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遂初堂書目

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Text ID
KR2n0003
Date
1180–1194
Dynasty
宋

Suìchūtáng shūmù 遂初堂書目

Catalogue of the Hall of Following One’s Original Intent

by 尤袤 (Yóu Mào, 1127–1194)

About the work

A Southern Sòng private bibliography in 1 juan compiled by Yóu Mào, the Wúxī poet and minister of rites, before his death in 1194. The Suìchūtáng — Yóu’s family library — was reckoned by Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫 the foremost private collection of his day. The catalogue is short, unannotated (no jiětí under each title), and shelf-list-style, but it is the earliest extant Chinese bibliography to record multiple block-print editions of the same title for collation purposes — e.g. Sìchuān, Jízhōu, Yuèzhōu, and Húběi recensions of the Hànshū 漢書 are all listed side by side. Together with Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì KR2n0002 (Cháo Gōngwǔ) and Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí KR2n0005 (Chén Zhènsūn) it is one of the three surviving Sòng private library catalogues. The text classifies books into 4 main divisions (jīng 9 categories, shǐ 18, zǐ 12, jí 5 = 44 sub-categories total). The Sìkù base text is the Liǎngjiāng zǒngdū copy.

Tiyao

The Suìchūtáng shūmù in one juan was compiled by Yóu Mào of the Sòng. Yóu, zì Yánzhī, was a man of Wúxī, a Shàoxīng-18 (1148) jìnshì, who reached lǐbù shàngshū 禮部尚書, posthumous name Wénjiǎn 文簡. His biography is in the Sòngshǐ 宋史. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí says his Suìchūtáng library was the foremost collection of recent times. Yáng Wànlǐ’s Chéngzhāi jí contains a preface composed for Yóu’s Yìzhāi shūmù 益齋書目 — the title differs from the present text, but the Tōngkǎo quotes Yáng’s preface under the Suìchūtáng shūmù heading, so the two are one. The present recension lacks Yáng’s preface but has one preface by Máo Yán 毛幵 and two postfaces by Wèi Liǎowēng 魏了翁 and Lù Yǒurén 陸友仁.

The book divides the Classics into nine categories: jīng zǒnglèi 經總類, Zhōuyì, Shàngshū, Shī, Lǐ, Yuè, Chūnqiū, LúnyǔXiàojīngMèngzǐ, and Xiǎoxué 小學. The Histories into eighteen: regular histories, annals, miscellaneous histories, narratives, miscellaneous biographies, false dynastic histories, national histories, present-dynasty miscellaneous histories, present-dynasty narratives, present-dynasty miscellaneous biographies, veritable records, official posts, ceremonials, criminal-law statutes, surnames, historical scholarship, bibliography, and geography. The Masters into twelve: Confucian, Miscellaneous, Daoist, Buddhist, Agriculture, Military, Numerological, Fiction, Miscellaneous Arts, Genealogical Charts and Records, Encyclopaedias, and Medical. The Collected Works into five: individual collections, memorials, general collections, literary criticism, and ritual music. The arrangement is broadly that of the dynastic-history bibliographies, except that under each title several editions are noted to facilitate textual collation — a small departure from earlier dynastic catalogues.

There are no jiětí glosses under any entry. Mǎ Duānlín’s Jīngjí kǎo nowhere quotes Yóu’s commentary, confirming that the original was indeed without notes. But it does not record juan-counts or compilers; this we suspect is the work of later scribes deleting matter, not of Yóu.

The most fortunate innovation is the new “Pǔlù” 譜錄 sub-category in zǐbù — a place to put the Xiāng pǔ 香譜, Shí pǔ 石譜, Xiè lù 蟹錄, and other catalogues with no obvious classification home. Some sub-classifications are unhappy: the Yuánjīng 元經, properly a history, sits in Confucian; the Jǐndài 錦帶, properly an encyclopaedia, sits in Agriculture; the Pípa lù 琵琶錄, a miscellaneous-arts work, sits under Music. A few titles are doubled: the Dàlì zhèdōng liánjù 大歷浙東聯句 appears under both individual and general collections. There are also surname errors: the Yùlán jí 玉瀾集 was composed by Zhū Gāo 朱槹, but is here ascribed to a Zhū Qiáonián 朱喬年. Yet of all Sòng catalogues surviving today, the Chóngwén zǒngmù is no longer complete, and only this work and Cháo Gōngwǔ’s catalogue are unbroken. It is a sine qua non for textual scholars.

Abstract

The Suìchūtáng shūmù is the second-oldest surviving Sòng private library catalogue and the principal Southern Sòng witness to multiple block-print editions of standard works. The catalog meta date “1127–1194” is for Yóu Mào’s lifespan; the text itself was compiled some time before his death, plausibly in the 1180s–1190s, and Wilkinson dates it to 1194 (year of Yóu’s death). Yáng Wànlǐ refers to the same catalogue as Yìzhāi shūmù 益齋書目 in the preface preserved in Chéngzhāi jí 誠齋集; Mǎ Duānlín, citing the same preface, places it under the Suìchūtáng title — the two are the same work. The Sìkù WYG copy is the Liǎngjiāng zǒngdūcǎijìn version, with prefaces by Máo Yán and postfaces by Wèi Liǎowēng (1178–1237) and Lù Yǒurén (Yuán).

The catalogue’s distinctive contributions are three:

  1. Multiple-edition recording. It is the first surviving Chinese bibliography to record multiple block-print editions of a single work as separate entries, e.g. four different Hànshū editions (Sìchuān, Jízhōu, Yuèzhōu, Húběi). This makes the work a primary source for Sòng-era printing history.
  2. The new Pǔlù sub-category. The Sìkù editors single out as “best-handled” Yóu’s invention of Pǔlù 譜錄 in zǐbù — a class for treatises on incense, stones, crabs, and other technical genres without classical-period precedent. The category was retained in subsequent imperial catalogs.
  3. The treatment of Nán shǐ / Běi shǐ. As Wilkinson notes (Chinese History, ch. on bibliography), Yóu is the only Sòng cataloguer to list Nán shǐ 南史 and Běi shǐ 北史 under zhèngshǐ 正史 (canonical histories). Cháo, Chén, and the Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì all classify them as záshǐ 雜史 or biéshǐ 別史. Yóu’s Seventeen Histories enumeration drops the Suíshū 隋書 and includes Nán shǐ and Běi shǐ — a configuration not attested elsewhere.

The book carries no jiětí, no juan-counts, and (in the present recension) no compilers; the Sìkù editors note that jiětí was indeed never present, but suspect that juan-counts and compilers were lost in transcription. Subsequent Qing scholars (most notably Zhāng Yú 章鈺 in his 1888 Jiàobǔ Suìchūtáng shūmù 校補遂初堂書目) attempted to reconstruct what was missing.

Translations and research

No English translation. Studies and editions:

  • Zhāng Yú 章鈺, Jiàobǔ Suìchūtáng shūmù 校補遂初堂書目, late Qing collation reprinted in Cóngshū jíchéng 叢書集成 — supplies juan-counts and compilers from cross-references.
  • Yáo Bóyuè 姚伯岳, “尤袤《遂初堂書目》研究”, Wénxiàn 文獻 (1988) — examines the bibliographical method and contribution of the catalogue.
  • Liú Zhàoyòu 劉兆祐, Sòng-shǐ Yìwénzhì shǐbù tújí lèi kǎodìng 宋史藝文志史部圖籍類考訂 (Táibèi: Hànxué yánjiū zīliào jī fúwù zhōngxīn, various articles) — relates Yóu’s classifications to other Sòng catalogues.
  • Hilde De Weerdt, Information, Territory, and Networks: The Crisis and Maintenance of Empire in Song China (Harvard Asia Center, 2016), notes Yóu’s role in late-Sòng knowledge management.
  • Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, 6th ed. (Harvard Asia Center, 2022), §73.3.5 — describes its place in the canonical sequence of bibliographic catalogues.
  • John H. Winkelman, “The Imperial Library in Southern Sung China” (American Philosophical Society 1974) — for the broader institutional context.

Other points of interest

The textual transmission is unusual: although a Sòng bibliographer’s work, the only surviving witnesses derive from Míng manuscripts. The 1577 Hǎishān xiānguǎn cóngshū 海山仙館叢書 prints it, and the Sìkù WYG copy is independent of that line. Yóu Mào’s collected poetry is mostly lost, but the Liángxī jí 梁谿集 is recompiled from quotations.

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