Yùdìng Pèiwénzhāi guǎng qúnfāng pǔ 御定佩文齋廣羣芳譜
Imperially Authorized Expanded Treatise on the Multitude of Plants from the Studio of Honoured Literature by 汪灝 (Wāng Hào, 奉敕撰), 張逸少 (Zhāng Yìshào, 奉敕撰), Wāng Lóng 汪漋 (奉敕撰), Huáng Lóngméi 黃龍眉 (奉敕撰); with Kāngxī emperor’s imperial preface
About the work
The most comprehensive Chinese imperial flora ever compiled — a 100-juàn Kāngxī-era expansion of Wáng Xiàngjìn’s 王象晉 Ming-period Qúnfāng pǔ 群芳譜 (Wànlì period, 1607), greatly expanded with additional botanical, agricultural, běncǎo, poetic, and prose materials. Completed and printed at the imperial Wǔyīngdiàn 武英殿 in Kāngxī 47 (1708). Compiled by the Hànlín scholars Wāng Hào and Zhāng Yìshào under imperial command, with Wāng Lóng and Huáng Lóngméi as additional compilers.
The work’s structure: opens with tiānshí (heavenly seasons — the agricultural calendar); proceeds to gǔ (grains, the foundational human food); then sāngmá (silkworm-and-hemp, basic textile economy); then shūcài (vegetables); chá (tea); guǒ (fruits); mù (trees); huāhuì (flowers); concluding with yàowù (medicinal plants). The Kāngxī emperor’s preface specifies this arrangement as deliberate, expressing the imperial conception that “heaven-and-earth-and-man, the Three Powers, jointly establish” the order: heaven (seasons), earth (foundational crops and economy), man (refined uses — fruit, tea, flowers, medicine).
Tiyao
[No separate tíyào — the Sìkù editors used the imperial preface and the biǎo (memorial) as the principal paratextual apparatus.]
The Imperial Preface (translated in part): “From Shénnóng who tasted herbs and distinguished grains, people first knew planting; from Yīqí who commanded Xī and Hé to calculate the steps and fix the calendar to convey-time-to-the-people, people first knew that sowing-and-harvest must not be untimely, and the hundred crafts continued their bright affairs. Mighty are the openings of objects and accomplishments of tasks, opening-and-revealing the means to come — the sage emperors’ merit stands with heaven-and-earth. While I, in spare moments from listening to government, peruse classics and pay attention to agriculture-and-sericulture: I had the Plowing-and-Weaving Illustrations drawn, composed Lasting-Words verses, and on imperial-tours visited the fields personally — knowing thoroughly the difficulty of farming and the toil of labour. I always wished to investigate the principles of myriad living things, exhaust the conditions of myriad transformations’ rise-and-fall, and compose a finished work to assist my people…” The preface goes on to explain the dissatisfaction with previous works (the Qúnfāng pǔ and Lù Yuánbīn’s Yuèlíng guǎngyì) and the imperial decree to compile-and-expand.
The Memorial-of-Submission (Biǎo 表) by Liú Hào 劉灝 — the printing-superintendent — credits the four compilers Wāng Hào, Zhāng Yìshào, Wāng Lóng, and Huáng Lóngméi for the editorial work.
Abstract
The work is the most comprehensive Chinese imperial flora and one of the largest pre-modern botanical compendia in any language. Its 100 juàn cover virtually every plant of economic, culinary, medicinal, or aesthetic significance in Qing China, with for each plant: classical-citation history (from the Shījīng, Ěryǎ, Shàngshū through the standard histories, the major bǐjì, and the late-Ming-Qing horticultural literature); cultivation methods; varietal-distinctions; běncǎo medical uses; culinary uses; and a substantial poetry-and-prose anthology drawn from Tang-Sòng-Yuán-Míng compositions.
The work absorbs and supersedes the entire preceding Chinese floral-plant tradition. It incorporates wholesale: Lù Yǔ’s Chájīng KR3i0019 and the Sòng tea-monographs; Ōuyáng Xiū’s Luòyáng mǔdān jì KR3i0029 and the Sòng peony-monographs; Cài Xiāng’s Lìzhī pǔ KR3i0038 and Hán Yànzhí’s Júlù KR3i0039; the chrysanthemum, plum, orchid, citrus, and bamboo monographs; the Qímín yàoshù, Nóngzhèng quánshū, Wáng Zhēn nóngshū; and the major Tang-Sòng-Yuán-Míng běncǎo tradition (Táo Hóngjǐng, Sū Sòng, Lǐ Shízhēn).
The composition follows the dynastic mandate to consolidate prior knowledge for the public benefit: the Kāngxī Emperor’s preface explicitly invokes the precedent of the Duke of Zhōu’s Zhōulǐ system and Shénnóng’s herbal taste-testing — claiming for the Manchu Qing court the role of botanical-cultural patron equivalent to the legendary sage-emperors.
The work is also a major Qing-era cultural-political document: it celebrates the Qing imperial conception of the productive-relationship of throne, people, and the natural world, and its inclusion of “strange flowers and propitious herbs from famous mountains, tribute from distant regions and the absolute frontiers — things not seen-or-heard by previous ages” reflects the Qing imperial reach (Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan).
The dating is firmly Kāngxī 47 month 5 day 10 (1708-06-27) for the imperial preface; the work’s completion and printing in the same year is documented by the biǎo.
Translations and research
- Métailié, Georges. 2015. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. VI part 4 (Traditional Botany: An Ethnobotanical Approach). Cambridge UP. Treats Pèi-wén-zhāi guǎng qún-fāng pǔ as a major source.
- Bray, Francesca. 1984. Agriculture. Volume VI part 2 of Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China. Cambridge UP.
- Léng Jiànlì 冷建立. 2010. Sòng-dài pǔ-lù wén-xiàn yán-jiū 宋代譜錄文獻研究. Běijīng: Rénmín wénxué chū-bǎn-shè. Treats guǎng qún-fāng pǔ’s reception of Sòng pǔ-lù.
- Yáng Jiā-luò 楊家駱 (ed.). 1985. Pèi-wén-zhāi guǎng qún-fāng pǔ (Tái-běi: Hóng-yè reprint of the original 1708 Wǔ-yīng-diàn edition).
Other points of interest
The work was the principal Chinese botanical-encyclopedic reference of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the source from which Jesuit-and-other-European botanists (D’Incarville, Lobscheid, Bretschneider) drew their initial Chinese-language reading of Chinese flora. Bretschneider’s 1881 Botanicon Sinicum drew on this work as a principal Chinese source.
The work’s “Kāngxī-emperor compositions” included scattered through the entry-headings of plants on which the Emperor himself had composed poems represent the elaborate Qing-imperial conception of the throne as a participant in cultural production at the highest level — a model the Qiánlóng emperor would carry forward at much larger scale.