Bǎokè lèibiān 寶刻類編
Inscriptions Classified by Type
by an anonymous late-Southern-Sòng compiler
About the work
An anonymous late-Southern-Sòng jīnshí register of stelae and inscriptions, organised not by geography (as in Bǎokè cóngbiān KR2n0024 or Yúdì bēijì mù KR2n0025) but by writer/dedicatee category: 8 categories — (i) emperors, (ii) crown princes and princes, (iii) state lords, (iv) eminent ministers, (v) Buddhists, (vi) Daoists, (vii) women, and (viii) damaged-name inscriptions. Within each category, person-name is the organising principle, with the stelae they wrote or commissioned listed below their name, each annotated with year and place. For the eminent-ministers category, the figure’s official career as recovered from inscriptions is also tabulated under the name. Coverage runs from the Zhōu and Qín down through the Five Dynasties, with reign-name references through the Xuānhé and Jìngkāng eras (1119–1127) — fixing the work as Sòng. The work uses “Ruìzhōu” 瑞州 as a heading, which Sòng Lǐzōng renamed from Yúnzhōu 筠州 in early Bǎoqìng (1225) — fixing the lower bound of the dating to the Lǐzōng era. The work was lost between Yuán and Míng; only the Wényuàngé shūmù records its title; the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserved the full text, from which the Sìkù editors reconstructed the present 8-juan recension.
Tiyao
[Translated and condensed from the Sìkù tíyào]
The author’s name is not given. The Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì does not record the title; no other private bibliographer records it. Only the Wényuàngé shūmù lists it. There is no surviving printed witness; only the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserves the work. Examining the editorial sequence: the work cuts off from ZhōuQín down through the Five Dynasties; references include the Xuānhé and Jìngkāng era-names — so a Southern Sòng author. Further: in early Bǎoqìng (1225) Lǐzōng renamed Yúnzhōu to Ruìzhōu; the present text uses “Ruìzhōu” repeatedly as a heading — therefore a post-Lǐzōng-era figure.
The book is in 8 categories: (i) emperors, (ii) crown princes and princes, (iii) state lords, (iv) eminent ministers, (v) Buddhists, (vi) Daoists, (vii) women, (viii) damaged-name inscriptions. Each category proceeds by person-name as the organising thread, with the stelae beneath, year and place noted. For the eminent-ministers category, the official career visible in the inscriptions is tabulated below the name — necessary for cross-reference. The arrangement is orderly.
Some redundancies: where one stele’s body and zhuàné (seal-script title-band) are by different hands, both names appear, near-duplication. Some category placements are imprecise: Ōuyáng Xún 歐陽詢 ended his life in Tang but the work places him under Suí; Guō Zhōngshù 郭忠恕 ended in Sòng but the work places him under the Five Dynasties. The placement is keyed to the earliest-dated extant inscription, regardless of when the figure actually died — somewhat confusing for chronology. The principle is too tight by half.
But of the jīnshí compendia after Ōuyáng, Zhào, and Hóng, only Chén Sī’s Bǎokè cóngbiān is reasonably comprehensive, and that work has heavy lacunae. This book alone is broad in coverage and clear in narrative, expanding the previous compilations (Zhèng Qiáo’s Jīnshí lüè 金石略, Wáng Xiàngzhī’s Yúdì bēimù) several-fold. The earlier jīnshí compilations of comparable richness do not exist; for evidential research and adjudication this is indispensable.
The original has been transmissionally degraded — many errors and lacunae. We have collated. The eminent-ministers section, juan 13’s third subsection, was already lacunose in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn: from Tang Tiānbǎo through SùzōngDàizōng eras the catalogue is incomplete. We have left the lacuna as found.
Abstract
The Bǎokè lèibiān is the only major surviving jīnshí register organised by person rather than by geography or chronology. The catalog meta records the work’s dynasty as 宋 and the author as 闕名 (anonymous); internal evidence — Lǐzōng’s renaming of Yúnzhōu (1225) and the Xuānhé/Jìngkāng reign-name references (pre-1127) — places the work after 1225 and confirms a Southern Sòng identity. NotBefore 1230 / notAfter 1278 (Sòng end) is conservatively bracketed here.
The work’s contributions:
- Person-as-organising-principle. The 8-category schema (emperors / princes / lords / ministers / Buddhists / Daoists / women / damaged) is unique among Sòng jīnshí compendia. Other works organise by region or by chronology; this work alone organises by social/dedicatee class.
- Eminent-ministers prosopography. Under each name in the eminent-ministers category, an official-career tabulation is appended, drawing the prosopographic data directly from inscriptions. This is one of the largest pre-modern Chinese prosopographic registers based on epigraphic data.
- Damaged-name inscriptions category. A separate category for inscriptions whose dedicatee or compiler is no longer recoverable from the inscription itself — a recognition of jīnshí uncertainty unique among Sòng compendia.
- Coverage richness. The Sìkù editors note that the work surpasses Zhèng Qiáo’s Jīnshí lüè and Wáng Xiàngzhī’s Yúdì bēimù “many-fold” — a substantial claim, supported by the actual content.
The transmission has been entirely through the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. The Sìkù editors’ reconstruction is therefore the only widely available text.
Translations and research
No English translation. Studies:
- Wáng Yún 王雲 et al., on the Bǎokè lèibiān and Sòng prosopographic jīnshí.
- Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, 6th ed., §58.
- Robert E. Harrist Jr., The Landscape of Words (Washington UP, 2008).
Other points of interest
The work’s anonymity is unusual among Sòng major compilations and likely reflects the late-Sòng circumstances of the work’s compilation — possibly during the Mongol-Sòng wars, when scholarly attribution was sometimes deliberately obscured. The category “funǚ” 婦人 (women) is also notable: women’s stelae are systematically segregated as a class, which both reflects and entrenches the gendered organisation of Sòng jīnshí memory.
Links
- Wikipedia (中文): https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/寶刻類編
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15914152