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名蹟錄

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Text ID
KR2n0028
Date
1370–1380
Dynasty
明

Míngjì lù 名蹟錄

Records of Renowned Inscriptions

by 朱珪 (Zhū Guī, fl. ca. 1340–1380)

About the work

A 6-juan plus 1-juan-appendix anthology of stelae and other inscriptions personally carved by the late-Yuán-to-early-Míng seal-carver and zhuànshū master Zhū Guī of Kūnshān, with a separate appendix of contemporary commendatory poems. The work is the first Chinese jīnshí book composed of inscriptions the author himself cut into stone and the originals are then anthologised. Each entry preserves the full text. Coverage is wholly Yuán and early Míng, including the Hóngwǔ 2 (1369) Kūnshān chénghuángshén gào 崑山城隍神誥 (a Hóngwǔ imperial promulgation) at the very head — placed above the Yuán imperial xǐshū 璽書 documents on Xú Jiān’s 徐堅 Chūxué jì 初學記 model (Tang Tàizōng’s poetry placed at the head of pre-Tang verse). The first 16 head-pieces are imperial documents (1 gào, 5 imperial jìwén 御製祭文, 7 xǐshū, plus a few related items) consigned to a juan of their own out of deference to the imperial origin. The body presents 14 bēi, 29 jì, 1 mùbiǎo, 5 mùjié, 1 xíngzhuàng, 23 kuàngzhì, 24 mùzhìmíng, and 26 zájìzìhuà (miscellaneous carvings of characters and pictures). The appendix is contemporary tributes.

The catalog meta records dynasty 明 but dates 1731–1806 — these are the dates of a different Zhū Guī (the Qing Grand Secretary, CBDB 29954). The Sìkù tíyào explicitly identifies the Míng Zhū Guī (zì Bóshèng, of Kūnshān, late-Yuán-to-early-Míng), CBDB 33381. The catalog meta dates are corrected here against the Sìkù tíyào: the Míng Zhū Guī’s floruit is c. 1340–1380, with the Míngjì lù compiled in early Hóngwǔ (1370–1380s).

Tiyao

[Translated and condensed from the Sìkù tíyào]

Compiled by Zhū Guī of the Míng. Guī, zì Bóshèng, a man of Kūnshān. Old recensions sometimes ascribed him to the Yuán dynasty. Looking at the head, the Hóngwǔ 2 (1369) Kūnshān chénghuángshén gào is placed above the Yuán imperial xǐshū — exactly as Xú Jiān’s Chūxué jì placed Tang Tàizōng’s poetry above pre-Tang verse. Further: Gù Āyíng followed his son to Línháo until the mid Hóngwǔ era; the book contains his mùzhìmíng. So a Míng man, certainly. The Yuán-attribution is wrong.

Guī was skilled in zhuànzhòu and seal-cutting. Yáng Wéizhēn composed his Fāngcùntiě zhì. Zhèng Yuányòu, Lǐ Xiàoguāng, Zhāng Zhù, Lù Yǒurén, Xiè Yīngfāng, Ní Zàn, Zhāng Yǔ, Gù Āyíng — all wrote poems for him. He was also skilled in stone-cutting from rubbings. He gathered what he had cut over his lifetime and edited it into this work. The title Míngjì — from his own preface — claims to draw on the Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn 穆天子傳, where it is said: “Made míngjì on the Yānzī stones.” But the Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn in fact reads “Made míngjì 銘迹 on the rocks of Yuánpǔ 元圃” — the character is míng 銘 (inscription), not míng 名 (renown); and the place is Yuánpǔ, not Yānzī. Guī perhaps relied on the Shuōwén’s lack of an entry for 銘 and so substituted 名 for 銘. But míngjì is not what Yānzī says: the rock-inscription was at Yānshān 弇山, and there is no míng (renown) character. We do not know what version Guī used.

