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開元天寶遺事

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Text ID
KR3l0020
Date
940–956
Dynasty
五代

Kāiyuán Tiānbǎo yíshì 開元天寶遺事

Surviving Affairs of the Kaiyuan and Tianbao Eras by 王仁裕 (撰)

About the work

A four-juàn compilation of 159 (per Cháo Gōngwǔ’s count) anecdotes about the Kāiyuán / Tiānbǎo court of Tang Xuánzōng, ostensibly assembled by 王仁裕 Wáng Rényù 王仁裕 (880–956) during his stay in Chángān after the fall of Shǔ, drawing on oral tradition still circulating among the post-rebellion Chángān populace. Hóng Mài 洪邁 in Róngzhāi suíbǐ 容齋隨筆 raised four specific factual objections (Yáo Chóng’s being already chief minister under Wǔ Zétiān is incompatible with the work’s “Kāiyuán Hànlín scholar” entry; Guō Yuánzhèn’s death predates Zhāng Jiāzhēn’s chief-ministership by ten years; Zhāng Jiǔlíng was already removed from office before Yáng Guózhōng became official; Sū Tǐng was chief minister before Zhāng Jiǔlíng was prominent) and used these to argue the work is a Sòng forgery attributed to Wáng Rényù. The Sìkù compilers note these objections but cite Sū Shì’s poem on the work and Sīmǎ Guāng’s use of the Zhāng Tuàn / bīngshān entry in the Tōngjiàn — both predating any putative Southern-Sòng forgery — as proof that the work does date to before Sū Shì and is not in the class of post-Southern-Sòng forgeries like Yúnxiān sànlù and Lóngchéng lù. The compilers conclude that the errors arise from Wáng Rényù’s having gathered from oral tradition of “yímín” (the people who survived through the dynasty’s fall) without being able to verify against the State Histories, and that the errors should not be used to discredit the attribution — just as Liú Xiàobiāo’s commentary repeatedly notes errors in [the Shìshuō xīnyǔ] without anyone supposing it not Liú Yìqìng’s work.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Kāiyuán Tiānbǎo yíshì in 4 juàn, by the Five-Dynasties Wáng Rényù. Rényù zì Déniǎn 德輦, native of Tiānshuǐ 天水. At the end of the Táng he was Qínzhōu jiédù pànguān; then served Shǔ as Hànlín xuéshì; when Táng Zhuāngzōng pacified Shǔ he was again Qínzhōu pànguān; under Fèidì he was Dōuguān lángzhōng with concurrent Hànlín xuéshì; under Jìn Gāozǔ Jiànyì dàfū; under Hàn Gāozǔ again Hànlín xuéshì chéngzhǐ, promoted to Hùbù shàngshū, then resigned as Bīngbù shàngshū and Tàizǐ shǎobǎo; died in HòuZhōu Xiǎndé 3 [956]. His career is in Wǔdài shǐ Zázhuàn. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì: “After the fall of Shǔ, Rényù came to Hàojīng, gathered the speech of the people, got 159 entries of Kāiyuán Tiānbǎo yíshì, divided into 4 juàn.” Hóng Mài’s Róngzhāi suíbǐ takes it to be a forgery under Rényù’s name and picks out four error-points: (1) Yáo Chóng was already chief minister under Wǔhòu, yet the work says he was a Kāiyuán Hànlín xuéshì; (2) Guō Yuánzhèn died, then ten years later Zhāng Jiāzhēn became chief minister, yet the work says Guō in youth was chosen as son-in-law by Zhāng; (3) the work says Zhāng Jiǔlíng having left office for ten years, Yáng Guózhōng then got office and Jiǔlíng refused to attend his door — but Jiǔlíng was long dead by then; (4) Sū Tǐng was chief minister while Zhāng Jiǔlíng was not yet prominent — yet the work says Jiǔlíng’s writings were praised by Sū Tǐng as a “literary commander.” All four refutations are correct. But Sū Shì’s jí has four quatrains “On reading Kāiyuán Tiānbǎo yíshì,” and Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōngjiàn takes the Zhāng Tuàn / “ice-mountain” expression about Yáng Guózhōng from this book — so the work was already extant well before Hóng Mài’s day, and not of the class of Yúnxiān sànlù and Lóngchéng lù — those late-Southern-Sòng forgeries. Rather, the work is taken from popular oral tradition (wěixiàng xiāngchuán), which is itself often inexact; Rényù gathered from the survivors’ speech without being able to verify against the State Histories — this is his failing, but it does not warrant the conclusion of pseudepigraphic attribution, where there is no clear external evidence. Liú Yìqìng’s Shìshuō xīnyǔ and Liú Xiàobiāo’s commentary repeatedly point out errors, yet no one says it is not Yìqìng’s work; therefore the present edition retains the attribution to Rényù. Respectfully presented in the 10th month of Qiánlóng 46.

Abstract

The work is a small but extremely influential anecdote-collection: many of the most famous Kāiyuán / Tiānbǎo legendary images — the bīngshān (ice-mountain) trope about Yáng Guózhōng; the imperial fishing-pond; Yáng Guìfēi’s lychees; Sū Tǐng’s literary command; Lǐ Bái’s drunken composition; many of the Méifēi / Yáng Guìfēi rivalry anecdotes — derive primarily from this work and were taken up by later opera and fiction. The Sìkù defence (against Hóng Mài’s forgery charge) is now generally accepted: the work is by Wáng Rényù, drawn from popular oral tradition c. 940s, with the inevitable factual slips of a transmission medium.

Modern critical edition: Zēng Yǐzhēng 曾貽棻, coll. Kāiyuán Tiānbǎo yíshì (Zhōnghuá, TángSòng shǐliào bǐjì cóngkān, 2006).

Translations and research

  • Verellen, Franciscus, in Tantric Buddhism in China and elsewhere, draws on Kāi-yuán Tiān-bǎo yí-shì for early-Tang religious milieu.
  • Owen, Stephen. The Late Tang. HUP 2006. Discusses the yí-shì tradition.
  • Schafer, Edward H. The Golden Peaches of Samarkand (UCP 1963) uses Kāi-yuán Tiān-bǎo yí-shì extensively for high-Tang material culture.
  • No complete European-language translation has been located.

Other points of interest

The image of bīngshān 冰山 (ice mountain) — applied by Zhāng Tuàn to Yáng Guózhōng’s power as something that would melt at the heat of the sun — has been a Chinese-language commonplace ever since this work, and is the locus classicus.

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