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搜神記

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Text ID
KR3l0099
Date
317–336
Dynasty
晉

Sōushén jì 搜神記

In Search of the Supernatural by 干寶 (撰)

About the work

A twenty-juàn collection of zhìguài 志怪 (“records of anomalies”) — short notices of ghosts, spirits, omens, prodigies, transformations, dreams, mantic episodes, and other supernatural reports — compiled by the Eastern Jìn court historian 干寶 Gān Bǎo 干寶 (zì Lìngshēng 令升, of Xīncài 新蔡; fl. 317–336) during the Yuándì — Chéngdì reigns. Gān Bǎo was zhùzuò láng (Director of the Imperial Archives) and held the guóshǐ (state-history) commission; his role in compiling the Jìn jì 晉紀 places him among the founding historians of the Eastern Jìn court. The Sōushén jì is universally regarded as the foundational and paradigmatic text of the Chinese zhìguài genre — the prototype against which all later anomaly-anthologies (Yōumíng lù 幽明錄, Yì yuàn 異苑, Xù Sōushén jì 續搜神記, down through Pú Sōnglíng’s Liáozhāi zhìyì) defined themselves. Gān Bǎo’s preface, the locus classicus for the genre’s self-justification, declares that the work aims to demonstrate that “the way of spirits is not a fabrication” (shén dào zhī bù wū 神道之不誣). The received 20-juàn recension is a MíngQīng reconstruction; the work was lost as a transmitted whole between the Southern Sòng and the Míng and rebuilt from quotations in encyclopaedic compendia (notably the Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽, the Tàipíng guǎngjì 太平廣記, the Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚, the Chūxué jì 初學記, and the Fǎyuàn zhūlín 法苑珠林).

Tiyao

Your servants report: Sōushén jì in 20 juàn. The old text is inscribed: “by the Jìn Gān Bǎo.” Bǎo’s zì was Lìngshēng, of Xīncài. Under Yuándì he was zhùzuò láng and held the guóshǐ commission; he was later transferred to sǎnqí chángshì. His standard biography (晉書 Jìn shū) records that Bǎo, struck by the affair of his father’s maidservant returning to life, accordingly assembled ancient and modern records of numinous beings, spirits, marvels, and metamorphoses of persons into a single book; his self-preface in one fascicle is included in his biography. The work is registered in the bibliographic treatises of both the Suí shū 隋書 and the Táng shū 唐書, but Sòng cataloguers Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武 (KR3l0026 Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì) and Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫 (Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí) both omit it. Wáng Yīnglín’s KR3a0010 Yù hǎi 玉海 cites the Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目 as listing a Sōushén zǒngjì 搜神總記 in 10 juàn, with no compiler named, and notes the attribution to Gān Bǎo is incorrect. Hú Zhènhēng’s 胡震亨 colophon further observes that the text contains the title “Xiè Zhènxī” — Xiè Shàng 謝尚 was promoted Zhènxī jiāngjūn in the Yǒnghé reign of Mùdì, whereas Gān Bǎo’s book was already shown to Liú Tán 劉惔 (who died in Dàníng, Míngdì’s reign); thus the Zhènxī title postdates the book’s completion by some twenty years, suggesting later interpolation, not Gān Bǎo’s original. Examining the Tàipíng huányǔ jì’s entry under Qīnglíng tái 青陵臺: it cites Sōushén jì on Hán Píng’s metamorphosis into a butterfly — yet this episode is absent from the present text. Conversely, the Tàipíng guǎngjì citations one by one match the present recension. Both compendia are Sòng-early compilations: it is unclear why they differ. We suspect that Yuè Shǐ 樂史 cited Gān Bǎo’s original book, while Lǐ Fǎng 李昉 cited the [10-juàn] Zǒngjì — later copyists split each juàn into two, hence the mismatch with the Chóngwén zǒngmù’s 10-juàn count. Doubt about doubt: for the present, we follow the old attribution and enter it on the catalogue. Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 43 (1778), 3rd month. Chief Compilers: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

