太平御覽

Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽

Imperial Conspectus of the Tài-píng Era

by 李昉 (Lǐ Fǎng, 奉敕撰) and a commission of fourteen scholars including 扈蒙, 李穆, 湯悅, 徐鉉, 張洎, 李克勤, 宋白, 陳鄂, 徐用賓, 吳淑, 舒雅, 李文仲, 阮思道.

About the work

The largest of the four imperial compendia of the early Northern Sòng — the Sòng sì dà shū 宋四大書 — and after the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn the largest pre-modern Chinese lèishū preserved complete. Compiled by imperial command of Sòng Tàizōng 宋太宗, who issued the founding edict in Tàipíng xīngguó 太平興國 2 / 3 / wùyín (3 April 977), naming Lǐ Fǎng 李昉 of the Hànlín and Hù Méng 扈蒙 of the Zhìzhì gào as the two senior compilers, with twelve named assistants. The work was completed in Tàipíng xīngguó 8 / 12 (early 984 in the Western calendar; 983 in the lunar reckoning); the imperial title-change edict that gave the work its received name Tàipíng yùlǎn (originally Tàipíng zǒnglèi 太平總類) was issued at completion. Sòng Tàizōng read three juan a day, completing the whole within a year, and is reported to have said, on being urged to take a break, kāijuàn yǒu yì, zhèn bù yǐ wéi láo 開卷有益, 朕不以為勞 — “to open a book is to gain something; I do not find it labour” — origin of the four-character phrase kāijuàn yǒu yì.

The work is organized in 55 bù and 5,363 lèi, citing 1,690 source-works (the actual figure exceeds 2,000); 70–80% of the cited works are now lost. The structural model is the Northern-Qí Xiūwéndiàn yùlǎn 修文殿御覽 of Zǔ Tǐng 祖珽 — a lost predecessor named explicitly in the founding edict — together with the Táng Yìwén lèijù (KR3k0003) and the now-lost Wénsī bóyào 文思博要 of Gāo Shìlián 高士廉 (641). As Wilkinson §72.1.2.1 notes, the Tàipíng yùlǎn’s citations were largely drawn not from primary sources but from the Wénsī bóyào, which inherited and consolidated still earlier lèishū citations; the Yùlǎn is therefore at one or two removes from many of its quoted texts.

Tiyao (catalog headnote, abridged from the Sìkù tíyào)

Drawing on the Sòng huìyào: in Tàipíng xīngguó 2 / 3 (977) Tàizōng commissioned the Hànlín xuéshì Lǐ Fǎng, the Zhìzhì gào Hù Méng, Lǐ Mù 李穆, the Tàizǐ zhānshì Tāng Yuè 湯悅, the Tàizǐ shuàigēng lìng Xú Xuàn 徐鉉, Tàizǐ zhōngyǔn Zhāng Jì 張洎, Zuǒ bǔquē Lǐ Kèqín 李克勤, Zuǒ shíyí Sòng Bái 宋白, Tàizǐ zhōng shè Chén È 陳鄂, Guānglù sì chéng Xú Yòngbīn 徐用賓, Tàifǔ sì chéng Wú Shū 吳淑, Guózǐ jiān chéng Shū Yǎ 舒雅, Shǎofǔ jiān chéng Lǐ Wénzhòng 李文仲, Ruǎn Sīdào 阮思道 — fourteen in all — to gather many books by category, divided by section, into 1000 juan. Earlier, the throne had examined previous lèishū and found the categories chaotic and disordered, and so ordered this book to be compiled, drawing on the Xiūwéndiàn yùlǎn, Yìwén lèijù, Wénsī bóyào and others as the basis. In xīngguó 8 / 12 (984) the book was completed, and the edict read: “the Tàipíng zǒnglèi newly compiled at the Shǐguǎn contains all things, gathering the writings of antiquity, recording the rise and fall of every age, and bearing witness to the compilations of our court — let it be renamed Tàipíng yùlǎn.”

