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雲仙雜記

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Text ID
KR3l0016
Date
900–1100
Dynasty
唐(假託)

Yúnxiān záilù 雲仙雜記

Miscellaneous Records of Cloud-Transcendents by 馮贄 (attributed)

About the work

A ten-juàn (in some Sòng-era editions also titled Yúnxiān sànlù 雲仙散錄) anecdote-collection traditionally attributed to the late-Táng / early Sòng obscure figure 馮贄 Féng Zhì (fl. 904, per a self-preface dated to Tiānyòu 1 / 904). The work contains roughly 600 short anecdotes covering Táng literary and political figures, with elegant antiquarian flavour — preserved phrases, gestures, micro-anecdotes of dress, gesture, gift-exchange. From the late-Sòng onwards (Chén Zhènsūn, Hú Yìnglín 胡應麟) the work has been suspected of being a Sòng forgery; the Sìkù compilers (in the Cúnmù / tíyào tradition) preserved it but flagged the controversies. The work cites a large number of otherwise-unattested book titles as sources, which has fueled the forgery suspicion: modern consensus (Yú Jiāxī 余嘉錫) treats the bulk of the citations as fabricated and the work as a late-Sòng compilation drawing on real Táng anecdote together with invented source-titles.

Tiyao

No tiyao in the present source file (the base text in /home/Shared/krp/KR3l/KR3l0016/ is the SBCK edition, which preserves Yú Yǔnwén 俞允文’s 1571 (Lóngqìng xīnwèi) print-preface rather than the Sìkù 提要). Yú Yǔnwén writes: “Liáng Rényànshēng [Rén Fǎng]‘s family had thirty thousand juàn of books; he gathered remote and strange matters into two juàn, the Shùyì jì. Féng Zhì in the late Táng compiled the Yúnxiān záilù in 10 juàn; his own preface says his family possessed nine generations’ books, more than two hundred thousand juàn — several times Rén Fǎng’s collection — so even the most ancient bibliophile family could not surpass it. Examining what he gathered, much is otherwise unattested; Zhì says ‘if found in the usual books, it must be of zhěn-class’ — quite so. The matters are all subtle and embellished; beyond what Shùyì jì records, the work is rich enough to draw on for broad knowledge and to entice the reader to easy admiration. Yè Bóyín 葉伯寅 has had it cut into blocks at his studio, and asked me again to preface it — so I have done so. Lóngqìng xīnwèi, 6th lunar month, 1571.”

Abstract

The author’s self-preface — preserved in the SBCK edition and quoted in summary by Yú Yǔnwén — gives “Féng Zhì of the late Táng,” dated Tiānyòu 1 (904), with the conceit of a family library of more than 200,000 juàn and the editorial principle of using only material not found in common books. The 600-odd entries are remarkable for their compact, elegant, and frequently apocryphal-feeling literary detail: Lǐ Bái 李白 drawing wine from a jiǔquán hidden in his sleeve, Bái Jūyì preserving phrases on bamboo slips, Hán Yù’s calligraphic peculiarities, and so on. Each entry is followed by a citation of source (“from X jì,” “from Y lù”); roughly 200 distinct titles are cited, of which the great majority are not otherwise attested in SòngYuán catalogs.

The forgery controversy: Chén Zhènsūn first flagged the unattested citations; Hú Yìnglín called the work a Sòng fabrication; Yú Jiāxī’s Sìkù tíyào biànzhèng gives the definitive demonstration that the cited source-titles are fictional. The modern consensus is that the work is a late-Sòng compilation (probably 11th-12th century) drawing on genuine Táng anecdote material but presenting it with invented source-credits — a literary jeu d’esprit rather than an honest bibliographic enterprise. The date bracket here (c. 900 — c. 1100) reflects both the genuine Táng material at one end and the latest plausible compilation date at the other.

Whatever the date and authorship, the work is a major reservoir of Táng literary anecdote and a primary source for Sòng shīhuà and later biji compilers.

Translations and research

  • Yú Jiā-xī 余嘉錫. Sì-kù tí-yào biàn-zhèng 四庫提要辨證. The definitive demonstration of fabricated source-credits.
  • Idema, Wilt and Stephen H. West, in their various Tang anecdote-anthology essays, treat Yúnxiān záilù as a problematic but indispensable source.
  • No complete European-language translation has been located.

Other points of interest

The 200+ cited source-titles in Yúnxiān záilù constitute the largest single body of “ghost-titles” in the Chinese bibliographic tradition. Many later catalogers attempting to verify these citations — including in the Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì — wound up recording the fictitious titles as if they were genuine lost works, propagating the fabrication.

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