As the largest book of its kind in ancient China, the Yongle Canon has preserved a large number of precious documents. "The original is hard to know, and few copies survive. Copies scattered at home and abroad are less than 4% of the total number of copies. Talking about the current situation of the "Yongle Canon", Du Zexun, the chief expert of the special commissioned project of the National Social Science Fund "Research on the Comprehensive Sorting of the Yongle Canon" and a professor at Shandong University, was full of emotion.
Since 2021, more than 200 experts from more than 70 universities have participated in the research of this topic, and the manuscript of the modern punctuated version has been basically summarized, and the dawn of publication has appeared.
After a lot of turmoil, it finally comes to spring
In the "Yongle Canon" Collation Office of Shandong University, Du Zexun, a member of the National Ancient Books Collation and Publication Planning Leading Group, took out a large volume of "Yongle Canon" from the bookshelf. He told the Banyuetan reporter: "This is a copy, from the decoration to the content of the album to achieve 1:1 restoration. We purchased 3 sets of miniatures for the actual finishing. Although it is a modern replica, the Banyuetan reporter opened it and found that the faded paper, the black, red and ink mixed lines, and the calligraphy of the pavilion at a glance revealed a strong historical atmosphere.
Du Zexun (middle) reviews the manuscript of the literature collation
The Yongle Canon was compiled in the early years of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty. This book contains seven or eight thousand titles, and the entire paragraph, the whole text, or even the entire transcription of the relevant materials is included. Famous objects, mountains and topography are all delicately illustrated. Because of this, a large number of documents before the Ming Dynasty have been preserved, and this book has become an indelible treasure of civilization.
According to historical records, the "Yongle Grand Canon" is divided into the original and the copy, and the original is unknown, and it has been handed down to the present day as a copy. But the dungeon has also been frequently destroyed by war, so that the survival is scarce.
It is understood that there were originally more than 22,000 volumes and more than 10,000 volumes of the Yongle Canon, but they have been continuously lost since the Qing Dynasty. During the Gengzi Incident in 1900 and the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance, most of these "Yongle Canons" were annihilated, and only more than 800 volumes and 444 volumes can be known to have survived, less than 4% of the total number of the whole book.
According to the arrangement of relevant state departments, since 2021, led by Shandong University and more than 200 experts from more than 70 universities in China have been invited to participate, the "Yongle Canon" Archive Comprehensive Sorting and Research" project involving many disciplines such as economics, astronomy, and traditional Chinese medicine has been officially launched. This major survey project was originally planned to take 10 years, but it is expected to be shortened to 5 to 6 years as the process is optimized.
The historical encounter of the "Yongle Grand Canon" shows the preciousness of the era of peace. Generations of scholars have agreed that it still takes 100% effort to discover, collect, organize, and study this cultural treasure, which is less than 4% alive.
The summary is carefully compiled inside and out
On the wall of the corridor of the "Yongle Canon" collation office of Shandong University, there are many copies of the album of the "Yongle Canon". The textual notes attached to some of the reproductions indicate that the originals were once in the possession of overseas cultural and museum institutions, and that their whereabouts are now unknown after wars or auctions. It's like a reminder that time is pressing.
At present, the "Research on the Comprehensive Arrangement of the Yongle Canon" has achieved phased results. In an office in the tidying up office, the Banyuetan reporter saw a stack of neatly stacked miniature copies of the "Yongle Grand Canon". These A4-sized copies are bound into a booklet with an orange cover with the number of volumes each volume printed on the cover.
"These are the proofs that have been corrected by experts, and we are reviewing and verifying them. Li Zhenju, the person in charge of the collection department of "Yongle Dadian" and the comprehensive collation of the volume, said that at present, the person in charge of each sub-project and senior experts have formed a finalizer team of 50 or 60 people. We are stepping up the examination and approval of the manuscript, and those who pass will be handed over to the publishing house, and those who fail will be reworked.
Sun Qi, one of the persons in charge of the sub-department, said that it was by participating in this project that he truly realized what it means to be "broad and profound". There are only more than 800 volumes of the Yongle Canon, but the richness of the content and the difficulty of sorting out are still beyond imagination.
Du Zexun (first from left) discusses the details of document collation and conservation with colleagues
The punctuation of the old-style sentence reading in the Yongle Canon is relatively rough, with an average of 15 punctuation errors in each volume. Speaking of the work of storing volumes, He Zhaohui, a 54-year-old professor at the Institute of Classical Literature of the Institute for Advanced Study of Confucianism at Shandong University, said that judging from the collation of the history department he was responsible for, there had been a sentence reading error in the Jiajing copy of the Ming Dynasty. For example, people at the time were not accustomed to the mixed style of the Yuan Dynasty official documents, the transliteration of Mongolian words and the structure of sentences, which made the phenomenon of "sentence reading" not uncommon.
"The people of the Ming Dynasty began to fail to read the articles of the Yuan Dynasty, and the wrong punctuation is still misleading future generations. This urges us to sort out and study the "Yongle Canon" as soon as possible. He Zhaohui said that the study of the storage of the archives will "wake up a batch of sleeping historical books" and "salvage a batch of fresh historical materials."
It is understood that at present, the manuscript of the modern punctuation version of the "Yongle Canon" has been basically summarized in place. Once the manuscript has been summarized, it is ready for publication. A reliable and clear punctuation version is on the way.
"Yongle Canon" went through the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the Qing Dynasty's "Siku Quanshu" also used the content of "Yongle Canon" on a large scale, and scholars in the Ming and Qing dynasties used "Yongle Canon" to compile many classics. "Some time ago, contemporary scholars compiled an ancient book of the scriptures from the storage volume of the "Yongle Canon". This book is not found in the Siku Quanshu. Jiang Xi, one of the persons in charge of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, told the Banyuetan reporter that the charm of "Yongle Canon" lies in the proofreading.
"Separation, reorganization, and reorganization" is the core task of this collation and research. The researchers annotated and quoted the existing Yongle Dadian, divided and summarized them into a volume according to their sources, and then restored them to a single book of ancient books cited in the book. A number of literary and historical experts said that these single ancient books have outstanding edition value. They are the best editions of the Ming Dynasty when compiling books, and they can form a better version by comparing and complementing other editions that have been handed down to the present day.
"I have compared the common classics of the Yongle Canon and the Siku Quanshu, and found that the correctness of the Yongle Dadian version is much higher than that of the Siku Quanshu version. Jiang Xi said.
In the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Publishing Industry" issued by the National Press and Publication Administration, the "Yongle Canon" and the Dunhuang Literature Publishing Project were selected as "Major Publishing Project Plans". Yao Wenchang, one of the people in charge of the history department and an associate professor at the School of Literature at Shandong University, said that the two have a high degree of similarity, and both are of great significance but have been damaged and dispersed. "Even if the Yongle Canon is scattered all over the world, the highland of the Yongle Canon must be in China. ”
Du Zexun and others believe that the "Prosperous Age Revision of Literature" is a fine tradition of Chinese civilization, and the "Yongle Canon" has been organized, researched and inherited after the vicissitudes of life, which will help inspire contemporary scholars to build a Chinese school and a unified discourse system.
Half Moon Talk Reporter: Yang Shouyong, Xiao Haichuan / Editor: Xu Ning
*This article is the content of the 7th issue of "Half Moon Talk" in 2024