Abstract

The Tàipíng yùlǎn is the most comprehensive lèishū of Northern Sòng compilation and one of three indispensable repositories of pre-Sòng Chinese culture (with the Yìwén lèijù and the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn). The commission belongs to the consolidation phase of the Northern Sòng: with the conquest of WúYuè in 978 and Wǔyuè in 981, the imperial library inherited the collections of all the southern courts, and Sòng Tàizōng’s literary-imperial programme produced the four great compendia — the Tàipíng guǎngjì 太平廣記 (anomaly tales; KR3l0021), Tàipíng yùlǎn (encyclopaedic lèishū; this entry), Wényuàn yīnghuá 文苑英華 (literary anthology; KR4i0006), and somewhat later Cèfǔ yuánguī 冊府元龜 (KR3k0013). Lǐ Fǎng directed three of the four. The compilation took 7 years (977–983), drawing on the Xiūwéndiàn yùlǎn, Yìwén lèijù, and Wénsī bóyào as principal predecessor compendia.

The work is the principal medium of survival for an enormous corpus of pre-Sòng Chinese writing. Wilkinson §72.1.2.1 lists 1,690 books cited (the list at the front of juan 1 was added later and is incomplete); the actual figure is over 2,000, of which roughly 70–80% are otherwise lost. For pre-Suí zǐbù literature, for early Chinese geographic and zoological texts, for fragments of lost zhèngshǐ annexes, and for zhìguài literature, the Yùlǎn is often the principal — or only — witness.

The textual transmission is, however, vexed. As Pú Shūxiàn 蒲叔獻’s 1199 (Qìngyuán 5) reprint colophon notes — and as the Sòng yè and Yuán yè copies confirm — many citations of the Yùlǎn in fact derive from the Wénsī bóyào rather than directly from the cited primary sources; the Yùlǎn therefore inherits the errors of the Wénsī bóyào in addition to its own copyists’ errors. The same passage often appears in two, three, four or five different sections. The standard modern edition is the Zhōnghuá shūjú 1960 photographic reprint of the Sìbù cóngkān 3rd series text (which goes back to a Sòng Qìngyuán edition); a searchable digital version is available through Scripta Sinica and through the Academia Sinica Hànjí diànzǐ wénxiàn database.

Translations and research

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §72.1.2.1, the standard English orientation, with critical bibliography.
• John Winthrop Haeger, “The Significance of Confusion: The Origins of the T’ai-p’ing yü-lan,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 88.3 (1968), 401–410.
• Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Sòng, on the Yù-lǎn.
• Zhōng-huá shū-jú photo-reprint of the Sì-bù cóng-kān 3rd series (1960; repr. with various indices). The standard reference edition.
• Bauer, Wolfgang, Das Antlitz Chinas (Hanser, 1990), cites the Yù-lǎn throughout.
• For the kāi-juàn yǒu yì anecdote: Wáng Pì-zhī 王闢之, Shéng-shuǐ yān-tán lù 澠水燕談錄, Wén-rú 文儒 chapter (Zhōng-huá, 1981).

Other points of interest

The Yùlǎn’s 55 bù organization — Heaven, Time, Earth, Sovereign-Kings, Marginal Suzerainties, Imperial Kindred, Prefectures and Districts, Dwellings, etc. — became the standard category-architecture for subsequent Sòng lèishū, and was adopted with minor variation by the Cèfǔ yuánguī and the SòngYuán jìshì běnmò historians. The four-character phrase kāijuàn yǒu yì, originating in Tàizōng’s reading of the work, is now one of the most widely-cited four-character idioms in Chinese.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Tàipíng yùlǎn entry.
• Wikipedia (en): Taiping Yulan; Wikidata: Q1188737.
• Scripta Sinica digital text (Academia Sinica).
• Zhōnghuá shūjú 1960 Sìbù cóngkān 3rd series photo-reprint.