干寶晉紀

Gān Bǎo Jìnjì 干寶晉紀

Gān Bǎo’s Record of the Jin by 干寶 (撰); reconstructed by 湯球

About the work

Gān Bǎo Jìnjì 干寶晉紀 is the largest jíyìběn reconstruction in the Kanripo Táng Qiú compilation series (1 juǎn, approximately 6,072 lines). It reconstructs fragments of the Jìnjì 晉紀 in 20 juǎn composed by the Eastern Jìn court historian 干寶 (Gān Bǎo; fl. 317–336 CE), one of the most celebrated historical works of the early Jìn. Like the other reconstructions in this series, it is part of 湯球’s Jiǔjiā Jiù Jìnshū Jíběn 九家舊晉書輯本, published in the Guǎngyǎ Shūjú Cóngshū 廣雅書局叢書.

The reconstruction is organized by reign period and imperial temple name, following the structure of the original:

• 高祖宣皇帝 (Gāozǔ Xuān Huángdì): Sīmǎ Yì 司馬懿, Regent of Wèi
• 世宗景皇帝 (Shìzōng Jǐng Huángdì): Sīmǎ Shī 司馬師
• 太祖文皇帝 (Tàizǔ Wén Huángdì): Sīmǎ Zhāo 司馬昭
• 世祖武皇帝 (Shìzǔ Wǔ Huángdì): Emperor Wǔ 武帝 (Sīmǎ Yán 司馬炎, r. 265–290)
• 孝惠皇帝 (Xiào Huì Huángdì): Emperor Huì 惠帝 (r. 290–307)
• 孝懷皇帝 (Xiào Huái Huángdì): Emperor Huái 懷帝 (r. 307–313)
• 孝愍皇帝 (Xiào Mǐn Huángdì): Emperor Mǐn 愍帝 (r. 313–316; Western Jìn ends)

The text includes Gān Bǎo’s famous Jìnjì Zǒnglùn 晉紀總論 (General Discussion of the Jìnjì), preserved almost completely through its quotation in the Wén Xuǎn 文選 annotations; this essay is the most substantial surviving prose of Gān Bǎo as historian. Principal citation sources include the Wén Xuǎn annotations, Jìn shū 晉書 annalistic chapters, Shìshuō Xīnyǔ 世說新語 annotations, Tàipíng Yùlǎn 太平御覽, Yì Wén Lèijù 藝文類聚, Bái Shūchāo 白書鈔, and other Tang and Song encyclopedias.

Tiyao

No tiyao found in source. This is a jíyìběn reconstruction.

Abstract

干寶 (Gān Bǎo; zì Lìngshēng 令升; fl. 317–336 CE) was appointed zhùzuò láng 著作郎 (Director of the Imperial Archives) under Eastern Jìn Emperor Yuán 元帝 (r. 317–322) with the formal imperial commission to compile the dynastic history. The resulting Jìnjì 晉紀 in 20 juǎn covered the Jìn dynasty from its Wèi-period antecedents through the Western Jìn collapse (from Sīmǎ Yì through Emperor Mǐn, effectively 220–316 CE). The Jìnjì was highly praised: the critic Liú Tán 劉惔 called Gān Bǎo “liáng shǐ cái yě 良史才也” (a talent for good historiography), and the Jìnjì Zǒnglùn 晉紀總論, his general essay on the causes of the Jìn dynasty’s rise and fall, became one of the foundational texts of the Chinese philosophy of history. The Zǒnglùn argues that the Jìn collapse resulted from the twin failures of Neo-Daoist quietism (qīngtán 清談 philosophy) and the undermining of the ritual-moral order by an aristocracy incapable of governance.

After the Tang-court Jìn shū 晉書 was completed in 648 CE, Gān Bǎo’s Jìnjì fell into disuse and gradually disappeared. 湯球 (Táng Qiú, 1804–1881) reconstructed it from over a dozen citation sources; at 6,072 lines, this is by far the largest surviving fragment corpus in the Táng Qiú series and represents the most complete view of Gān Bǎo’s historical method. His biography is in Jìn shū 82; the Suí shū jīngjí zhì records the Jìnjì at 20 juǎn.

Gān Bǎo is far more widely known for his Sōushén Jì 搜神記 (KR3l0099), the foundational anomaly-anthology of the zhìguài 志怪 genre, and for his Sōushén Hòujì 搜神後記 (attributed; KR3l0100). The Jìnjì represents the scholarly-historiographical complement to that more famous compilation.

Translations and research

• Goodman, Howard L. 2015. “Jin shu.” In Chennault et al., eds., Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. IEAS, University of California, Berkeley, pp. 136–145.
• Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual. 4th ed. Harvard HUAC, 2015. References Tang Qiu’s Jiujia Jiu Jinshu jiben as the vehicle for the recovery of this text.
• Minford, John, and Joseph S.M. Lau, eds. 2000. Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology from the Beginnings to 618. Columbia University Press. Includes the Jìnjì Zǒnglùn in translation (vol. 1).
• Theobald, Ulrich. “Jinji 晉紀 (Gan Bao).” chinaknowledge.de.

Links

• Gan Bao: Wikipedia