(Original Preface.) Although one investigates earlier records in the texts and gathers the lost in current testimony, this is not what one ear and one eye have personally heard or seen — so how can one venture to claim absence of error? When Wèi Shuò lost the state, the two commentaries (the Zuǒ and the Gōngyáng*) varied in what they reported; when Lǚ Wàng served Zhōu, Sīmǎ Qiān preserved two accounts. Cases of this kind appear frequently. From this we see: the difficulty of hearing and seeing is of long standing. To take the established formulae of urgent reports and the documented strips of state-histories — these are still as they are; how much more so for transmitting things a thousand years past, recording matters beyond strange custom, threading fragments into broken text, asking deeds of old men — to make events show no two trails and words no different paths, and only then to be trusted: this has been the chronic disease of former historiography. Yet the state has never abolished the office of the notary, nor have scholars ceased the work of recitation and reading — surely because what is lost is small and what is preserved is great? In what I now collect, where I have received from earlier records, the fault is not mine; where I have inquired into recent affairs and there is any vacancy or error, I would share the blame and the censure with the worthy predecessors and former Confucians. Even so, my composition is sufficient to manifest that the way of spirits is not a fabrication. The hundred schools’ words cannot all be examined; what ear and eye receive cannot all be recorded. Here I have roughly taken what is enough to set forth the import of the Eight Schemes (bā lüè) and to complete its subtle discourse. May the future gentlemen fond of such matters take its root and substance, that the wandering mind and resting eye may find no fault. Gān Bǎo, Lìngshēng.*)

Abstract

Gān Bǎo (fl. 317–336) was a court historian under Jìn Yuándì 元帝 (r. 317–322), commissioned as zhùzuò láng with responsibility for the guóshǐ (state history). His principal historical work was the Jìn jì 晉紀 in 20 juàn (now lost, surviving only in fragments). The biographical tradition (Jìn shū 82) reports that the Sōushén jì’s composition was prompted by two domestic prodigies: Gān Bǎo’s father’s concubine, who had been buried alive in the family tomb, was found living when the tomb was reopened ten years later; and Gān Bǎo’s elder brother, who had been pronounced dead, revived after several days and reported visions of ghosts and spirits. These events, Gān Bǎo states in his preface, moved him to compile the records of supernatural phenomena into a single book demonstrating the reality of the spirit-world. The work’s composition window is thus framed by his court service (post-317) and his death (c. 336), with the bulk of the work likely completed in the early 320s — the preface was reportedly shown to Liú Tán 劉惔, who died in the Dàníng reign (323–326), giving a working terminus ante quem for the main draft.

The textual history is unusually complex. The Suí shū jīngjí zhì and both Táng bibliographic treatises register the work at 30 juàn (with variants), but no continuous transmission survived the Southern Sòng: Cháo Gōngwǔ and Chén Zhènsūn omit it from their catalogues, and the Chóngwén zǒngmù lists only a derivative 10-juàn Sōushén zǒngjì of uncertain authorship. The text as transmitted from the Míng onwards (and printed in the Sìkù quánshū’s 20-juàn form) is a reconstruction assembled by Hú Yīnglín 胡應麟 (1551–1602) and later editors from quotations preserved in the Tàipíng yùlǎn, Tàipíng guǎngjì, Yìwén lèijù, Chūxué jì, Fǎyuàn zhūlín, and other compendia. Modern textual scholarship (Lǐ Jiànguó 李劍國, Tāng qián zhìguài xiǎoshuō shǐ) has shown that the received 20-juàn text contains both authentic Gān Bǎo material and accretions from other Six Dynasties anomaly-collections (Liú Yìqìng’s Yōumíng lù, Liú Jìngshū’s Yì yuàn, the Lièyì zhuàn 列異傳, etc.) that were absorbed into the reconstruction. The Sìkù tíyào itself flags this problem with the Xiè Zhènxī anachronism (Xiè Shàng’s Zhènxī jiāngjūn title postdates Gān Bǎo’s composition by twenty years).

The work’s contents fall into rough thematic clusters: cosmological prodigies and omens (juàn 6–7, drawing heavily on the Hàn shū and HòuHàn shū “Wǔxíng zhì” tradition); ghost-and-spirit narratives (juàn 16–17, including the celebrated Sòng Dìngbó 宋定伯 story of catching a ghost and selling it at market); animal-transformation tales (juàn 12, 14, 18, including the Máo nǚ 毛女 wild-woman story and the foundational fox-spirit narratives); mantic and divinatory episodes (juàn 1–3); revivification and afterlife (juàn 15); the Hán Píng 韓憑 husband-and-wife tragedy of metamorphosis into intertwined trees (or, in the lost Tàipíng huányǔ jì citation, butterflies); the Dōngyǒng 董永 filial son who pledges himself to slavery to bury his father (the prototype of the later Niúláng zhīnǚ legend); the Sānwáng mù 三王墓 of the swordsmith Gàn Jiāng 干將 and his son’s vengeance; and the Lǐ Jì zhǎn shé 李寄斬蛇 narrative of the girl-hero who kills the giant serpent. Many of these became foundational episodes of the later Chinese narrative tradition, transmitted into Táng chuánqí 傳奇, Sòng huàběn, Yuán drama, and MíngQīng vernacular fiction.

