北堂書鈔

Běitáng shūchāo 北堂書鈔

Extracts from Books in the Northern Hall

by 虞世南 (Yú Shìnán, 撰); supplemented and annotated by 陳禹謨 (Chén Yǔmó, Míng, 補註).

About the work

The oldest lèishū of Táng provenance and one of the four great early-Táng compendia (with Yìwén lèijù KR3k0003, Chūxué jì KR3k0005 and the somewhat later Báishì liùtiē). Compiled by Yú Shìnán 虞世南 (558–638) while he was serving as Mìshū láng 秘書郎 — i.e. before the Suí–Táng transition, so the textual nucleus is Suí (Wilkinson §72.1.2.1 gives a date of “ca. 630” for the Sìkù recension, but the underlying compilation belongs to Yú’s Suí Mìshū láng tenure under Yángdì; the present dating bracket reflects this). The title takes its name from the Běitáng — the rear hall of the Mìshū shěng 秘書省, where Yú worked. The work was originally laid out in 80 bù and roughly 800 lèi; the Sìkù recension preserves 160 juan organized in 19 bù with 852 lèi (after Chén Yǔmó’s collation). The work is famed for the volume of pre-Suí citations it preserves — many of them from texts no longer extant — and is one of the principal sources for reconstructing lost early medieval literature.

The transmitted text is, however, philologically vexed. As the Sìkù editors flag in unusually pointed terms, the present recension is Chén Yǔmó’s 陳禹謨 Wàn-lì-period (late 16th-c.) edition, which silently inserts post-Zhēn-guān Táng and even Wǔdài material into Yú’s original framework. Qián Céng 錢曾 and Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 — two of the great Qīng bibliophiles — both spent years trying to recover an unaltered earlier copy (Qián mentions a Jiāhé 嘉禾 [Jiāxīng] private holding; Zhū mentions a DàTáng lèiyào 大唐類要 in 160 juan that was clearly an earlier recension of the same work); neither sample survived to the Sìkù. The editors finally retained Chén’s recension only because his additions are systematically marked with the character bǔ 補 — making it possible to read the original Yú stratum off the page, however imperfectly.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Běitáng shūchāo in 160 juan was compiled by Yú Shìnán 虞世南 of the Táng. Shìnán, zì Bóshī 伯施, was a native of Yúyáo 餘姚, rising to Yínqīng guānglù dàfū 銀青光祿大夫 and Hóngwén guǎn xuéshì, posthumously titled Wényì 文懿. His biography is in the Táng shū. The “Běitáng” is the rear hall of the Mìshū shěng — this book is what Shìnán composed when, under the Suí, he was Mìshū láng.

It is arranged in 80 bù with 801 lèi in all. The Táng shū · Yìwén zhì gives the figure 173 juan and Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì follows it; the Zhōngxìng shūmù 中興書目 gives 160 juan and the Sòng shǐ · Yìwén zhì follows that. The present recension agrees with the Zhōngxìng shūmù; the Earth section reaches “Mud, Sand, Stones” and stops there — clearly not a complete copy. Perhaps even in the Sòng the original book had already partly perished? Wáng Yīnglín 王應麟 records that “the two Library-rooms of the palace lacked the Shūchāo; only Zhào Ānrén’s 趙安仁 household held a copy. Emperor Zhēnzōng commanded an inner attendant to fetch it, and praised it in a personal edict” — clearly the previous dynasty treasured the book highly.

The present edition is the Wàn-lì-period collation and re-cut by Chén Yǔmó 陳禹謨 of Chángshú. Qián Céng’s 錢曾 Dúshū mǐnqiú jì 讀書敏求記 says: “the Běitáng shūchāo circulating today is so randomly amended and inserted there is no fixing it; I once heard that a Jiāhé private holding had the original; I sought it for over ten years and at last got it — to turn the leaves was to feel my eye and mind clear”. Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 likewise reports that he once saw a DàTáng lèiyào in 160 juan and after repeated reading determined that it was Yú’s Běitáng shūchāo. What circulates today comes from Chén Yǔmó’s expurgated-and-supplemented recension; to the point of mixing in post-Zhēn-guān material and even Five-Dynasties Ten-Kingdoms titles — so that the original look of the book is utterly lost. The Lèiyào mostly preserved the original text, but is no longer easily had. The Míng habit of arbitrarily amending and supplementing old books, recklessly indulging private judgement — its disorderly ignorance is indeed as Qián and Zhū charge. But today both the Jiāhé original and the DàTáng lèiyào are no longer to be found; only Chén Yǔmó’s recension survives. Mercifully, his additions are each marked with the bǔ 補 character, so the traces can still be followed — saving one in a thousand is itself a transmission of the Táng-era original.

Respectfully revised and submitted, first 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 Běitáng shūchāo is, by common scholarly consent, the earliest lèishū of any size to survive from the Suí–Táng transition. Yú Shìnán 虞世南 (558–638), one of the most learned officials of his generation — Táng Tàizōng famously called him his “xíng mìshū” 行祕書 (“travelling library”) — compiled it during his tenure as Mìshū láng under Suí Yángdì (so the textual nucleus dates between ca. 605 — when Yú was appointed Mìshū láng — and 618, the fall of the Suí). Internal evidence and the title (the “Northern Hall” of the Imperial Library) confirm the location; the work passed with Yú into the Táng court library and was reissued in completed form sometime in the early Zhēnguān years (the conventional date “624” or “ca. 630” given in Western reference works refers to its Táng-period redaction, not its origin).

The text was always rare. By the early Sòng the imperial library lacked a copy at all (Wáng Yīnglín’s note that Sòng Zhēnzōng had to fetch a private copy from the home of the official Zhào Ānrén). The Táng shū · Yìwén zhì records the work in 173 juan and the Sòng Zhōngxìng shūmù in 160 juan; what survives today is the latter form, missing material from the original Earth section onward.

The text’s modern transmission is dominated by the Míng jiànshēng Chén Yǔmó 陳禹謨 (1548–1618) of Chángshú, whose Wàn-lì-period collation is the basis of the Sìkù recension. Chén added a large body of supplementary material — Táng, Five Dynasties, even Sòng — marked bǔ 補 throughout, but also (as Qián Céng and Zhū Yízūn complained) silently rewrote or pruned passages he found difficult. The standard modern punctuated edition is Zhōnghuá shūjú (1962, re-printed 1982), based on the 1888 Kǒng Guǎngtāo 孔廣陶 collation; Yamada Hideo 山田英雄’s Hokudō shoshō insho sakuin (1973) is the standard index of works cited.

The Sìkù dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 605, notAfter 618) reflects the Suí-period textual nucleus, since the bulk of the work was finished during Yú’s Mìshū láng tenure under Yángdì. Some sources date the work to the early Zhēnguān years (624 or 630), reflecting Yú’s continued revision; the Sìkù editors do not commit themselves on this point.

Translations and research

• Yamada Hideo 山田英雄, comp., Hokudō shoshō insho sakuin 北堂書鈔引書索引 (Nagoya: Saika shorin, 1973; repr. Wén-hǎi, 1975) — the standard concordance of citations.
• Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Táng-chū, on the Běi-táng shū-chāo.
• Wāng Lì 汪力, “Běi-táng shū-chāo yán-jiū” (2003–2005, multiple articles), on the Chén Yǔ-mó recension and its textual history.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §72.1.2.1.

No European-language monograph exists. No complete translation.

Other points of interest

The Běitáng shūchāo is one of the principal sources for the reconstruction of pre-Táng lost literature; its citation-tally exceeds 21,000 entries, drawn from titles 80% of which are no longer extant. Hú Dàojìng singles out its value for textual recovery of the Sūnshì shìlù 孫氏世錄, Wèishì chūnqiū 魏氏春秋, and a number of zhìguài 志怪 collections lost between the Suí and the Sòng. The Chén Yǔmó recension is, despite its problems, the only surviving complete version.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Běitáng shūchāo entry.
• Wikidata: Q11074129.
• Scripta Sinica digital text (Zhōnghuá 1962 base, Kǒng Guǎngtāo 1888 collation).