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集古錄

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Text ID
KR2n0012
Date
1061–1069
Dynasty
宋

Jígǔ lù 集古錄

Collected Records of Ancient Inscriptions

by 歐陽修 (Ōuyáng Xiū, 1007–1072)

About the work

The earliest substantial Chinese epigraphic catalogue: Ōuyáng Xiū’s collection of colophons (báwěi 跋尾) on roughly 400 stone-and-metal inscriptions accumulated over decades and assembled into a 10-juan critical compendium. Ōuyáng began acquiring rubbings around the early 1040s, gathering eventually about 1,000 pieces; from these he selected the most important and wrote brief critical notes (báwěi) on each, citing inscription, contextualising historically, and using the inscription to correct errors in transmitted historical texts — the famous methodological dictum (Preface, Jígǔ lù 2a) “kě yǐ shǐzhuàn zhèng qí quēmiù” 可與史傳正其闕謬者 (“they can be used to correct omissions and errors in historical writings”). The catalog meta dates “1007–1072” reflect Ōuyáng’s lifespan; the actual composition window for this work runs from around the early 1040s for the colophons, with the consolidated 10-juan edition produced in the Jiāyòu–Xīníng era (1056–1069), as established by the dates of Ōuyáng’s autograph postscript (Jiāyòu guǐmǎo 1063 to Xīníng 2 jǐyǒu 1069). The Sìkù editors note that the colophons are stratified across these years and frequently revised in situ. The companion Jígǔ lù mùlù 集古錄目錄 (the title-index, in 5 juan, generally treated as appendix or separate work) was made by Ōuyáng’s youngest son Ōuyáng Fěi 歐陽棐 at his father’s command.

The work is the foundational text of Chinese jīnshí xué 金石學 (epigraphy as a discipline), the predecessor of Zhào Míngchéng’s Jīnshí lù 金石錄 KR2n0013 and inspiring all subsequent Chinese stone-and-metal inscription scholarship.

Tiyao

Compiled by Ōuyáng Xiū of the Sòng. Xiū is the author of the Shī běnyì 詩本義 KR1c0007, already catalogued. The ancients valued only authentic-hand calligraphy. Liáng Yuándì 梁元帝 was the first to assemble inscribed-stone texts as a separate work — the Bēiyīng 碑英 in 120 juan, mentioned in his own Jīnlóuzǐ 金樓子 — and that is the ancestor of the jīnshí 金石 genre. His book is now lost. Zēng Gǒng 曾鞏 wished to make a Jīnshí lù but did not finish it; he wrote only one preface, preserved in the Yuánfēng lèigǎo 元豐類稾.

Xiū began to gather what was scattered and lost. He collected up to a thousand juan, took the essentials, and wrote a note on each. During the Jiāyòu and Zhìpíng eras [1056–1067], serving in court, he then wrote at the end of each juan; consequently the readings differ slightly from time to time, depending on revision. Xiū’s own autograph postscript runs from the guǐmǎo year of Jiāyòu [1063] to the jǐyǒu year of Xīníng 2 [1069]. His youngest son Ōuyáng Fěi later took the outline and made a separate Mùlù — six years after the guǐmǎo by his record, eight years after completion of the lù. So the present lù must have been completed in the xīnchǒu year of Jiāyòu 6 [1061]. The autograph colophons are mostly written in the early Zhìpíng years [1064–1067], occasionally in the early Xīníng [1068–1069]. Fěi’s Mùlù was therefore made on Xiū’s instruction.

The various colophons are all included in Xiū’s Jí (collected works); a colophon-only book — separate from the collected works — was first compiled by Fāng Sōngqīng 方崧卿 of the Sòng, who gathered the autographs and printed them at Lúlíng 廬陵. Zēng Hóngfù’s Shíkè pūxù 石刻鋪敍 KR2n0020 gives 246 colophons; Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí KR2n0005 gives 350 colophons; Xiū’s son Fěi himself records 296 colophons; Xiū says in another place “more than 400 pieces have colophons.” Recent printers of the Jígǔ lù have remarked: “the popular Jígǔ báwěi runs over 400 pieces, but Fěi gives 296. Although at that time Xiū was still alive, the additional colophons should not exceed a hundred — perhaps a transcriber wrote 三百 as 二百.” Now examining the present 10 juan, the count comes out to over 400 colophons exactly. Evidently the printed-collection text and the autograph colophons are combined here, unlike the bare collected-works edition. The Lúlíng print is now lost — there is nothing to verify against — and we need not doubt Fěi’s record.

The original was written as inscriptions came in, with no chronological re-ordering. Hence Xiū’s preface says “there are juan-divisions but no chronological sequence.” It was a work of accumulation and never finalised. Recent prints have rearranged by date with the original juan-and-sequence noted at the end of each juan — but errors of date-inversion and supplementary insertion result. Qián Zēng’s Dúshū mǐnqiú jì KR2n0010 regards this as betraying the original intention. But Máo Jìn’s 毛晉 colophon to this book says: “The preface says ‘from Zhōu Mùwáng down’, so the Jírì guǐsì 吉日癸巳 stele should be at the head; the three inscriptions of Máo Bódūn 毛伯敦 came in after the preface and outline, and so should be at the end. Even Fěi did not dare arbitrarily to re-arrange — apparently because Zhōu Bìdà 周必大 had not done the collation.” If the text in Zhōu Bìdà’s day was already arranged by date, the present arrangement has long-standing precedent — there is no need to insist on Fěi’s record. Recent printers of Xiū’s Wénjí simply use chronological order without preserving the end-of-juan original-sequence note — that is even sloppier. We follow the present arrangement.

Abstract

The Jígǔ lù is the foundational text of Chinese epigraphic studies. Ōuyáng Xiū began collecting rubbings of stone inscriptions in his Liúlíng (Jiāngxī) period (early 1040s) and continued through his Jiāyòu and Zhìpíng court tenures; the consolidated 10-juan compilation was complete by 1061 (Jiāyòu 6, xīnchǒu), with the colophons themselves stratified between c. 1041 and Xīníng 2 (1069). The dating window in the frontmatter (notBefore 1061, notAfter 1069) brackets the original compilation and the latest autograph colophon; the catalog meta date “1007–1072” tracks Ōuyáng’s lifespan.

The book’s importance lies in three places:

  1. Methodological dictum. Ōuyáng’s preface argues that stone inscriptions “can be used to correct the gaps and errors of the historical record” (可與史傳正其闕謬者) — making the inscription a primary documentary source. This dictum became the justification for the entire Sòng-Qing tradition of jīnshí xué. Wilkinson notes (§58 et al.) that despite Ōuyáng’s clear methodological vision, systematic use of inscriptions to correct received texts only became central to Chinese historiography in the late Qing and early Republic.
  2. The colophon-as-historiography. Ōuyáng’s báwěi form combines paleographic description, historical contextualisation, and critical evaluation in compressed prose — a model imitated by every Sòng and later epigrapher.
  3. The companion Mùlù. Ōuyáng Fěi’s 5-juan Jígǔ lù mùlù (Outline / Index) was compiled at his father’s command and is preserved separately; its catalogue-listing of titles, dates, and locations is the earliest systematic Chinese inscription-catalogue and influenced Zhào Míngchéng’s Jīnshí lù KR2n0013.

The juan-count is one of the long-standing puzzles of Sòng bibliography: Zēng Hóngfù gives 246, Chén Zhènsūn 350, Ōuyáng Fěi 296, Ōuyáng Xiū himself “more than 400”. The Sìkù editors confirm — by counting the WYG copy itself — that the present 10-juan text contains “over 400 colophons”, explaining the 296 figure as Fěi’s count of strictly autograph colophons (excluding those known only via the Wénjí). The Lúlíng-printed Sòng autograph edition is lost.

The standard modern editions are: (i) the Wényuàngé Sìkù WYG copy, (ii) the Sìbù bèiyào edition (printed from the Sòng Wénzhōnggōng wénjí 文忠公文集 transmission), and (iii) Lǐ Yìmín 李逸民 (ed.), Jígǔ lù báwěi 集古錄跋尾, in Lìdài bēiyǐng zhīhuá (1975 and reprints). Recent critical scholarship: Liú Tāo 劉濤 et al., on the Jígǔ lù’s relationship to the Jīnshí lù and to subsequent Sòng epigraphy.

CBDB 1384 confirms Ōuyáng Xiū’s lifedates 1007–1072.

Translations and research

No full English translation. Translations of selected colophons appear in Ronald Egan’s The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu (1007–72) (Cambridge, 1984) and his The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China (Harvard Asia Center, 2006), chapter on epigraphic connoisseurship.

Studies:

  • Ronald Egan, The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu (Cambridge UP, 1984) — biographical and literary monograph.
  • Yùnzhāo Sūn 孫雲蹼, Ōuyáng Xiū yǔ Jígǔ lù 歐陽修與集古錄 — modern Chinese monograph.
  • Patricia Ebrey, Accumulating Culture: The Collections of Emperor Huizong (Washington UP, 2008), chapters on Sòng epigraphic culture.
  • Anne McLaren and others on Sòng jīnshí practice.
  • Michael Nylan and Hilde De Weerdt, on Sòng cultural memory and epigraphic reception.
  • Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, 6th ed., §58, §73.

Other points of interest

The Jígǔ lù is the direct ancestor of the larger and more systematic Jīnshí lù of Zhào Míngchéng (and Lǐ Qīngzhào 李清照) — Zhào explicitly modelled his arrangement on Ōuyáng but supplied a 30-juan title-list-with-colophons that gives standard format for all subsequent epigraphic catalogues. Ōuyáng’s own collection of rubbings is mostly lost — what survives are the colophons (which are also collected in his Wénzhōnggōng wénjí), Fāng Sōngqīng’s Lúlíng-printed autograph-edition (now lost), and the Sòng manuscripts that ultimately fed into the WYG transmission.

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