編珠

Biānzhū 編珠

Strung Pearls

by 杜公瞻 (Dù Gōngzhān, Suí, 奉敕撰); supplemented and re-issued by 高士奇 (Gāo Shìqí, Qīng, 補).

About the work

A small Suí-period lèishū designed as a quick-reference treasury of gùshí 故實 (allusive parallels) for ornamental verse. Originally compiled in 4 juan in Dàyè 大業 7 (611) by Dù Gōngzhān 杜公瞻 at the express command of Suí Yángdì 隋煬帝, who wanted a compendium of book-citations that could be looked up “easily and made into parallels”; entries are laid out as paired allusions, gùshí in red and zhèngyì 正義 (canonical citation) in black. The book vanishes from bibliographic record after the Suí shū · Jīngjí zhì — neither the Táng dynastic monographs nor any private Sòng catalogue lists it — and was only recovered when Gāo Shìqí 高士奇 (1645–1703) chanced upon a partial copy in 4 juan (with only the first 2 surviving in full) while collating books in the Imperial Palace South Study during the Kāngxī period. Gāo restored the 4-juan core from external sources (presented to print in 1698, Kāngxī 37 / wùyín 戊寅), and added 2 juan of his own continuation (Xù Biānzhū 續編珠) covering categories absent from the original. The Sìkù editors print the 2-juan Suí core only (i.e. what Gāo treated as yuánběn 原本), with the Bǔyí 補遺 and Xù Biānzhū attached as appendices and clearly demarcated. The work is the only extant pre-Táng lèishū in this format, and Xú Qiánxué’s 徐乾學 1693 preface ranks it alongside lost titles like the Huánglǎn 皇覽, Lèiyuàn 類苑, Shòuguāng shūyuàn 壽光書苑 and Huálín biànlüè 華林遍略 as a survival from the great age of lèishū between WèiJìn and the Suí.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Biānzhū in 2 juan (with Bǔyí in 2 juan and Xù Biānzhū in 2 juan) is by Dù Gōngzhān 杜公瞻 of the Suí, the supplements being the work of Gāo Shìqí 高士奇, Chamberlain for the Imperial Family of Qiántáng, compiled in the wùyín year of our present dynasty’s Kāngxī reign [1698]. Neither the Suí nor the Táng bibliographic monographs record this book; it begins to circulate from Gāo Shìqí’s printing. His preface relates that he obtained the work from a heap of discarded paper in an inner-palace store-room: the original index ran to 4 juan but only half survived, and he could find no other copy; he therefore filled the second half from the original table of contents and broadened the categories the original lacked, producing 2 further juan. Now, examining the book, we find the head bears Dù Gōngzhān’s own preface dated Dàyè 7 [611], stating that he composed it by imperial command (奉敕撰進), signed “Zhe-zuò zuǒláng kě sànqí shìláng”. A further preface by Xú Qiánxué notes that Dù Gōngzhān has no notice in the histories, but the Tánsōu 談藪 records a Dù Gōngzhān of Jīngzhào of the Suí who once invited Yáng Jiè 楊玠 to his house for drink and ribald jest — and this can be no other Gōngzhān. Now examining the book, the entries are paired-allusion (lìshì wèi duì 隷事為對) and roughly imitate Xú Jiān’s 徐堅 Chūxué jì 初學記; only it lacks the prose narrative at the head of each section and the verse at the tail.

The original index distinguishes the categories: Heaven, Earth, Mountains and Rivers, Dwellings, Ceremonial Guards, Music, Garments and Adornments, Pearls and Treasures, Silks and Embroideries, Wine and Banquets, Grain, Vegetables and Greens, Fruits, Carriages and Horses, Boats and Oars. What survives runs from Heaven down through Music — five sections only. Now Suí Yángdì’s taboo character is 廣 (guǎng), so Guǎngchuān was changed to Chánghé — yet this book under “Guìlín shuǐ” cites the Guǎngzhōu shānchuān jì 廣州山川記; under “Zhìjī shuǐ” cites the Guǎngzhōu jì; under “Bǎixīn zhù” cites Fú Tāo’s Běizhēng jì mentioning Guǎnglíng xiàn chéngnán mén; under “Sāntiáo lù” cites Bān Gù’s Xīdū fù — “Pī sāntiáo zhī guǎnglù”. And Suí Gāozǔ’s father’s taboo is 忠 (zhōng), so the Suí shū changed the Zhōngjié zhuàn 忠節傳 to Chéngjié 誠節 — yet this book under “Zhǎnmǎ jiàn” cites the Hàn shū on Wáng Mǎng beheading Dǒng Zhōng. These could perhaps be excused: in literary composition the taboos are not necessarily fully observed. Yet under “Chāngpú hǎi” — paired with “Zhūyú jiāng” — the chāng 菖 should certainly take the cǎo 艸 radical, but the citation runs to the Hàn shū · Xīyù zhuàn: “The Yútián river joins the Cōnglǐng and flows east into the Chāngpú hǎi”; today we check the Hàn shū — it is Púchāng 蒲昌, not Chāngpú. A pre-Táng work should not have been this slipshod. Even this could perhaps be put down to momentary lapse, as Zhāng Jiǔlíng 張九齡 mistakenly cited yìrén hé mù 弋人何慕 or Wáng Wéi 王維 mistakenly cited liǔ shēng zuǒ zhǒu 栁生左肘.

But in the Music section, “Nánchéng gǔ” cites the Yuèfǔ jiětí 樂府解題 to the effect that the gǔchuī qǔ 鼓吹曲 has a piece Wūshān gāo and Zhànchéng nán — not only is the syntax irregular, but the Yuèfǔ jiětí itself is not recorded in any early bibliography, first appearing in the Chóngwén zǒngmù as anonymous, after Wú Jīng’s 吳兢 Yuèfǔ gǔtí yàojiě 樂府古題要解, and Guō Màoqiàn’s 郭茂倩 Yuèfǔ shījí cites it under “Hàn náogē shàng zhī huí piān”, directly attributing it to Wú Jīng — though not certain, it is certainly a late work and not a Six Dynasties text. How could Dù Gōngzhān have seen it? Perhaps it is a Míng-period imposture that Gāo Shìqí failed to recognize. Yáng Shìqí’s 楊士奇 Wényuān gé shūmù and Zhāng Xuān’s 張萱 Nèigé shūmù both have no record of this book; the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn draws from earlier lèishū like Sìliù cóngzhū 四六叢珠 and Jiéjiāng wǎng 截江網 without omitting a character, but does not cite a single line from this — so we know it surfaced only after the mid-Míng. As its choice of phraseology is rather brilliant, and Gāo Shìqí’s Bǔ and Xù sections likewise draw on pre-Táng material — older than other lèishū — we preserve the doubts but keep it for reference.

Respectfully revised and submitted, second month of the forty-fourth year of Qiánlóng [1779].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The Biānzhū is the earliest specifically lèishū-of-allusions to survive in the Chinese tradition — a treasury of paired gùshí designed to assist in the composition of fù and parallel prose. Its original 4-juan form was produced by Dù Gōngzhān 杜公瞻, a member of the Jīngzhào Dù lineage and Zhe-zuò zuǒláng (Compiler-in-Waiting) at the court of Suí Yángdì, by imperial command in Dàyè 7 (early 611). The preface explains the commission: Yángdì, then resident at Jiāngdū, complained that classical and historical citations were too unwieldy to consult quickly when composing his záyǒng 雜詠 and xīntǐ shī 新體詩, and asked for a compendium that would let him look up gùshí and form parallel couplets easily; Dù answered by laying out citations in fourteen categories (Heaven, Earth, Mountains and Rivers, Dwellings, Ceremonial Guards, Music, Garments and Adornments, Treasures, Silks, Wine and Banquets, Grain, Vegetables, Fruits, Carriages, Boats) — half the page red (the allusion), half black (the verbatim citation).

The work then vanishes from the bibliographic record for nearly a millennium. Neither the Suí shū · Jīngjí zhì (in spite of its own time-frame) nor the Jiù Táng shū · Jīngjí zhì nor the Xīn Táng shū · Yìwén zhì records it; it is absent from Cháo Gōngwǔ’s and Chén Zhènsūn’s Sòng catalogues; the Wényuān gé shūmù and Nèigé shūmù of Yáng Shìqí and Zhāng Xuān of the Míng do not list it; and tellingly, the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn — which silently absorbs even minor lèishū like the Sìliù cóngzhū and Jiéjiāng wǎng — does not quote a single line. This complete absence is one of two reasons the Sìkù editors flag the present text as possibly a late-Míng forgery: the second is a small set of citations that look anachronistic (a Yuèfǔ jiětí that does not appear before the Chóngwén zǒngmù; uncorrected use of the taboo characters 廣 and 忠 that the Suí court rigorously enforced; the wrong direction in a copy from the Hàn shū · Xīyù zhuàn). The Sìkù verdict — yí yǐ chuán yí, gū cún yǐ bèi cānkǎo “doubts retained but preserved for reference” — is a model of cautious editorial agnosticism.

The text in its present form was recovered by Gāo Shìqí during a stint of book-collation in the Inner Palace South Study at some point in the early 1690s. The original copy he found preserved only 2 of the original 4 juan (Heaven through Music); he restored the remaining 2 from the table of contents using external citations, and added 2 juan of his own (Xù Biānzhū 續編珠) covering categories he judged the Suí original to have neglected. Xú Qiánxué’s 徐乾學 preface, dated Kāngxī 32 / 10 / 1 (1693), endorses the project; Gāo’s own preface is dated Kāngxī 37 / 5 (1698). Composition dating here follows Dù Gōngzhān’s preface (Dàyè 7 = 611) for the textual nucleus, with the suspicion of a MíngQīng reconstruction acknowledged in this Abstract.

Translations and research

• David Knechtges, Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature (Princeton, 1982–1996, 3 vols.), §Introduction, treats the Biānzhū among early lèishū available to the Wén xuǎn commentators. No full translation of the Biānzhū itself has been undertaken.
• Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū 中國古代的類書, §Suí, on the Biānzhū as the principal Suí-period example.
• Chiu-Mi Lai, “The Emergence of a Genre: The Encyclopaedic Lèishū in Sui-Tang China,” forms part of the same scholarly discussion, though the Biānzhū’s authenticity question keeps it on the periphery of lèishū studies.
• The standard punctuated edition is the Sìkù quánshū recension, reprinted in the Yǐngyìn Wényuān gé Sìkù quánshū, vol. 887.

Other points of interest

The Biānzhū preface is one of the few first-person prose statements by a Suí-court compiler about the technical conventions of lèishū layout: red ink for the gùshí, black for the zhèngyì. The colour distinction does not survive in the Sìkù and modern reprints (which set both in black) but is preserved verbatim in Dù’s preface text. The work is also unique for the Sìkù editors’ frankness about possible forgery — most suspect texts are quietly demoted; this one is preserved with a published warning, making the Biānzhū tíyào a useful classroom example of Qīng evidential bibliography.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Biānzhū entry.
• Wikidata: Q10901070 (Biānzhū).