar and immediately perform the first libation, with no incense or jade-and-silk-presentation rite. Further, the tàizhù reading of the petition is, in the Sòngzhì, ordered at the time of the first libation; in this work, after the first libation the emperor again ascends the altar and only then is the petition read. So this work is not as careful as the Sòngzhì. Nevertheless, in cross-comparison and verification it cannot be said to be without benefit to historical scholarship. Respectfully proof-read in the fifth month of Qiánlóng 42 (1777).
(The autograph preface signed Yōulán jūshì Dōngjīng Mèng Yuánlǎo, dated Shàoxīng dīngmǎo suìchúrì — i.e. the last day of 1147, by which time he had moved south after the catastrophe of Jìngkāng bǐngwǔ [1126] — closes by saying he wrote it lest “those who later discuss the customs lose the actual facts; truly it would be a pity. I have respectfully arranged my recollections in sequence and made them into a collection. Whoever opens it may glimpse the splendour of the time. The ancients had a story of dreaming a journey to the land of Huáxū, where joy was without limit. I now look back, and is it not just a waking from the Huáxū dream? Hence I title it Mènghuá lù. The language is rude and unornamented, that high and low alike may understand.“)
Abstract
The Dōngjīng mènghuá lù is one of the indispensable works for the historical anthropology of pre-modern China and the principal documentary source for the urban culture of the Northern-Sòng capital Biànjīng (Kāifēng) at its height (ca. 1100–1126). It was composed at Hángzhōu by Mèng Yuánlǎo 孟元老 — almost certainly a hào of an ex-Biàn-jīng émigré whose actual name has been variously identified (modern scholarship, after Dèng Zhīchéng 鄧之誠’s edition, has tended to identify him with Mèng Yuè 孟鉞 of the Mèng family of Bózhōu, a low-level official of the Northern-Sòng huìjì sī, but no identification is universally accepted). His autograph preface is dated the last day of Shàoxīng 17 (early 1148, by Western reckoning) and locates him in his hào Yōulán jūshì and in his birth-place Dōngjīng.
The work is divided thematically across ten juan, treating the inner-and-outer city walls, gates, palaces, government offices, religious sites, markets, schools, brothels, restaurants, gardens, the imperial-festival cycle (Lantern Festival, Qīngmíng, Duānwǔ, Qīxī, Mid-Autumn, the jiāo suburban sacrifice, the míngtáng ceremony, imperial weddings and audiences), and the food, drink, theatre, and street culture of the city. It is the principal Sòng-period source for the urban-popular culture (shìjǐng) of pre-modern China and the indispensable companion to Zhāng Zéduān’s Qīngmíng shànghé tú. The Sìkù tíyào notes points where it supplements or differs from the official Sòngshǐ on imperial-ritual ceremonial.
The work directly initiated a sub-genre of nostalgic Southern-Sòng fēngtǔ writing, with later Hángzhōu-set works (KR2k0117 Dūchéng jìshèng by Nàidéwēng, KR2k0118 Mèngliáng lù by Wú Zìmù, KR2k0119 Wǔlín jiùshì by Zhōu Mì) consciously modelled on it.
The work is preserved in Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 589.8).
Translations and research
- Stephen H. West, “The Interpretation of a Dream: The Sources, Evaluation, and Influence of the Dongjing meng Hua lu,” T’oung Pao 71 (1985): 63–108. The principal English-language critical study; provides full bibliographic and textual analysis.
- Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema, eds., The Forgotten Capital: Mēng Yuán-lao’s Recollections of the Eastern Capital, A Translation and Study (in progress and partial).
- Étienne Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy (Yale, 1964), uses the Mèng-huá lù extensively.
- Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Emperor Huizong (Harvard, 2014), passim.
- Standard critical editions: Dèng Zhī-chéng 鄧之誠, Dōngjīng mèng-huá lù zhù 東京夢華錄注 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá, 1959); Yīwén Yuè 伊永文, Dōngjīng mèng-huá lù jiānzhù 箋注 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá, 2007).
- Gernet, Jacques, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion (Stanford, 1962), draws principally on the Mèng-liáng lù but cites Mèng-huá lù as comparison.
Other points of interest
The work’s preface contains one of the most beautiful pieces of pre-modern Chinese nostalgic prose, framing the lost capital as a Huáxū zhī mèng 華胥之夢 (the legendary dream of the Yellow Emperor of the Land of Huáxū) — hence the title. The work’s blend of memoir and gazetteer-format inaugurates a sub-genre of post-Jìngkāng exile-memorialism that runs from Lǐ Qīngzhào’s prefaces through the Wǔlín jiùshì.
Links
- Wikidata
- West, T’oung Pao 71 (1985): 63–108
- Dèng Zhīchéng, Dōngjīng mènghuá lù zhù (Beijing: Zhōnghuá, 1959)