Yì lín huì kǎo 藝林彙考
Gathered Investigations of the Garden of Arts
by 沈自南 (Shěn Zìnán, zì Liúhóu 留侯, fl. mid-seventeenth century; of Wújiāng 吳江; Shùnzhì rénchén [1652] jìnshì; magistrate of Pénglái 蓬萊 county, Shāndōng)
About the work
A 40-juan early-Qīng kǎozhèng compendium organized as a categorical encyclopedia of names-and-things, surviving in 5 sections of an originally planned 24 sections (the remaining 19 were never printed or are lost). The five extant sections are: Dòng yǔ 棟宇 (architecture, 10 juan with 10 sub-categories), Fú shì 服飾 (clothing, 10 juan with 8 sub-categories), Yǐn shí 飲食 (food and drink, 7 juan with 6 sub-categories), Chēng hào 稱號 (kinship and social titles, 12 juan with 11 sub-categories), and Zhí wù 植物 (plants, 1 juan, incomplete — only the qióng huā 瓊花 entries survive). The author’s prefaces (“title-records”) for the first four sections explain his method: gather citations from across the entire transmitted corpus that contain biànzhèng (rectifying-arguments) on each term, with explicit source-attribution, organized for ready reference. The book is one of the more methodologically self-conscious early-Qīng evidential lexicons and the Sìkù editors single it out for praise: “the organization is not matched by recent lèishū — we therefore record it specifically in the Zákǎo class and do not place it with the other lèishū.”
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yì lín huì kǎo in forty juan was compiled by Shěn Zìnán of our dynasty. Zìnán’s zì was Liúhóu. A Wújiāng man. Shùnzhì rénchén (1652) jìnshì; served as magistrate of Pénglái county, Shāndōng.
The book has five sections: Dòng yǔ 棟宇, Fú shì 服飾, Yǐn shí 飲食, Chēng hào 稱號, Zhí wù 植物. At the front, Chén Jiàn 陳鑑 of Xiùshuǐ 秀水 wrote a Tí jì 題記: “this book originally had twenty-four sections — the juan-count is very large — but at the time of printing only this much was prepared; what is here is sufficient to cover what bears on human affairs.”
[The juan-count and sub-category structure of each section is itemized: Dòng yǔ in 10 sub-categories — gōng diàn 宮殿, fǔ shǔ 府署, tíng tái 亭臺, mén píng 門屛, miào shì 廟室, sì guàn 寺觀, zhái shè 宅舍, wú xù 廡序, liáng lì 梁欐, gōu tú 溝塗 — and so on for fú shì, yǐn shí, chēng hào, with detailed sub-categorical structure preserved in the source.]
For the first four sections (dòng yǔ, fú shì, yǐn shí, chēng hào) Zìnán wrote section-prefaces; the zhí wù section alone has no preface — evidence that the manuscript was incomplete. What he cites is broadly substantial and well-anchored. So Chén Jiàn’s tí jì further records Wāng Fèn’s 汪份 words: “What Huì kǎo contains are all books with rectifying-arguments — reading them is enough to enlarge knowledge and dispel doubt. Also, what it selects always carries the book-title, so that one already familiar with a book can recognize it at a glance, and one who wishes to consult the original can pursue the reference. Its arrangement is in every way beyond what recent lèishū can match.” This judgment is just; we therefore specifically record it in the Záxiè kǎo class and do not place it alongside the other lèishū.
Respectfully revised and submitted, fifth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Shěn Zìnán 沈自南 (fl. mid-seventeenth century; lifedates unrecoverable), zì Liúhóu 留侯, of Wújiāng 吳江 (Sūzhōu). Shùnzhì rénchén (1652) jìnshì. Served as magistrate of Pénglái 蓬萊 county in Shāndōng — his only known office. The Yì lín huì kǎo is his sole substantial transmitted work; the remaining 19 sections of the originally planned 24-section encyclopedia are lost and were probably never printed.
The work occupies an unusual methodological position between the late-Míng lèishū tradition and emerging Qīng kǎozhèng lexicology. Formally it is a categorical encyclopedia (extended lèishū structure with detailed sub-categories); methodologically it is a kǎozhèng compendium (citation-based rectifying arguments only, with strict source-attribution). The Sìkù editors classify it under Zákǎo rather than Lèishū precisely on this methodological ground. The work is broadly contemporary with — but methodologically distinct from — the major early-Qīng works of Gù Yánwǔ and Huáng Shēng, and represents an interesting middle path.
The Chēng hào section in particular is among the more substantial premodern Chinese kinship-and-social-title lexicons, with 12 juan covering 11 detailed sub-categories from palace women to monastic clergy. It anticipates Qīng kinship-anthropological studies and is occasionally cited in modern Chinese sociology of the pre-modern family.
Dating. The 1652 jìnshì date and the publication terminus around 1690 (Chén Jiàn’s Tí jì dating to Kāngxī xīnmèi 1751 is the Sìkù editors’ republishing date, not the original publication) bracket Shěn’s productive scholarly period. The notBefore of 1652 is the jìnshì; the notAfter of 1690 is a conservative terminus ante quem for the surviving sections.
The standard transmitted text is the SKQS recension; the original 1690s printing survives in scattered library collections.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. The work is occasionally cited in Chinese-language studies of early-Qīng lexicography and of the Qīng lèi-shū tradition. Modern reprints in the Sì-kù quán-shū facsimile.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ categorical decision to place this work in Zákǎo rather than Lèishū — on the explicit ground of methodological rigor and source-attribution — is a small but significant case study in the eighteenth-century editorial reception of the late-Míng / early-Qīng evidential tradition. Wāng Fèn’s defense of the book in Chén Jiàn’s preface — “what it cites always carries the book-title” — captures precisely what distinguishes Qīng evidential method from earlier lèishū practice.
The incomplete state of the work (5 of 24 sections only) is one of the more striking instances of a major early-Qīng project never completed; the remaining 19 sections must be presumed lost.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Yì lín huì kǎo entry.