Guìhǎi yúhéng zhì 桂海虞衡志
The Treatises of Guì-hǎi: A Yú-héng Compendium by 范成大 (Fàn Chéngdà, 1126–1193) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A Southern-Sòng natural-history and ethnographic monograph on Guǎngxī (the Southern-Sòng Guǎngyòu lù), composed by Fàn Chéngdà during his journey from his Guǎngxī governorship to his new appointment as Fūwéngé dàizhì and Sìchuān zhìzhìshǐ in Chúnxī 2 (1175). The original work was in three juan; the received Sìkù recension is condensed into one juan, with much of the original ethnographic zhìmán section truncated. The work is divided into thirteen subject-categories: zhì yándòng (caves), zhì jīnshí (minerals), zhì xiāng (incenses), zhì jiǔ (wines), zhì qì (artefacts and weapons), zhì qín (birds), zhì shòu (beasts), zhì chóngyú (insects and fish), zhì huā (flowers), zhì guǒ (fruits), zhì cǎomù (plants and trees), zázhì (miscellany), and zhì mán (the indigenous peoples). Each category opens with a short xiǎoxù preface. The work is the principal Southern-Sòng source for the natural history and ethnography of the Yáo, Zhuàng, Lí, and other indigenous peoples of Guǎngxī, and a key textual ancestor of Zhōu Qùfēi’s Lǐngwài dàidá KR2k0116.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Guìhǎi yúhéng zhì in one juan was composed by Fàn Chéngdà of Sòng. In Qiándào 2 (1166), Chéngdà, from Zhōngshū shèrén, was sent forth as Prefect of Jìngjiāngfǔ. In Chúnxī 2 (1175) he was appointed Fūwéngé dàizhì and Sìchuān zhìzhìshǐ. This compilation was made when, on the road from Guǎngyòu to Shǔ, he reminisced and composed it. The autograph preface says: “All the places I climbed and looked from, with the customs and natural products and what the gazetteers had not recorded, I have collected into one book; what was seen-and-heard among the Mánzōu and remote frontiers, worth recording, is also appended.”
It contains thirteen sections in all: zhì yándòng, zhì jīnshí, zhì xiāng, zhì jiǔ, zhì qì, zhì qín, zhì shòu, zhì chóngyú, zhì huā, zhì guǒ, zhì cǎomù, zázhì, zhì mán. Each section has a small preface; all record what is in that land. Only the zhì yándòng records what is within seven or eight lǐ of the city, places he had personally visited; the zhì jīnshí follows the Běncǎo model and records only items needed for medicine; the zhì mán records only those whose communications he himself dealt with — others not exhaustively. The zhì xiāng mostly concerns Hǎinán, since the world calls “ÈrGuǎng” the source of incense, but in Guǎngdōng the incense comes by ship, while Guǎngyòu’s incense — produced beyond the Northern Sea — is mostly inferior. The zhì qì extends to the weapons and armour of the foreign Mán, on the principle that those administering the frontier marches should know them, and so does not avoid going further afield. All sections are simply and refinedly narrated, without exaggeration of fēngtǔ or fanciful interpolation of ancient stories.
His discussion of chénshā and yíshā (cinnabars), saying that the soils-veins are not different and both produce báishí chuáng, corrects the Běncǎo’s erroneous distinction; that Yōngzhōu produces shā and Róngzhōu does not, correcting the tújīng’s homonym error; that línglíng xiāng is from Yízhōu and Róngzhōu, not Yǒngzhōu’s Línglíng; that the Tángshū’s “Línyì produces jiéliáo niǎo” is the same as Yōngzhōu’s qínjíliǎo; that the Buddhist scriptures’ “elephant has four tusks, six tusks” is unfactual; that Guìlǐng is in Hèzhōu not in Guǎngzhōu — these have rather considerable verification value.
Chéngdà’s Shíhú shī jí: of all the places he passed, mountains and rivers and customs are mostly recorded in poems. In juan 14, the self-annotations are all of Guìlín composition; only one poem on the hóngdòu kòu among flowers, only one on lújú among fruits, only one on Qīxiá dòng and one on Fózǐ yán among scenic visits — and what appears in the poem-notes is also only the four matters of mán chá, lǎo jiǔ, ránshé pí yāogǔ, and xiàngpí dōumóu, not as detailed as elsewhere. Suspect that, since this zhì was already complete, he therefore did not record them in poems.
The lújú — the zhì guǒ does not record it; observing the zhì huā small preface saying “what the northern prefectures have, none is recorded,” perhaps the zhì guǒ uses this same principle. The mán chá — the zhì cǎomù also lacks it; the poem-note says mán chá comes from Xiūrén and treats tóufēng; while the zhì cǎomù has fēnggāo yào also said to have leaves like winter-green and to treat tàiyáng tòng tóumù hūnxuàn — perhaps it is one thing under two names.
But examining the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo’s Sìyì kǎo, which cites the Guìhǎi yúhéng zhì nearly to one full juan, all zhìmán prose, and the present text contains none of it; checking the other categories what is cited in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn is also mostly outside the present text. So the original work was three juan, and this recension has been merged into one juan, with already over half cut. So whether things are present or absent is no longer the original work’s reason. Respectfully proof-read in the eleventh 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 Guìhǎi yúhéng zhì is the principal Southern-Sòng natural-history and ethnographic monograph on Guǎngxī, second only to Zhōu Qùfēi’s Lǐngwài dàidá KR2k0116 in scope. It was composed in Chúnxī 2 (1175) by Fàn Chéngdà 范成大 (1126–1193; CBDB 7211; zì Zhìnéng 致能, hào Shíhú jūshì 石湖居士) — one of the four Zhōngxīng sì dà jiā poets of Southern Sòng — during his journey from his post as Prefect of Jìngjiāngfǔ (Guìlín, 1172–1175) to his new appointment in Sìchuān. The original work was in three juan; the Sìkù recension as preserved is condensed to one juan, with much of the original zhì mán ethnographic section truncated (substantial portions are recoverable from citations in the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo Sìyì kǎo and the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn).
The work is the principal direct source for Zhōu Qùfēi’s Lǐngwài dàidá KR2k0116 (compiled 1178); Zhōu was an aide of Fàn Chéngdà in Guǎngxī and explicitly built on his work. It is in turn one of the principal sources used by the Yuán-period Mǎ Duānlín Wénxiàn tōngkǎo and by the major early-Míng compilations.
The zhì jīnshí contains a number of verifiably correct philological corrections to the standard Běncǎo tradition: it (i) denies the distinction between chénshā and yíshā (both cinnabar); (ii) corrects the tújīng’s homonymic error of placing shā in Róngzhōu (correct: Yōngzhōu); (iii) places línglíng xiāng in Yízhōu / Róngzhōu, not Yǒngzhōu’s Línglíng; (iv) corrects the Tang-shū’s jiéliáo niǎo to qínjíliǎo of Yōngzhōu; (v) places Guìlǐng (the Five Ridges) in Hèzhōu rather than Guǎngzhōu.
The work is preserved in Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 589.12).
Translations and research
- Hargett, James M., Treatises of the Supervisor and Guardian of the Cinnamon Sea: The Natural World and Material Culture of 12th-Century South China (University of Washington Press, 2010). Full English translation, critical apparatus, full study; the standard work in any Western language.
- Hargett, On the Road in Twelfth-Century China: The Travel Diaries of Fan Chengda (Stuttgart, 1989).
- Edward H. Schafer, The Vermilion Bird: T’ang Images of the South (UC Press, 1967), uses the Guìhǎi yúhéng zhì extensively.
- Hu Qǐwàng 胡起望 and Tán Guāng-guǎng 覃光廣, Guìhǎi yúhéng zhì jí-yì jiàoxíng 桂海虞衡志輯佚校注 (Sìchuān mínzú chūbǎnshè, 1986). Critical Chinese edition with reconstruction of the lost passages from Wén-xiàn tōng-kǎo and Yǒng-lè dà-diǎn.
- Wilkinson §60.3 and §74.4 (with bibliography).
Other points of interest
The work was composed by one of the most distinguished Southern-Sòng poets, who served as a senior provincial governor of Guǎngxī during a particularly important period for Hàn–indigenous-people relations and the Sòng administration of the south-western frontier. The zhìmán section — though preserved only in fragmentary form in the present recension — was the foundational ethnographic source for Zhōu Qùfēi’s much fuller Lǐngwài dàidá.
Links
- Wikidata
- Hargett, Treatises of the Supervisor and Guardian of the Cinnamon Sea (UWP, 2010)
- Wilkinson §60.3, §74.4