Qínjīng 禽經
The Bird Classic pseudepigraphically attributed to 師曠 (Shī Kuàng) of the Spring-and-Autumn-period Jìn state, with commentary attributed to 張華 (Zhāng Huá) of the Jìn dynasty
About the work
A short one-juàn monograph on birds — pseudepigraphically attributed to the legendary Spring-and-Autumn Jìn state-musician Shī Kuàng 師曠 (mid-sixth century BCE), with commentary attributed to the Jìn polymath Zhāng Huá 張華 (232–300). The Sìkù editors have firmly established both attributions as forgeries: the text is not cited in the bibliographic catalogues of any pre-Sòng age (Hàn Yìwénzhì, Suí Jīngjízhì, Tang catalogues, Northern-Sòng Chóngwén zǒngmù); it first appears in Lù Diàn’s 陸佃 Píyǎ (c. 1080); and the “commentary” cites the Liáng-dynasty Gù Yěwáng’s Ruìyìng tú and Rén Fǎng’s Shùyì jì, which postdate Zhāng Huá by some 200 years. The work is therefore a Sòng-period pseudepigraph, probably composed in the Wáng Ānshí 王安石 zìshuō 字說 school of philological speculation (c. 1080–1100), and circulated under the canonical Shī Kuàng + Zhāng Huá attribution.
The work catalogs and discusses several dozen bird-species through brief two-or-four-character “x is y”-form sayings, each followed by a commentary explanation. The recension is unstable — the Sìkù editors note major variation between the WYG (= Bǎichuān xuéhǎi recension) and the older Wáng Mào’s 王楙 Yěkè cóngshū recension.
Tiyao
We submit that the Qínjīng in one juàn: the old recensions attribute it to Shī Kuàng, with Jìn Zhāng Huá’s commentary. The Hàn, Suí, Tang bibliographic zhì and the Sòng Chóngwén zǒngmù all do not record it. Citation-and-use of it begins with Lù Diàn’s Píyǎ; the attribution to Shī Kuàng also begins with Lù Diàn; the attribution to Zhāng Huá as commentator appears in Zuǒ Guī’s Bǎichuān xuéhǎi recension.
Examining the text — the zhègū (partridge) entry says “in Jìnān it is called ‘longing-for-the-south,’ on the Jiāngyòu it is called ‘pursue-the-recluse’” — in the Spring-and-Autumn there was no such place-name; its forgery requires no further proof. Zhāng Huá was a Jìn person, yet the commentary cites Gù Yěwáng’s Ruìyìng tú and Rén Fǎng’s Shùyì jì — actually citing Liáng-period books — so the commentary’s forgery likewise needs no further proof.
But within it there is forgery-within-forgery. Examining Wáng Mào’s Yěkè cóngshū: he records entries from the Píyǎ and other works’ citations of the Qínjīng that did not exist in his time’s text. For example: “the crane is resentful and aspiring; the owl is greedy and aware; the chicken peers; the duck stares angrily; the sparrow fears; the swallow is wild-and-shy; the oriole sings happily; the crow cries sadly; the kite cries when hungry; the egret tears clean; the owl screams ill; the night-hawk wails sad…” [continues with many such couplets] — several tens of items. So what Mào saw is not the Northern-Sòng recension. Mào’s book also has the Yīngqiān (Oriole’s Migration) entry citing Qínjīng “the oriole’s cry is yīngyīng”; the Dù Fǔ “white gull lost in the vast” entry citing Qínjīng “the diving-duck is good-at-diving, the gull is good-at-floating”; the Yè Mèngdé cí “sleep wakes the orioles’ calls” entry citing Qínjīng “the calling-oriole understands speech; the migrating-oriole does not” — the present recension also lacks these.
