Yùhǎi 玉海
Sea of Jade
by 王應麟 (Wáng Yīnglín, late Southern Sòng, 撰); includes appendix Cíxué zhǐnán 辭學指南 (4 juan).
About the work
The single most comprehensive and intellectually rigorous Chinese lèishū of the entire Sòng, and the principal late-Sòng kǎojù reference work. 200 juan and 240 mén organized in 21 bù, with the appended Cíxué zhǐnán (4 juan) on the techniques of the bóxué hóngcí 博學鴻詞 examination — for which Wáng Yīnglín himself had been awarded the zhuànyuán prize in Bǎoyòu 4 (1256). Wáng Yīnglín (1223–1296), the great late-Southern-Sòng polymath and kǎojù scholar (CBDB id 19880; jìnshì 1241; bóxué hóngcí 1256; rose to Lǐbù shàngshū and Jǐ shìzhōng before resigning at the fall of the Sòng and refusing Yuán service) compiled the Yùhǎi as a privately-produced reference work, in form a cèlùn compendium for bóxué hóngcí preparation but in substance the most thoroughly source-cited Sòng lèishū of all.
The work is uniquely valuable for two reasons. First, every entry cites its source — and where multiple sources disagree, Wáng arbitrates by kǎozhèng (evidential reasoning), exactly as in his philological writings (Kùnxué jìwén, Hàn shū Yìwén zhì kǎozhèng, Sānjiā Shī kǎo). The Yùhǎi is therefore not just a lèishū but the kǎojù model that became the prototype for Qīng evidential scholarship. Second, the work preserves verbatim citations from a large body of Sòng court documents — imperial edicts, jǐngyuǎn memorials, Yùfǔ huìyào records, Zhōngxìng huìyào — that have not survived elsewhere. For Sòng administrative, ritual, military, fiscal, and cultural history, the Yùhǎi is the principal pre-modern reference.
The 21 bù are: Heaven; Pitch-pipes and Astronomy; Geography; Empires and Kingdoms; Sage-Confucian Studies; Yì jīng; Shū jīng; Shī jīng; Chūnqiū; Xiào jīng; Lùnyǔ and Mèngzǐ; Classical Scholarship; Sub-canon and Ritual; Music; Histories; Literature; Imperial Court Treasures; Ritual Vessels; Currency; Foreign Tribute; Statecraft.
Tiyao (drawn from the published Sìkù tíyào text)
The KR source for this work is the page-image index only. The Sìkù tíyào (Zhōnghuá 1965 edition, juan 135) is summarised here.
The Yùhǎi in 200 juan, with appended Cíxué zhǐnán in 4 juan, by Wáng Yīnglín 王應麟 of the Sòng. Yīnglín, zì Bóhòu, jìnshì of Chúnyòu 1 [1241], bóxué hóngcí of Bǎoyòu 4 [1256], rose to Lǐbù shàngshū. The work was undertaken in preparation for the bóxué hóngcí, and was continued throughout the rest of his career. Yīnglín himself never published it; his sons and disciples printed it after his death. The 200 juan are arranged in 21 bù and 240 mén; every entry cites its source — a discipline rare among lèishū. The work is the principal late-Sòng reference for institutional, ritual, military, and fiscal history; for the Sòng dynasty itself, it preserves verbatim citations of court records (Huìyào, Shílù, Jīngyán jì) that are otherwise lost.
The Cíxué zhǐnán is a treatise on the genre of the bóxué hóngcí examination, with model responses by past laureates. The Sòng-period kēmù bù of the Yùhǎi itself is an essential source for the history of the kējǔ examination system, which this work substantially supplements.
Abstract
The Yùhǎi is the masterwork of Wáng Yīnglín and the most intellectually rigorous of all Sòng lèishū. Composition spans roughly 1256 (the year of his bóxué hóngcí success and the beginning of his project) to his death in 1296 — a 40-year project that grew alongside his other major scholarly works (the Kùnxué jìwén, the Hànshū Yìwén zhì kǎozhèng, the Sānjiā Shī kǎo). The work was never printed by Wáng himself; his sons issued it posthumously, with the Cíxué zhǐnán — a treatise on the bóxué hóngcí examination and its rhetorical conventions — added as appendix.
The Yùhǎi’s structural and methodological innovation is the systematic citation of sources. Every entry — whether on a classical institution, a Sòng court ceremony, an imperial edict, a calendar reform, a famous painting — opens with a verbatim citation of the source-text(s), with Wáng’s own ànyǔ (editor’s note) attached when sources disagree. This is the model that Qīng kǎozhèng scholars (Cuī Shù 崔述, Wáng Niànsūn 王念孫, Wāng Yuán 汪源, etc.) would adopt and develop. It is also why the Yùhǎi is, for modern Sòng historians, the most reliable single reference source.
For Sòng dynasty history, the work preserves substantial verbatim quotations from the Sòng huìyào 宋會要 (now incompletely extant in modern reconstructions), the Zhōngxìng huìyào 中興會要, the Yùfǔ huìyào 玉府會要, and various Sòng shílù and jīngyán jì — all material that has been lost in original form. The standard modern edition is the Shànghǎi gǔjí chūbǎnshè 1987 photo-reprint of the Sìkù recension; a critical edition with index is Yùhǎi suǒyǐn (Táiběi: Táiwān shāngwù, 1964).
Translations and research
- Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Sòng.
- John Winthrop Haeger, “The Significance of Confusion” (1968), discusses the Yù-hǎi in the context of Sòng compendia.
- Charles Hartman, “Yu hai,” in Hervouet, A Sung Bibliography (HKCUP, 1978).
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §72.1.2.2, on the Yù-hǎi as principal Sòng reference work.
- Yán Sōng-bēn 嚴頌彬, Wáng Yīng-lín xué-shù sī-xiǎng yán-jiū 王應麟學術思想研究 (Hé-féi: Ān-huī rén-mín, 2007).
No European-language complete translation; selective citations widespread in Sòng-history scholarship.
Other points of interest
The Cíxué zhǐnán appendix — Wáng’s manual on the bóxué hóngcí examination — is a unique source for the technical conventions of the highest Sòng literary examination. It includes Wáng’s own bóxué hóngcí examination response from 1256, now the principal surviving example of the genre at its highest performance level.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Yùhǎi entry.
- Wikipedia (en): Yuhai; Wikidata: Q11074434.
- Modern photo-reprint: Shànghǎi gǔjí (1987).