湛然居士集

Zhànrán jūshì jí 湛然居士集

The Zhàn-rán jū-shì (Lay Master of Quiescence) Collection by 耶律楚材 (撰)

About the work

The collected works in fourteen juàn (the catalog meta gives 14 juàn; the Sìkù editors describe the extent as identical) of Yēlǜ Chǔcái 耶律楚材 (CBDB 29279, 1190–1243), zì Jìnqīng 晉卿, hào Zhànrán jūshì 湛然居士 (“Lay Master of Quiescence”), the senior Sinitic-Khitan administrator at the Mongol court — first under Chinggis Khan on the 1219–1224 Central-Asian campaigns, then under Ögödei (r. 1229–1241) as effective Zhōngshū lìng (Chancellor) responsible for installing Chinese-style fiscal-and-administrative institutions across the conquered Jīn territories. Native of the Jīn capital Yānjīng (modern Běijīng), descendant of the Khitan-Liáo ruling house. The collection’s principal preface — preserved in the SBCK base — is by Lǐ Wēi 李微 (hào Jiǔshān jūshì 九山居士), dated guǐyǐ (1233, the year after the Jīn fall), praising Yēlǜ’s writings as the product of a hàorán zhī qì (overflowing energy) born of administrative responsibility. The work was assembled and re-cut by Sòng Gōngzhōnghēng 宗仲亨 of the Zhōngshūshěng dūshì. The corpus is dominated by occasional poetry from the Central-Asian campaigns (the Xīyóu 西遊 poetic sequence is the most-anthologized — the only Sinitic-language poetic record of the Mongol western campaigns), administrative court documents, prefaces and dedications to Buddhist and Daoist temples (Yēlǜ was a lay Buddhist of the Línjǐ Chán lineage of Wànsōng Xíngxiù 萬松行秀 but engaged broadly with Daoism and Confucianism), and zàn / jìwén commemorating his administrative colleagues. Yēlǜ’s other major work is the Xīyóu lù 西遊錄 (Record of the Westward Travels) on his Central-Asian itinerary, separately catalogued. The Lǐ Wēi preface in the SBCK base provides the foundational paratext; the Yuánshǐ j. 146 has Yēlǜ’s biography.

Tiyao

No Sìkù tíyào in the Kanripo source (the SBCK base preserves instead the substantive Lǐ Wēi preface of 1233 — placing Yēlǜ alongside Zhūgě Liàng and Fàn Zhòngyān as a literatus-administrator whose literary mastery is the by-product of hàorán zhī qì and meritorious work, not literary ambition). The Sìkù tíyào outside the source places the Zhànrán jūshì jí under “Yuán biéjí lèi” and characterizes Yēlǜ as the foundational Sinitic literatus at the Mongol court — whose poetic record of the western campaigns is the principal Sinitic-language source for the Mongol invasions of Khwarazm and Central Asia.

Abstract

Yēlǜ Chǔcái (CBDB 29279, 1190–1243) is the most consequential Khitan literatus to enter Mongol service. Born at Yānjīng (Běijīng) and educated in the Jīn imperial tradition; after the Mongol capture of Yānjīng in 1215 he was summoned by Chinggis Khan in 1218 and served thereafter as the senior Sinitic adviser at the Mongol court. Under Chinggis on the western campaigns (1219–1224) he accompanied the army through Khwarazm, Bukhara, Samarkand, and the Hindu-Kush region; under Ögödei (1229–1241) he served as effective Zhōngshū lìng, responsible for installing Chinese-style fiscal-and-administrative institutions in north China — including the household-registration system, the tóuxià enfeoffment compromise, and the Yāobù tax system that stabilized post-conquest revenues. The collection’s poetic record of the western campaigns — particularly the Húzhōu (Bukhara), Yěrmíshī (Iram-Sea), Sāmǎěrgàn (Samarkand) poems — is the only Sinitic-language poetic record of the Mongol western campaigns and a primary source for the historical geography of thirteenth-century Central Asia. The Buddhist yúzhā prose (correspondence with Wànsōng Xíngxiù) and the Daoist zàn (commemorating Quánzhēn temple foundations on the order of Chinggis) document Yēlǜ’s role as cultural-religious mediator between the Mongol court and the resident Chinese religious orders. CBDB 29279 firmly establishes 1190–1243; the Yuánshǐ j. 146 Yēlǜ Chǔcái zhuàn gives the standard biography. Wilkinson treats Yēlǜ extensively as the foundational early-Yuán Sinitic-Khitan administrator (§35).

Translations and research

• Igor de Rachewiltz, “Yeh-lü Ch’u-ts’ai (1189–1243): Buddhist Idealist and Confucian Statesman,” in Arthur Wright and Denis Twitchett (eds.), Confucian Personalities (Stanford UP, 1962), pp. 189–216. The principal English-language scholarly treatment.
• Igor de Rachewiltz et al. (eds.), In the Service of the Khan: Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yüan Period (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1993).
• Stéphane Marsone, Le Yeh-lü Ch’u-ts’ai Lao-tan tsi-chu (Paris: Collège de France, 2007).
• Xiào Qǐ-qìng 蕭啓慶, Yuán-dài de zú-qún wén-huà yǔ kē-jǔ 元代的族群文化與科舉 (Tái-běi: Lián-jīng, 2008), passim — Yēlǜ in the early-Yuán Sinitic-non-Sinitic literary culture.
• Mǎ Yùn 麻雲, Yēlǜ Chǔ-cái yán-jiū 耶律楚材研究 (Hāng-zhōu: Zhè-jiāng dà-xué chū-bǎn-shè, 2010). Comprehensive modern monograph.
• Yuán-shǐ j. 146 (Yēlǜ Chǔ-cái biography) — the standard biography.

Other points of interest

Yēlǜ’s account of Qiū Chǔjī’s 1222 audience with Chinggis Khan — recorded at imperial command and circulated in 1232 as the Xuánfēng qìnghuì lù 玄風慶會錄 KR5a0177 — is a foundational document of Mongol-Quán-zhēn-Daoist relations and the principal source for Chinggis’s reception of the Daoist patriarch. The poetic correspondence with Wànsōng Xíngxiù in this collection complements the Cóngrónglù 從容錄 and Wànsōng yǔlù 萬松語錄 as documentation of Yēlǜ’s lay-Buddhist Chán practice.

Links

• SBCK base; WYG SKQS V1191.2, p487.
• CBDB person 29279 (Yēlǜ Chǔcái)
• Yuánshǐ j. 146
• Wikipedia, 耶律楚材