A page from a Qing edition of the 983 CETaiping Yulan concerning the seasons.
Chinese encyclopedias comprise both Chinese languageencyclopedias and foreign language ones about China or Chinese topics. There is a type of native Chinese reference work called leishu (lit. "categorized writings") that is sometimes translated as "encyclopedia", but although these collections of quotations from classic texts are expansively "encyclopedic", a leishu is more accurately described as a "compendium" or "anthology". The long history of Chinese encyclopedias began with the (222 CE) Huanglan ("Emperor's Mirror") leishu and continues with online encyclopedias such as the Baike Encyclopedia.
Diǎn典 "standard; ceremony; canon; allusion; dictionary; encyclopedia" occurs in compounds such as zìdiǎn字典 "character dictionary; lexicon", cídiǎn辭典 "word/phrase dictionary; encyclopedia", dàdiǎn大典 "collection of great classics; big dictionary"; and titles such as the 801 Tongdian ("Comprehensive Encyclopedia") and 1408 Yongle Dadian ("Yongle Emperor's Encyclopedia").
Lèishū類書 (lit. "category book") "reference work arranged by category; encyclopedia" is commonly translated as "traditional Chinese encyclopedia", but they differ from modern encyclopedias in that they are compendia composed of selected and categorically arranged quotations from Chinese classics, "the name encyclopedia having been applied to them because they embrace the whole realm of knowledge" (Teng and Biggerstaff 1971: 83).
Bǎikē百科 (lit. "hundred subjects") in the words bǎikēquánshū百科全書 (with "comprehensive book") and bǎikēcídiǎn百科辭典 (with "dictionary") specifically refer to Western-style "encyclopedias". Encyclopedia titles first used Bǎikēquánshū in the final decades of the 19th century.[1]
Encyclopedic leishu anthologies were published in China for nearly two millennia before the first modern encyclopedia, the English-language 1917 Encyclopaedia Sinica.
While English usually differentiates between dictionary and encyclopedia, Chinese does not necessarily make the distinction. For instance, the ancient Erya, which lists synonyms collated by semantic fields, is described as a dictionary, a thesaurus, and an encyclopedia. The German sinologist Wolfgang Bauer describes the historical parallel between Western encyclopedias and Chinese leishu, all of which arose from two roots, glossaries and anthologies or florilegia.
The boundaries between both are quite fluid at first; the shorter the entries and the more exclusively they are directed to the definition of the word concerned, the more the work partakes of the character of a dictionary, while a longer commentary delving into history and culture and provided with extensive quotations of sources is, conversely, more characteristic of the encyclopaedia. The dividing line between a language lexicon (such as glossaries, onomastica and rhyming dictionaries) and a factual lexicon, to which all general and special encyclopaedias belong, is only clearly drawn when, in addition to the definitions, necessarily supported by literary references, an interpretation appears which takes into consideration not only the current literary usage but also the thing itself, which not only describes the subject but also, at times, evaluates and thereby forms a true connection between the new and the old. The very characteristic of the traditional Chinese encyclopaedia as in contrast to that in the West is that these distinctions were never clearly drawn. All Chinese encyclopaedias are anthologies, upon which were grafted greatly varying forms of dictionary arrangement. They consist of (generally quite long) quotations arranged in one order or another and, although they may include an opinion on the subject, they rarely contain an original opinion.[2]
Robert L. Fowler, Professor of Greek at the University of Bristol, says that although comprehensiveness is a primary criterion in defining an "encyclopedia", there are encyclopedias of individual subjects (e.g., Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings) that defy the etymology from Greekenkyklios paideia "the circle of subjects". He says, "To call a comprehensive treatment of one subject an "encyclopaedia" is a catachresis known already in medieval China, where the term leishu, properly a collection of classical texts on many fields, came to be applied to similar treatments of one subject only, for instance the use of jade".[3]
Although most scholars consider the 222 CE Huanglan (see below) to be the first Chinese leishu encyclopedia.[6]Needham, Lu, and Huang call the late 4th to early 2nd centuries BCE Erya the oldest Chinese encyclopedia, and consider its derivative literature (beginning with the Fangyan and Huanglan) as the main line of descent for encyclopedias in China.[7]
The c. 239 BCE Lüshi Chunqiu, which is an anthology of quotes from many Hundred Schools of Thought philosophical texts, is another text sometimes characterized as the first Chinese "encyclopedia". Although its content is "encyclopedic", the text was compiled to show rulers and ministers how to govern well, and was not intended to be a comprehensive summary of knowledge.[8]
During the Han dynasty, the 2nd century BCE Shiben ("Book of Origins") was the earliest Chinese dictionary / encyclopedia of origins. It explained imperial genealogies, the origins of surnames, and records of legendary and historical inventors. Among subsequent encyclopedias of origins, the largest was Chen Yuanlong's 1735 Gezhi Jingyuan (格致鏡元, Mirror of Scientific and Technological Origins).
Shortly after the fall of the Han dynasty, the first true Chinese leishu encyclopedia appeared. The 222 Huanglan ("Imperial Mirror"), which is now a lost work, was compiled for Cao Pi, the first emperor of the Three KingdomsCao Wei state (r. 220-226), in order to provide rulers and ministers with conveniently arranged summaries of current knowledge (like the Lüshi Chunqiu above).
An important new type of leishu encyclopedia appeared in the early Tang dynasty (618–907), after the administration made the imperial examination obligatory for all applicants into government service. Unlike earlier Chinese encyclopedias (such as the Huanglan) that were intended to provide information for rulers and government officials, these new anthologies were intended for scholars who were trying to enter into government, and provided general information, and especially literary knowledge about the classics.[9] For instance, the famous calligrapher Ouyang Xun supervised compilation of the 624 Yiwen Leiju ("Collection of Literature Arranged by Categories") encyclopedia of literature, which quotes 1,431 diverse literary texts. Specialized encyclopedias were another innovation during the Tang period. The 668 Fayuan Zhulin ("Forest of Gems in the Garden of the Dharma") was a Chinese Buddhist encyclopedia compiled by the monk Dao Shi 道世. The 729 Kaiyuan Zhanjing ("Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era") is a Chinese astrology encyclopedia compiled by Gautama Siddha and others during Emperor Xuanzong of Tang's Kaiyuan era (713-741).
The Golden Age of encyclopedia writing began with the Song dynasty (960–1279), "when the venerated past became the general standard in Chinese thought for almost one whole millennium".[10] The Four Great Books of Song were compiled by a committee of scholars under the supervision of Li Fang. First, the 978 Taiping Guangji ("Extensive Records of the Taiping Era") was a collection of about 7,000 stories selected from over 300 classic texts from the Han to the Song dynasties. Second, the 983 Taiping Yulan ("Imperial Reader of the Taiping Era") anthologized citations from 2,579 different texts, ranging from poetry, proverbs, and steles to miscellaneous works. Third, the 985 Wenyuan Yinghua ("Finest Blossoms in the Garden of Literature"), quotes from many literary genres, dating from the Liang dynasty to the Five Dynasties era. Fourth, the Cefu Yuangui ("Models from the Archives"), was the largest Song encyclopedia, almost twice the size of the Taiping Yulan. Li Fang began compilation in 1005 while Wang Qinruo and others finished in 1013. It comprises quotes from political essays, biographies, memorials, and decrees. Another notable Song leishu encyclopedia was the polymath Shen Kuo's 1088 Mengxi Bitan ("Dream Pool Essays"), which covers many realms of the humanities and natural sciences. The 1161 Tongzhi ("Comprehensive Records"), which was compiled by the Southern Song dynasty scholar Zheng Qiao 鄭樵, became a model for later encyclopedias.
The Ming dynasty period (1368–1644) was, in comparison with the Song period, of less significance for the history of Chinese encyclopedias. However, the Yongle Emperor commissioned compilation of the 1408 Yongle Encyclopedia, which was a collection of excerpts from works in philosophy, history, arts, and sciences—and the world's largest encyclopedia at the time. The 1609 Sancai Tuhui ("Pictorial Compendium of the Three Realms" [heaven, earth, and people]) was compiled by Wang Qi and Wang Siyi. This early illustrated encyclopedia comprised articles on many subjects including history, astronomy, geography, biology, and more, including a very accurate Shanhai Yudi Quantuworld map. The 1621 Wubei Zhi ("Treatise on Armament Technology") is the most comprehensive military encyclopedia in Chinese history. The 1627 Diagrams and explanations of the wonderful machines of the Far West was an illustrated encyclopedia of Western mechanical devices translated into Chinese by the JesuitJohann Schreck and the scholar Wang Zheng 王徵. Song Yingxing's (1637) Tiangong Kaiwu ("Exploitation of the Works of Nature") was an illustrated encyclopedia of science and technology, and notable for breaking from Chinese tradition by rarely quoting earlier works. In Ming China, with the spreading of written knowledge to strata outside the literati, household riyong leishu 日用類書 ("Encyclopedias for daily use") began to be compiled, "summarizing practical information for townsfolk and others not primarily concerned with mastering the Confucian heritage."[11]
The last great leishu encyclopedias were published during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). The 1726 Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China was a vast encyclopedic work compiled during the reigns of Emperors Kangxi and Yongzheng. The 1782 Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (or Siku Quanshu) was the largest Chinese leishu encyclopedia, and commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor in order to show that the Qing dynasty could surpass the Ming Yongle Encyclopedia. This colossal collection contained some 800 million Chinese characters, and remained the world's largest encyclopedia until recently being surpassed by the English Wikipedia. The emperor ordered the destruction of 2,855 books that were considered to be anti-Manchu, but were listed in the 1798 Annotated Bibliography of the Four Treasuries annotated catalog. The 1773 Vân đài loại ngữ ("Categorized Sayings from the Library") is a Chinese-language Vietnamese encyclopedia compiled by the scholar Lê Quý Đôn.
