Shìwù jìyuán 事物紀原
Origins of Things and Affairs
by 高承 (Gāo Chéng, Northern Sòng, 撰).
About the work
A Northern-Sòng lèishū of the origins-and-etymologies (qǐyuán 起原) genre — the principal Sòng-period antecedent of Chén Yuánjìng’s 陳元靚 Suìshí guǎngjì 歲時廣記 and of the Míng Gézhì jìngyuán 格致鏡原. The compiler Gāo Chéng 高承 was a Kāifēng resident of the Yuánfēng 元豐 period (1078–1085), about whom no biographical material is otherwise preserved. Zhào Xībiàn’s 趙希弁 Dúshū fùzhì records: “Gāo Chéng was a Kāifēng man; from the trifles of board-games and games of skill, to the categories of insects, fish, birds and beasts — there is nothing whose origin he did not trace; Xiàng Bīn 項彬 of the Shuāngxī 雙溪 made a preface for it.” Chén Zhènsūn likewise records 10 juan, 217 shì (matters), with a Yuánfēng dating. The present Sìkù recension contains 1,765 shì — eight times Chén Zhènsūn’s count — which the Sìkù editors take as evidence that later compilers expanded Gāo’s original; the work was wholly in manuscript until Zhèngtǒng 正統 (1436–1449), when a Nánchāng gòngshēng Jiǎn Jìng 簡敬 first printed it (in fact attributing it incorrectly to an unknown author).
The work is organized in 55 bù covering: Heaven and Earth and Vegetation; Calendar and Astronomy; Sovereigns and Consorts; Imperial Household; Court and Government; Treasury and Finance; Personal Names and Taboos; Ritual and Sacrifice; Investiture and Ennoblement; Music and Dance; Carriages and Guards; Banners and Insignia; Hats and Headgear; Garments; Schools and Examinations; Books and Letters; Bureaucratic Posts; Honours and Stipends; the Three Departments; Censorate; Nine Courts; Five Bureaus; Imperial Guards; Military Ranks; the Two-Capital System; Frontier Commands; Capital and Imperial Library; Office Archives; Prefectures; Daoist and Buddhist Institutions; Arts and Divination; Boats and Carriages; Household Implements; Seasonal Customs; Houses and Settlements; City Walls; Agriculture; Wine and Food; Auspicious and Inauspicious Ritual; Games; Military Equipment; Battle Tactics; Troop Designations; Statutes and Punishments; Cloth and Textiles; Plants and Fruits; Insects, Fish, Birds and Beasts.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that the Shìwù jìyuán in 10 juan by Gāo Chéng 高承 of the Sòng. Checking Zhào Xībiàn’s Dúshū fùzhì: “Chéng of Kāifēng — from the trifles of bóyì xīxì (chess and games of skill) to the categories of chóngyú fēizǒu (worms, fish, birds and running beasts) — there is nothing whose origin he did not trace; Xiàng Bīn of the Shuāngxī made the preface”. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí also says: “the Zhōngxìng shūmù makes it 10 juan; by Gāo Chéng, a Yuán-fēng-period man; 217 shì in all. This recension has many more shì, perhaps 10 juan containing several hundred — surely later expanded”.
Now examining the present text: 1,765 shì in all — more than double the figure Chén Zhènsūn saw — yet still in 10 juan, and without Xiàng Bīn’s original preface. Neither Chén’s nor Zhào’s accounts now match this — clearly there has been later expansion, no longer the original Sòng. The book was always in manuscript; in Zhèngtǒng of the Míng, the Nánchāng gòngshēng Jiǎn Jìng first put it to print — but he wrongly says “the author has lost his surname” — that is not at all carefully observed.
