Zhúpǔ 竹譜
Treatise on Bamboo by 戴凱之 (Dài Kǎizhī, 撰)
About the work
The foundational Chinese monograph on bamboo (zhú 竹) and one of the earliest surviving pǔlù in the entire genre — predating the Sòng efflorescence of the genre by some six centuries. One-juàn late-Jìn / LiúSòng work attributed by tradition to Dài Kǎizhī 戴凱之 of Wǔchāng. Composed in sìyán (four-character) rhymed verse with self-commentary in prose — a deliberate echo of the classical Shàngshū and Zhōulǐ style. The verse passages enumerate over seventy varieties of bamboo (the Yǒuyáng zázǔ records “thirty-nine varieties” in citation, but the WYG recension has over seventy; the Sìkù editors suspect transmission-error in the Yǒuyáng zázǔ count).
The work opens with the famous theoretical proposition: “Among planted varieties there is something called bamboo — neither rigid nor flexible, neither grass nor tree” — that bamboo is a class of its own, distinct from both the cǎo (herbs) and mù (trees) of classical Chinese botany. This proposition, foundational for subsequent Chinese bamboo-categorization, contradicts the Shānhǎi jīng and Ěryǎ tradition that placed bamboo among the cǎo.
Tiyao
We submit that the Zhúpǔ in one juàn — the old recensions inscribe it as by Dài Kǎizhī of the Jìn. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Jùnzhāi dúshūzhì says Kǎizhī’s zì is Qìngyù 慶預, a man of Wǔchāng; further citing Lǐ Shū’s Hándān túshūzhì, says “do not know what age.” Investigating the Suíshū Jīngjízhì pǔxì category: there is a Zhúpǔ in one juàn without name attached. The Jiù Tángshū Jīngjízhì lists it in nóngjiā and first attaches Dài Kǎizhī’s name, but not the period. Zuǒ Guī’s Bǎichuān xuéhǎi inscribes “of Jìn” but his zì as Qìngyù 慶豫. The Yù and Yù characters are close — uncertain which is correct. The “of Jìn” assertion, also unclear what it is based on.
However, observing the work’s use of lún rhyme with nián, chuán; the use of bāng rhyme with gōng, tóng — these still preserve ancient pronunciation. The annotations all cite the Sāncāng (the Jìn-period dictionary); also cite Yú Yù 虞預’s Kuàijī diǎnlù, Cháng Kuān 常寬’s Shǔ zhì, Xú Guǎng 徐廣’s Zájì, Shěn Yíng 沈瑩’s Línhǎi shuǐtǔ yìwù zhì, Guō Pú 郭璞’s Shānhǎijīng zhù and Ěryǎ zhù — all Jìn-period works. And the Shàngshū “Xiǎodǎng jí fū” still uses Zhèng Xuán’s annotation “xiǎo is arrow-bamboo, dǎng is great bamboo” — appearing to predate the Kǒngzhuàn’s widespread circulation. Although inscribed as Jìn there is no other definite proof; Lǐ Shàn’s annotation of Mǎ Róng’s Chángtián fù already cites its “lóngzhōng” entry; Duàn Gōnglù’s Běihù lù cites its “chàn 必 sixty years restore, also six years” entry — sufficient evidence of pre-Tang composition.
Only the Yǒuyáng zázǔ says “the Zhúpǔ has thirty-nine varieties of bamboo,” while the present recension has over seventy varieties — slightly mismatched; we suspect transmission-error in the Yǒuyáng zázǔ.
