Quánfāng bèizǔ jí 全芳備祖集
Complete Collection of the Origins of Every Fragrance
by 陳景沂 (Chén Jǐngyí, Southern Sòng, 撰); preface by 韓境 (Hán Jìng).
About the work
The most comprehensive Sòng-period lèishū devoted exclusively to zhíwù (plants — flowers, fruits, vegetables, trees, herbs, grains). Compiled by Chén Jǐngyí 陳景沂 (hào Féidùn 肥遯) of Tiāntāi 天台 (Zhèjiāng) — whose career is otherwise unrecorded — and presented to the throne under Lǐzōng before its private printing. The Hán Jìng preface is dated Bǎoyòu 寶祐 1 / Mid-Autumn (1253). The work is in two parts: a 27-juan qiánjí covering flowers, and a 31-juan hòují covering: fruits (juan 1–8), grasses (juan 9 — title-page missing in Sìkù), huì shrubs (juan 10–12), cǎo herbs (juan 13), trees (juan 14–19), agriculture and sericulture (juan 20–22), vegetables (juan 23–27), and medicinal plants (juan 28–31). Total: 58 juan in the Sìkù recension.
The work’s organizing principle is “yī wù tuī qí zǔ, cí duō qí fāng” — “each thing referred to its origin, each phrasing to its fragrance”. For each plant the work gives: (a) Shìshí zǔ 事實祖 (origin of factual material) with three sub-headings (碎錄 suìlù, 紀要 jìyào, 雜著 zázhù); (b) Fùyǒng zǔ 賦詠祖 (origin of poetic material) with ten sub-headings (5-character / 7-character single lines and couplets and complete forms in old-style, regulated-style, and quatrain). For each plant the work thus offers both prose source-material and a verse anthology.
The work’s Sìkù-recognized value is for Sòng-period plant culture and poetry. As the tíyào notes, Táng-and-earlier material is sparse but the Northern-Sòng material is exhaustive and the Southern-Sòng material particularly detailed — including many poems otherwise lost. For agricultural-history, the Nóngsāng 農桑 bù (3 juan) is a key Sòng source; for bencǎo-related horticulture, the Yào 藥 bù (4 juan) is the most extensive Sòng-period non-medical organization of medicinal-plant lore.
Tiyao (abridged)
We respectfully submit that the Quánfāng bèizǔ qiánjí in 27 juan and hòují in 31 juan, by Chén Jǐngyí of the Sòng. Jǐngyí, hào Féidùn, native of Tiāntāi, career not recorded. The book has a preface by Hán Jìng dated Bǎoyòu 1 [1253]; per the preface, the book had been presented to the Lǐzōng court — this can no longer be verified. The qiánjí in 27 juan covers flowers. The hòují in 31 juan: juan 1–8 fruits; juan 9 (title-page lost) corresponds presumably to grasses; juan 10–12 huì; juan 13 grasses; juan 14–19 trees; juan 20–22 agriculture and sericulture; juan 23–27 vegetables; juan 28–31 medicinal plants. The format: each plant divided into shìshí zǔ and fùyǒng zǔ; shìshí zǔ with suìlù, jìyào, zázhù; fùyǒng zǔ with 5-character single lines, 7-character single lines, 5-character couplets, 7-character couplets, 5-character old-style, 7-character old-style, 5-character 8-line regulated, 7-character 8-line regulated, 5-character quatrain, 7-character quatrain — ten sub-headings in all.
Pre-Táng facts, fù and yǒng are sparingly noted; from the Northern Sòng onwards it is particularly complete, and the Southern Sòng is especially detailed — much that is not in other books, and where the original jí is lost, this can serve as evidential resource.
Respectfully revised and submitted, eighth 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 Quánfāng bèizǔ jí is the principal Sòng-period botanical lèishū and one of the most important surviving witnesses to Southern-Sòng plant-related poetry. The compiler Chén Jǐngyí 陳景沂 of Tiāntāi (Zhèjiāng) was a recluse-scholar of modest position whose career and jìnshì status are not documented. The work’s compilation seems to have occupied much of his middle life, with completion in the 1240s and the printed edition (with Hán Jìng’s preface) emerging in Bǎoyòu 1 (1253). Hán Jìng’s preface — by an Ānyáng lǎopǔ 安陽老圃 (the old-gardener of Ānyáng, his hào) — records that the work had earlier been “chéng tiānzǐ zhī lǎn” (offered for the emperor’s perusal), though no court record of this survives.
The work’s organization — alphabetical-botanical (by plant rather than rhyme-class) with each plant separately treated under prose and verse sub-categories — was novel for the lèishū tradition. It influenced later botanical compendia, especially in the agricultural-treatise (nóngshū) tradition. The work preserves a number of Southern-Sòng poems not found in standard literary collections — many from poets whose own jí are lost or fragmentary — making it a significant source for Southern-Sòng poetic history. Lucille Chia and others have used it to reconstruct lost Sòng yǒngwù (object-yongwu) poetry.
The standard modern critical edition is Quánfāng bèizǔ jí jiàozhù 全芳備祖集校註, ed. Chéng Jié 程傑 (Hāngzhōu: Zhèjiāng dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2007).
Translations and research
- Chéng Jié 程傑 (ed.), Quán-fāng bèi-zǔ jí jiào-zhù (Zhè-jiāng dà-xué chū-bǎn-shè, 2007). Standard critical edition.
- Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Sòng.
- Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 6.1, Botany (Cambridge UP, 1986), draws on the Quán-fāng bèi-zǔ jí among other Sòng botanical lèishū.
- Daiwie Fu 傅大為, “Quán-fāng bèi-zǔ jí yǔ Sòng-dài bó-wù xué” (in Sòng-dài kē-jì shǐ yán-jiū jí).
No European-language complete translation.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the few Southern-Sòng lèishū whose internal architecture distinguishes “factual” (shìshí) and “literary” (fùyǒng) origin-traditions for each topic — a binary split that anticipates the bówù xué (natural-history) versus yǒngwù (object-poetry) distinction that characterizes later Chinese botanical-literary studies.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Quánfāng bèizǔ jí entry.
- Wikidata: Q11074351.
- Modern critical edition: Chéng Jié (Zhèjiāng dàxué, 2007).