徐霞客遊記

Xú Xiákè yóujì 徐霞客遊記

Travel Records of Xú Xiá-kè by 徐宏祖 (Xú Hóngzǔ, zì Zhènzhī, hào Xiákè, 1587–1641) — zhuàn 撰

(The character Hóng 宏 is also written 弘; the latter is the historically more common form, here normalised to 宏 per the Sìkù tíyào and the catalog meta — note that under Qiánlóng Hóng 弘 was tabooed as the emperor’s personal name, hence in Qián-lóng-period prints it was systematically replaced by 宏.)

About the work

The 12-juan late-Míng / early-Qīng-edited collected travel-records of Xú Hóngzǔ 徐宏祖 (CBDB 62822 / 129892; Hào Xiákè 霞客; 1587–1641) — the most distinguished travel-writer and proto-geographer of late-imperial China. Composed across 30 years (ca. 1607–1640) of nearly continuous travel from his native Jiāngyīn 江陰 across WúYuè, Mǐn, Chǔ, QíLǔ, YānJì, SōngLuò; Huáshān; MínYuè; Zhōngnán → Émeí; Héngshān; the Dàdù River; LíYǎ; Jīnshā Jiāng; the Láncāng (Mekong) up; the Pánjiāng; Shíménguān; finally several thousand lǐ through the south-west to Yúnnán. The autograph survived only in fragmentary scrap; collected by his friend Jì Mèngliáng 季夢良 with major lacunae; further variants in the Yíxīng Shǐ family manuscript; collated and edited as a whole by Yáng Míngshí 楊名時 in 12 juan, each subdivided upper-and-lower. Juan 1: TiāntáiYàndàngWǔtáiHéngHuá each as a separate piān. Juan 2 onwards: 25 piān of southwest travels — ZhèjiāngJiāngxī (1), Húguǎng (1), Guǎngxī (6), Guìzhōu (1), Yúnnán (16); only one piān lost.

Tiyao

We respectfully note: the Xú Xiákè yóujì in twelve juan is by Xú Hóngzǔ of Míng. Hóngzǔ was a man of Jiāngyīn; Xiákè is his zì. From youth he carried unusual qì; at thirty he set out to travel, taking only a single bundle of bedding, traversing the fine mountains-and-waters of the Southeast. From WúYuè he went to Mǐn, to Chǔ; northward to QíLǔ, YānJì, SōngLuò; ascended Huáshān and returned. He then went again from Mǐn to Yuè (Guǎngdōng); then from Zhōngnán crossed back to Éméi; visited Héngshān; further south crossed the Dàdù River, reached LíYǎ; sought the Jīnshā Jiāng; from the Láncāng northward sought the Pánjiāng; again came out at Shíménguān, traversing several thousand lǐ of remote frontier and returned. Wherever he reached, he composed prose to record the journey-traces.

After his death his autograph manuscripts were scattered. His friend Jì Mèngliáng sought them out, but with many lacunae. The Yíxīng Shǐ family also has a hand-copy, but with even more corruptions. The present is what Yáng Míngshí re-edited — twelve juan in all, each juan divided upper-and-lower. Juan 1: from Tiāntái and Yàndàng down to Wǔtái and Héng and Huá, each as a separate piān. Juan 2 onwards: all xīnán yóujì, 25 piān in all. First ZhèjiāngJiāngxī (1 piān); next Húguǎng (1 piān); next Guǎngxī (6 piān); next Guìzhōu (1 piān); next Yúnnán (16 piān). What is missing is only one piān.

Since antiquity, famous mountains and great marshes — the zhìsì (institutional sacrifices) come first; only the boundary-list-and-enfeoffment is recorded; we have not heard of pǐntí míngshèng (rating and titling famous places). It is from diǎnwǔ (the Jìn dynasty, when the office of Diǎnwǔ was created in 280) onward that travel-traces began to flourish; among Liùcháo literati none did not entrust their feeling to mist-and-peak; thus modelling the waters and copying the mountains, with bamboo staff and lacquered shoes — people called it the quánshí obsession (rock-and-spring obsession), and every household had its chanting-and-appreciation chapters. What the histories record — like Xiè Língyùn’s Jū míngshān zhì, Yóu míngshān zhì; Dài Zuò’s Xīzhēng jì; Guō Yuánshēng’s Shùzhēng jì; Yáo Zuì’s Shùxíng jì — although they had a beginning, the bamboo-slip records were not many; there had not yet been linked-volumes-and-chapters all forming one collection. Hóngzǔ was obsessed with the unusual and devoted to the remote, intent on far travel; his footsteps were fierce in seeking-out, and his brushwork particularly diligent in recording. The plenitude of yóujì exceeds nothing other than this compilation.