Hàn-era stelae mostly do not record their compilers; the calligrapher and the carver are even less commonly named. From the Wèi Shòushàn bēi 受禪碑 onward — composed by Hándān Chún 邯鄲淳, calligraphy by Liáng Hú 梁鵠, characters cut by Zhōng Yáo 鍾繇 — gentlemen-officials began to cut their own work into stone. Ōuyáng Xiū’s Jígǔ lù and Zhào Míngchéng’s Jīnshí lù recorded only colophons; from Hóng Kuò’s Lìxù on, full stele texts were recorded; but for one to cut his own characters and anthologise his own work into a single book — there was no such precedent. Zhū Guī’s book is the first.

[Detailed structural account, table-of-contents listings, and discussion of various lacunae and transmissional displacements …]

The Wèi-era Zhāng Yàn 張晏 commentary on Shǐjì Rúlín zhuàn, drawing on the Fúshēng 伏生 stele, identified his given name as Shèng 勝. The Jìn-era Jìn Zhuó 晉灼 commentary on Hànshū Dìlǐ zhì, drawing on the Shānshàng bēi, identified Líyáng as on the north slope of Líshān. The Tang Sīmǎ Zhēn 司馬貞 commentary on Shǐjì Gāozǔ běnjì, drawing on Bān Gù’s Sìshàng tíngzhǎng bēi, identified Mother Wēn (instead of Mǔǎo). Sòng Fāng Sōngqīng 方崧卿’s Hánwén jǔzhèng used stele-rubbings as evidence. Ōuyáng, Zhào, Hóng et al. used stelae to correct the historical record’s errors more times than can be counted. Zhū’s book — as everything here was cut by his own hand — is more reliable than what was searched out from worn stelae of distant years.

For example, Yuán-end Guō Yì 郭翼: other books say he came out as a Hóngwǔ-era schoolmaster; only this book, with Lú Xióng’s 盧熊 mùzhìmíng of him, lets us know that Guō died in Zhìzhèng 24 (1364) and never served the Míng. This is enough to show the book’s evidential value.

Abstract

The Míngjì lù is the earliest “self-cut, self-anthologised” Chinese stone-inscription book and a primary witness to the late-Yuán KūnshānSōngjiāng literary world. The catalog meta gives “1731–1806” — those are the dates of the Qing 朱珪 (CBDB 29954), not this Míng author; the Sìkù tíyào explicitly identifies the Míng Zhū Guī of Kūnshān, zì Bóshèng (CBDB 33381). The work was compiled in early Hóngwǔ (1370s–1380s), bracketed here as notBefore 1370 / notAfter 1380.

The work’s contributions:

  1. Self-curated jīnshí anthology. First in Chinese tradition.
  2. Late-Yuán prosopography. The mùzhìmíng and kuàngzhì preserved here for figures of the late-Yuán SōngjiāngSūzhōu cultural circle (Gù Āyíng, Guō Yì, etc.) supply correctives to the standard biographical record.
  3. YuánMíng transition documents. The Yuán-era xǐshū preserved at the head of juan 1, alongside the Hóngwǔ 2 imperial gào, are an unusual paired witness to dynastic change.
  4. Methodological argument. The Sìkù editors’ implicit point — that direct-cut texts are more evidentially reliable than rubbings of weathered older stelae — is a methodological refinement of the Hóng Kuò tradition.

The transmission has been corrupted: many indexed pieces are missing from the body; the Sìkù WYG copy preserves transcribed portions only.

Translations and research

No English translation. Studies:

  • Frederick W. Mote, Imperial China 900–1800 (Harvard UP, 1999), on the Yuán-Míng cultural transition in Sūzhōu and Sōngjiāng.
  • Wáng Lìnháng 王林杭 et al. on Zhū Guī (Míng) and the Míngjì lù.
  • Yáng Rénkǎi 楊仁愷, Zhōngguó shūhuà 中國書畫, on early-Míng seal-carving.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù editors’ careful philological note on Zhū Guī’s misreading of the Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn (substituting 名 for 銘 by Shuōwén logic) is exemplary of Sìkù-era evidentialism. The book’s Hóngwǔ 2 Chénghuángshén gào placement at the head — above Yuán imperial documents — is a deliberate dynastic statement and an early example of Hóngwǔ-era cultural-political hierarchy in book-production.

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