Liáng Yuándì zhígòng tú 梁元帝職貢圖
Emperor Yuan of Liang’s Illustrations of Tributary Envoys by 蕭繹 (Xiāo Yì, Emperor Yuan of Liang, 508–554/555 CE) — zhuàn 撰
About the work
A painted scroll with accompanying inscriptions (tú 圖 with textual commentary), composed by Xiāo Yì 蕭繹 (Emperor Yuán of the Southern Liang dynasty, r. 552–554, d. 555 CE), depicting and describing foreign tributary envoys who came to the Liang court. The work belongs to the genre of “illustrations of tribute-bearing peoples” (zhígòng tú 職貢圖), recording the appearance, customs, and products of foreign states from the perspective of the Liang imperial court. The KRP text preserves the preface (xù 序) of this work. A famous copy of the illustrations (partially surviving) is now in the collection of the National Museum of China in Beijing, though the extent to which the surviving paintings correspond directly to Xiao Yi’s original is debated.
Abstract
The preface opens with a reference to the ancient Zhōulǐ office of the Zhífāng Shì 職方氏 (Controller of the Regions), whose duty was to maintain maps of the realm and its surrounding foreign peoples. The text traces this tradition from the Zhou through the Han dynasty — when the Han extended its reach against the Southern Qiang, opened the Western Regions, founded Jincheng, opened Yumenguan Pass, and sought horses from Dàwān (Ferghana). It then pivots to the Liang emperor’s forty-year reign and the unprecedented scale of tributary missions:
“From beyond the passes [westward] for eighteen thousand lǐ, where the road’s narrowest point is a foot and six inches wide. High mountains touch the clouds; deep valleys blot out the landscape; snow has no summer or winter but shares color with the white clouds; ice has no early or late but remains firm as white rock. [The envoys] crossed Kongcang (the Pamir region), passed Kunwu, traversed Qingqiu and leaped across Danjue… scorching winds and weak water did not diminish their determination; heat and headaches did not change their constancy. Therefore they renounced the treasures of luminous pearls and kingfisher feathers [as beneath their purpose], and refused to ride dragon-patterned, sweat-blood horses [as marks of ostentation].”
The preface then describes the procession of envoys — translators upon translators, successive relay translations — and justifies the emperor’s commission of the Zhígòng tú as a documentary record for posterity. Xiao Yi claims the personal execution of the paintings.
The work is important as both an artistic monument (the surviving copy of the paintings, however incomplete, records the appearance of envoys from Persia, the Sri Lankan kingdoms, Langkasuka, and other states) and a literary document of Liang-period imperial cosmology.
Translations and research
- Xiang Da 向達. “Liáng Yuándì zhígòng tú” 梁元帝職貢圖. Guóxué jìkān 國學季刊 4.2 (1934). Classic study of the work’s history.
- Foreigners in the surviving paintings are discussed in numerous art historical studies on the National Museum of China scroll.
Links
- ctext.org: https://ctext.org/search.pl?if=en&search=職貢圖