9 copies of the Yongle Canon jiajing are on display
Go to the national map to see the past and present lives of the Yongle Canon
Guangming Daily reporter Chen Xue
Every time "Yongle Canon" appears, it attracts much attention.
In July 2020, Chinese collectors auctioned two four-volume "Yongle Canon" in France for more than 64 million yuan, which attracted worldwide attention. The Yongle Canon is called "the largest encyclopedia ever recorded in the world" by the Encyclopædia Britannica, with 11,095 original volumes, a total of about 370 million words, bringing together 7,000 or 8,000 kinds of ancient and modern books, but all of them have disappeared. Up to now, there are only more than 400 copies, more than 800 volumes and some zero leaves, which are scattered in the hands of more than 30 public and private collectors in 8 countries and regions.
The National Library of China is the largest collector of the Yongle Canon at home and abroad, with a total collection of 224 volumes of the Yongle Canon. From June 1, the exhibition "Zhu Huan Hepu Calendar Robbery and Heavy Light - The Return and Reconstruction of the Yongle Canon" was officially launched at the National Museum of Classics and opened to the public free of charge. It is understood that this exhibition exhibits a total of more than 60 kinds of exhibits more than 70 volumes (pieces), of which 9 volumes of "Yongle Classic" Jiajing copy for the first time in recent years, in addition to the "Yongle Classic", the exhibition also cooperates with the exhibition of more than 40 volumes (pieces) of ancient books such as Ming manuscripts, Ming engravings, and Ming Tuoben. At the same time as the opening of the exhibition, on May 31, the National Library of China officially established the "Yongle Canon" Research Center.
"'Pearls are also a metaphor for what is lost and regained."" The metaphor of "The Light of The Past" is the parable of going through the calamity and seeing the light again. Zhang Zhiqing, deputy director of the National Library of China and deputy director of the National Center for the Protection of Ancient Books, introduced that this exhibition will focus on the past and present lives of the Yongle Canon, highlighting the arduous process of return and reconstruction.
Chen Xue, a reporter of Guangming Daily, took a picture of Guangming Daily in the "Yongle Canon" volume 3003~3004 "Ren" book exhibited in this exhibition
National Library of China collection of "Yongle Canon" information picture
The 9-volume Jiajing copy of the Yongle Canon is on display for the first time in recent years
Why doesn't the original yongle canon exist? Why did the number of copies drop sharply between Qianlong and Guangxu? The "past life" of the Yongle Canon is composed of many mysteries, and some people even jokingly call it that the history of the Yongle Canon is "big mystery set small mystery".
In order to let people understand the story behind the "Yongle Canon" in detail, the exhibition is divided into 5 units: "The Great Canon juju looks at the Yongle Legend", "The Ancient and the Modern and the Collection", "The Long Reading of the Vicissitudes and the Rest of the World", "The Transformation has Been Annihilated again", and "The Pearl Returns to the Shadow to the Hui Xuelin", while exhibiting the documents, in the form of charts and key event descriptions, the history of the "Yongle Canon" is carefully told, and the rich and valuable knowledge system, ideological concepts and humanistic spirit contained in the "Yongle Canon" are comprehensively displayed.
In the exhibition, a chart of "the number of copies of the Yongle Classics collected by the Ming and Qing dynasties" vividly shows the ups and downs of this "classic Yuanxue": 11,095 volumes in the first year of Ming Longqing (1567), 9,881 copies in the fifty-ninth year of the Qing Dynasty (1794), 870 volumes in the eighteenth year of Qing Guangxu (1892), and 64 volumes in the first year of the Qing Dynasty (1909).
The Yongle Canon was compiled during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, and copied as a copy during the Ming Jiajing period, and after more than 600 years, the Yongle Canon has experienced many wars and plunders, and its scattering and return are related to the fate of the country and the nation. At present, there are six speculations about the whereabouts of the original, including the burial of the Yong mausoleum of the Jiajing Emperor, the burning of the Ming Dynasty, the burning of the late Ming Dynasty in Beijing, the destruction of the Wenyuan Pavilion in Nanjing in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, the hidden in the imperial palace wall, and the destruction of the fire in the QingQianqing Palace.
