XīHàn Huìyào 西漢會要
Essential Documents and Regulations of the Former Hàn by 徐天麟 (撰)
About the work
A retrospective huìyào compiled by Xú Tiānlín 徐天麟 (early 13th century), modeled directly on the structure of the Táng Huìyào of Wáng Pǔ. It rearranges the institutional content of the Hànshū—drawn from the jì, zhì, biǎo, and zhuàn—under fifteen subject heads (367 items in total). The work was presented to the throne in Jiādìng 4 (1211) and ordered deposited in the Imperial Library.
Tiyao
By Xú Tiānlín of the Sòng. Tiānlín, zì Zhòngxiáng 仲祥, of Línjiāng. Took the jìnshì in Kāixǐ 1 (1205); was assigned Education Officer of Fǔzhōu, then Erudite of the Military Academy, then judge of Huìzhōu and Tánzhōu, and acting prefect of Yīngdé. His career is appended to the Sòngshǐ biography of Xú Mèngshēn 徐夢莘. The Sòngshǐ says Tiānlín was the son of Tōngzhí láng Xú Dézhī 徐得之 and the nephew of Mèngshēn. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì says he was Mèngshēn’s son. But Lóu Yuè’s Gōngkuì jí preserves a preface to the XīHàn Huìyào, which says: “Xú Sīshū wrote a Zuǒshì guójì; his elder brother, Hidden-Library Shānglǎo, wrote Běiméng lù. Sīshū’s son Mèngjiān then wrote a Hàn guān kǎo; Sīshū’s second son, Zhòngxiáng, wrote a Hàn Huìyào.” Shānglǎo is Mèngshēn’s zì, Sīshū is Dézhī’s zì. Therefore the Sòngshǐ is not in error; Cháo is.
The work is built on the model of the Táng Huìyào. It draws institutional and ritual matter from the Hànshū, distributed across jì, zhì, biǎo, zhuàn, and groups it by subject under topical headings. Material that fits no fixed heading is appended as “miscellaneous record” in the manner of Sū Miǎn. Fifteen gates in total, 367 entries. In Jiādìng 4 (1211), Tiānlín memorialized the work to the court, and by edict it was sent to the Department of State Affairs and deposited in the Imperial Library. Bān Gù’s Hànshū is famously broad and full; on the ritual, music, punishments, and government of an entire dynasty, it grasps every essential. But the matter is densely organized, the prose extensive, and one cannot easily isolate its outline. Tiānlín distinguishes and divides, traces threads back to their sources, presents each clearly. His arrangement is exactingly precise. The one limitation is that he draws from the Hànshū alone—Hàn institutional matter found in other works is altogether omitted; this is somewhat narrow. So too in the Yúfú (carriage and clothing) section, he excerpts the rhetorical flourishes of the rhapsodies of Sīmǎ Xiàngrú and Yáng Xióng wholesale, as if they were factual—an irregular practice. Even so, for comprehensiveness and detail no other work exceeds it. Just as Yán Shīgǔ has been called “a meritorious officer of the Hànshū,” Tiānlín may stand without shame in that line.
Abstract
Presented to the throne in Jiādìng 4 (1211) and deposited in the Imperial Library, the XīHàn Huìyào in 70 juǎn is the model retrospective huìyào: not a documentary collection of contemporary materials (as the Táng and Wǔdài huìyào had been) but a rearrangement of the standard history under topical heads, designed for institutional reference. Wilkinson (Chinese History: A New Manual, §51.1, Box 263) classifies it together with the equivalent DōngHàn huìyào (1226) and Dǒng Yuè’s Qīguó kǎo as the principal antiquarian huìyào, distinguishing them from the three contemporaneously compiled ones (Táng, Wǔdài, Sòng).
The dating is firm at 1211, the year of presentation. Xú Tiānlín’s life-dates are not precisely recorded—both the Sòngshǐ and CBDB are silent—but his examination success in 1205 and the dates of his two huìyào (1211 and 1226) place him securely in the late Níngzōng / early Lǐzōng era. The attribution-error in Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì (making Tiānlín Mèngshēn’s son rather than nephew) is corrected by Lóu Yuè’s Gōngkuì jí preface, as the Sìkù editors note.
Translations and research
Standard punctuated edition: Xī-Hàn Huìyào 西漢會要, Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1955; reprint 2006 (in Scripta Sinica; in Cóngshū jíchéng). Wilkinson, §51.1, notes that “the author used the Tang huiyao as his model. Sources are indicated”—a methodological signal that distinguishes Xú Tiānlín’s work from the looser later Qīng huìyào. Scholarship: Wāng Mèngchuān 汪夢川, “Xī-Hàn Huìyào kǎosuǒ” (Wénxiàn 文獻 1996.4); see also Wáng Yǒng 王勇, Sòngrén bù zuò Hàn shǐ 宋人補作漢史 (Yuèlù shūshè, 2017), which contextualizes the work within Sòng-period reconstructions of Hàn institutional history.
Other points of interest
Xú Tiānlín belongs to a remarkable historiographic family: his uncle Xú Mèngshēn 徐夢莘 is the compiler of the Sānzhāo běiméng huìbiān 三朝北盟會編; his elder brother Xú Mèngjiān 徐孟堅 wrote a Hàn guān kǎo 漢官考; their father Xú Dézhī 徐得之 wrote a Zuǒshì guójì 左氏國紀. Four major historiographical works in two generations.