Modern period
Present-day Chinese encyclopedias—in the common Western sense of "comprehensive reference work covering a wide range of subjects"—include both printed editions and online encyclopedias.
Among printed encyclopedias, the earliest was the (1917) The Encyclopaedia Sinica compiled the English missionary Samuel Couling. The 1938 Cihai ("Sea of Words") is a general-purpose encyclopedic dictionary that covers many fields of knowledge. The Zhonghua Book Company published the first edition, and the Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House issued revised editions in 1979, 1989, 1999, and 2009, making the Cihai a standard reference work for generations. The 1980-1993 Zhongguo Da Baike Quanshu or Encyclopedia of China is the first comprehensive (74 volume) Chinese encyclopedia. Compilation began in 1978, and the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House published individual volumes from 1980 through 1993. There is a 2009 concise second edition, as well as CD-ROM and online versions. The (1981–83) Zhonghua Baike Quanshu or Chinese Encyclopedia is a 10-volume comprehensive reference work published by the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan. An online version is also available. The 1985–91 Chinese-language edition Concise Encyclopædia Britannica or Jianming Buliedian Baike Quanshu is an 11-volume translation based on the Micropædia portion of the 1987 15th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Among major online Chinese encyclopedias, for Standard Chinese, the two largest both began in 2005, the Baike.com Encyclopedia and the Baidu Encyclopedia. There is the Chinese Wikipedia (2002–present), and for varieties of Chinese, there are Cantonese, Mindong, Minnan, Wu, and Gan Wikipedias, as well as the Classical Chinese Wikipedia (zh-classical:). Lastly, there are modern English-language encyclopedias of China. For example, the 1991 2nd edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, the 2009 Brill's Encyclopedia of China, and the 5-volume 2009 Berkshire Encyclopedia of China.
Chinese classic texts or canonical texts or simply dianji (典籍) refers to the Chinese texts which originated before the imperial unification by the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, particularly the "Four Books and Five Classics" of the Neo-Confucian tradition, themselves a customary abridgment of the "Thirteen Classics". All of these pre-Qin texts were written in either Old or Classical Chinese. All three canons are collectively known as the Classics.
The Yongle Encyclopedia or Yongle Dadian is a largely-lost Chinese leishu encyclopedia commissioned by the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty in 1403 and completed by 1408. It comprised 22,937 manuscript rolls or chapters, in 11,095 volumes. Fewer than 400 volumes survive today, comprising about 800 chapters (rolls), or 3.5 percent of the original work.
The Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China is a vast encyclopedic work written in China during the reigns of the Qing dynasty emperors Kangxi and Yongzheng. It was begun in 1700 and completed in 1725. The work was headed and compiled mainly by scholar Chen Menglei (陳夢雷). Later on the Chinese painter Jiang Tingxi helped work on it as well.
The Erya or Erh-ya is the first surviving Chinese dictionary. The sinologist Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from the 3rd century BC."
In Japanese, encyclopedias are known as hyakka jiten (百科事典), which literally means "book of a hundred subjects," and can trace their origins to the early Heian period, in the ninth century. Encyclopedic works were published in Japan for well over a thousand years before Japan's first modern encyclopedias were published after Japan's opening to the West, during the Meiji Period (1868–1912). Several encyclopedias have been published in Japan since World War II, including several children's encyclopedias, and two major titles are currently available: the Encyclopedia Nipponica, published by Shogakukan, and the Sekai Dai-Hyakka Jiten, compiled by the Heibonsha publishing company. A Japanese Wikipedia is also available.
