Mòshǐ 墨史
History of Ink by 陸友仁 (Lù Yǒurén / Lù Yǒu, 撰)
About the work
A three-juàn late-Yuán historical-biographical monograph on Chinese ink-makers, by Lù Yǒu 陸友 (= Lù Yǒurén 陸友仁), zì Fǔzhī 輔之, hào Yánběi shēng 研北生 of Sūzhōu — central figure of the late-Yuán Sūzhōu literati circle. Composed during Lù’s Beijing period under the patronage of the Kuízhānggé 奎章閣 scholars Kē Jiǔsī 柯九思 and Yú Jí 虞集 (c. 1330–1338). The work is biographical rather than technical: it assembles biographies of all famous ink-makers from antiquity through the Sòng, plus brief notes on Korean (Gāolì), Khitan (Qìdān), and Western-Regions (Xīyù) ink-traditions.
Coverage: one Wèi-period ink-maker (Wéi Dàn 韋誕); one Jìn-period (Zhāng Jīn 張金); one LiúSòng (Zhāng Yǒng 張永); nineteen Táng-period (Lǐ Yángbīng 李陽冰 et al.); over one hundred and thirty Sòng-period (beginning with Chái Xún 柴珣); two Jīn-period (Liú Fǎ 劉法 and Yáng Wénxiù 楊文秀); plus the foreign-ink notes; plus twenty-five miscellaneous appended zájì on ink lore.
Tiyao
We submit that the Mòshǐ is in three juàn by Lù Yǒu of the Yuán. Yǒu, zì Yǒurén, was a man of Wúxiàn 吳縣 (Sūzhōu). His book gathers, from antiquity onward, those skilled at making ink, investigates their affairs-and-traces, and compiles them into a single book: from Wèi he gets Wéi Dàn (one person); from Jìn, Zhāng Jīn (one person); from LiúSòng, Zhāng Yǒng (one person); from Táng, Lǐ Yángbīng and below, nineteen persons; from Sòng, Chái Xún and below, more than one hundred thirty persons; from Jīn, Liú Fǎ and Yáng Wénxiù (two persons). He further records in detail the ink of Gāolì, Qìdān, and the Western Regions, with an appended record of twenty-five miscellaneous items — all of them classical-anecdotes about ink. His searching-out of hidden and out-of-the-way materials is extensive and impressive, mostly drawn from the Sòng-period shuōbù (literary-anecdote) compilations. Although his sources cannot always be detailed, the assembling into a single work truly assists the literary-study classical-anecdote tradition. His discussion of “Xī Tíngguī is not Lǐ Tíngguī” — citing the Mòjīng (KR3i0011) that the Yìshuǐ 易水 Xī Nài’s son Chāo 超 and Mì’s son Qǐ 起; and separately narrating the Shèzhōu Lǐ Chāo and Chāo’s son Tíngguī — is one item: the zú (lineages) have Xī-and-Lǐ as different, the jū (dwelling-places) have Yì-shuǐ-and-Shè-zhōu as separate, and only the míng (names) happen to be the same. This is sufficient to overturn the world’s-transmitted account that the Lǐ-surname was bestowed in the Southern Táng — as false. It is quite useful as a piece of evidence-based scholarship. Investigating the Pízhuàn (Notes-supplement): Lù Yǒurén was born in the market-stalls; his father pursued cloth-trade. He alone was distinct in his interests, applying-himself-with-difficulty to study, fine at composing gēshī (songs-poems), skilled in bāfēn lìkǎi (the script-style), and broadly-deep in the various objects. Kuízhānggé scholar-of-paintings (jiànshū bóshì) Kē Jiǔsī and Hànlín reader (shìshū xuéshì) Yú Jí respected his subtle understanding and discussed-him to the [Yuán] Wénzōng — but before he could be assigned office, the two officials lost their posts and Lù returned south. Self-styled Yánběi shēng 研北生 (Ink-Stone-North Master), he composed the Yànshǐ (Ink-Stone History), Mòshǐ (Ink History), and Yìnshǐ (Seal History); his collected poetry-and-prose was the Qǐjú xuān gǎo 杞菊軒藁 — all now lost. Only the Yánběi zázhì 研北雜志 and this book still survive. Submitted Qiánlóng 46 month 10 (1781).
Abstract
The work is the standard biographical counterpart to the technical KR3i0010 Mòpǔ fǎshì and the theoretical KR3i0011 Mòjīng. Together the three SòngYuán mòpǔ form the foundational ink-literature canon. Lù Yǒu’s coverage is the broadest of the three: over a hundred and fifty ink-makers, including the most comprehensive surviving Sòng-period roster.
The work’s principal contribution to modern scholarship is the systematic source-criticism of the Xī Tíngguī / Lǐ Tíngguī question — the most famous problem in the history of pre-Sòng Chinese ink. The legend that Xī Tíngguī of the Southern Tang was bestowed the surname Lǐ by Lǐ Yù and so became Lǐ Tíngguī (the “Lǐ Tíngguī ink” tradition) was a longstanding orthodoxy. Lù Yǒu, citing the Mòjīng, demonstrates that the two are distinct: Xī Nài 奚鼐 of Yìshuǐ 易水 (Héběi) was the father of Xī Chāo and Xī Mì; their grandsons were the Xī ink-makers. Lǐ Chāo of Shèzhōu (Anhui) was the father of Lǐ Tíngguī of the Southern Táng. The two families are distinct in clan-name (Xī vs. Lǐ), in geographical origin (Yìshuǐ vs. Shèzhōu), and in lineage — only the coincidence of names makes them appear linked. This argument is now standard in scholarship.
The author’s biography is well-documented (see the tíyào itself, which reproduces information from a pízhuàn not otherwise preserved): Lù Yǒu was a Sūzhōu commoner’s son who rose by talent to the high-Yuán Beijing court, was patronized by the great Kuízhānggé scholars Kē Jiǔsī 柯九思 (1290–1343) and Yú Jí 虞集 (1272–1348), came close to receiving an imperial appointment under Wénzōng, but the patrons’ fall (Kē was forced out by Bayan in 1333) ended that prospect. Lù returned south to Sūzhōu around 1338 and worked thereafter as a private scholar; his death year is not recorded.
Translations and research
- Franke, Herbert. 1962. “Ein chinesischer Beitrag zur Tuschebereitung im 12. Jahrhundert”. Oriens Extremus 9.
- Tsien Tsuen-hsuin 錢存訓. 1985. Paper and Printing. Vol. V part 1 of Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China. Cambridge UP.
- Mèng Fànjūn 孟繁君. 2008. Zhōng-guó gǔ-dài mò-shǐ 中國古代墨史. Běijīng: Wén-wù chū-bǎn-shè.
Other points of interest
The same author’s lost Yànshǐ 硯史 (Ink-Stone History), distinct from Mǐ Fú’s KR3i0003 of the same title, is mentioned in the tíyào; its loss is one of the standard regrets of Yuán pǔlù scholarship. The Korean (Gāolì), Khitan (Qìdān), and Western-Regions ink-notes are unique and rare ethnographic-bibliographic material.