Wěi lüè 緯略
An Outline of the Apocrypha (and Cognate Esoterica)
by 高似孫 (Gāo Sìsūn, zì Xùgǔ 續古, hào Shūliáo 疎寮; jìnshì of Chúnxī 11 = 1184; native of Yúyáo 餘姚)
About the work
A Southern-Sòng bǐjì in twelve juan, one of the half-dozen lüè 略 (“compendium / outline”) works that constitute Gāo Sìsūn’s bibliographic project — the others being Jīng lüè 經略, Shǐ lüè 史略, Zǐ lüè 子略, Jí lüè 集略, and Sāo lüè 騷略 (only the Zǐ lüè, Sāo lüè, and the present Wěi lüè are preserved). Despite the suggestive title, the Wěi lüè is not a systematic catalog of Hàn-period wěishū 緯書 (“apocrypha” — the prophetic counterparts to the canonical 經 jīng); rather it is a heterogeneous philological-antiquarian compendium that draws extensively on apocryphal, occult, marvellous, and out-of-the-way materials, structured loosely around lexical or topical headings. The Sìkù editors classify it under záxué zhī shǔ 雜學之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 division, záyǎng zhī shǔ 雜考之屬, and treat it as a parade example of the late-Sòng erudite-ostentatious mode of bǐjì — useful for its preservation of citations from texts no longer extant, but hampered by Gāo’s reputed taste for “secluded and obscure” 隠僻 erudition and “perverse and crabbed” 怪澀 prose.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Wěi lüè in twelve juan, by Gāo Sìsūn of the Sòng. Sìsūn’s zì is Xùgǔ, native of Yúyáo. Jìnshì of Chúnxī eleven [1184], holding office to Xiàoshūláng and Magistrate of Chǔzhōu. Sìsūn formerly compiled the Jīng lüè, Shǐ lüè, Zǐ lüè, Jí lüè, Sāo lüè, and the present work; today only the Zǐ lüè, Sāo lüè, and this book survive. Chén Zhènsūn’s 陳振孫 Shūlù jiětí 書錄解題 censures him for “reading-as-secluded-and-obscure makes for breadth” 以隠僻為博 and “writing-as-perverse-and-crabbed makes for marvels” 以怪澀為竒 — yet kǎozhèng learning is in no way embarrassed by breadth, and the works cited in this compilation are all to be found among the Sìkù’s own catalogued holdings, not in the manner of a Féng Zhì 馮贄 trafficking in fabricated quotations to dazzle the vulgar. So one cannot really fault him for “secluded and obscure.”
The Míng Shěn Shìlóng 沈士龍 also says that pieces such as Mǐn sāo 愍騷, Zhāo yǐn 招隱, Bā fēng 八風, Wéi qí 圍棊, Qú □ 氍□, Mà yá 禡牙 are all wholly transcribed from the Yìwén (lèijù) 藝文(類聚), Chū xué 初學 [jì 記], Běi táng (shūchāo) 北堂(書鈔), and (Tàipíng) Yùlǎn (太平)御覽 with no further additions of his own — recognizing that by the Sòng many anthologies and collections were no longer extant, and Gāo had to make do with these lèishū and to flaunt his breadth of reading thereby. This too cannot be denied. Zhōu Yīng’s 周嬰 Zhī lín 巵林 reproaches him for an erroneous citation of the Jīn lóu zǐ 金樓子, taking Liú Xiūyuán’s 劉休元 Shuǐ xiān fù 水仙賦 to be by the Táng Liú Zǐyuán 劉子元 — sloppy errors of this kind are unavoidable. Yet his speech is sober and grounded, and stands well above Yáng Shèn’s 楊慎 Dān qiān 丹鉛 series — also indispensable for those who study antiquity.
