Xiàozǐ Zhuàn 孝子傳 (Xiāo Guǎngjì)
Biographies of Filial Sons, by Xiao Guangji by 蕭廣濟
About the work
Xiàozǐ Zhuàn 孝子傳 by Xiāo Guǎngjì 蕭廣濟 is a jíyìběn reconstruction of one of the most influential medieval collections of biographies of filial sons (xiàozǐ 孝子). The xiàozǐ zhuàn 孝子傳 genre collected exemplary tales of filial piety — children who sacrificed for their parents, mourned with extreme devotion, or performed miracles through the sincerity of their filial love. Xiāo Guǎngjì’s collection, at over 1000 lines, is the most substantial of several such jíyìběn texts in this division.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source. This is a jíyìběn reconstruction.
Abstract
The xiàozǐ zhuàn genre flourished in the Hàn through the Six Dynasties period, when filial piety (xiào 孝) was the paramount Confucian virtue. Such collections were both moral textbooks and vehicles for commemorating local worthies. Xiāo Guǎngjì was a Jin-dynasty figure; his Xiàozǐ Zhuàn is recorded in the Suí Shū 隋書 bibliography in 15 juǎn, making it one of the largest such collections.
The surviving fragments include dozens of short biographical narratives, each illustrating a particular mode of filial devotion: children who tasted their parents’ medicine, who lay on ice to procure fish in winter, who wept blood at their parents’ graves, who shielded their parents’ bodies from flames or wild beasts. Many of these stories entered the standard repertoire of Chinese moral exempla and were later anthologized in works such as the Èrshísì Xiào 二十四孝 (Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars). The fragments were recovered from the Tàipíng Yùlǎn 太平御覽 and the Yìwén Lèijù 藝文類聚, both of which drew heavily on xiàozǐ collections for their chapters on human relations.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.