藝文類聚

Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚

Categorized Compendium of Belles-Lettres

by 歐陽詢 (Ōuyáng Xún, Táng, 奉敕撰); co-compilers 令狐德棻 (Lìnghú Détén), 袁朗 (Yuán Lǎng), 趙弘智 (Zhào Hóngzhì), each named in the Xīn Táng shū · Yìwén zhì.

About the work

One of the two foundational lèishū of the Táng — its 100 juan gather over 1,400 pre-7th-century works under 46 bù 部 and some 727 lèi 類 — and the earliest lèishū in the zhèng shǐ tradition to survive intact. Compiled at the personal command of Táng Gāozǔ 唐高祖 (the preface dates the imperial commission to the period just after the consolidation of the Táng but before Gāozǔ’s abdication in 626; the standard date for completion is Wǔdé 武德 7 = 624). The Sìkù tíyào names the four principal compilers: Ōuyáng Xún 歐陽詢 (557–641), who directed the project, with Lìnghú Détén 令狐德棻 (583–666), Yuán Lǎng 袁朗 (d. 622), and Zhào Hóngzhì 趙弘智 (572–653) listed as co-compilers in the Xīn Táng shū · Yìwén zhì note. The work’s distinctive structural innovation — given particular notice by the Sìkù editors as the most successful arrangement in the lèishū genre — is that within each lèi it gathers the source-citations first (shì jū yú qián 事居於前) and then aligns the relevant verse and prose excerpts (wén liè yú hòu 文列於後), so that the reader can move from fact to literary expression in a single category, rather than having to consult separate factual and literary anthologies. Wilkinson §72.1.2.1 calls it “the first Tang encyclopedia”; the modern Zhōnghuá 1965 punctuated edition (Wāng Shàoyíng 汪紹楹) is now the standard.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Yìwén lèijù in 100 juan was compiled by Ōuyáng Xún 歐陽詢 of the Táng. Xún, zì Xìnběn 信本, was a native of Línxiāng 臨湘 in Tánzhōu 潭州. Under the Suí he served as Tàicháng bóshì 太常博士; entering the Táng he rose to Tàizǐ shuàigēng lìng 太子率更令 (Manager of the Crown Prince’s Bureau of Water-clocks) and Hóngwén gé xuéshì 宏文閣學士. His biography is in the Táng shū. The book was, per his own preface, undertaken by imperial command. The Táng shū · Yìwén zhì notes that Lìnghú Détén 令狐德棻, Yuán Lǎng 袁朗 and Zhào Hóngzhì 趙宏智 co-compiled, but evidently Xún directed the work to completion; hence by tradition the book is attributed under his name alone.

Yè Dàqìng’s 葉大慶 Kǎogǔ zhìyí 考古質疑 points out problems: in the section for First Month, 17th Day, there is a yèyóu 夜遊 poem by Sū Wèidào 蘇味道; in the Luòshuǐ section there is a Bài Luò poem by Lǐ Qiáo 李嶠; in the Hánshí section there are poems by Shěn Quánqī 沈佺期 and Sòng Zhīwèn 宋之問. All four are later figures — Ōuyáng could not have anticipated them. Thus the transmitted text has been tampered with and is not throughout the work of Xún and his colleagues. The preface states: “Liúbié 流别 and Wénxuǎn select only the literary writings; Huánglǎn 皇覽 and Biānlüè 編略 record only the events directly — their textual purpose differs, and to consult them in one go is hard. This book is so arranged that, by category, related material is together — events come first, writings follow — that the reader may find his way easily and the composer may put it to use.” Of all lèishū the layout of this is the best.

Forty-eight categories in all, but the divisions are uneven and the merging-splitting is awkward. The “Mountains and Waters” section preserves only three of the Five Marchmounts and is missing one of the Four Watersheds. The “Sovereigns” section omits ShǔHàn 蜀漢 of the Three Kingdoms entirely, and for the Northern Dynasties records only GāoQí 高齊. In the “Princely Heir” section, Princesses are attached to the Crown Prince but the Princes are separately placed under “Office-holders”. The “Miscellaneous Writings” section appends paper, brush and ink-stone, but the “Military” section yet again splits off knives, daggers etc. as a separate “Weapons” category. Roads should go in the “Earth” section but here are placed under “Dwellings”; altars should go in the “Rites” section but are placed under “Dwellings”; needles should go under “Implements” but are placed under “Production”; cash should be appended to “Treasures and Jade” but is placed under “Production”. The desk, the staff, the fan, the zhǔwěi 麈尾 and rúyì 如意 should go under “Implements” but are placed under “Garments and Adornments”. Illness should go under “The Person” but is placed under “Magical Arts”. Mèng (dream), hún (cloud-soul), pò (white-soul) should also go under “The Person” but are placed under “Numinous Anomalies”. Zhūyú and huánglián go under “Trees”, fúróng and língténg go under “Plants”; hóng (swan) is recorded but yàn (wild-goose) is split off; bàng (oyster) is recorded but hé (clam) is split off; hè (crane) is recorded but huánghè (yellow crane) is split off; mǎ (horse) is recorded but táotú (a wild horse) is split off — such cases are not free of confused multiplicity.

Wáng Mǎo 王楙 in Yěkè cóngshū points out that the citation from the Hàn shū about Chánglíng yī póu tǔ 一抔土 (a handful of earth) wrongly takes póu 抔 for bēi 杯 (cup) — and the entry is then collected under the “Cup” category; and that in the “Púliǔ” 蒲栁 section the entry “Zhào Gāo bundling rushes for dried meat” cites “from the Shǐ jì” — but the Shǐ jì has no such passage. Péng Shūxià 彭叔夏 in his Wényuán yīnghuá biànzhèng also picks out the citation under “King of Liáng shoots a white goose” attributed to Zhuāngzǐ — Zhuāngzǐ has no such phrase. Yet for all that, the lost literature and esoteric texts of the period before the Suí survive in any number perhaps one tenth of their original total: to have this one book gives still some material for evidential research. Of the late Sòng, Zhōu Bìdà’s 周必大 Wényuán yīnghuá collation cites this book extensively; and recently Féng Wěinè’s 馮惟訥 Shī jì 詩紀, Méi Dǐngzuò’s 梅鼎祚 Wén jì 文紀, and Zhāng Pǔ’s 張溥 Bǎisān jiā jí 百三家集 have all drawn extensively from it — what is called “cángāo shèngfù 殘膏賸馥 — the residual fat and lingering perfume that has anointed a hundred ages”.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth 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 Yìwén lèijù is the earliest extant Táng lèishū and one of the most consequential reference works in pre-modern Chinese cultural history. Compiled between roughly Wǔdé 5 (622, when Yuán Lǎng died, presumably during the project) and Wǔdé 7 (624, the customary date of completion) at the order of Táng Gāozǔ 唐高祖, who wanted an aid to literary composition for the new dynasty’s examination candidates. The project was directed by Ōuyáng Xún 歐陽詢 (557–641) — already in his sixties, a SuíTáng official and a famous calligrapher — and the Xīn Táng shū · Yìwén zhì names three additional compilers: Lìnghú Détén 令狐德棻 (583–666), Yuán Lǎng 袁朗 (d. 622), and Zhào Hóngzhì 趙弘智 (572–653). Ōuyáng signed the preface as Tàizǐ shuàigēng lìng and Hóngwén guǎn xuéshì, Earl of Bóhǎi.

The work’s organizing innovation, foregrounded in the preface and again in the Sìkù tíyào, is the unified treatment of shì 事 (facts, narrative source-citations) and wén 文 (literary excerpts, mainly fù, poetry, and ornamented prose). Earlier lèishū such as the Liúbié 流别 and Wénxuǎn 文選 had collected only literary writings; the Huánglǎn 皇覽 and Huálín biànlüè 華林遍略 had collected only narrative facts. Ōuyáng’s solution was to interleave: under each lèi, the canonical citations first, then the related verse and prose. The Sìkù editors declare this yú zhū lèishū zhōng tǐlì zuì shàn 於諸類書中體例最善 — “in the genre, the best arrangement”. The choice is then itself the prototype that Xú Jiān’s 徐堅 Chūxué jì 初學記 (713–742) and Lǐ Fǎng’s 李昉 Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽 (KR3k0006, 977–983) refine and expand.

As a textual repository the work preserves excerpts from some 1,431 pre-Táng titles, of which roughly 90% are entirely lost. Wilkinson §72.1.2.1 calls it the indispensable source for partial reconstruction of pre-Suí literature; Bēi Dàojìng 卞孝萱, in successive studies of Yìwén lèijù’s text-history, emphasises that it preserves earlier and often more reliable readings than the received texts of works like the Cǎo Zǐjiàn jí 曹子建集 or the Mèngzǐ wàishū 孟子外書. The Sìkù editors note specific philological problems — late interpolations (poems by Sū Wèidào, Lǐ Qiáo, Shěn Quánqī, Sòng Zhīwèn that postdate Ōuyáng’s death), citational errors flagged by the Sòng scholars Wáng Mǎo 王楙 and Péng Shūxià 彭叔夏 — but these only mildly qualify the work’s authority. The standard modern punctuated edition, Wāng Shàoyíng 汪紹楹 (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 1965; repr. 1982 and 1999), is now indispensable; Scripta Sinica offers a searchable digital version based on the 1974 Wénguāng reprint.

Translations and research

• Choo, Jessey J.-C. “Yiwen leiju”. In Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (EMCT), ed. Cynthia L. Chennault, Keith N. Knapp, Alan J. Berkowitz, and Albert E. Dien (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2015), pp. 458–464. The standard short bibliographical orientation in English.
• Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Táng, the canonical Chinese-language survey.
• Wāng Shào-yíng 汪紹楹, ed., Yìwén lèijù (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 1965). The standard punctuated edition, with an apparatus of variants and an index of works quoted.
• Jeffrey Riegel, “Pre-Tang Texts in the Yiwen leiju and the History of the Confucian Mencius Tradition” (various articles in Early China), uses Yìwén lèijù citations to reconstruct lost Mencian material.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §72.1.2.1.

Other points of interest

The Yìwén lèijù and its sister works Běitáng shūchāo (KR3k0004) and Chūxué jì (KR3k0005) are the three indispensable Táng-era lèishū — together they preserve nearly all the surviving fragments of pre-Suí literature that did not enter the Sòng zhèng shǐ or the Wénxuǎn. The Tàipíng yùlǎn preface explicitly names the Yìwén lèijù as one of three earlier lèishū on which its compilers were to base themselves.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Yìwén lèijù entry.
• Wikipedia (en): Yiwen Leiju; Wikidata: Q11074056.
• Choo, EMCT, pp. 458–464.
• Modern critical edition: Wāng Shàoyíng (1965, repr. 1982/1999).