The Siku Quanshu, also known as the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, was the largest collection of books in Chinese history with 36,381 volumes, 79,337 manuscript rolls, 2.3 million pages and about 997 million words. The complete encyclopedia contains an annotated catalogue of 10,680 titles along with a compendiums of 3,593 titles. The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries ended up even longer than the Ming dynasty's Yongle Encyclopedia of 1403, which had been China's largest encyclopedia until then. A complete copy of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries are held with each of the following: the National Library of China in Beijing, the National Palace Museum in Taipei, the Gansu Library in Lanzhou, and the Zhejiang Library in Hangzhou.
Cefu Yuangui (冊府元龜) is the largest leishu (encyclopedia) compiled during the Chinese Song Dynasty (AD 960–1279). It was the last of the Four Great Books of Song, the previous three having been published in the 10th century.
The Tongdian is a Chinese institutional history and encyclopedia text. It covers a panoply of topics from high antiquity through the year 756, whereas a quarter of the book focuses on the Tang dynasty. The book was written by Du You from 766 to 801. It contains 200 volumes and about 1.7 million words, and is at times regarded as the most representative contemporary texts of the Tang dynasty. Du You also incorporated many materials from other sources, including a book written by his nephew, Du Huan, who was taken captive in the famous battle at the Talas River between Tang and the Arabs in 751 and did not return to China until ten years later. It became a model for works by scholar Zheng Qiao and Ma Duanlin centuries later.
The leishu is a genre of reference books historically compiled in China and other East Asian countries. The term is generally translated as "encyclopedia", although the leishu are quite different from the modern notion of encyclopedia.
Jiaozi was a form of promissory note which appeared around the 11th century in the Sichuan capital of Chengdu, China. Numismatists regard it as the first paper money in history, a development of the Chinese Song Dynasty. Early Jiaozi notes did not have standard denominations but were denominated according to the needs of the purchaser and ranged from 500 wén to 5 guàn. The government office that issued these notes or the Jiaozi wu demanded a payment or exchange fee of 30 wén per guàn exchanged from coins to banknote. The Jiaozi were usually issued biannually. In the region of Liang-Huai these banknotes were referred to as Huaijiao (淮交) and were introduced in 1136. Still, their circulation stopped quickly after their introduction. Generally the lower the denominations of the Jiaozi the more popular they became, and as the government was initially unable to regulate their production properly, their existence eventually led to undesirably high inflation rate.
The Huizi, issued in the year 1160, was the official banknote of the Chinese Southern Song dynasty. It has the highest amount of issuance among various banknote types during the Song dynasty. Huizi notes came on three-colour printed paper and their usage was heavily promoted by the government of the Southern Song dynasty, the Huizi were backed by 280,000 guàn of copper cash coins.
The Huang-Ming Zuxun were admonitions left by the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Chinese Ming dynasty, to his descendants. The text was composed in 1373 under the title Record of the Ancestor's Instructions; this was changed to Huang Ming Zu Xun during the publication of the 1395 edition.
The Yunji qiqian is a anthology of the (1016) Taoist Canon, which the Taoist scholar-official Zhang Junfang compiled for Emperor Zhenzong of Song. The Yunji qiqian records many early Taoist texts that have been lost since the 11th century, and is an important resource for understanding medieval Taoism.
The Yuanhe Xingzuan is an imperial Tang dynasty register of the genealogies of China's prominent families. It was compiled by Lin Bao (林寶), on the order of Emperor Xianzong, whose era name was Yuanhe. The book was completed in 812 and records 1,232 surnames.
The Huanglan or Imperial Mirror was one of the oldest Chinese encyclopedias or leishu "classified dictionary". Cao Pi, the first emperor of the Wei, ordered its compilation upon his accession to the throne in 220 and it was completed in 222. The purpose of the Huanglan was to provide the emperor and ministers of state with conveniently arranged summaries of all that was known at the time. Complete versions of the Huanglan existed until the Song dynasty (960-1279), when it became a mostly lost work, although some fragments did survive in other encyclopedias and anthologies. The Huanglan was the prototype of the classified encyclopedia and served as a model for later ones such as the (624) Tang Yiwen Leiju and the (1408) Ming Yongle dadian.
