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分門古今類事

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Text ID
KR3l0119
Date
1127–1145
Dynasty
宋

Fēnmén gǔjīn lèishì 分門古今類事

Categorized Affairs of Past and Present, Sorted by Subject by 闕名 (撰)

About the work

A twenty-juǎn anonymous Southern-Sòng lèishū-cum-zhìguài compilation, organising several hundred anecdotes of fate, prophecy, dreams, omens, and karmic recompense from Táng and Sòng sources into twelve thematic mén (gates / categories). The arrangement reflects the work’s didactic intent: that “matters have a fixed destiny” (shì yǒu dìng shù 事有定數) and that “doing good adds to one’s allotment, doing evil subtracts” (wéi shàn ér zēng, wéi è ér xuē 為善而增為惡而削) — Confucian moralism using zhìguài material as illustration. The compiler is unnamed; the Sìkù tiyao identifies him from internal evidence (juǎn 8 contains a Lóngquán mèng jì 龍泉夢記 by “xiāndàfū Sòng Rúzhāng 宋如璋”, dated Zhènghé 7 / 1117, in which Rúzhāng is referred to in the third person as the compiler’s late father) as a son of the Shǔ official Sòng Rúzhāng. The book carries the Shǔběn (Shǔ edition) imprint, marking it as a Sìchuān commercial print of the early Southern Sòng — a regional Sòng book never registered in the Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì. It is therefore a uniquely valuable witness to Northern-Sòng xiǎoshuō and lost lèishū: among the books it quotes are the Chéngdū guǎngjì 成都廣記, Gāiwén jí 該聞集, Guǎngdé shényì lù 廣德神異錄, TángSòng yíshǐ 唐宋遺史, Bīnxiān zhuàn 賓仙傳, Shǔyì jì 蜀異記, Jìnshēn cuōshuō 搢紳脞說, Língyàn jì 靈驗記, Língyìng jí 靈應集 — every one of these now lost to direct transmission and surviving only through Fēnmén gǔjīn lèishì’s excerpts.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Fēnmén gǔjīn lèishì in 20 juǎn, no compiler-name. The Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì also does not record it. The volume head carries the two-character mark “Shǔběn”; this is a Sòng-period imprint from a Sìchuān bookshop. In juǎn 8 there is a Xiāndàfū Lóngquán mèng jì (Late Father’s Dream-Record at Lóngquán), at end signed “Zhènghé 7 (1117), 3rd month, Sòng Rúzhāng records.” The note says he obtained the cáojiě (provincial recommendation) at Chóngníng yǐyǒu (i.e., 1105), and passed the jìnshì the following year. So Sòng Rúzhāng was indeed a Shǔ man, took the examinations, entered office; the author of this book is then Rúzhāng’s son, hence calling Rúzhāng “xiāndàfū.” There is neither preface nor postface; his name can no longer be recovered. The book is divided into twelve categories: Dìwáng yùnzhào mén (Imperial Augury) in 2 juǎn, Yìzhào (Strange Omens) 3 juǎn, Mèngzhào (Dream Omens) 3 juǎn, Xiàngzhào (Physiognomy) 2 juǎn, Bǔzhào (Divination) 2 juǎn, Chènzhào (Cryptic Prophecies) 2 juǎn, Xiángzhào (Auspicious Signs) 1 juǎn, Hūnzhào (Marriage Omens) 1 juǎn, Mùzhào (Grave-Omens) 1 juǎn, Zázhì (Miscellaneous Records) 1 juǎn, Wéishàn ér zēng (Doing Good and Adding to Allotment) 1 juǎn, Wéiè ér xuē (Doing Evil and Subtracting from Allotment) 1 juǎn. The principal aim is to use canonical stories to make manifest that “affairs have a fixed allotment, beyond which there is no wild presumption” — extending this to “Heaven-and-human responsiveness is sudden,” demonstrating “to follow the path is auspicious, to follow disobedience is inauspicious.” Although the material gathered is mottled and slides into the fantastic, in its alarm-rousing call to the world its meaning is poignant and immediate; it is a continuation of the Qiándìng lù and Lèshàn lù type. The book is composed at the very beginning of the southern migration, and the books it cites — Chéngdū guǎngjì, Gāiwén jí, Guǎngdé shényì lù, TángSòng yíshǐ, Bīnxiān zhuàn, Shǔyì jì, Jìnshēn cuōshuō, Língyàn jì, Língyìng jí, and others — are all books not transmitted to later ages, so its preservation is also a help to broad-erudition. We therefore preserve it as one xiǎoshuō among many.

Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 43 (1778), 6th 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 Fēnmén gǔjīn lèishì is one of the most consequential Sòng lèishū in the xiǎoshuō mode — not for what it contributes itself, but for what it preserves. The internal evidence — the Lóngquán mèng jì by xiāndàfū Sòng Rúzhāng — places the compiler as Rúzhāng’s son and the book itself in the early Southern Sòng, post-1127, probably in the Jiànyán to Shàoxīng years (the Sìkù tiyao says “at the very beginning of the southern migration,” Nándù zhī chū). The bracket adopted here (1127–1145) reflects this; some scholarship places it slightly later in the Shàoxīng reign.

Substantively the book is an anecdote-based lèishū: each of the twelve mén gathers stories from Táng and Sòng sources illustrating a category of supernatural/fated phenomenon. The first three categories — imperial augury, strange omens, dreams — alone account for half the bulk. The book’s didactic-Confucian frame (anchored by the final two mén: wéishàn ér zēng and wéiè ér xuē) explicitly aligns it with the prior Tang Qiándìng lù 前定錄 (Records of What Was Predetermined) and Sòng Lèshàn lù 樂善錄 (Records of Delight-in-Goodness) traditions, but with vastly wider source-coverage. The compilation’s value is twofold: (i) it is the principal — sometimes the sole — surviving witness to a number of lost Wǔdài and early-Sòng works (Chéngdū guǎngjì, Gāiwén jí, Guǎngdé shényì lù, Bīnxiān zhuàn, Shǔyì jì, Jìnshēn cuōshuō, Língyìng jí); (ii) it preserves a recension of Shǔ-region prophecy and dream-lore that is distinctly local, complementing Huáng Xiūfù’s KR3l0116 Máotíng kèhuà as a witness to Shǔ regional culture.

Bibliographically the work was lost from circulation in the YuánMíng but survived in the imperial Wényuān gé library, whence the Sìkù copy. The Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì does not register it (the consequence of the Shǔběn’s purely regional circulation). It is therefore one of a small set of Sòng works that the Sìkù recovered from oblivion, alongside Wú Shū’s KR3l0115 Jiānghuái yìrén lù.

Translations and research

  • 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). Source-critical entry on Fēn-mén gǔ-jīn lèi-shì and its lost source-books.
  • Wáng Jǐng 王晶. “Fēn-mén gǔ-jīn lèi-shì yǐn-shū kǎo” 《分門古今類事》引書考, in Wén-xiàn (2010 or thereabouts). Substantive catalog of the work’s quoted sources, identifying which are otherwise lost.
  • Inglis, Alister D. Hong Mai’s “Record of the Listener” and Its Song Dynasty Context (SUNY 2006). Comparative discussion of Sòng zhì-guài compilations.
  • Wàn Fāng 萬芳. “Sòng-dài fēn-mén lèi-shū yǔ zhì-guài xiǎo-shuō” 宋代分門類書與志怪小説, in Gǔ-jí zhěng-lǐ yán-jiū xué-kān (2014). Article on the fēn-mén organising principle as a Sòng innovation in xiǎo-shuō compilation.

Other points of interest

Fēnmén gǔjīn lèishì is the principal early-Southern-Sòng witness to the Wéishàn ér zēng / Wéiè ér xuē moral arithmetic — the doctrine, drawn ultimately from the Bàopǔzǐ and embedded in Sòng popular morality manuals like the Tàishàng gǎnyìng piān 太上感應篇, that good and bad deeds quantitatively adjust one’s allotment of fortune and lifespan. The book’s final two mén are essentially a xiǎoshuō-illustrated version of this popular-moral framework, anticipating by a century the late-Sòng gōngguò gé 功過格 (merit-and-demerit ledger) tradition.

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