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宣室志

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Text ID
KR3l0110
Date
870–886
Dynasty
唐

Xuānshì zhì 宣室志

Records from the Xuan-shi (Hall) by 張讀 (撰)

About the work

A ten-juàn late-Táng zhìguài and chuánqí anthology — the largest of the late-Táng anomaly collections after Niú Sēngrú’s Xuánguài lù 玄怪錄 and Lǐ Fùyán’s Xù xuánguài lù 續玄怪錄 — compiled by Zhāng Dú 張讀 (zì Shèngpéng 聖朋, fl. Xiántōng 咸通 — Qiánfú 乾符 period, 860s–880s), grandson of the great prose-stylist Niú Sēngrú 牛僧孺 (the maternal line) and son of Zhāng Yǒuxīn 張又新, holding office at the close of the Táng up to Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士 and lìbù shìláng 吏部侍郎 under Xīzōng 僖宗. The title alludes to Shǐjì 84 Qū Yuán Jiǎ Shēng lièzhuàn 屈原賈生列傳: after the yuèzhī 月支 ceremony Hàn Wéndì 漢文帝 received the libationer’s auspices at the Xuānshì 宣室 hall and summoned Jiǎ Yì 賈誼 to inquire about ghosts and spirits — Jiǎ Yì spoke until midnight and Hàn Wéndì moved his seat forward. Zhāng Dú’s title thus posits his book as a gathering of ghost-and-spirit talk for inquiry by the imperial throne. The work covers c. 150 entries in 10 juàn on the standard zhìguài repertoire: ghosts and revenants, Buddhist miracles (numerous, reflecting his maternal grandfather’s interests), Daoist immortals, fox-spirits, dragons, alchemical adepts, retributory karma. The transmitted edition includes a 1-juàn Bǔyí 補遺 (supplement) which the Sìkù compilers, noting it is unattested in earlier catalogues, identify as a Sòng-or-later compilation patched together from independent quotations.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Xuānshì zhì in 10 juàn, Bǔyí (supplement) in 1 juàn. The Táng Zhāng Dú 張讀 zhuàn. On examination, Chén Zhènsūn’s 陳振孫 Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí 直齋書錄解題 says Dú’s zì is Shèngpéng 聖朋; but the Táng shū Yìwén zhì records his Jiànzhōng xī shǒu lù 建中西狩錄 in 10 juàn annotated “Dú zì Shèngyòng 聖用, in the time of Xīzōng lìbù shìláng” — the graphs 朋 and 用 are formally similar; which is correct is uncertain. What this book records is all matters of ghosts, spirits, and uncanny marvels, similar in form to Gān Bǎo’s Sōushén [jì] KR3l0099 and Rèn Fǎng’s 任昉 Shùyì [jì]. Although it is xiǎoshuō-talk and not without straying into the absurd, the writings of Táng men, long transmitted, can occasionally serve as material for verification.

The Bǔyí 1 juàn: the old recension also titles it as by Dú’s hand, but the various bibliographical catalogues record no such item. We suspect that printers gathered quotations from other works and appended them at the end. The meaning of Xuānshì 宣室 derives from the affair of Hàn Wéndì receiving the libationer’s auspices at the Xuānshì and summoning Jiǎ Yì to inquire about ghosts and spirits. Yet though the reply about ghosts was in the Xuānshì, the name Xuānshì itself was not in fact established because of ghosts. To take it as the title of a zhìguài book is etymologically inappropriate. But it has been habituated through long usage and is no longer felt as wrong. We therefore retain the original title here, while noting the correction.

Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 42 (1777), 5th month. Chief Compilers: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The composition window adopted here (870–886) follows the conventional dating in modern scholarship (Lǐ Jiànguó 李劍國; Wáng Mèngōu 王夢鷗): Zhāng Dú is securely attested as Hànlín xuéshì in the Xiántōng period (860–874) and as lìbù shìláng under Xīzōng (873–888), making his most productive scholarly years c. 870 to the early 880s. The book is consistently cited by the Tàipíng guǎngjì (compiled 977–978) as one of its principal Táng zhìguài sources — at over 200 Tàipíng guǎngjì entries, it ranks alongside the Yǒuyáng zázǔ and Xù xuánguài lù as the most extensively absorbed of all Táng anomaly anthologies — which fixes the upper bound at well before 977. The book is unlisted in the Jiù Táng shū but listed in the Xīn Táng shū Yìwén zhì (1060) under Zhāng Dú’s name.

Zhāng Dú’s literary lineage is striking and explains much about the book’s character. He is the maternal grandson of 牛僧孺 Niú Sēngrú (780–848) — the Niú of the NiúLǐ 牛李 factional dispute and, more importantly here, the author of the Xuánguài lù 玄怪錄 KR3l0095, the great mid-Táng zhìguài / chuánqí collection that is the Xuānshì zhì’s most direct generic ancestor. He is the son of Zhāng Yǒuxīn 張又新, the noted jìnshì prose-writer and Chá jīng 茶經-commentator of the Héyùn 何媛 generation. The Xuānshì zhì therefore continues a family-scholarly tradition of anomaly-writing across three generations.

The c. 150 entries are grouped loosely. Juàn 1 opens with the Lǐ Kuí 李揆 toad-portent (Lǐ Kuí sees a giant toad during the Qiányuán period (758–760), interpreted as a yuèzhōng wù 月中物 (lunar creature) and “Heaven’s messenger”; he is shortly appointed Zhōngshū shìláng tóng píngzhāngshì). It continues with the Shí Xiàn 石憲 Wǔtáishān dream (a Tàiyuán merchant in Chángqìng 2 [822] dreams of bee-eyed monks bathing in a “pool of dark yin” Xuányīnchí 玄陰池 in the Wǔtái mountains — a meditative landscape combining Buddhist and Daoist elements). The Buddhist content is unusually thick: a generation of Wǔtáishān miracles, monk-thaumaturges, sūtra-recitation-induced rains and survivals from disasters, and karmic-retribution entries. The Daoist content is at least as developed: Daoist immortals visiting the human world, hidden grotto-paradises (a major Yīn Yǐnkè 陰隱客 variant; cf. KR3l0105), alchemical compoundings.

Particularly notable entries include the Liǔ Yī 柳毅 / Dòngtíng dragon-marriage tale (in a shorter, possibly source variant of the canonical chuánqí by Lǐ Cháowēi 李朝威) — the Xuānshì zhì version places the encounter at a lesser tributary lake; the Zhōu Bǎo 周寶 entry (the Cháng’ān-region official who hosts a Daoist who turns out to be the spirit of Tàishàng lǎojūn 太上老君); the Fáng Qǐ 房琯 / Sēng Hóng 僧弘 prophecy on dragon-images; and the Cuī Sījiǎn 崔斯儉 underworld-court entry — a foundational text of the late-Táng Buddhist-judicial cosmology.

The Bǔyí (1 juàn) appended to the WYG recension is, as the Sìkù compilers note, an artefact of late printers and contains entries traceable to the Tàipíng guǎngjì, Tàipíng yùlǎn, and various Sòng lèishū; it should not be treated as Zhāng Dú’s original work. The 10-juàn main body, however, is securely his.

Standard modern edition: Xuānshì zhì, ed. Zhāng Yǒngqīn 張永欽 and Hóu Zhìmíng 侯志明 (Zhōnghuá shūjú 1983), in the TángSòng shǐliào bǐjì cóngkān series — the standard collated and annotated text. For source-criticism, see Lǐ Jiànguó 李劍國, TángWǔdài zhìguài chuánqí xùlù 唐五代志怪傳奇敘錄 (Nánkāi 1993), pp. 873–916.

Translations and research

  • Zhāng Yǒng-qīn 張永欽 and Hóu Zhì-míng 侯志明, eds. Xuān-shì zhì 宣室志 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú 1983). The standard modern critical edition with full apparatus.
  • Lǐ Jiàn-guó 李劍國. Táng-Wǔ-dài zhì-guài chuán-qí xù-lù 唐五代志怪傳奇敘錄 (Nán-kāi 1993), entry on Xuān-shì zhì. The most thorough source-critical treatment, with discussion of every entry’s recension-history.
  • Wāng Bì-cōng 汪辟疆. Táng-rén xiǎo-shuō 唐人小說 (Shàng-hǎi 1934). Includes a critical recension of the principal Xuān-shì zhì entries.
  • Wáng Mèng-ōu 王夢鷗. Táng-rén xiǎo-shuō yán-jiū 唐人小說研究 (Tái-běi: Yì-wén, 4 vols., 1971–78). Source-critical study of the Xuān-shì zhì among the late-Táng zhì-guài.
  • Dudbridge, Glen. Religious Experience and Lay Society in T’ang China: A Reading of Tai Fu’s Kuang-i chi (CUP 1995). Methodological model for reading Xuān-shì zhì as religious-historical evidence; comparative analysis throughout.
  • Reed, Carrie. A Tang Miscellany: An Introduction to Youyang zazu (Peter Lang 2003).
  • Allen, Sarah M. Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China (Harvard Asia Center 2014). Includes the Xuān-shì zhì among the principal late-Táng anecdotal anthologies analysed for its compositional layering.
  • Selected entries translated in: Karl S. Y. Kao, ed. Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic (Indiana UP 1985); and (the Cuī Sī-jiǎn underworld-court entry) in Stephen R. Bokenkamp’s Ancestors and Anxiety: Daoism and the Birth of Rebirth in China (UC Press 2007), with discussion.

Other points of interest

The Xuānshì zhì is — alongside the Yǒuyáng zázǔ and the Xù xuánguài lù — one of the three principal Táng zhìguài anthologies absorbed wholesale into the Tàipíng guǎngjì and through that channel into the bedrock of the later Chinese supernatural-fiction tradition. Modern Chinese-religious-history scholarship has come to treat it as evidentiary text on equal footing with monastic biographies and Daoist hagiographic compilations for the late-Táng popular-religious imagination — a status the Sìkù compilers themselves anticipated by noting that “Táng men’s writings, long transmitted, can occasionally serve as material for verification” (唐人著述流傳既久亦時足為考証之資). The book’s marked dual-religious orientation (Buddhist + Daoist content roughly balanced, with sparse Confucian or popular-folk strata) reflects Zhāng Dú’s family milieu — his maternal grandfather Niú Sēngrú is one of the principal documented late-Táng patrons of both chán 禪 monasteries and Mao-shan 茅山 Daoism — and makes the Xuānshì zhì an unusually well-attested locus for studying the late-Táng integration of the two traditions.

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