Appreciate | precious Song editions

In the ancient book edition, people pay special attention to the Song edition of the book, why the Song edition of the book is the best. It is necessary to identify the editions of ancient books, which is the most basic work. Rare books should be paid attention to in the edition, including: engravings of the Song and Yuan dynasties, fine engravings of the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as manuscripts of academic value in various eras, and manuscripts of criticism and proofreading. Among them, the most envied by the world, as Gong Bi Zhulin is the Song edition book.

As early as the time of Ming Jiajing, the Qiantang scholar Gao Lian once pointed out the advantages of the Song edition: "The Song Dynasty carved books, carved without scruples, proofread without falsification; the writing is fat and fine, and the printing is clear, so the Song carving is good." In the Chongzhen period at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the famous engraver and bibliophile Mao Jin, in order to search for the Song edition of the book, hung a notice in front of the jigu pavilion of his library building: "There are those who have the Song book to the end, and the owner of the door counts the leaves and pays money, and each leaf is two hundred... There are those who are good at the moment, and the other family pays a thousand, and the master gives twelve hundred. It can be seen that at that time, there were not many Song editions of books circulating, and bibliophiles did not simply use it as a reading material for disseminating knowledge and exchanging culture, but as a precious work of art and rare historical relics.

Qing Qian Qian Yi (Mu Zhai) and Cao Rong (Qiu Yue) were both bibliophiles who valued editions. Cao Rong wrote the Preface to Qian's Bibliography of Daiyunlou, which clearly stated that the criteria for his selection of books were: "The Song and Yuan editions received must be obtained, and the manuscripts engraved and copied by close people are not taken." Although Su Zimei, Ye Shilin, Sanshen Ji, etc., are not inscribed in the catalog in the form of old carvings. "In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the famous edition proofreader Huang Pilie (荛圃), because of his penchant for collecting Song edition books, called himself "Master of the Song Dynasty", and in order to obtain a Song edition of "Tao Poems", also known as his study as "Tao Pottery Room".

The ancients loved the Song edition of the book, and there is no shortage of examples today. So, why are the Song editions so precious? This is due to the fact that the Song edition of the book is not very popular, extremely rare, and the content of the books engraved and printed in the Song Dynasty is close to the ancient version, exquisitely printed and exquisitely decorated. During the Northern Song Dynasty, in addition to the capital Fenliang (Kaifeng), Hangzhou in Zhejiang, Jianyang in Fujian, meishan in Sichuan and other places were the centers of inscriptions. The wars and wars of later generations, water, fire and natural disasters have brought bad luck to the Song edition of books, so that the Northern Song Dynasty printed books can survive to this day, except for a very small number of Buddhist scriptures, other books are like a rarity, it is difficult to see.

In addition, the advantages of fish and rice tea mulberry cotton salt, east and west Zhejiang are rich in paper, which is very beneficial to the development of the engraving industry, and there are engraved books on all roads in the country at that time. The Zhejiang engraving of the two Zhejiang East-West Roads is the most refined, and the Shu engraving of Chengdu FuLu is slightly inferior. Fujian engravings have mixed advantages and disadvantages, of which Ma Sha ben is the worst. There are also differences between official carvings, home carvings, and square carvings in various regions. The official engraving and printing are exquisitely decorated, the home carving is carefully examined, and the content of the engraving is extensive.