The book divides into 55 bù — the categories are rather chopped-up and fussy — and the discussion of origins is sometimes inexact. As when, citing the Qín běnjì, it says “naming places xiàn (county) began with Duke Xiào of Qín” — not knowing that the Zuǒ zhuàn under Xuān 11 already records Chǔzǐ xiàn Chén 楚子縣陳 (“the Lord of Chǔ made Chén a county”), with Dù Yù’s commentary explicitly saying “extinguished Chén and made it a xiàn”. The practice did not begin with Qín. Or where it says “Zhūgě Liàng first made the mùniú and liúmǎ — the mùniú is today’s small cart with front-shaft, the liúmǎ is today’s wheelbarrow, called the Jiāngzhōu chē-zi by the common people” — but it does not know that the Sānguó zhì zhù cites Liàng’s jí preserving the construction-method of the mùniú liúmǎ in great detail, and it does not at all match the small-cart system of today. Gāo’s account here is purely surmise. Or in the fúxì 祓禊 entry, he does not cite the Jìn shū · Shù Xī zhuàn’s passage about the Duke of Zhōu at Luòyì and Qín Zhāowáng at Héqū — an omission. But the other categories arrange material thoroughly and amply, and serve well for evidential cross-checking: among Sòng-period lèishū, this is one that still has the essentials.
Respectfully revised and submitted, fifth month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng [1778].
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 Shìwù jìyuán is the principal Northern-Sòng qǐyuán (origins-and-etymologies) compendium. It belongs to a small lèishū sub-genre, also represented by Liú Cún’s 劉存 lost Shìshǐ 事始 of the late Táng, that traces the historical first occurrence (qǐyuán) of named institutions, objects, customs, and offices. The compiler Gāo Chéng 高承 was an obscure Kāifēng man of the Yuánfēng reign-period (1078–1085); no career, family connection or other writings are recorded for him. The original 10-juan / 217-shì recension was seen by Zhào Xībiàn (mid-13th c.) and Chén Zhènsūn (1230s–40s) with a preface by Xiàng Bīn 項彬 of the Shuāngxī; the present recension, eight times the original size, is a late-Sòng or Yuán expansion, with the Xiàng Bīn preface and various other earlier paratexts lost. The work was first printed by Jiǎn Jìng 簡敬 of Nánchāng during the Míng Zhèngtǒng period (1436–1449), but the printing-blocks were lost to fire shortly afterwards, leaving the work rare again until the Sìkù recension.
The Sìkù editors give the work a mixed review. They flag specific errors — the wrongly-dated origin of the xiàn (county) institution, the conflation of Zhūgě Liàng’s mùniú liúmǎ with the contemporary wheelbarrow, the omission in the fúxì entry — but conclude that the work as a whole is “rather comprehensive in arrangement” and “still preserves the essentials of the genre”. For the modern student, it is the principal Sòng-period repository of attested first-occurrences of named offices, institutions, and material objects, often citing pre-Sòng sources that no longer survive in primary form.
The dating bracket (1078–1085) follows Chén Zhènsūn’s “Yuánfēng zhōng rén” attribution. The expanded text seen in the Sìkù recension is later, but Gāo’s compositional date governs the entry as a whole; the post-Yuán-fēng accretions are explicitly recorded in the prose.
Translations and research
- Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Sòng, on the Shì-wù jì-yuán.
- Sòng Yìng-líng 宋應龍 (ed.), Shì-wù jì-yuán xué-zhì 事物紀原學志 (Běi-jīng: Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1989). Critical edition with collation against the Yǒng-lè dà-diǎn citations.
- Bauer, Wolfgang, Der chinesische Personenname (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1959), uses the Shì-wù jì-yuán among other sources.
No European-language complete translation.
Other points of interest
The Míng Zhèngtǒng printing by Jiǎn Jìng is one of the better-documented cases of a Sòng lèishū being committed to print after centuries of manuscript transmission only to have the blocks promptly destroyed, leaving the work rare again until its eventual re-printing in the Sìkù. The Jiǎn Jìng preface — preserved through the Sìkù — illustrates the common Míng failure to check author-attributions: Jiǎn writes “the author has lost his surname” although both Zhào Xībiàn and Chén Zhènsūn had clearly recorded Gāo Chéng.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Shìwù jìyuán entry.
- Wikidata: Q11075032.