The preface is also a major source for the early-medieval theory of shéndào 神道 and of historiographic self-justification under the constraint that one cannot personally witness what one records. Robert Campany has shown that the genre’s apologetic strategy — comparing zhìguài compilation to canonical historiography, both subject to the same gap between report and event — is consciously articulated here for the first time.

The composition date is given here as 317–336 (the span of Gān Bǎo’s documented official career), with the bulk of the work c. 320–324 (preface shown to Liú Tán before his death). The received 20-juàn recension is a Míng reconstruction (post-1550) of a Six Dynasties text and contains accretions: this is the work as canonized in the Sìkù and in modern editions.

Translations and research

  • DeWoskin, Kenneth J., and J. I. Crump, Jr., trans. In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record (Stanford University Press, 1996). The complete English translation of the received 20-juàn recension; the standard scholarly reference.
  • Campany, Robert Ford. Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (SUNY Press, 1996). The definitive Western monograph on the zhì-guài genre; treats Sōushén jì as the genre’s foundational text and analyses Gān Bǎo’s preface and compilation method in depth.
  • Bodde, Derk. “Some Chinese Tales of the Supernatural: Kan Pao and His Sou-shen chi.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 6 (1942): 338–357. The pioneering Western study.
  • Foster, Lawrence Chester. The Shih-i chi and Its Relationship to the Genre Known as Chih-kuai hsiao-shuo. Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1974. Treats Sōushén jì as the reference point.
  • Kao, Karl S. Y., ed. Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic (Indiana University Press, 1985). Includes translations of selected Sōushén jì stories with critical apparatus.
  • Lǐ Jiàn-guó 李劍國. Táng qián zhì-guài xiǎo-shuō shǐ 唐前志怪小說史 (Nán-kāi University Press, 1984; rev. 2005). The definitive Chinese-language history of pre-Táng zhì-guài; the most systematic textual reconstruction of the Gān Bǎo nucleus.
  • Lǐ Jiàn-guó, ed. Xīn jí Sōushén jì 新輯搜神記 (Zhōnghuá, 2007). The current scholarly critical edition, separating reconstructed Gān Bǎo material from later accretions.
  • Wāng Shào-yíng 汪紹楹, coll. Sōushén jì (Zhōnghuá, 1979). The earlier standard collated edition.
  • DeWoskin, Kenneth J. “The Six Dynasties Chih-kuai and the Birth of Fiction.” In Chinese Narrative, ed. Andrew H. Plaks (Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 21–52. The seminal genre-historical analysis.
  • Birrell, Anne. Chinese Mythology: An Introduction (Johns Hopkins, 1993). Treats Sōushén jì as a principal source for early-medieval Chinese mythological transmission.
  • Yu, Anthony C. “‘Rest, Rest, Perturbed Spirit!’ Ghosts in Traditional Chinese Prose Fiction.” HJAS 47.2 (1987): 397–434. Major study of Chinese ghost-narrative, drawing extensively on Sōushén jì.
  • Lin, Fu-shih 林富士. Hàn-dài de wū-zhě 漢代的巫者 (1999) and subsequent work; uses Sōushén jì as a principal source for early-medieval religious history.

Other points of interest

The work’s transmission history makes it a textbook case of the jíyì 輯佚 (reconstitution from quotations) tradition: between the lost Sòng Sōushén zǒngjì and the Míng reconstruction lay roughly four centuries during which the work survived only in fragments quoted by encyclopaedists. The Sìkù compilers’ open admission of the Xiè Zhènxī anachronism — preserving the work while flagging its textual problems — is exemplary Qīng kǎozhèng practice. Modern scholars (Lǐ Jiànguó, Wāng Shàoyíng) have undertaken renewed reconstructions that distinguish the authentic Gān Bǎo stratum from material absorbed from other Six Dynasties anomaly-collections; the resulting Xīn jí Sōushén jì (Lǐ Jiànguó 2007) is the current scholarly text.

Gān Bǎo also compiled a Sōushén jì xù 搜神記續 (or Xù Sōushén jì) traditionally attributed to Táo Yuānmíng 陶淵明, which is now generally regarded as a Six Dynasties continuation by another hand, not Táo’s.

The narrative episodes that became foundational for the later Chinese imagination — Dǒngyǒng and the heavenly weaver-maid; the Sānwáng mù swordsmith-and-son vengeance (the source for Lǔ Xùn’s “Zhù jiàn” / “Méi jiān chǐ” in Gùshì xīnbiān); the Lǐ Jì dragon-slayer; the Hán Píng tree-and-butterfly metamorphosis; Sòng Dìngbó selling the ghost — all enter the canon of Chinese literary culture through this text.

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