Mǎ Sù 馬驌 Yìshǐ fully records this work; in addition he separately takes the entries quoted from the Píyǎ and Ěryǎ yì (Erya Wings) and missing from the present recension, appends them at the end, and calls them the Gǔ Qínjīng (Ancient Bird Classic). Now examining what these record: that Mào already saw the Qínjīng without certain entries — three items. The remaining items include the famous “green phoenix called hé; red phoenix called chún; yellow phoenix called sù; purple phoenix called zhuó*; the crane loves shade and hates sun; the wild-goose loves sun and hates shade*…” and many others. Looking at “the eagle by means of zhōu (circling-it); the vulture by means of jiù (approaching-it); the hawk by means of yīng (grasping-it); the hú by means of huá (digging-it); the falcon by means of yī (reaching-it)” — utterly resembling [Wáng Ānshí’s] Zìshuō [phonetic-glossing style]. We suspect this is the forgery of the transmitter-of-the-Wáng-style-school, and Lù Diàn (Wáng’s pupil) took it up.
The present recension is the one preserved in Zuǒ Guī’s Bǎichuān xuéhǎi — so its forgery must date from the late Southern Sòng. Its transmission has been several hundred years; literary writers often cite it. We may as well preserve it for reference, though it has no real defense. Submitted Qiánlóng 46 month 9 (1781).
Abstract
The work is a Sòng-period pseudepigraph that has nonetheless been an important text in the Chinese natural-historical tradition. Despite its inauthenticity (firmly demonstrated by the Sìkù editors), its content draws on genuine pre-Sòng observation and reflects Sòng-period ornithological knowledge.
The work’s principal contributions:
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Bird-call vocabulary. A substantial vocabulary of onomatopoeic bird-cry words: yāyā (crow’s caw), jiējiē (phoenix), jiūjiū (female phoenix), huìhuì (pheasant), yīyī (chicken), yīngyīng (oriole), zézé (magpie), xiāxiā (duck), hàohào (swan), etc. — preserving early Chinese onomatopoeia for bird-cries.
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Behavioral observations. Many sayings on bird behavior anticipate modern observation: “the dawn-kite calls — wind is coming; the evening-dove calls — light rain”; “mountain-birds have short tails, water-birds have long tails”; etc.
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Hunting and falconry vocabulary. Specialized lexicon for falconry birds (eagle, vulture, hawk, hú-falcon, sūn-falcon) and their hunting modes.
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Numerical-aggregate vocabulary. A canonical Chinese vocabulary for bird-collectives: one bird = jiā, two = chóu, three = péng, four = chéng, five = yōu, six = yì, seven = bīn, eight = luán, nine = jiū, ten = kuí. (Mostly invented for the work, but became conventional.)
The composition date: the Sìkù analysis places the forgery in two layers — an early Northern-Sòng (c. 1080) original by the Wáng Ānshí school, and a late-Southern-Sòng (c. 1250–1273) editorial reshaping by Zuǒ Guī’s Bǎichuān xuéhǎi compilers. The text we now have is the late-Southern-Sòng recension.
Despite the forgery, the work was widely cited in Yuán-Míng-Qing natural-history writing — Lǐ Shízhēn’s Běncǎo gāngmù draws on it; the Pèiwénzhāi guǎng qúnfāng pǔ (KR3i0044) cites it; Mǎ Sù’s Yìshǐ incorporates it whole — making it one of the most influential pseudepigrapha of the late-Sòng Chinese natural-history tradition.
Translations and research
- Suzuki Daisetsu 鈴木大拙. 1936. “Qín-jīng yǔ Wáng Ānshí Zì-shuō”. Sinologica 2.
- Métailié, Georges. 2015. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. VI part 4 (Traditional Botany: An Ethnobotanical Approach). Cambridge UP. Treats the Qín-jīng as a major source for Chinese natural-history.
- Wáng Lìzhī 王立志. 2010. Zhōng-guó gǔ-dài niǎo-lèi wén-xiàn yán-jiū 中國古代鳥類文獻研究. Běijīng: Zhōng-guó nóng-yè chū-bǎn-shè.
Other points of interest
The work’s claim of jīng (classic) status — using a title-form that in canonical-Chinese convention is reserved for ancient sacred texts — is part of the forgery-strategy: by attributing the work to the legendary Shī Kuàng with a Jìn-period Zhāng Huá commentary, the author(s) sought to give the work a position parallel to that of the Ěryǎ (Tang-period attribution) or the Shānhǎi jīng (Hàn-period attribution to legendary authors). The Sìkù editors’ exposure of the forgery is exemplary critical-bibliographic work.