Dàtáng Chuāngyè Qǐjūzhù 大唐創業起居注
Diaries of Activity and Repose During the Founding of the Tang by 溫大雅
About the work
A three-juàn court diary (qǐjūzhù 起居注) recording Li Yuan’s 李淵 (Emperor Gaozu of Tang 唐高祖, r. 618–626) uprising at Taiyuan 太原 and his military march to Chang’an during the period from the seventh month of Daye 大業 13 (617 CE) through the establishment of the Tang dynasty in Wude 武德 1 (618 CE). Composed by 溫大雅 Wēn Dàyǎ, who served as Li Yuan’s jìshì cāngjūn 記事參軍 (recording secretary) during the campaign and wrote as an eyewitness. It is almost certainly the earliest surviving Tang-era court diary and one of the few direct first-person accounts of any Chinese dynastic founding.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
溫大雅 Wēn Dàyǎ (ca. 570–627 CE; CBDB id 150721) was a Tang official and elder brother of the diplomat and official 溫彥博 Wēn Yànbó (573–637). He joined Li Yuan’s cause at Taiyuan in 617 and served throughout the founding campaign as a military secretary, which placed him in daily contact with Li Yuan and the inner circle of the rebellion. The text he produced — whether intended as an official qǐjūzhù or as his personal record — covers 358 days of the founding period organized into three juàn corresponding to major phases: the uprising (617/7–617/9), the march south and capture of Chang’an (617/9–617/11), and the establishment of the Tang dynasty (618). The structure is day-by-day annalistic, with narrative elaboration of key events.
Endymion Wilkinson (Chinese History: A New Manual, §41197 and §49527) explicitly notes this text: “Possibly the earliest court diary to have survived and the only one from the Tang, although some believe it to have been Wen’s private record of these events.” The ambiguity between official court diary and personal record is inherent to qǐjūzhù genre conventions in this period; before the Tang court established a more regular historiographic apparatus, the line between official diary and private memoir was porous.
The text’s historical value is substantial. It records Li Yuan’s military and political decisions, his relations with Sui dynasty remnant forces, his cultivation of Sui survivors and local strongmen, and the internal dynamics of the founding coalition. Woodbridge Bingham’s 1941 study of the Tang founding drew extensively on this source.
Translations and research
- Bingham, Woodbridge. 1941. The Founding of the T’ang Dynasty: The Fall of Sui and the Rise of T’ang. ACLS. — foundational English study, uses this text extensively.
- 大唐創業起居注. Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1983. Standard modern edition with commentary.
- Wechsler, Howard J. Mirror to the Son of Heaven: Wei Cheng at the Court of Tang T’ai-tsung. Yale UP, 1974.
Links
- Wikidata: Wen Daya