Xījīng zájì 西京雜記
Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital by 劉歆 (attributed) and 葛洪 (transmitter / compiler)
About the work
A short collection of anecdotes, institutional curiosities, and gossip set in the Former Hàn capital Cháng’ān 長安 (“the Western Capital” relative to the Later-Hàn Luòyáng). Surviving recensions are in six juàn; the work treats palace life, gardens, imperial regalia, court ritual and gift-exchange, poetry and fù 賦, eminent personalities (Sīmǎ Xiàngrú 司馬相如, Dōngfāng Shuò 東方朔, Wáng Zhāojūn 王昭君), and technical lore (lamps, hand-mills, embroidery patterns). Many of the most famous anecdotes about Former-Hàn cultural life — Wáng Zhāojūn’s bribed portraitist, Kuàng Héng’s 匡衡 wall-borer for borrowed lamplight, Sīmǎ Xiàngrú’s elopement with Zhuó Wénjūn 卓文君 — originate or are preserved here. The traditional attribution (preserved on the title page) is to the late-Western Hàn bibliographer Liú Xīn 劉歆; the colophon in 葛洪 Gě Hóng’s name describes a manuscript “found at home” and transmitted forward.
Tiyao
Abstract
The transmission history is unusually well-documented and the attribution is unusually contested. The Bàopǔzǐ 抱朴子 nowhere mentions such a work; the earliest direct attestation is in the Suí shū Jīngjí zhì 隋書經籍志, which lists the Xījīng zájì in 2 juàn under the historian Liú Xīn and adds a Liáng entry of one juàn by Gě Hóng. Tang and Song catalogs alternately credit Liú Xīn and Gě Hóng; by the Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目 and the Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì 郡齋讀書志 the dominant attribution is to Gě Hóng. The Qīng Sìkù compilers and Yú Jiāxī 余嘉錫 concluded that the present text is a Liùcháo fabrication, plausibly by Wú Jūn 吳均 (469–520) or someone of his milieu, projected onto Liú Xīn with a Gě Hóng colophon to give the manuscript a chain of custody. Modern scholarship (Schmidt-Glintzer, Knechtges, Knapp) treats the work as an early-sixth-century compilation drawing on now-lost HànWèi anecdotal material; the date bracket here (c. 500–550) reflects that consensus rather than the Western-Hàn fiction of authorship.
The work circulated widely in the Táng and Sòng — it is a major source of court anecdote for Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽, Tàipíng guǎngjì 太平廣記 and Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚 — and it stands at the head of the xiǎoshuō 小說 tradition of Hàn-set anecdote collections, models for KR3l0002 Shìshuō xīnyǔ 世說新語 and its progeny.
Translations and research
- Heeren-Diekhoff, Elfie. 1981. Das Hsi-ching tsa-chi: Vermischte Aufzeichnungen über die Westliche Hauptstadt. Weilheim (complete German translation; cited Wilkinson §59.6.8).
- Knechtges, David R., and Taiping Chang, eds. 2010–14. Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature, vol. 4: entry on Xijing zaji.
- Yú Jiā-xī 余嘉錫, Sì-kù tí-yào biàn-zhèng 四庫提要辨證, zǐ 子 section, on the dating problem.
Other points of interest
The work is the locus classicus for many later-canonical Hàn cultural images: the painter Máo Yánshòu 毛延壽 disfiguring Wáng Zhāojūn’s portrait, the bóshān lú 博山爐 incense-burner, the “borrowed light” (鑿壁偷光) of Kuàng Héng, the yún jǐn 雲錦 brocade looms, and the bā fù 八賦 catalogued under the imaginary title Wénmù fù 文木賦. Its later importance is therefore disproportionate to its modest 6-juàn extent.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §59.6.8 (entry on Xijing zaji).
- Endymion Wilkinson §60.3 (context for the Shishuo xinyu-style Six-Dynasties anecdote genre).
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xijing_Zaji
- https://ctext.org/xijing-zaji