In the books engraved in the Southern Song Dynasty, the form of content arrangement has changed. The texts and commentaries of the ancient scriptures and histories of the mainland are written or inscribed on two books respectively. At the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, it was popular to engrave the main text in large characters and annotate sparsely in small characters. For example, the Zhejiang Eastern Tea Salt Division carved "Zhou Yi", "Shang Shu", "Li Ji", and "Spring and Autumn Zuo Shi Biography", all of which engraved the scriptures and notes on a page. Huang Shanfu of Jian'an (present-day Jian'ou, Fujian) carved the "Records of History", and engraved the "Ji Xie", "Suo Yin", and "Justice" under the main text. This brings great convenience to the reader. The number of carved books in the Southern Song Dynasty and the high efficiency are unprecedented. For example, in the second year of Shaoxing (1132), Wang Yong of Huzhou (Wuxing) published the "Sixi Zifu Zen Temple Great Tibetan Sutra" from one house, with a total of 5,480 volumes, from the opening of the carving to the completion, in only one year, as many as 260 workers participated in the engraving. Among them was an engraving worker named Dong Ming, who finished engraving the Sixi Tibetan Classic in Huzhou and went to the Tea and Salt Division of Yuezhou (Shaoxing) the following year to engrave the Zizhi Tongjian; in the ninth year of Shaoxing (1139), he went to Lin'an Province to carve the "Han Guanyi"; in the same year, he also engraved the "Tang Wenzhi" in Lin'an. In the twenty-eighth year of Shaoxing (1158), he went to Mingzhou (Ningbo) to engrave the "Selected Writings of Zhaoming". In addition, he also carved the "Beishan Xiaoji" in Huzhou, and the "Book of the Later Han" in Lin'an. In the past twenty years, there have been many engraved books, and his experience fully reflects the large number and efficiency of the current book. The engraving is the book engraved by the bookstore. Most of the bookstores in the Southern Song Dynasty were concentrated in Lin'an and Jianyang. In addition to printing four books, such as sutras, histories, sub-books, and collections, they mainly print buddhist scriptures, folklore texts, miscellaneous books, and other folk books. At present, there are shop names to be examined, and there are still more than forty in Lin'an and Jianyang. The most famous of these is the Lin'an Mansion ChenZhai Book Shop. The owner of the bookstore, Chen Qi, the character Zongzhi, called himself Chen Daoren. He was good at poetry, sang harmony with the jianghu poets at that time, and edited the "Jianghu Small Collection" and published it in the world. His son Chen Xieyuan, Mingsi, also opened a bookstore, and the books printed by Chen's father and son were inscribed at the end of the volume with a line of plaques such as "Lin'an Fu Shed Beimu Qinfang South Chen Zhai Book Shop" or "Lin'an Fu Shed North Street Chen Xieyuan Book Shop". Because of the famous bookstore, it is mostly located on Shed North Street. Therefore, the bookstore is also called "book shed book". Chen's book shop prints books, paper and ink materials are mostly selected of the highest grade, and the engraving technology is superb, which is a fine product in the engraving book, which is extremely treasured by later bibliophiles. If the Song edition of the book is cherished by the world, what exactly does it look like, can it be recognized at first sight? To solve this problem, we must look at the actual object and study it carefully. Its main characteristics are: printing books with leather paper and hemp paper, and the literature is firm and tough. The layout is sparse and elegant, and there are often engraving workers' names and the number of words in each edition below the center of the plate. The font for engraving books is different in different styles. Zhejiang Ben mostly uses beautiful and handsome European characters; Shu Ben mostly uses majestic and simple Yan characters; Jianben glyphs are between Yan and Liu, horizontal and vertical. The ink used for printing books is also very exquisite, and the color is pure and uniform.

The binding form adopts the "butterfly suit". The method is to fold the leaves face to face, glue them with paste at the center of the reverse page of the leaf, and then wrap it with thicker paper as the book cover; from the appearance, the thick skin is wrapped back, similar to modern hardcover books; when flipping through, the two sides of the leaf are unfolded, such as butterfly wings, so it is called "butterfly suit", referred to as "butterfly suit". The Song edition of the book has been handed down to this day, and it is extremely rare to maintain the original butterfly suit. Most of the existing Song editions of books have been converted into the "line bindings" that prevailed in the Qing Dynasty.

In addition to the above, the Song edition still has a more prominent feature, that is, the Song engraving book has many secret characters, especially the official engraving to avoid more, which is an important basis for identifying the Song edition and its age. For hundreds of years, with the help of the Song edition, it has preserved the materials that are not available in the engravings of later generations, or used the Song edition to correct the errors of the ancient books engraved since the Ming and Qing dynasties, which have played a certain role in academic research and historical research.

Author: Ding Yu Source: Rare Books and Ancient Books