Respectfully revised and submitted, second month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng [1780].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀 (note: 均 in the original is a typographical slip for 昀), Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Gāo Sìsūn 高似孫 (CBDB 13584; precise lifedates uncertain — jìnshì in 1184, his Shàn lù 剡錄 prefaced in 1215, and reasonably presumed dead by the 1230s) was a late-Southern-Sòng bibliographer and bǐjì writer whose ambition was to produce a series of subject-keyed lüè 略 (“outlines”) covering each of the conventional bibliographic divisions. Of these only three survive: the Zǐ lüè 子略 (an annotated catalog of zǐ-class books, drawing on the Hàn shū · Yìwén zhì, the Suí shū · Jīngjí zhì, and Sòng catalogs), the Sāo lüè 騷略 (on the Chǔ cí tradition), and the present Wěi lüè.
The dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 1184, notAfter 1230) reflects Gāo Sìsūn’s active scholarly life from his jìnshì year through the SòngLǐzōng era; the Wěi lüè itself is not securely dated to a single year but is consistently grouped with his other lüè works as a product of the Chúnxī–Jiādìng decades. The catalog meta gives the date 1184, which is Gāo Sìsūn’s jìnshì year; this is the conventional terminus a quo for his cataloguing project, not the actual completion date.
The work’s title, Wěi lüè, is a play on the jīng 經 / wěi 緯 antinomy — Gāo’s Jīng lüè covered the canon proper, while the Wěi lüè extends the project sideways into the wěi 緯 (apocrypha) and, by metonymic extension, into the entire territory of the marvellous, esoteric, and out-of-the-way. The book is not a Hàn-period wěishū catalog in the strict sense — for that one consults the much later compilations of An Jūshì 安居香山 and Nakamura Shōhachi 中村璋八 (1971–92) — but a Sòng-period encyclopedic bǐjì whose entries draw heavily on apocryphal, occult, and out-of-the-way sources. Some of those sources are now lost, which gives the Wěi lüè significant value as a witness to the Tang–Sòng transmission of marginal literature.
The Sìkù editors’ verdict is balanced but distinctly cool: Gāo is prized for breadth and for preserving citations from non-extant works, but criticized for an excessive reliance on Táng lèishū (the Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚, Chū xué jì 初學記, Běitáng shūchāo 北堂書鈔, and Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽 mentioned by Shěn Shìlóng) — i.e. for citing at second hand under the appearance of first-hand reading. The compilation is recorded in Chén Zhènsūn’s Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí 直齋書錄解題 (where it is criticized as quoted in the Tíyào) and in the Sòngshǐ · Yìwén zhì. The Wényuān gé recension catalogued here is the standard Sìkù text in twelve juan.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language secondary literature located. The work is studied chiefly within Chinese scholarship on Sòng bǐjì and on the late-imperial reception of wěi- and apocryphal literature:
- An Jūshì 安居香山 and Nakamura Shōhachi 中村璋八, Wěishū jíchéng 緯書集成 (Héběi rénmín, 1994; based on their earlier Japanese collations) — the standard scholarly compilation of the Hàn-era apocrypha proper, which provides the framework against which the Wěi lüè’s coverage can be assessed.
- Quán Sòng bǐjì 全宋筆記 series (Lǐ Wěiguó 李偉國 et al., eds., Dàxiàng chūbǎnshè) carries a punctuated Wěi lüè alongside Gāo’s other surviving lüè.
- Liú Yèqiū 劉葉秋, Lìdài bǐjì gàishù 歷代筆記概述 (Zhōnghuá, 1980; rev. 2003), brief notice.
- Hé Guǎngxīn 何廣棪, studies of Gāo Sìsūn’s bibliographic project (papers in 《新亞學報》 and elsewhere).
Other points of interest
The Wěi lüè is the principal Sòng-period demonstration of how thoroughly the HànWèi wěi literature had decayed by the twelfth century: even a polymath as well-read as Gāo Sìsūn must work largely from Táng lèishū citations and second-hand quotations. It is thus simultaneously a witness to lost texts and an inadvertent monument to the impossibility, by the late Sòng, of doing apocrypha-scholarship in the Hàn manner.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Wěi lüè entry.
- Wikidata: Q11074876 (Wei lüe — Gāo Sìsūn).
- Comparable Sòng erudite bǐjì: KR3j0040 (Yǎnfán lù).