The guanzi, was a Song dynasty era form of paper money that served as promissory notes that could be traded for goods and services where the seller that received these notes could go to an issuing agency and redeem the note for strings of coins at a small exchange fee. They were originally introduced as a form of payment to the military at which time the notes were known as jianqian guanzi (見錢關子), and circulated alongside the contemporary jiaozi and huizi notes. After 1190 the records stop mentioning guanzi notes until 1264, an indication that jiaozi and huizi notes had superseded the guanzi in importance. From 1264 new guanzi notes were introduced such as the copper backed tongqian guanzi (銅錢關子), the silver backed yinguan (銀關), and the gold backed jinyin jianqian guanzi (金銀見錢關子), which were all introduced to combat the inflationary policy that had plagued the Huizi. The exchange rate between guanzi banknotes and copper cash coins was 1 guàn for 770 wén while huizi notes of the eighteenth production period were valued at 3 guàn for 1 wén. Despite these exchange rates the new guanzi banknotes did not stop the inflation that had plagued the Southern Song dynasty during its waning years. In the modern era not a single guanzi note survived regardless of the fact that many of them produced during the Southern Song era, in the modern era only the printing plates that were used to produce guanzi notes still exist and of the ten printing plates created by the Song government a total six are owned by the Administration Institute of Cultural Relics of Dongzhi County, two guanzi printing plates are in a private collection, and two of the printing plates have yet to be found.
The Great Ming Treasure Note or Da Ming Baochao was a series of banknotes issued during the Ming dynasty in China. They were first issued in 1375 under the Hongwu Emperor. Although initially the Great Ming Treasure Note paper money was successful, the fact that it was a fiat currency and that the government largely stopped accepting these notes caused the people to lose faith in them as a valid currency causing the price of silver relative to paper money to increase. The negative experiences with inflation that the Ming dynasty had witnessed signaled the Manchus to not repeat this mistake until the first Chinese banknotes after almost 400 years were issued again in response to the Taiping Rebellion under the Qing dynasty's Xianfeng Emperor during the mid-19th century.
The coinage of the Southern Tang dynasty consisted mostly of bronze cash coins while the coinages of previous dynasties still circulated in the Southern Tang most of the cash coins issued during this period were cast in relation to these being valued as a multiple of them.
Shilin Guangji is an encyclopedia written by Chen Yuanjing during the Yuan dynasty. The book contains text written in Chinese characters, Mongolian script, and the ʼPhags-pa script. Chen Yuanjing was a native of Chong'an (崇安) in Fujian and was born during the later years of the Southern Song dynasty. The encyclopedia contains a wealth of info on the daily life during the Mongol Empire and Yuan dynasty, including illustrations, maps and cartography. Among historical texts, it was easy to understand and popular even after the Yuan dynasty. Chen's book was used by scholars during the Ming and Qing dynasties to compile their own encyclopedias.
Chen Yuanjing was a scholar of the Yuan dynasty known for writing the Shilin Guangji. Chen Yuanjing was born at the end of the Southern Song dynasty in Chong'an (崇安), Jianzhou. He probably lived from the late 13th century to the mid-14th century.
References
↑ Lehner, Georg (2011), "China in European Encyclopedias, 1700–1850", in George Bryan Souza ed., European Expansion and Indigenous Response, Brill, vol. 9, p. 48.
↑ Bauer, Wolfgang (1966), "The Encyclopaedia in China", Cahiers d'Histoire Mondiale 9.1: 665-691.
↑ Fowler, Robert L. (1997), "Encyclopaedias: Definitions and Theoretical Problems", in P. Binkley, Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts, Brill, p. 9.
↑ Fowler, Robert L. (1997), "Encyclopaedias: Definitions and Theoretical Problems", in P. Binkley, Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts, Brill, p. 9; citing Diény, Jean-Pierre (1991), "Les encyclopédies chinoises," in Actes du colloque de Caen 12-16 janvier 1987, Paris, p. 198.
↑ Teng, Ssu-yü and Biggerstaff, Knight (1971), An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Chinese Reference Works, 3rd ed., Harvard University Press, p. 83.
↑ Needham, Joseph, Lu Gwei-djen, and Huang Hsing-Tsing (1986), Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 6 Biology and Biological Technology, Part 1 Botany, Cambridge University Press, p. 192.
↑ Carson, Michael and Loewe, Michael (1993), "Lü shih ch'un ch'iu 呂氏春秋", in Loewe, Michael, Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, Society for the Study of Early China; Institute of East Asian Studies, p. 325.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
