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江淮異人錄

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Text ID
KR3l0115
Date
980–1002
Dynasty
宋

Jiānghuái yìrén lù 江淮異人錄

Records of Extraordinary Persons of the Jiāng-huái Region by 吳淑 (撰)

About the work

A two-juǎn collection of twenty-five biographical sketches of yìrén 異人 (“extraordinary persons” — Daoist adepts, knight-errant xiá figures, and fāngshì magicians) of the Táng and Southern-Táng periods, compiled by Wú Shū 吳淑 (947–1002), the early-Sòng polymath and son-in-law of Xú Xuàn 徐鉉. The work continues, in a more terrestrial register, the zhìguài tradition of Xú’s KR3l0114 Jīshén lù: where Xú’s book recorded encounters with ghosts and spirits, Wú’s book records the human practitioners of the marginal and the strange — Táng xiá and dàoshì, Southern-Táng court adepts, ordinary villagers with extraordinary powers. Most of the 25 figures are otherwise unrecorded, making the book a precious yíshǐ witness to Southern-Táng cultural life on the Yangtze.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Jiānghuái yìrén lù in 2 juǎn. The Sòng Wú Shū zhuàn. Shū has a Shìlèi fù already on record (see KR4d0001). The present compilation records principally Daoists, xiá, and fāngshì: two Táng figures, twenty-three Southern-Táng. Xú Xuàn had spent twenty years compiling the Jīshén lù; Shū was Xuàn’s son-in-law — perhaps from steeping his ears and eyes in Xú’s circle he too came to delight in tales of the strange. But where Xú’s book speaks of ghosts in a wild and unmeasured way, what Shū records belongs to what the Zhōu lǐ calls guài mín 怪民 (“aberrant persons”) and the Shǐ jì calls fāngshì 方士 — categories the early histories themselves preserved; the matters are still within the bounds of what has been seen. Stories like that of Gěng xiānshēng 耿先生 are reproduced in both Mǎ Lìng and Lù Yóu’s NánTáng shū — so it is not all empty invention. Yóu Mào’s Suìchūtáng shūmù lists this work as Jiānghuái yìrén zhuàn, probably a transmission-slip. The Sòngshǐ Wú Shū biography says it was in 3 juǎn; Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí says 2 juǎn, and the Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì concurs — so the biography’s “3” must be a graphic error for “2.” The book was long without a transmitted copy; we have now extracted from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and re-edited, exactly recovering the count of 25 persons, complete from head to tail. Following the Sòngzhì, we have divided it into upper and lower juǎn to restore the old form.

Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 9th 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 Jiānghuái yìrén lù is by Wú Shū 吳淑 (947–1002, zì Zhèngyí 正儀; see 吳淑) — son-in-law and pupil-by-marriage of Xú Xuàn, jìnshì of Tàipíng xīngguó 4 (979), and one of the lead editors of the early-Sòng Tàipíng yùlǎn, Tàipíng guǎngjì, and Wényuàn yīnghuá. Composition lies between Wú’s entry into Sòng service (probably c. 980, since the work treats Southern Táng as a past dynasty with the “wěi” prefix) and his death in 1002. The date bracket adopted here (980–1002) reflects this; some scholarship narrows it to the 980s.

The 25 entries (13 in juǎn shàng, 12 in juǎn xià) divide into four loose clusters: (i) imperial-circle yìrén — Tang Níngwáng (Lǐ Xiàn 李憲, Xuánzōng’s elder brother who voluntarily resigned the heir-apparency), Huāgū (a Tang flower-divinity); (ii) Southern-Táng court Daoists and adepts — Niè Shīdào 聶師道 (the patriarchal Daoist of Southern-Táng court who succeeded by transmission from Tang Lónghǔshān, principal source for Wú’s biographical material), Pān Fú 潘扆 (a Yang-zhōu Daoist), Gěng xiānshēng 耿先生 (the female fāngshì who attended Lǐ Jǐng — episode preserved in parallel in Mǎ Lìng’s and Lù Yóu’s NánTáng shū); (iii) provincial xiá and yǐnshì — Sīmǎ Jiāo 司馬郊, Chén Yǔnshēng 陳允升, Shǐ Gōnggǎo 史公鎬, Dǒng Shàoxián 董紹賢; (iv) anonymous yǐnshì — the Jiāng chǔshì, Qián chǔshì, Rùnzhōu chǔshì, Jiànkāng yìrén, Hóngzhōu shūshēng, Hángzhōu yěwēng, Sǎntán yúfù, Xuānzhōu jūnshì. Many of these are preserved nowhere else, and the Gěng xiānshēng episode in particular is one of the principal early sources for Southern-Táng court life.

Bibliographically, the book was already rare by the Sòng — the Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì gives 2 juǎn; the Sòngshǐ Wú Shū biography “3 juǎn” is the Sìkù-corrected slip-for-2. The text vanished from circulation between Sòng and Qīng and the WYG recension is the Sìkù reconstitution from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. As such it is a special witness to Yǒnglè dàdiǎn’s preservation of Sòng bǐjì losses.

The work stands in a distinct family-and-school lineage: it is the direct successor of Xú Xuàn’s Jīshén lù, was composed by Xú’s son-in-law and literary heir, draws on much of the same Jiānghuái material, and represents the human side of the Wǔdài / early-Sòng anomaly-account tradition. Inglis (2006) discusses both books as the proximate Northern-Sòng sources for Hóng Mài’s later Yíjiān zhì method.

Translations and research

  • Inglis, Alister D. Hong Mai’s “Record of the Listener” and Its Song Dynasty Context (SUNY 2006). Sustained discussion of Jiāng-huái yì-rén lù as a proto-Yí-jiān zhì.
  • Campany, Robert Ford. Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (SUNY 1996). Methodological framework.
  • Lǐ Jiàn-guó 李劍國. Sòng-dài zhì-guài chuán-qí xù-lù 宋代志怪傳奇敘錄 (Nán-kāi 1997). Definitive Chinese-language source-critical entry.
  • Bauer, Wolfgang. “The Hidden Hero,” in Donald J. Munro, ed., Individualism and Holism (Michigan 1985), pp. 157–197. Uses Jiāng-huái yì-rén lù as a principal Wǔ-dài source for the xiá eremite ideal.
  • Verellen, Franciscus. “Liturgy and Sovereignty: The Role of Taoist Ritual in the Foundation of the Shu Kingdom (907–925),” Asia Major 3rd ser. 2 (1989), pp. 59–78. Cites Wú Shū’s record of Niè Shī-dào as a primary source for Wǔ-dài Daoist court ritual.

Other points of interest

The Gěng xiānshēng entry — describing a fāngshì female practitioner who turned mercury into a silver by alchemy at Lǐ Jǐng’s court — is the locus classicus of the (lost) Southern-Táng court alchemy tradition; it is cited in both Mǎ Lìng’s and Lù Yóu’s NánTáng shū and is one of the few extant early-Sòng accounts of practising female dàoshì.

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