Nán Sòng guǎngé lù 南宋館閣錄
Record of the Southern Sòng Imperial Library by 陳騤 (Chén Kuí, 撰), with anonymous Xùlù 續錄
About the work
The Nán Sòng guǎngé lù in 10 juǎn, plus a Xùlù 續錄 (continuation) in 10 juǎn, is the principal Southern Sòng documentation of the Imperial Library — Mìshū shěng 秘書省, also called Sānguǎn 三館 (the Three Halls: the Hànlín, the History Hall, and the Imperial Library proper) and Bìshūshěng — under the southern court at Lín’ān 臨安. The original was compiled by Chén Kuí 陳騤 (1128–1203) when he served as Imperial Librarian in the Chúnxī 淳熙 reign of Xiàozōng 孝宗; the lost preface by Lǐ Tāo 李燾 dates the original work to Chúnxī 4 (1177). The continuation, by an anonymous later compiler, extends the record from Chúnxī 5 (1178) down to Xiányōu 5 (1269). The two together form a continuous administrative chronicle of the Library spanning more than ninety years. The transmitted recension is in 9 juǎn (the catalog meta gives 存9卷). Both parts are organized under nine standing rubrics: 沿革 (institutional history), 省舍 (buildings), 儲藏 (holdings), 修纂 (editorial compilation), 撰述 (literary composition), 故實 (precedents), 官秩 (rank), 廩祿 (stipend), and 職掌 (office duties). The Sìkù editors note that the 沿革 section of the original and the 廩祿 section of the continuation are wholly lost, the rest having been reconstructed from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典.
Tiyao
The editors respectfully submit that the Nán Sòng guǎngé lù in 10 juǎn, with the Xùlù in 10 juǎn (the Xùlù lacks an attributed compiler), was authored by Chén Kuí of the Sòng. Kuí, zì Shūjìn 叔進, was a native of Línhǎi 臨海 in Tāizhōu 台州. He topped the jìnshì list of Shàoxīng 24 (1154); in early Qìngyuán 慶元 he reached Chief Privy Counsellor and Vice Grand Councillor (知樞密院事兼參知政事), but was at odds with Hán Tuōzhòu 韓侂胄, was sent out to manage the Dòngxiāo Belvedere 洞霄宫, and died with the posthumous title Wénjiǎn 文簡; his biography is in the Sòngshǐ. According to Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí, in the Chúnxī period Kuí presided over the Péngshān Library and recorded with his colleagues the affairs from Jiànyán 1 (1127) onward, this being the result; Lǐ Tāo wrote the preface. The continuation was made by later hands who added to the original framework.
The present Lù covers Jiànyán 1 through Chúnxī 4 (1127–1177); the Xùlù covers Chúnxī 5 through Xiányōu 5 (1178–1269). Both are organized under nine rubrics — institutional history, buildings, holdings, editing, composition, precedents, ranks, stipends, duties — fully detailed and a true repository of one dynasty’s documentation. The transmitted versions were corrupt and barely readable; only the version preserved in Yǒnglè dàdiǎn was relatively complete. We have collated against it: thirty-one missing entries restored, sixteen errors corrected; for the discrepancies between the Library record and the Sòngshǐ in titles and ranks, we have appended footnotes for reference. Only the 沿革 (institutional history) section of the Lù and the 廩祿 (stipend) section of the Xùlù are wholly lost in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, with no source for restoration; the work was already incomplete before the Míng. We therefore leave it as it stands. Respectfully collated, ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781).
Abstract
The Nán Sòng guǎngé lù is the institutional self-portrait of the Southern Sòng Imperial Library and stands as the Sòng counterpart to Lǐ Zhào’s Hànlín zhì (KR2l0002) and to Chéng Jù’s earlier Líntái gùshì (KR2l0003). Its survival pattern is characteristic of major Sòng administrative monographs: lost in standalone form by the Míng, partially recovered by the Sìkù editors from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, and printed in the Sìkù quánshū. The Xùlù is anonymous; the Sìkù editors do not speculate on authorship. As a continuous documentary record of one of the most prestigious Southern Sòng bureaus, the Lù preserves dated lists of staff (down to specific persons whose biographies are not always in Sòngshǐ), reports on book collection and copying, and a quantity of imperial directives; it is one of the foundational primary sources for the cultural history of the Southern Sòng court.
Translations and research
- Wáng Xīn 王心. 1998. Nán Sòng guǎngé xùlù jiào zhèng 南宋館閣續錄校證. Zhonghua. Critical edition of the Xùlù.
- Zhāng Fùxiáng 張富祥. 2000s. Series of articles on Southern Sòng Mìshū shěng (in Wénshǐ 文史 and elsewhere) draws extensively on the Guǎngé lù.
- Winston W. Lo. 1987. An Introduction to the Civil Service of Sung China. University of Hawaii Press. (Background on Sòng central-government bureaus.)
Other points of interest
Chén Kuí is also remembered as one of the first Chinese rhetoricians: his Wén zé 文則 — a Southern Sòng treatise on rhetorical figures — is sometimes cited as the first systematic Chinese stylistics. He is therefore unusually well-attested as both an institutional and a theoretical writer.