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續博物志

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Text ID
KR3l0128
Date
1160–1175
Dynasty
宋

Xù bówù zhì 續博物志

Continued Treatise on Universal Things by 李石 (撰)

About the work

A ten-juàn mid-Southern-Sòng bówùzhì-style miscellany compiled by 李石 Lǐ Shí 李石 (fl. 1162–1175), zì Zǐfā 子發, hào Fāngzhōu xiānshēng 方舟先生, a Sìchuān scholar of the Shǔxué tradition, designed as an explicit continuation of and supplement to KR3l0123 Zhāng Huá’s 張華 Bówù zhì 博物志. Where Zhāng Huá’s work opens with the Dìlǐ lüè (geography), Lǐ Shí’s continuation opens with Tiānxiàng (the heavenly bodies, astronomy and astrology) — a small but deliberate structural variation, after which the matter follows broadly the same range of topics: natural history, exotica, zhìguài, fāngshù (magical-arts) lore, plant and mineral observation, historical and ethnographic anecdote. The work pulls heavily from Lù Diàn’s 陸佃 Píyǎ 埤雅, Zǐhuázǐ 子華子, Chén Zhèngmǐn’s 陳正敏 Dùnzhāi xiánlǎn 遁齋閒覽, and Céng Cào’s 曾慥 Jíxiān zhuàn 集仙傳, among other Northern-Southern-Sòng-period sources.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Xù bówù zhì in 10 juàn. The old text-line attributes it to the Jìn Lǐ Shí, zhuàn. Yet the second juàn states “the present sovereign [jīn shàng], in the former dynasty, was set up as commandant of Suīyáng; on the establishment of the dynastic style of Dà Sòng” — that is, [the author writes as if] a man of [Sòng] Tàizǔ’s time. And further it cites Zēng Gōngliàng’s “lóng’s spine” and Wáng Ānshí’s “lóng’s eye,” fully appropriated from Lù Diàn’s Píyǎ; also cites Zǐhuázǐ, Chén Zhèngmǐn’s Dùnzhāi xiánlǎn, and Céng Cào’s Jíxiān zhuàn, all books of the NánBěi Sòng interim — so it is neither a book of [Jìn]-period nor of early Northern Sòng. A separate edition’s end has the colophon of his disciple Dígōng láng Méishān bù (Magistrate of Méishān) Huáng Zōngtài, which calls him Fāngzhōu xiānshēng — Fāngzhōu being the hào of the Sòng Lǐ Shí, whose poetic compositions are already fully recorded in the Jīngbù category — that to write “Jìn Lǐ Shí” is therefore an error.

Yet Lǐ Shí is a man of the Shàoxīng and Qiándào eras and would not have written “the present sovereign” referring to Tàizǔ — most likely the matter is pilfered from earlier xiǎoshuō and the wording of the source was left unedited. The book’s design is to supplement what Zhāng Huá did not include; only — Huá’s book opens with Dìlǐ (geography), and this opens with Tiānxiàng (heavenly phenomena), a small variation in tǐlì (formal arrangement); the rest, though without category-titles, follows broadly the same lines. Therefore his own preface says: “the order follows Huá’s exposition, one matter, one continuation.” Yet the Guī cháo Liányè (turtle-nesting in lotus-leaves) entry is duplicated with Huá’s exposition — clearly not checked. Also Wáng Shìzhēn’s Xiāngzǔ bǐjì notes that the book in one place says “Liú Liàng compounded the xiān-pill, obtained a white bat, ate it, dropped dead on the spot,” and in another says “Chén Zǐzhēn obtained a bat the size of a crow, ate it, and within one night massively voided his bowels and died” — yet a third place says “in the cave-mouths of Dānshuǐshí, hundred-year-old bats hang upside down, and one who obtains and ingests one becomes an immortal” — self-contradictory; also notes that the book has Wéndì sending the Zhǎnggù (Master-of-Old-Tales) Ōuyángshēng to receive the Shàngshū from Fúshēng, locates Fúshēng’s tomb on the Tàshuǐ, places the Pánxī in Jíjùn — all contrivances and errors.

But because the book preserves the old leaves and fugitive remarks of Sòng-period men, we tentatively record it for reference. Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 10th 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 Xù bówù zhì is the principal surviving prose miscellany of 李石 Lǐ Shí (b. 1108, fl. 1162–1175 and beyond — see the Person note for the dating discussion: CBDB id 10830 gives a firm birth year of 1108 and no death year, while the catalog meta’s “fl. 1162–1165” reflects only his recorded Tàixué bóshì tenure and Chéngdū xuéguān reassignment). The work explicitly presents itself as a continuation and supplement to KR3l0123 Zhāng Huá’s Bówù zhì, with the author’s own preface stating “next-in-order, in imitation of Huá’s exposition: one matter, one continuation” (次第仿華説，一事續一事). The work was almost certainly composed during Lǐ Shí’s late-Lóngxīng / early-Chúnxī period at Chéngdū (early 1160s through mid 1170s), making it broadly contemporary with — and a piece of the same Shǔxué culture as — the substantial classical-exegesis output preserved in the KR4d0230 Fāngzhōu jí appendices.

