Dà Táng chuánzài 大唐傳載
Transmitted Records of the Great Tang by 闕名 (anonymous)
About the work
A one-juàn anonymous collection of late-Táng anecdotes (early Táng through Yuánhé) preserved in the Wényuāngé Sìkù. The author’s own preface gives him as travelling south “in the eighth year of [a reign], on a lóngzhōu down through the gorges” and recording what he heard from fellow passengers — providing the work’s title (chuánzài 傳載 “recorded as related”). The work captures aristocratic anecdote, witticism, occasional supernatural matter, and cháoyě (court-and-country) gossip.
Tiyao
Your servants report: Dà Táng chuánzài in 1 juàn, the author’s name not given. Records miscellaneous events from the early Táng to mid Yuánhé. Neither the Táng nor the Sòng bibliographic treatises record it. There is a self-preface saying: “In the summer of the 8th year, going south along the Lǐngqiáo, in spare moments I sat in the lóngzhōu and recorded what I heard.” After Mùzōng, only the Tàihé, Dàzhōng and Xiántōng reigns have an 8th year; since the book does not give the jìyuán-name, we cannot know which 8th year this is. The recorded events of the Táng gōngqīng — actions and speeches — are detailed, much used by the historians; intermittently it touches on humor and cháoyě trivia, often overlapping with other bǐjì. The entry that “in Zhēnyuán the princess Zhèngguó and the princess Hánguó were posthumously promoted to gōngzhǔ, this being the beginning of the practice of granting shì posthumously to princesses” overlooks the fact that Gāozǔ’s daughter the Píngyáng Zhāo Gōngzhǔ already had a shì before that. The entry of Xiāo Yǐngshì meeting an old man who said he resembled the Póyáng Wáng — the Bóyì jì gives that old man as a great bandit, but the present text presents him as an extraordinary person; such entries diverge from other sources. They reflect the variability of report at the time; the author has set down what came to him, and so contradictions are inevitable. Still, the reliable proportion is six or seven parts in ten. Respectfully presented in the 6th month of Qiánlóng 44 [1779].
Abstract
The internal evidence for dating: the preface says “the 8th year”; after Mùzōng (821) the only reigns with an 8th year are Tàihé (834), Dàzhōng (854), and Xiántōng (866). The latest events mentioned in the text (the references to figures of the Yuánhé and shortly after) make Tàihé 8 (834), Dàzhōng 8 (854) or Xiántōng 8 (866) all possible; modern scholarship (Wáng Wénjǐn, Táng yǔlín jiàozhèng) has favoured Tàihé 8 (834) on the grounds that the latest unambiguously dateable entries do not exceed the late Yuánhé, but the question remains open. The author’s identity has never been recovered.
Modern critical edition: Yáng Jiāluò 楊家駱, in Bǐjì xiǎoshuō dàguān 筆記小說大觀 (Wénmíng, 1986).
Translations and research
- Dà Táng chuánzài is short and has been collated in several Republican-era cóng-shū (e.g., Bǐjì xiǎoshuō dàguān).
- Zhōu Xūn-chū’s 周勛初 Táng-rén yì-shì huì-biān draws on it.
- No European-language translation has been located.
Other points of interest
The journey context — recording what one heard from one’s fellow boat-passengers on a lóngzhōu (gorge-boat) descent — is a common Táng bǐjì topos (cf. Wéi Xún’s LiúBīnkè jiāhuà lù compiled from boat-conversation at Báidì in Chángqìng 1). The genre of “tīngwén and-record” is one of the diagnostic markers of mid-late Táng anecdote literature.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §61.3.
- https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=86241