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玄中記

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Text ID
KR3l0160
Date
280–400
Dynasty
晉

Xuánzhōng jì 玄中記

Records from the Mysterious Centre by 闕名 (popular attribution to 郭璞)

About the work

A Jìn-era zhìguài / yīwù 異物 collection of mythological, paranormal, and cosmographic material — the source-text of much of the surviving Chinese FúxīNǚwā iconography (“Fúxī with the body of a dragon, Nǚwā with the trunk of a snake”), of bird-and-beast aetiologies, and of cosmological-geographic fragments. The work is transmitted in the Kanripo source under the form 《元中記》 — the 元 here is the standard Qīng-period taboo replacement for 玄, avoided in print under the Kāngxī emperor’s personal-name taboo (Xuányè 玄燁) — and the original title is Xuánzhōng jì 玄中記. The work is variously attributed to the Eastern-Jìn polymath Guō Pú 郭璞 (郭璞, 276–324), but the attribution is uncertain and the work in its surviving form is best treated as anonymous.

Tiyao

Abstract

The work is registered in the Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書經籍志 under various forms — sometimes Xuánzhōng jì, sometimes Xuánjì — among the zǐbù xiǎoshuō. It is one of the most heavily cited zhìguài works in the early-medieval and Táng commentary traditions: Lǐ Shàn’s 李善 Wénxuǎn commentary cites it under the iconography of Fúxī (dragon body) and Nǚwā (snake trunk); Lúo Píng’s 羅苹 Lùshǐ 路史 commentary likewise; Dù Gōngzhān’s 杜公瞻 commentary to the JīngChǔ suìshí jì 荊楚歲時記 preserves the cosmogonic anecdote of Zhuānxū’s 顓頊 three sons becoming pestilence-demons exiled to the Luò river; Dù Yòu’s 杜佑 Tōngdiǎn 通典 preserves the Xúnshǐ 旬始 origin of the official cap. The Tàipíng yùlǎn and Tàipíng guǎngjì cite the work numerous times. Lǔ Xùn’s Gǔ xiǎoshuō gōuchén 古小說鉤沉 collects the surviving fragments.

The dating bracket adopted here (280–400) is the conventional Jìn-era window. The attribution to Guō Pú — celebrated commentator on the Shānhǎi jīng 山海經 and the Mù tiānzǐ zhuàn 穆天子傳 — is plausible on stylistic and thematic grounds (Guō Pú’s interest in mythological geography and paranormal aetiology overlaps strongly with the Xuánzhōng jì’s contents), but is not securely attested in the early bibliographies; modern scholarship (Wáng Guóliáng; Lǐ Jiànguó) treats the attribution as uncertain and the work as broadly Eastern-Jìn or slightly later.

The work’s substantive importance is enormous for the study of pre-Buddhist Chinese mythological iconography. The “Fúxī lóngshēn, Nǚwā shéqū” line — the standard literary tag for the chimeric form of these two creator-deities — has its principal early citation in the Xuánzhōng jì (as preserved through Lǐ Shàn). The work is also the principal source for several of the standard Chinese folkloric aetiologies of birds and beasts that later enter Bencao literature. Many of its fragments overlap with material in the Shānhǎi jīng and in Guō Pú’s other works.

Translations and research

  • Lǔ Xùn 魯迅. Gǔ xiǎoshuō gōuchén 古小說鉤沉 (1909–11; publ. 1938).
  • Wáng Guó-liáng 王國良. Wèi-Jìn nán-běi-cháo zhì-guài xiǎoshuō yán-jiū 魏晉南北朝志怪小說研究.
  • Lǐ Jiàn-guó 李劍國. Táng-qián zhì-guài xiǎoshuō shǐ 唐前志怪小說史 (rev. 2005).
  • Birrell, Anne. Chinese Mythology: An Introduction (Johns Hopkins, 1993). Treats the Xuánzhōng jì’s Fú-xī / Nǚ-wā iconography in the chapter on creator-deities.
  • Strassberg, Richard E., trans. A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways through Mountains and Seas (UCP, 2002). Comparative discussion of the Xuánzhōng jì alongside the Shānhǎi jīng.
  • Campany, Robert Ford. Strange Writing (SUNY, 1996), with discussion of the work’s place in the zhì-guài corpus.

Other points of interest

The Xuánzhōng jì is the principal early text for the iconographically dominant Chinese mythological topos of Fúxī and Nǚwā as serpent-tailed creator-twins, the iconography that becomes a Hàn-tomb commonplace (Mǎwángduī 馬王堆, Bǔqiānqiū 卜千秋) and that recurs in the famous Fúxī Nǚwā silk paintings excavated at Turpan. The literary tag from the Xuánzhōng jì — preserved via Lǐ Shàn’s Wénxuǎn commentary on Wáng Yánshòu’s Lǔ Língguāng diàn fù 魯靈光殿賦 — provides the textual anchor for the iconographic tradition.

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