錦繡萬花谷

Jǐnxiù wànhuā gǔ 錦繡萬花谷

Valley of Ten Thousand Embroidered Flowers

by 闕名 (anonymous, Southern Sòng, 撰); title bestowed by Xiāo Gōngfù 蕭恭父 of Wūjiāng 烏江 and Hú Kè 胡恪 of Hénán 河南.

About the work

A vast Southern-Sòng lèishū in three sections (前集 qiánjí 40 juan, 後集 hòují 40 juan, 續集 xùjí 40 juan) plus a Yuán-period biéjí 別集 in 30 juan (not in the Sìkù recension), each section organized in a parallel category-architecture. The compiler’s own preface, dated Chúnxī 15 / 10 / 1 (1 November 1188), is autobiographical: he describes a qióngxiāng 窮鄉 (poor village) boyhood disrupted by róngmǎ 戎馬 (Jīn invasion), the early loss of his manuscripts to mice and damp, and a long career of copy-borrowing from neighbours and small-town gentry that eventually produced this compilation. He suppresses his own name; the title was suggested by two friends. The preface places the work’s completion on the compiler’s return from Jiǔhuá 九華 (Jiǔhuá Mountain).

Internal evidence (the Sìkù tíyào notes the jìnián 紀年 section lists Lǐzōng’s reign-titles Shàodìng 紹定 and Duānpíng 端平; the Dìhòu dànjié 帝后誕節 section lists Níngzōng’s Ruìqìng jié and Lǐzōng’s Tiānjī jié; some sections refer to Lǐzōng as “jīnshàng” 今上 — the reigning emperor) shows that the surviving text has been silently expanded after the original 1188 date, through the Lǐzōng era (1224–1264). Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records the work in qián and xù (40 + 40 = 80 juan) — missing the hòují; Huáng Yújì’s 黃虞稷 Qiānqǐng táng shūmù adds the biéjí 30 juan, post-Yuán material now lost. The qiánjí covers 245 categories; the hòují 326 categories; the xùjí 46 categories in juan 1–14 and surname-pedigree material in juan 15–40. The end of the qiánjí appends Lú Xiāng’s 盧襄 Xīzhēng jì 西征記 — clearly an editorial addition because the compiler was a Qúzhōu 衢州 man honouring a local elder.

Tiyao (abridged)

The Jǐnxiù wànhuā gǔ qiánjí in 40 juan, hòují in 40 juan, xùjí in 40 juan; no compiler-name given. The front carries a self-preface dated Chúnxī 15 / 10 / 1 [1188] — clearly a Xiào-zōng-period man. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records “Jǐnxiù wànhuā gǔ in 40 juan; xù in 40 juan” without a hòují; Huáng Yújì’s Qiānqǐng táng shūmù adds a biéjí in 30 juan. Now examining the preface, the compiler says “from my return from Jiǔhuá I have roughly assembled in three sections, each in 40 juan” — so the hòují was missed by Chén Zhènsūn, and the biéjí was a later addition not in the original; Míng-period printings also have only the three sections.

The preface says the title was given by Xiāo Gōngfù 蕭恭父 of Wūjiāng 烏江 and Hú Kè 胡恪 of Hénán 河南; we do not know where either is from. At the end of qiánjí uniquely is attached Lú Xiāng’s 盧襄 Xīzhēng jì 西征記 of Qúzhōu — at odds with the tǐlì; perhaps the compiler was himself a Qú man and so added a work of his hometown elder.

Also: the book was compiled in Chúnxī, but the Jìnián section lists Lǐzōng’s Shàodìng and Duānpíng reign-titles; the Dìhòu dànjié section lists Níngzōng’s Ruìqìng jié and Lǐzōng’s Tiānjī jié — calling Lǐzōng jīnshàng (the reigning emperor) — so a book-shop has already silently expanded the work; the present is not the original Chúnxī text.

The qiánjí has 245 categories, the hòují 326, the xùjí 46 in juan 1–14 and surname material in juan 15–40. The contents are minutely-fragmented and intermixed without order — hence Chén Zhènsūn’s complaints. The Dìlǐ mén lists only the prefectures of the piānān (Southern Sòng truncated domain). The Lèixìng mén gives only a few entries per surname. The Gǔrén chēnghào section invents new categories, citing widely — zhēnkǔ záchén (rough timber mixed in) — losing the essentials. But the work contains anciently-lost books — Zhílín 職林, Jùngé yǎtán 郡閣雅談, Yǎyán xìshù 雅言系述, Yúnlín yìjǐng jì 雲林異景記 etc. — whose fragments survive thanks to this. Each category also appends poems in the Yìwén lèijù style, preserving many yìzhāng shèngshí (lost stanzas and remnants) not found elsewhere. Trimming the verbose and selecting the choice, it is not without use for evidential research.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

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 Jǐnxiù wànhuā gǔ is one of the largest Southern-Sòng lèishū and the most autobiographical in its preface. The anonymous compiler, a Qúzhōu 衢州 man of impoverished background (described in the preface — Jīn-invasion–era boyhood; book-borrowing economy; copying as a way to retain readings the impoverished cannot keep; nine years of writing only to have manuscripts destroyed by rats and damp; a fresh start in middle age), completed the original three-section work in Chúnxī 15 (1188). The preface’s stylized literary self-portrait (the compiler’s xìnglǔ 性魯 — “dull intelligence” — and the compulsive copying to remember) is one of the more sympathetic surviving Sòng lèishū compiler-portraits, a counterweight to the typical anonymous bureaucratic compilation.

The work’s three (now-four) editorial layers and the later silent expansion through the Lǐzōng era make it a textual palimpsest. The compositional period is bracketed here at 1180–1188 for the original Chúnxī core; later accretions are documented in the tíyào abstract. Modern citations of the work distinguish between qiánjí, hòují and xùjí references; the Lì-zōng-period accretions are generally treated as 13th-c. material.

The work’s principal value, as the Sìkù editors note, is as a secondary witness for a number of pre-Yuán lèishū and bǐjì texts now lost — including Yáng Kǎn’s Zhílín 職林, the Jùngé yǎtán 郡閣雅談, Yǎyán xìshù 雅言系述, and the Yúnlín yìjǐng jì 雲林異景記. Lú Xiāng’s Xīzhēng jì, the Qúzhōu travel-narrative appended to qiánjí, is also a rare survival.

Translations and research

• Hervouet, A Sung Bibliography (HKCUP, 1978), entry on the Jǐn-xiù wàn-huā gǔ.
• Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Sòng.
• Wáng Wěi-yǒng 王偉勇, Jǐn-xiù wàn-huā gǔ yán-jiū (Tái-běi: Wén-shǐ-zhé, 1995). The standard Chinese-language study, including a reconstruction of the preface and identification of the editorial layers.

No European-language translation.

Other points of interest

The Jǐnxiù wànhuā gǔ preface is one of the few Sòng lèishū prefaces that gives an autobiographical account of book-collecting under poverty. The compiler’s account of being a qióngxiāng (poor-village) reader, borrowing books from rural Confucians, and gradually copying out the leading historical and literary texts (he names Sīmǎ Qiān, Bān Gù, Fàn Yè, Ōuyáng Xiū — the four great historians), is an unusual document of Sòng-period rural literacy.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Jǐnxiù wànhuā gǔ entry.
• Wikidata: Q11074272.