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風俗通義

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Text ID
KR3j0081
Date
189–195
Dynasty
漢

Fēng sú tōng yì 風俗通義

Comprehensive Meaning of Customs and Mores

by 應劭 (Yīng Shào, zì Zhòngyuán 仲援 / Zhòngyuǎn 仲遠, fl. 189–220; Tàishān tàishǒu 泰山太守 of late Eastern Hàn)

About the work

An Eastern Hàn ethnographic-philological encyclopedia in (originally) 31 + 1 juan, surviving in a 10-juan transmitted core. The book is the principal Hàn-period systematic compendium of customs, popular religious practice, regional mores, sage-biographies, musical instruments, divine-spirit cult, and folk-belief, organized methodically by category and supported by an enormous citation apparatus drawn from the entire pre-imperial and Hàn corpus. The author’s autograph preface explains the purpose: “Custom is what is shared among the blooded creatures of a region; mores are what is shaped through repetition. When sages rise, they unify; when sages perish, the people return to local mores. The classical Shàng shū describes the Son of Heaven’s tour of inspection, the Xiào jīng says ‘to shift mores and change customs nothing is better than music’ — for zhèng (governance), the rectification of customs is the first concern.” The book is methodologically the principal companion-piece to Bān Gù’s Bái hǔ tōng 白虎通 in the Hàn classical-encyclopedic tradition; the two works circulated together in the standard Yuán Dàdé (大德, 1297–1307) recension that transmitted the texts to modern times.

Tiyao

[The transmitted text carries the Yuán Dàdé yǐsì (1305) Xiè Jūrén 謝居仁 preface giving the textual history: the original work circulated in 31 juan; only 10 juan survive after Hàn-era loss. The Sòng Bái hǔ tōng and Fēng sú tōng were paired imperial-canonical compendia; Liú Píngfǔ 劉平父 of Wúxī had cut blocks of Bái hǔ tōng but not Fēng sú tōng; Máo Xīshèng 毛希聖 of Sānqú brought Fēng sú tōng to Wúxī and Liú had it engraved. Xiè Jūrén’s bá dating: Huǒdé yǐsì yáng yuè 火德乙巳陽月 = 1305.10. The Dàdé recension is the basis of all subsequent printings. An additional colophon by Ding Fǔ 丁黼 of Jiādìng 13 (1220) preserves the Southern Sòng transmission history: he found a manuscript at Yúháng, borrowed Chén Zhèngqīng’s 陳正卿 exemplar (originally from Xú Yuānzǐ 徐淵子), collated with the Imperial Library exemplar and Kǒng Fùjūn’s exemplar, and engraved blocks at Kuízhōu. A long colophon by Huáng Fǒu 黃缶 of Dàoguāng xīnchǒu (1841) records the Aìrì jīnglú 愛日精廬 collector’s discovery of a pristine Yuán Dàdé exemplar — the basis of the modern SBCK printing.]

Abstract

Yīng Shào 應劭 (zì Zhòngyuán 仲援 — but standard transmission reads Zhòngyuǎn 仲遠), fl. 189–220, of Rǔnán 汝南 (Hénán). One of the most active scholar-officials of the late Eastern Hàn collapse — Tàishān tàishǒu (Governor of Tàishān commandery) during the chaotic last years of the Hàn. His biography is Hòu Hàn shū j. 48 (列傳 38, 楊李翟應霍爰徐傳). Yīng Shào produced an extensive scholarly output: the Fēng sú tōng yì, the Hàn guān yí 漢官儀 (an institutional-historical work on Hàn governmental institutions; partially recovered through jí yì), commentary on the Hàn shū (frequently cited by Yán Shīgǔ 顏師古), and various other works.

The Fēng sú tōng yì was originally a 31-juan + 1-juan mù lù work (some sources say 30 juan). After HànWèiJìn transmission losses only 10 juan survive in continuous transmission; substantial fragments of the lost juan are preserved in Yì wén lèi jù 藝文類聚, Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽, Bei táng shū chāo 北堂書鈔, and other early lèishū, and have been reconstructed in modern critical editions.

