| Administrative History | The manuscript is a single fascicle from the famous Chinese encyclopaedia Yongle dadian, one of the biggest bibliographical enterprises ever undertaken in any civilisation.
It originated in a decision taken by the third Ming emperor during the first year of his reign to preserve all known literature. The project was directed by the scholar Xie Jin, with a team of 147 assistants, and the first manuscript was presented to the throne in December 1404, but the emperor considered it insufficient. He therefore appointed a team of two co-directors and a further 2,169 scholars to continue the work, which was completed in 1408. The encyclopaedia consisted of a total 22,877 jüan (chapters) in 11,095 large volumes, sumptuously executed on fine white paper ruled in vermilion, and bound in hard boards covered with yellow silk. It was approved by the emperor, who named it after his own reign period, yongle (1402-1424), and subsequently wrote a preface in which the total number of juan is given as 22,937.
The importance of the Yongle dadian stems from its method of compilation. Unlike western encyclopaedias, which are essentially collections of articles or overviews of particular subjects, traditional Chinese encyclopaedias consist of lengthy, verbatim quotations from texts, arranged according to a particular scheme. In the case of Yongle dadian, the scheme takes the first word of the title of the passage quoted, and arranges it according to the system of the contemporary rhyming dictionary Hongwu zhengyun. Encyclopaedias therefore often preserve texts which are no longer extant in other forms, and when Siki quanshu (another large-scale bibliographical project) was being compiled in the 18th century, 385 lost works from earlier dynasties were reconstituted from passages which had been preserved in Yongle dadian.
The encyclopaedia was first housed in a special library in the imperial palace in Nanking, and was taken to Peking in 1421 when the capital was moved there. It was too big to print, and for more than a century only existed in the form of a single manuscript, which was stored in a palace hall named "Wenlou". For security, following the burning down in the mid-16th century of three other palace halls, which were largely of wood, it was moved to the Imperial Archive ("Huangshicheng"), a stone building which stood outside the palace walls. In 1562 the order was given to produce a copy, and this was completed in 1567 by a team of over 100 scholars. The original was then taken back inside the palace and housed in a library hall named "Wenyuange", and the copy was placed in the Imperial Archive.
During the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in 1644, the rebel leader Li Zicheng entered Peking and set fire to the palace buildings, and the original Yongle dadian was completely destroyed. The copy remained in the Imperial Archive until the Yongzheng period (1723-1736) of the Qing Dynasty, when it was moved to the Hanlin Academy. Already in 1693, the scholar Xu Qianxue had noted that volumes were missing. When the Siku quanshu was being compiled, the commissioners took stock of Yongle dadian in 1773 and found that 2,274 juan were missing. When the Boxer rebels attacked the Legation Quarter in Peking in 1900, the Hanlin Academy (which was situated there) was burned down, and almost all that remained of Yongle dadian was destroyed except for some 60 or so volumes, and a few dozen that those of the western allies who were aware of its importance were able to pluck from the flames.
In 1960, a reproduction of all extant parts of Yongle dadian was published in Peking by Zhonghua Shuju, a total of 730 juan. A further 67 juan subsequently came to light, and were included in a second reproduction published in 1986, making a total of 797 juan in approximately 370 volumes, of which some 200 are in China and the rest elsewhere (- of foreign libraries, the Library of Congress has most with 36 volumes; the Bodleian has the most in Europe, and comes fifth in the world, with 19).
The Aberdeen volume was not included, as it has only just been identified, and remains unknown to the world of sinological scholarship.
(Description supplied after examination of text by David Helliwell of the Bodleian Library in 1999, revised in 2014). |
| Description | Fascicle from the Yongle dadian, or Yung Lo Ta-tien, or Great Encyclopaedia of Yung Lo (1403-1425), [Chinese Encyclopaedia] Section no. 11,907, part 18. It is juan 11907, which deals with the character guang, section guangzhoufu (ie, the city of Canton) 3, which suggests that it is likely to be of considerable textual interest. The volume, though damaged, is still in its original 16th century binding, which is a hard-cover version of the so-called "wrapped-back binding" (baobeizhuang), peculiar to Yongle dadian. |