Although his footsteps’ arranged-by-the-day record was not intentionally written for literary purposes, with what he saw and heard with his own ears and eyes the comparison is more accurate; and Guìzhōu and Yúnnán’s distance and remoteness — the yúzhì are mostly thin — this work, on the mountain-and-river network, is split-and-clear and detailed; especially useful for zhèngjù (verification). Truly a separate stream of the shānjīng tradition, an outer chapter of the dìjì. Preserving this single style is also enough to serve for examination-and-collation. Respectfully proof-read in the fifth month of Qiánlóng 45 (1780).

Director-General compilers (chén /) Jǐ Yún, (chén /) Lù Xīxióng, (chén /) Sūn Shìyì; Director-General proof-reader (chén /) Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The Xú Xiákè yóujì is the single greatest monument of pre-modern Chinese travel-writing and a foundational work in the history of Chinese geography. Its author, Xú Hóngzǔ 徐宏祖 / 徐弘祖 (1587–1641; CBDB 62822 / 129892; zì Zhènzhī 振之, hào Xiákè 霞客; native of Jiāngyīn 江陰 in Chángzhōu, Jiāngsū) — known to history under his hào — is conventionally regarded as the founder of modern Chinese geographical observation. From age 22 (1608) until his death at 54 he travelled almost continuously across most of Míng-period China, including a final five-year south-west expedition (1636–1640) that took him through Zhèjiāng, Jiāngxī, Húguǎng, Guǎngxī, Guìzhōu, and Yúnnán; he died at his Jiāngyīn home in early 1641 shortly after his return.

The work contains several distinct types of geographical contribution: (i) detailed descriptive yóujì of the famous mountains of east China (Tiāntái, Yàndàng, Wǔtái, Sōngyuè, Héngshān, Huáshān, Lúshān, Wǔdāng) — a continuation of the Sòng yóujì tradition; (ii) the great south-west expedition (juan 2–12) — the principal documentary source for late-Míng south-west China before the Qīng-period administrative restructuring, including the Karst-region geomorphology of Guǎngxī, the Dian-Burmese frontier, and the Jīnshā / Láncāng / Pánjiāng river systems; (iii) the systematic identification of the source of the Yangzi as the Jīnshā River (rather than the upper Mín River as in the inherited Yǔgòng tradition) — a major correction to received Chinese geographical knowledge; (iv) detailed studies of South-China karst topography that are widely regarded as the first systematic Chinese contribution to physical geography.

The autograph manuscript was largely destroyed during the MíngQīng transition; the work was reconstituted by Jì Mèngliáng 季夢良 (Xú’s friend) and circulated in incomplete form, with the standard text ultimately edited as 12 juan by Yáng Míngshí 楊名時 (1660s–1737) in the Qīng. The work is preserved in Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 593.3).

Note on the name: the catalog meta and the Sìkù-period tíyào use 徐宏祖 (with 宏); historically and post-Qing the standard form is 徐弘祖 (with 弘). The replacement of 弘 by 宏 is the standard Qiánlóng taboo (避諱) for the emperor’s personal name Hónglì 弘曆.

Translations and research

• Li Chi (Lǐ Chí), The Travel Diaries of Hsü Hsia-k’o (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1974). Partial translation with detailed scholarly apparatus.
• Julian Ward, Xu Xiake (1587–1641): The Art of Travel Writing (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001). The principal English-language monograph.
• Li Chi, “The Changing Concept of the Recluse in Chinese Literature,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 24 (1962), 234–247.
• James M. Hargett, Stairway to Heaven: A Journey to the Summit of Mount Emei (SUNY, 2006), comparative.
• Standard Chinese editions: Xú Xiá-kè yóu-jì, ed. Chǔ Shào-tāng 褚紹唐 et al. (Shàng-hǎi: Shàng-hǎi gǔ-jí chūbǎn-shè, 1980, 4 vols., the standard critical edition); the 1985 edition includes the previously unknown manuscript fragments recovered from the Shǐ family archive.
• Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 3 (Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth), Cambridge, 1959, on Xú as proto-geographer; Wilkinson §50.4 with bibliography.

Other points of interest

The work is the foundational document of early-modern Chinese travel-writing and is regularly cited in studies of late-Míng intellectual culture, the Dōnglín / Fùshè generation’s opening-out of inquiry to the empirical world, and the proto-scientific natural-historical movements of the late Míng. Xú’s identification of the Jīnshā as the Yangzi’s source — challenging the received Yǔgòng tradition — is comparable in significance to contemporary European geographical revisionism.

Links

• Wikidata
• Ward, Xu Xiake (1587–1641): The Art of Travel Writing (Curzon, 2001)
• Wilkinson §50.4