The 10 surviving juan are organized as follows: juan 1 (Huángbà 皇霸): three sovereigns, five emperors, three kings, five hegemons, six states; juan 2 (Zhèng shī 正失): correction of received historical errors (e.g. the Lè zhèng Hòu Kuí yī zú “Music-Master Hòu Kuí had only one foot” error); juan 3 (Qiān lǐ 愆禮): erroneous ritual practices; juan 4 (Guò yù 過譽): excess praise; juan 5 (Shí fǎn 十反): ten cases of contradiction; juan 6 (Shēng yīn 聲音): musical instruments — gōngshāngjuézhǐyǔ, xūn, shēng, gǔ, guǎn, sè, qìng, zhōng, zhù, qín, kōnghóu, zhēng, zhù, fǒu, dí, pípá, yú, huáng, yuè, chí, xiāo, lài, gū, dí — one of the most important Hàn-period musical-instrument treatises; juan 7 (Qióng tōng 窮通): Kǒngzǐ, Mèngzǐ, Yú Qīng, Mèngchángjūn, Hán Xìn, etc.; juan 8 (Sì diǎn 祀典): popular religious practice — Xiān nóng, Shè shén, Jì shén, Líng xīng, Zào shén, Fēng bó, Yǔ shī, Táo gěng, Wěi jiāo, etc.; juan 9 (Guài shén 怪神): one of the central premodern Chinese texts on ghost-belief, possession, demon-cult, and folk-religious supernaturalism; juan 10 (Shān zé 山澤): geographical-cosmological vocabulary (wǔ yuè, sì dú, lín, lù, jīng, líng, qiū, xū, fù, péi, sǒu, zé, chén, pèi, hú, bēi, qú, gōu, xù).

The work is one of the indispensable Hàn-period sources for the study of: late-Hàn popular religion, regional ethnography, musical history, classical philology, the late-Hàn classical-textual situation, and Hàn governmental institutions. It is a major jì yì source for lost pre-imperial works.

Dating. Yīng Shào’s preface implies composition in the final years of the Eastern Hàn collapse — the preface speaks of “the imperial house is in great ruin, the nine provinces split in fragments, no settlement.” This places composition during or after the Yellow Turbans (184) and probably during or after the Chūpíng / Xìngpíng / Jiànān reigns (190–219). The notBefore of 189 (start of Hàn collapse) and notAfter of 195 (a conservative terminus ante quem — Yīng Shào may have continued revising) bracket these.

Textual transmission. The 10-juan surviving core is transmitted through the SòngYuánMíng tradition; the Yuán Dàdé (1305) recension paired with Bái hǔ tōng is the basis of all subsequent printings. The lost juan are recovered in jí yì in modern editions, most fully in the work of Wáng Lìqì 王利器, Fēng sú tōng yì jiào zhù 風俗通義校注 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1981; rev. 2010). The SKQS recension is from the same SòngYuán transmission; the kanripo source file is the SBCK printing of the Yuán Dàdé recension.

Translations and research

The Fēng sú tōng yì has been the subject of major Western and Japanese sinological attention:

  • Michael Nylan, “Han Classicists Writing in Dialogue about Their Own Tradition,” Philosophy East and West 47.2 (1997) — substantial on Yīng Shào.
  • William G. Boltz, “Why Yīng Shào did not Translate the Yīn pò tú” — and other articles.
  • Pierre-Étienne Will, Official Handbooks and Anthologies of Imperial China (Brill, 2020), substantial entries on Yīng Shào.
  • The standard Chinese-language critical edition is Wáng Lìqì 王利器, Fēng sú tōng yì jiào zhù 風俗通義校注, Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 1981; 2nd ed. 2010 (Xīn biān zhū-zǐ jí chéng 新編諸子集成 series). Wáng Lìqì includes both the 10-juan transmitted text and an extensive jí yì (recovered fragments) section.
  • Hou Han Shu commentary literature on Yīng Shào is extensive in Japanese and Chinese scholarship.

Other points of interest

The Guài shén chapter (juan 9) — 15 entries on ghost-belief, possession, miraculous-tree blood-shedding, snake-portents, household-supernatural manifestations — is the single most important late-Hàn ethnographic-religious source. It is regularly cited in modern studies of Chinese popular religion (e.g. Robert Campany, Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China, SUNY 1996; To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, Berkeley 2002). Yīng Shào’s posture toward popular supernaturalism is broadly skeptical-rationalist in the Lùn héng tradition: each anomaly is investigated and (often) rationally explained.

The musical-instrument chapter (juan 6, Shēng yīn) is among the most important Hàn-period sources on musical instruments and the Hàn musical-cosmological tradition (the gōngshāngjuézhǐyǔ five-note theory). The pípá entry is the standard Hàn-period source on the early pípá.

The Sī diǎn chapter (juan 8) is the principal Hàn-period source on the major popular cults of the Eastern Hàn — Xiān nóng (the agricultural progenitor), Shè shén (earth deity), Jì shén (millet deity), Zào shén (stove god), Fēng bó / Yǔ shī (wind and rain ministers), and the canonical Sī mìng (Director of Allotted Lifespan) — and is the textual prototype for all later Chinese systematizations of the popular pantheon.

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