The present life of the Yongle Canon is related to the context.
"In the total collection of 40 million volumes of the national map, the number of more than 200 volumes is insignificant, but the more than 200 volumes of the Yongle Canon are the context of the National Library." Zhang Zhiqing said that since the first day of the establishment of the Beijing Normal Library (the predecessor of the National Library), it has received 64 volumes of the Yongle Canon of the Hanlin Academy. Lu Xun was then the chief of the first section of the Department of Social Education of the Ministry of Education, in charge of library affairs, and vigorously contributed to this matter. For a century, guotu people returned with the "Yongle Canon" volume by volume, and eventually made it one of the "four special collections" in the rare books of the National Library.
The 9 copies of jiajing of the Yongle Canon on display this time are the first to be exhibited in recent years, and many of them are representative overseas return documents, such as the "Nong" character book purchased by Wang Chongmin from the United Kingdom for the Beiping Library in 1938, the "Song, Rong, Rong, and Yong" character book returned to China by the library of the Department of Oriental Studies of Leningrad University in the Soviet Union in 1951, and the "Shi" character book returned to China in 1955. In addition, there are also the "water" book donated by the Commercial Press in 1951 and the "water" book donated by Peking University in 1958, which fully reflects the importance and love of the state and people from all walks of life for Chinese classics, and these generous and selfless donations flow into the national map like a trickle, so that more people can see the original appearance of precious ancient books.
The National Library of China established the Yongle Canon Research Center
"If we can really find the original copy of the Yongle Canon, it means that we can communicate directly with the Chinese civilization of the Song and Yuan dynasties." At the opening ceremony of the exhibition, Zhang Zhiqing said the extraordinary value of the Yongle Canon. As the largest book in ancient China, the Yongle Canon preserves a large number of rich materials on literature, history, philosophy, religion and applied science before the 14th century.
"For future generations, the greatest function of the Yongle Canon is to compile it." Xie Dezhi, deputy research librarian of the National Library of China, believes that the Yongle Canon has enabled many disappeared classics to be handed down to the present day, such as the "Nongsang Jijiao" and "Notes on the Water Classics" and other popular masterpieces, which are compiled or supplemented from the Yongle Canon, so the Yongle Canon is called "the Yuanxue of the Yongle Classic". It is understood that when the two volumes of "Water" on display were combined in that year, they restored the appearance of the "Notes on Water Classics" in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. In 1941, the historian Yang Zhijiu confirmed the content of the "Marco Polo Chronicle" from an official document of the Yongle Canon, confirming the authenticity of Marco Polo.
In order to unite and connect experts and scholars at home and abroad and further promote the protection and research of the Yongle Canon, on May 31, with the approval of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the "National Library of Yongle Classic Research Center" was officially established. "We hope that scholars from all over the country will gather to study the Yongle Canon, so the establishment of the center is of great significance." Zhang Zhiqing said that in the next step, the center will conduct more comprehensive research, more in-depth data mining and more adequate digital presentation of the compilation of the Yongle Canon, scattered collection, restoration and protection, photocopy and publication.
The reporter saw at the scene that the exhibition also used multimedia means to let the audience experience the unique charm of "Yongle Dadian", through the touch-screen game "Famous Artists Take You to the Dadian", understand the calligraphy and ancient book layout of "Yongle Dadian", and use knowledge questions and answers to understand the characteristics of paper and ink. For the first time, the Yongle Dadian database has published high-definition color images of the Yongle Dadian collected by a number of collection institutions, supplemented by functions such as graphic and text comparison, layout restoration, and full-text digital retrieval, so that the audience can further get closer to the Chinese classics.
(Guangming Daily, Beijing, May 31)
Guangming Daily ( 2021-06-01 16 edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily