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金石經眼錄

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Text ID
KR2n0046
Date
1736–1736
Dynasty
清

Jīnshí jīngyǎn lù 金石經眼錄

Records of Inscriptions Personally Examined

with diagrams (mótú 摹圖) by 褚峻 (Chǔ Jùn, fl. 1694–1745) and supplementary commentary (bǔshuō 補說) by 牛運震 (Niú Yùnzhèn, 1706–1758)

About the work

A 1-juan compendium of 47 suōběn (reduced-facsimile) drawings of stelae, by the rubbing-dealer-turned-jīnshí-fieldworker Chǔ Jùn of Héyáng (Shǎnxī), with supplementary commentary by Niú Yùnzhèn. Unique among Qing jīnshí compendia in offering — for each stele — not only a transcription but also Chǔ’s hand-drawn gōulè (outline tracing) of the stone’s shape, character placement, and decoration, including marks for damage and erosion. The suōběn is then cut onto zǎobǎn (jujube wood) block, producing exact-scale facsimiles. Chǔ’s coverage runs from the imperial Tàixué shígǔ 太學石鼓 (Stone Drums) at the head down to a Hàn anonymous stele back-inscription held in the Qǔfù 曲阜 Yán family. Each stele has Niú Yùnzhèn’s brief commentary on physical dimensions, location, and jiǎjiètōngyòng 假借通用 (loan-character usage) glosses. The work was completed in Qiánlóng 1 (1736), with Chǔ’s own preface. Later Niú expanded the work, adding the recently-discovered Bālíkūn Péi Cén jìgōng bēi 巴里坤裴岑紀功碑 (Eastern Hàn) and renaming it Jīnshí tú 金石圖 — but Niú had not been to the western frontiers personally, working from a móhú tàběn (blurred rubbing), and his transcription of the Péi Cén stele lost much of its accuracy. Niú further added zàn (encomia) at the end of each commentary on Yuè Kē’s 岳珂 model — shézú (snake feet, i.e. unnecessary). Chǔ in turn supplemented with Tang stelae, separately as a lower juan. The result is a hybrid, incoherent in plan; the Sìkù WYG copy preserves the original 1-juan version, while the Jīnshí tú expansion is separately catalogued.

Tiyao

[Translated and condensed from the Sìkù tíyào]

The diagrams are by Chǔ Jùn of the present (Qing) dynasty; the supplementary commentary is by Niú Yùnzhèn. Niú is the author of Kōngshāntáng Yìjiě (already catalogued).

Chǔ, zì Qiānfēng, of Héyáng. He was skilled in stone-cutting and supported himself by selling rubbings. He often packed provisions and travelled into deep mountains and ruined cities, abandoned-foundation areas, searching for jīnshí writings — those that earlier compilers had missed, or that earlier compilers had recorded but not personally inspected. He drew the stone’s shape, traced the characters, and indicated eroded or broken portions, all in his own hand outline. He made suōběn and cut them onto jujube-wood blocks. The micro-faithfulness was striking. Coverage from the Tàixué shígǔ down to the Qǔfù Yán-family-held Hàn anonymous-stele back-inscription — 47 in all.

Niú Yùnzhèn supplied for each: the height, breadth, location; for jiǎjiè and tōngyòng characters, brief glosses. The coverage is not wide, but compared to other jīnshí compendia working from rubbings only, or from hearsay, this is much more accurate.

The book was completed in Qiánlóng 1 (1736), with Chǔ’s preface. Later Niú took the book and added the Bālíkūn Péi Cén jìgōng bēi recently discovered there, renaming it Jīnshí tú. But Niú had not been to the western regions; he worked from a blurred rubbing and lost much of the original. He further imitated Yuè Kē’s practice of adding zàn at the end of each commentary — shézú (snake feet — unnecessary). Chǔ then added Tang stelae as a separate lower juan. The structure becomes incoherent.

We catalogue the present 1-juan version. The expanded Jīnshí tú is separately listed in the Cunmu.

Abstract

The Jīnshí jīngyǎn lù is a unique Qing jīnshí hybrid: not a textual register but a visual-facsimile compendium, with Chǔ’s hand-traced gōulè drawings and damage-marks for each stele, cut into jujube-wood block as exact-scale facsimiles. Niú Yùnzhèn’s supplementary commentary supplies the philological apparatus. The catalog meta gives “fl. 1694–1745” for Chǔ; the work was completed in 1736 (Qiánlóng 1), set as both notBefore and notAfter here.

The work’s contributions:

  1. Visual jīnshí. The first systematic Chinese book to combine gōulè tracing of stele shape, character placement, and damage-marks with philological commentary — a major methodological innovation that anticipated later 19th-20th-century jīnshí publishing.
  2. Field-based corpus. Chǔ’s expedition-based collecting in remote and ruined sites produced inscriptions otherwise unrecorded.
  3. Reduced-facsimile method. Suōběn cut onto block as exact-scale facsimile — pre-photographic visual jīnshí.

CBDB has no entry for Chǔ Jùn; CBDB 65712 confirms Niú Yùnzhèn 1706–1758.

Translations and research

No English translation. Studies:

  • Robert E. Harrist Jr., The Landscape of Words (Washington UP, 2008), with material on Qing visual jīnshí.
  • Yáng Rénkǎi 楊仁愷, Zhōngguó shūhuà 中國書畫.
  • Lǐ Yùhuá 李玉華 et al., on Qing facsimile-stelae publishing.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù editors’ careful separation of the 1-juan original Jīngyǎn lù (catalogued in zhèng 正) and the expanded 2-juan Jīnshí tú (catalogued in cunmu 存目) preserves the textual integrity of the original work. Modern jīnshí historians treat the Jīngyǎn lù as the first Chinese facsimile-jīnshí and an important predecessor of late-Qing rubbing-photography projects.

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