Shì shǐ 事始
Origins of Things
by 劉孝孫 (Liú Xiàosūn, early Táng, 撰)
About the work
A 3-juan classified reference tracing the “first occurrence” (shǐ 始) of institutions, objects, titles, and customs in Chinese civilization. The work covers roughly 335 entries organized into broad categories — imperial titles and ceremonial objects, vehicles and flags, regalia, canonical texts, bronze and jade artifacts, state documents, military equipment, medicinal practice, legal codes, rituals, literary genres (赋, 颂, 诔, 碑, 表), and calendar systems. Each entry gives the name of the thing, followed by one or more classical citations establishing its presumed first occurrence, typically introduced by the formula “《X》曰：…” or “《X》云：….” The work belongs to the shìwù jìyuán 事物紀原 sub-genre of lèishū that explains the historical origins of everyday things, a genre that flourished from the early Táng through the Sòng.
Prefaces
No preface is preserved in this Kanripo text file.
Abstract
Shì shǐ 事始 is attributed in this corpus to Liú Xiàosūn 劉孝孫, an early Táng literatus recorded in CBDB (id 92625) with a floruit of 617–641 and death date 642. Liú Xiàosūn appears in the Jiù Táng shū · Wénxué zhuàn 舊唐書·文學傳 as a calligrapher and literary figure active at the early Táng court who participated in discussions at Qinwang Fumu 秦王府幕 (the staff of the future Táng Tàizōng before his enthronement) alongside figures such as Qiū Jìng 虯靖 and Cháng Xī 常惺. This early-Táng court context is consistent with the content of the Shì shǐ, which draws on texts available through the early imperial period.
The attribution of Shì shǐ to Liú Xiàosūn must be treated with some caution. Standard bibliographic sources record a Shì shǐ 事始 under his name (e.g., Táng shū · Yìwén zhì notes a work attributed to him in the origins-of-things genre), but the text has had a complex transmission history and may have been supplemented or partially reconstructed in later periods. The continued portion attributed to a later author (五代 period) is transmitted separately as Xù shì shǐ 續事始 (KR3k0077).
The format is closely parallel to the Sòng-period Shìwù jìyuán 事物紀原 by Gāo Chéng 高承 (ca. 1078–85; repr. in Wakokubun ruisho shūsei vol. 2, noted in Wilkinson §72.1.3.1), which draws on a common early tradition of such origins-catalogs. The KR corpus transmits Shì shǐ and Xù shì shǐ separately from that later work.
This text is not in the Sìkù quánshū (WYG) and is not listed in the standard catalog meta for this corpus division.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- Continuation: KR3k0077 Xù shì shǐ 續事始.