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金石錄

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Text ID
KR2n0013
Date
1117–1132
Dynasty
宋

Jīnshí lù 金石錄

Records of Bronze and Stone

by 趙明誠 (Zhào Míngchéng, 1081–1129), with 李清照 (Lǐ Qīngzhào, 1084–ca. 1155)

About the work

The most important Sòng epigraphic catalogue after Ōuyáng Xiū’s Jígǔ lù KR2n0012, compiled by Zhào Míngchéng over roughly two decades (the principal compilation period is c. 1117–1125, with revisions and the wife’s hòuxù completed by c. 1132). The Jīnshí lù is structured in two parts: the first 10 juan are a chronologically arranged title-list, numbered serially from 1 to 2,000, of rubbings and bronzes in Zhào’s collection — for each entry the date, place, and (where known) author of the inscription. The remaining 20 juan are biànzhèng 辨證 (critical-evidence) colophons on 502 of these items — paleographic and historical analysis on the model of Ōuyáng’s báwěi form, but more comprehensive in coverage and more carefully ordered. Zhào explicitly takes Ōuyáng’s Jígǔ lù as model but greatly expands its scope (Ōuyáng’s c. 1,000 rubbings became Zhào’s 2,000+; Ōuyáng’s c. 400 colophons became Zhào’s 502 biànzhèng) and systematises the title-listing.

The work survives in a textually troubled state. The original Sòng print at Lóngshū 龍舒 is lost; the Kāixǐ 1 (1205) Jùnyí Zhào Bùjiǎn 趙不譾 reprint also rare; later MíngQīng manuscript copies fragmentary and divergent. The Sìkù WYG copy is from the Yángzhōu reprint that compiled the best surviving witnesses (Jiāo Hóng 焦竑’s mìfǔ-copy, Wén Jiā 文嘉’s Sòng-block tracing, Yè 葉 / Xú 徐 family copies, and the Xiè-shi 謝氏 reprint at Jǐnán) plus collation notes (Hé Zhuō 何焯 of Chángzhōu, Dīng Jìng 丁敬 of Qiántáng). The famous postscript by Lǐ Qīngzhào, recording the collection’s compilation and its catastrophic loss in the Jingkang wars and its aftermath, was originally not in the Lóngshū print; Hóng Mài 洪邁 saw the autograph in Wáng Shùnbó’s 王順伯 family and summarised it in Róngzhāi sìbǐ 容齋四筆. The current text’s hòuxù is a later reconstruction, no longer Lǐ’s complete original.

Tiyao

Compiled by Zhào Míngchéng of the Sòng. Míngchéng, zì Défù, was a man of Mìzhōu Zhūchéng. He served in office through prefect of Húzhōu zhī jūnzhōu shì. This book is his collection of Three Dynasties bronze vessels and Hàn-Tang and later stone inscriptions — arranged on Ōuyáng Xiū’s Jígǔ lù model. In the Shàoxīng era his wife Lǐ Qīngzhào presented it to court. Zhāng Duānyì’s Guì’ěr jí says Qīngzhào also “trimmed and brushed” (筆削) parts of it — quite plausibly so. There is Míngchéng’s own preface and Qīngzhào’s hòuxù.

The first ten juan are arranged by date — items numbered 1 to 2,000 are listed in the title-index. Under each item the date, the calligrapher’s name. The latter twenty juan are biànzhèng — 502 colophons in all. Among these, the four steles Xíngyì 邢義, Lǐzhèng 李證, Yìxīng cháshè 義興茶舍, and Bānzhōu héshàng 般舟和尚 are not in the title-index — perhaps a sequencing oversight, or items he later acquired and had not yet inserted into the index.

The work was first cut at Lóngshū. In Kāixǐ 1 [1205] Zhào Bùjiǎn of Jùnyí re-cut it. That edition is now extremely rare; what Guī Yǒuguāng 歸有光 and Zhū Yízūn saw were transcribed copies. Some have therefore taken the work to be unfinished; in fact, Zhào colophoned only those items he had researched specifically — not every item — so Lǐ Qīngzhào’s postscript saying “of 2,000 items, 502 have colophons” is exact, and the remaining items lacking colophons are not lacunae.

The hòuxù of Lǐ Qīngzhào, as Hóng Mài’s Róngzhāi sìbǐ shows, was originally not in the Lóngshū print. Hóng saw the autograph in Wáng Shùnbó’s family and gave a summary in his book. The text’s present hòuxù differs from Hóng’s summary — it is a later reconstruction, not Qīngzhào’s full original. Since the Míng, transmitters have copied and edited as they pleased: some delete items in the index, some falsify dates of items, some collapse the per-juan detailed sub-headings from juan 11 down, some lose the postscript entirely. Errors compound on errors and the text drifts further from authenticity. Gù Yánwǔ’s Rìzhī lù 日知錄 records that the Zhāngqiū 章邱 print even reads the postscript’s “zhuàngyuè shuò” 壯月朔 (1st of the eighth lunar month) as “mǔdān shuò” 牡丹朔 — the textual disorder is plain.

Of recent transmissions only the following are reliable: Jiāo Hóng’s transcript from the mìfǔ copy; Wén Jiā’s facsimile from a Sòng cutting; the Kūnshān Yè-family copy; the Mǐnzhōng Xú-family copy; the Jǐnán Xiè-family reprint; and Hé Zhuō’s and Dīng Jìng’s collation copies. The current Yángzhōu reprint compiles them all and adds Lìshì KR2n0017 / Lìxù KR2n0018-derived case-notes — comparatively comprehensive and verifiable. The Fànjiā Tiānyīgé and the Huì-shi Hóngdòushānfáng copies are slightly inferior. We follow the Yángzhōu cutting for inclusion.

Abstract

The Jīnshí lù is the second pillar of Sòng epigraphic studies and — together with the Jígǔ lù KR2n0012 — the foundational text of Chinese jīnshí xué. Zhào Míngchéng began the project in the early Zhènghé era under the direct influence of Ōuyáng Xiū; the principal compilation period is c. 1117–1125 (Wilkinson dates “1119–1125”). Zhào died in 1129 in the wartime emergency at Jiànkāng without seeing the work into print; Lǐ Qīngzhào completed and presented it to court at some point in the Shàoxīng era, with her famous postscript dated to ~1132–1134.

The work’s contributions are five:

  1. Comprehensive title-index. The 10-juan numbered title-list of nearly 2,000 inscriptions is the largest such Sòng catalogue and the standard reference for the Sòng-era inscription corpus.
  2. Systematic chronological arrangement. Where Ōuyáng’s Jígǔ lù preserves accumulation order, Zhào re-orders strictly by inscription date. This established the chronological convention for all later epigraphic catalogues.
  3. Critical biànzhèng apparatus. The 502 critical colophons go beyond Ōuyáng’s brief báwěi in scope and depth, and are the most cited Sòng epigraphic-historical evaluations.
  4. Independent attestation of lost works. Zhào’s references to inscriptions and texts no longer extant are a major source of pre-Sòng historiographical and palaeographic information.
  5. Lǐ Qīngzhào’s postscript. Beyond its scholarly value, the hòuxù is a literary masterpiece and one of the principal autobiographical narratives by a Chinese woman of the imperial era. Egan (2014) translates and analyses it.

The catalog meta dynasty is “宋” and the date “1081–1129” is Zhào’s lifespan. The work’s date-bounds: notBefore 1117 (the Zhènghé period when serious compilation began), notAfter 1132 (the latest plausible date for the Lǐ Qīngzhào postscript and the imperial presentation).

Lǐ Qīngzhào’s role is more substantial than wife-as-scribe: Zhāng Duānyì’s testimony of her bǐxuē 筆削 (editorial intervention) is consistent with her own hòuxù’s account of long-shared scholarly labour. Egan (2013, 2014, 2019) discusses the joint authorship problem. The Kanripo and Sìkù attribution to Zhào alone reflects Sòng convention rather than full editorial accuracy.

The standard modern critical edition is Jīn Wéndé 金文德 (ed.), Jīnshí lù jiàozhèng 金石錄校證 (Shànghǎi shūdiàn, 1985, rev. 2005), which collates all surviving witnesses.

Translations and research

Lǐ Qīngzhào’s postscript has been translated multiple times into English; the most authoritative is in Ronald Egan’s The Burden of Female Talent: The Poet Li Qingzhao and Her History in China (Harvard Asia Center, 2013) and The Works of Li Qingzhao (De Gruyter, 2019). The biànzhèng sections are not generally available in English.

Studies and editions:

  • Ronald Egan, The Burden of Female Talent: The Poet Li Qingzhao and Her History in China (Harvard Asia Center, 2013).
  • Ronald Egan, The Works of Li Qingzhao, ed. Anna Shields (De Gruyter / Library of Chinese Humanities, 2019).
  • Jīn Wéndé 金文德 (ed.), Jīnshí lù jiàozhèng 金石錄校證 (Shànghǎi shūdiàn, 1985, rev. 2005).
  • Lǐ Yùhuá 李玉華 et al., articles on the textual transmission of the Jīnshí lù.
  • Patricia Ebrey, Accumulating Culture: The Collections of Emperor Huizong (Washington UP, 2008), on Sòng connoisseurship.
  • Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, 6th ed., §58, §73.

Other points of interest

The Jīnshí lù preserves attestations of pre-Tang and Tang inscriptions that have since been lost: comparison with later Qing rubbings repeatedly reveals that Zhào saw inscriptions intact that survive now only in fragments. Among the steles he describes, the Xíngyì, Lǐzhèng, Yìxīng cháshè, and Bānzhōu héshàng are not in his title-list — a small but significant oversight that the Sìkù editors note. Lǐ Qīngzhào’s hòuxù, in addition to its literary value, is a major source for the textual history of jīnshí studies: she records that of an original collection occupying ten rooms in their Qīngzhōu 青州 villa, only a fraction survived after the family’s flight south.

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