The text’s lineage: Wāng Shìhàn’s 汪士漢 Yuánxù (Kāngxī wùshēn / 1668) explains the editorial logic — Zhāng Huá’s Bówù zhì in 400 juàn was reduced (per legend) by Jìn Wǔdì to 10 juàn; the Sòng Lǐ Shí added a continuation of 10 juàn; a “Mr Dǒng of Wúxīng” (吳興董氏) further expanded the joint material to 50 juàn. Wāng’s edition restores the original 10+10 = 20 juàn form, and it is this recension that descends through the WYG.

The Sìkù tíyào discusses the text’s mixed nature with characteristic precision: the title-attribution “Jìn Lǐ Shí” carried in some witnesses is patently wrong (Lǐ Shí is a Southern Sòng figure, Shàoxīng and Qiándào eras); even more pointedly, the second juàn contains the phrase “the present sovereign… in the former dynasty was set up as commandant of Suīyáng, on the establishment of the dynastic style of Dà Sòng” — wording that can only refer to Sòng Tàizǔ (Zhào Kuāngyìn) and that Lǐ Shí, writing 200 years later, cannot have composed in this voice. The Sìkù compilers explain this as “miscellaneous old material pilfered from earlier xiǎoshuō with the wording left uncorrected” — i.e. as a Northern-Sòng-period biji fragment ingested into Lǐ Shí’s compilation without editorial smoothing. This is consistent with the work’s general method: Lǐ Shí pulls heavily from Lù Diàn’s Píyǎ (the Wáng Ānshí “dragon’s eye” passage), from Zǐhuázǐ, from Chén Zhèngmǐn’s Dùnzhāi xiánlǎn, from Céng Cào’s Jíxiān zhuàn, and from various pharmacological sources — and his editorial smoothing is, by Sìkù standards, light.

The work nevertheless preserves substantial unique material on Sòng-period natural history, pharmacology, astronomical observation, and zhìguài tradition; Wáng Shìzhēn’s Xiāngzǔ bǐjì notes some of its inconsistencies (notably three mutually contradictory entries on the bat as xiān-substance), and modern scholarship (Sī Zhuāng 思莊, Sòngdài shǎoshù mínzú bówù zhìxué yánjiū) treats the Xù bówù zhì alongside the Sòng léishū tradition as a key transitional witness in the bówù genre between the Northern Sòng Tàipíng yùlǎn compilation and the YuánMíng bówùzhì revival.

Translations and research

  • Greatrex, Roger, “The Bowu zhi and its continuations,” in Cynthia Chennault et al., eds., Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (Berkeley: IEAS, 2015), §entry on Bowu zhi — discussion of the Xù bówù zhì and other continuations.
  • Wáng Yún-zhāng 王雲章, ed. Xù bówù zhì jiào-zhù 續博物志校注 (Bā-Shǔ shū-shè, 1991). The standard modern Chinese critical edition.
  • Sī Zhuāng 思莊. Sòng-dài shǎo-shù mín-zú bówù-xué yán-jiū (Sòng-period non-Han natural-knowledge studies). Includes substantial treatment of Lǐ Shí’s continuation.
  • Lǐ Jiànguó 李劍國. Sòng-dài zhì-guài chuán-qí xù lù 宋代志怪傳奇敘錄 (Nán-kāi, 1997). Entry on the Xù bówù zhì with its place in the Southern-Sòng biji corpus.
  • Sòng-Yuán biji xiaoshuo daguan 宋元笔记小说大观 (Shanghai guji, 2001) — punctuated text.
  • No full European-language translation has been located; selected entries are translated in Greatrex 1987’s discussion of the Bówù zhì’s reception.

Other points of interest

The structural inversion — Zhāng Huá opens with Dìlǐ (geography); Lǐ Shí opens with Tiānxiàng (heavenly bodies) — is deliberately programmatic: Wāng Shìhàn’s Yuánxù makes the point explicit, casting the joint ZhāngLǐ corpus as proceeding from “the heavens above” through “mountains and seas” to “men and things,” in conscious imitation of the Yìjīng triad of tiāndìrén 天地人. This is significant evidence of Sòng-period editorial self-consciousness about the bówù genre as a cosmological-encyclopedic enterprise.

The Sìkù’s preservation of the text “tentatively, for reference” (姑録以備參考) — despite its acknowledged internal contradictions and pilfered passages — is testimony to the genre-pull of the Bówù zhì tradition: a continuation, however imperfect, was a valuable scholarly artifact in itself.

Lǐ Shí’s continuation should be read alongside his other surviving works in the Kanripo corpus — the KR4d0230 Fāngzhōu jí (24 juàn, his literary collection with classical-exegesis appendices) — as constituting an integrated Sìchuān Lǐxué / bówù project of the ShàoxīngQiándào generation.

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