The book uses sìyán rhymed-verse to record varieties of bamboo, with self-supplied annotations; the prose is gǔyǎ (ancient-cultivated). A Huángtú (Yellow-Map) entry it cites is not in the present recension of the Huángtú — matching what Xú Guǎng cited from the Huángtú in his Shǐjì annotation, none of which is in the present Huángtú recension — likewise gone. This is sufficient proof that when this work was composed, the old Huángtú recension had not yet been revised. The old recension has many transmission-errors-and-omissions. Items like gàizhú suǒ shēng dàdǐ Jiāngdōng shàngmì fánglù xiàshū láifēng liánmǔ jiētīng sǒngsǎn gāngtán — the tán character does not match the rhyme; though fēng per the Shī Wèifēng has a reading fú jīn qiē that anciently matches tán, but dōng has absolutely no rhyme-reason. Apparently the four characters tán gāng sǎn sǒng are mistakenly inverted. The rhyme uses sǒng to rhyme dōngfēng — like Liú Kūn’s poem using sǒu to rhyme qiú, or Pān Yuè’s poem using hé to rhyme gē. However all recensions are alike, hard to correct by conjecture. We follow the old wherever such cases occur. Submitted Qiánlóng 46 month 10 (1781).
Abstract
The Zhúpǔ is the foundational Chinese bamboo-monograph and one of the most important pre-Tang technical-literary works to survive. Its dating, while not securely fixed to the Jìn, is firmly pre-Tang on the basis of multiple internal citations (Lǐ Shàn, Duàn Gōnglù), of its philological-rhyme features (use of ancient rhyme-categories now-lost), and of its source-citations (all of which are Jìn-period works). The Sìkù editors’ careful skepticism is exemplary — they do not over-claim the Jìn attribution but establish the work as pre-Tang and probably late-Jìn or early Six Dynasties.
The work catalogs over seventy varieties of bamboo across the principal Chinese bamboo regions. Geographical coverage emphasizes the Jiāngnán and Lǐngnán (southern coastal-tropical) regions — Jiǔyán (the Nine Mountains), Wǔlǐng (the Five Ridges, the Cantonese region), Yǒngjiā, Kuàijī — reflecting the late-Jìn cultural shift southward after the Yǒngjiā catastrophe of 311.
The varieties include: Lóngzhōng 籦龍 (the legendary bamboo from Mt Kūnlún used by Huángdì’s musician Línglún 伶倫 to set the musical pitch-pipes); Yuánqiū dìzhú 員丘帝竹 (the Yuánqiū Imperial Bamboo, of which a single internode forms a boat — i.e., a giant bamboo of legendary size, probably a folk-memory of Dendrocalamus giganteus); Guìzhú 桂竹 (Cinnamon-bamboo); Jízhú 棘竹 (Thorn-bamboo, used as living-fence in Vietnamese / Cantonese village); Yúndāng 篔簹 (the giant Yúndāng bamboo); Táozhī 桃枝 (Peach-Twig bamboo, used for the mièxí mats of the Gùmìng piān of the Shàngshū); Qióngzhú 笻竹 (the famous Sìchuān staff-bamboo, exported by Zhāng Qiān’s time to Bactria via Yúnnán / Burma); and many others.
The work’s principal theoretical contribution — the assertion that bamboo is its own zú (category), distinct from both cǎo and mù — was followed by all subsequent Chinese botanical classification, and is now considered correct (modern taxonomy places bamboo in the Poaceae as a giant grass, but recognizes it as a distinctive subfamily, Bambusoideae). The poetic-and-philological richness — Jìn-period readings of Tang-lost characters, rare botanical terms — makes the work indispensable for both literary-historical and botanical research.
Translations and research
- Needham, Joseph and Lu Gwei-djen. 1971. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. IV part 3 (Civil Engineering and Nautics). Cambridge UP. Treats bamboo-history and cites Zhú-pǔ extensively.
- Hé Bǎofēng 何寶豐. 2007. Zhōng-guó zhú-lèi wén-huà-shǐ 中國竹類文化史. Běijīng: Wén-wù chū-bǎn-shè.
- Kè Bǎochéng 柯保誠. 1999. “Zhú-pǔ shī-zhèng” 竹譜詩證. Wén-shǐ 41.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the earliest pre-Tang Chinese works to be preserved as a pǔlù; it predates Lù Yǔ’s Chájīng by some four centuries. It is also a major source for early-Chinese natural-history and for southern-Chinese ethnography (the Lǐngnán peoples and their bamboo-using cultures). The use of sìyán rhymed-verse — recalling the classical Shījīng and Yìjīng style — gives the work an unusually canonical-literary character among pǔlù.