Táo xuéshì jí 陶學士集
Collected Works of Academician Táo [Ān] by 陶安 (撰)
About the work
Táo xuéshì jí 陶學士集 in twenty juǎn is the collected works of Táo Ān 陶安 (1315–1371), the first Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士 of the Míng dynasty and the principal author of the ceremonial documents of the founding Hóngwǔ court before that role passed to 宋濂 in the mid-1370s. Native of Dāngtú 當塗 (in the Tàipíng 太平 prefecture). Came to Zhū Yuánzhāng’s 朱元璋 camp in 1355 when Zhū took Tàipíng and is credited in the standard biographies with formulating the political strategy that became the basis of Zhū’s project: “The Yuán cause is exhausted; the Heaven-mandate is changing; if you take the rivers and lakes, the empire follows”. Hóngwǔ first appointed him Hànlín xuéshì; later as Jiāngxī xíngshěng cānzhèng 江西行省參政. Died on the eve of the founding’s consolidation, in 1371. The collection is overwhelmingly verse — eight juǎn of gǔshī and lǜshī, two juǎn of juéjù, then ten juǎn of prose (xù, jì, biǎo, sòng, bēi, shū, etc.).
Tiyao
No tíyào present in the Kanripo source file — the _000.txt file for this work contains only the mùlù (table of contents). The Kyoto Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào server (http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/db-machine/ShikoTeiyo/) has no per-KR-id mapping for browsing.
Abstract
Táo Ān’s lifedates (1315–1371) are confirmed by CBDB (BIOG_MAIN c_name_chn = 陶安, with birthyear 1315 and deathyear 1371) and by the Míng shǐ j. 136 (Wényuàn zhuàn). The catalog meta of KR4e0008 agrees. Táo’s collected works were edited posthumously by his son Táo Sǎn 陶散 and reprinted in successive Míng cuts; the present WYG copy is descended from a mid-Míng (late Chénghuà / Hóngzhì) line. The contents are: juǎn 1, four-character ancient verse and five-character ancient verse; juǎn 2, seven-character ancient verse; juǎn 3, five-character regulated verse; juǎn 4, five-character regulated verse and long-form regulated verse; juǎn 5–7, seven-character regulated verse; juǎn 8–9, seven-character quatrains; juǎn 10, gē, fù, cí; then prose: xù (juǎn 11–12), jì, biǎo, biāo, bēi, sòng, míng, zàn, zhuàn, xíngzhuàng, mùzhìmíng, jìwén, and zázhù.
Táo’s special position in Míng intellectual history rests on (1) his pre-imperial counsel to Zhū Yuánzhāng at Tàipíng in 1355, traditionally credited as the formulation of the strategic plan that resulted in the Míng founding; (2) his role as the first Hànlín xuéshì of the dynasty and the original drafter of the major ceremonial documents of Hóngwǔ 1–4 (1368–1371); and (3) his commentary on the Shàngshū (the Shàngshū jǐnyán 尚書近言), a work not preserved in this collection but discussed in his Míng shǐ biography. His verse is táigé in character, classical and weighty, with a pronounced strain of dynastic-foundational triumphalism.
Translations and research
- Goodrich & Fang. 1976. Dictionary of Ming Biography. Columbia UP, 2:1268–1269 (entry on Táo Ān).
- John W. Dardess. 1983. Confucianism and Autocracy. Berkeley: University of California Press. Treats Táo Ān’s pre-imperial counsel to Zhū Yuánzhāng as part of the founding ideological synthesis.
Other points of interest
- The famous 1355 strategic counsel (“Yuán cause exhausted, take the rivers and lakes”) is preserved in the Míng shǐ biography and in Sòng Lián’s tomb-inscription for Táo Ān; the Hóngwǔ shílù preserves a fuller version. Whether the prose of the counsel as transmitted is Táo’s own or an editorial reconstruction is debated.
Links
- Tao An (Wikipedia, Chinese)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí).