(Gǔ-jīn tú-shū jí-chéng) Shén-yì diǎn èr-shì bù huì-kǎo (古今圖書集成)神異典二氏部彙考
[From the Gǔ-jīn tú-shū jí-chéng*]: Section on the “Two Doctrines” [Buddhism and Daoism] within the* Shén-yì Compendium — Investigations Compiled
extracted from the imperial encyclopedia 古今圖書集成 (Yōng-zhèng 4 = 1726)
About the work
A 2-juan extract from the great Qīng imperial encyclopedia 《古今圖書集成》 Gǔ-jīn tú-shū jí-chéng — completed in Yōng-zhèng 雍正 4 = 1726 under the editorship of Chén Mèng-léi 陳夢雷 (1650–1741) and Jiǎng Tíng-xī 蔣廷錫 (1669–1732) — comprising the 二氏部彙考 (“Investigations Compiled on the Two Doctrines”) sub-section of the 神異典 (“Compendium of the Numinous and Anomalous”) diǎn. The “Two Doctrines” of the section title are Buddhism (Shì 釋) and Daoism (Dào 道), although the present extract treats principally Buddhism. The work is a chronologically-organised documentary anthology drawn from the dynastic histories, the Tài-píng guǎng-jì, the standard Buddhist canonical-bibliographic sources, and the Sì-kù ancestral catalogue tradition — supplying for each emperor of each dynasty the principal documented Buddhist events of his reign. Transmitted in the Xù-zàng-jīng as X1660, in two juan (上 / 下).
Prefaces
The work has no separate preface in the Xù-zàng-jīng presentation; it opens directly with the 後漢 (Latter Hàn) section, beginning with the canonical foundational entry: “Míng-dì Yǒng-píng 8 [= 65 CE]: King Yīng of Chǔ presented silk and white silk to redeem his offences. The edict, [recognising that] Yīng practised the Yellow-Emperor and Lao [-Daoism] and the Fú-tú [Buddha] worship, ordered the redemption to be returned to assist the Buddhist upāsaka / śramaṇa communities in their feast.” The entry cites the Hòu-Hàn-shū — the standard Chinese historiographic source — and the Chǔ-wáng Yīng-zhuàn (the biography of King Yīng of Chǔ in the Hòu-Hàn-shū).
Abstract
The work proceeds dynasty-by-dynasty, emperor-by-emperor, listing for each reign the principal documented Buddhist events: imperial edicts on Buddhist matters; foundations of monasteries by imperial command; ordinations and ordination-quotas; relic-veneration ceremonies; Buddhist-Daoist court controversies and debates; persecutions; canonical-translation projects; imperial visits to Buddhist sites; and famous monk-emperor encounters. Each entry is keyed to its documentary source — typically the relevant juan of the dynastic history (《後漢書》, 《晉書》, 《魏書》, 《南史》, 《北史》, 《隋書》, 《舊唐書》, 《新唐書》, 《宋史》, 《元史》, 《明史》) or, where the dynastic histories are silent, to the standard Buddhist sources (Fó-zǔ tǒng-jì 佛祖統紀, Shì-shì jī-gǔ lüè 釋氏稽古略, Fǎ-yuàn zhū-lín, etc.).
The work’s principal value lies in its function as a compendium-extract: it gathers in compact form the documentary evidence for state-Buddhism relations across the entire Chinese dynastic tradition, providing a single-source reference resource for imperial-religious history. Where prior compilations like Xīn-tài’s KR6r0161 Fó-fǎ jīn-tāng biān had assembled lay-and-elite Buddhist supporters chronologically, the Gǔ-jīn tú-shū jí-chéng extract takes the systematic step of organising the material by emperor-and-edict — making it the more rigorous documentary-historical reference work.
The compilation is also of considerable significance as a Qīng imperial Buddhist-historiographic statement: its inclusion in the great imperial encyclopedia signals the Qīng court’s official recognition of Buddhism as a legitimate component of the imperial-historical record — a posture that contrasts with the Yōng-zhèng emperor’s contemporaneous polemical-doctrinal hostility to certain Buddhist factions (the Yù-xuǎn yǔ-lù of 1733 condemning the Hàn-yuè / Sān-fēng lineage). The encyclopedia’s neutral-documentary stance on Buddhism is one of the period’s distinctive intellectual postures.
The dating bracket — 1726 to 1726 — reflects the encyclopedia’s completion date. The work as transmitted in the Xù-zàng-jīng is the original 1726 text, without subsequent re-editing.
Translations and research
- Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (5th ed., Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 2018), §§29.7, 47 — standard reference for the Gǔ-jīn tú-shū jí-chéng.
- Chün-shu Chang, “The Ku-chin t’u-shu chi-ch’eng: Its Editing, Printing, and Distribution,” Chinese Culture 4 (1962): 81–116 — textual-historical study of the encyclopedia.
- 余國藩 [Anthony Yu], 《古今圖書集成研究》(Táiběi: Lián-jīng, 1985) — the standard Chinese-language monograph.
- No dedicated study of the Buddhist sub-section as transmitted in the Xù-zàng-jīng has been located in the available scholarship.
Other points of interest
The encyclopedia’s editor Chén Mèng-léi had a complicated political career — he was implicated in the Sān-fān 三藩 rebellion of 1673–1681 and exiled, then rehabilitated by Kāng-xī, who commissioned him to begin the encyclopedic project; the project was substantially complete at Kāng-xī’s death (1722) but was withheld from publication until Chén was again exiled by Yōng-zhèng in 1723; the project was completed by Jiǎng Tíng-xī and finally published in 1726. The Buddhist sub-section as transmitted is therefore a complex document of early-Qīng court politics: its inclusion in the imperial encyclopedia, despite the political vicissitudes of its principal editor, reflects the institutional momentum of the Buddhist component within the imperial-historiographic project.
Links
- CBETA: X88n1660