The ''Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China'' (or the ''Gujin Tushu Jicheng'') is a vast

encyclopedic An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...

work written in China during the reigns of the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

emperors

Kangxi The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 165420 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, personal name Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign of 61 ye ...

and

Yongzheng The Yongzheng Emperor (13 December 1678 – 8 October 1735), also known by his temple name Emperor Shizong of Qing, personal name Yinzhen, was the fourth emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the third Qing emperor to rule over China proper. The ...

. It was begun in 1700 and completed in 1725. The work was headed and compiled mainly by scholar

Chen Menglei Chen Menglei (; 1650–1741) was a Chinese encyclopedist, historian, and philosopher during the Qing dynasty. He was a scholar-writer known for being the chief editor, compiler, and author of the Gujin Tushu Jicheng Chinese encyclopedia. In 1670 ...

(). Later on the Chinese painter

Jiang Tingxi Jiang Tingxi (, 1669–1732Barnhart: Page 379.), courtesy name Yangsun (), was a Chinese painter, and an editor of the encyclopedia ''Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China''. Jiang was born in Changshu, Jiangsu. Besides the name Yang ...

helped work on it as well. The encyclopaedia contained 10,000 volumes. Sixty-four imprints were made of the first edition, known as the Wu-ying Hall edition. The encyclopaedia consisted of 6 series, 32 divisions, and 6,117 sections. It contained 800,000 pages and over 100 million

Chinese character Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only on ...

s, making it the largest

leishu The ''leishu'' () is a genre of Reference work, 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 ...

ever printed. Topics covered included natural phenomena,

geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

and

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

. The work was printed in 1726 using copper

movable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable Sort (typesetting), components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric charac ...

printing. It spanned around 10 thousand rolls (). To illustrate the huge size of the ''Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China'', it is estimated to have contained 3 to 4 times the amount of material in the ''

Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is a 29-volume reference work, an edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. So ...

''. In 1908, the

Guangxu Emperor The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), also known by his temple name Emperor Dezong of Qing, personal name Zaitian, was the tenth Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China ...

of China presented a set of the encyclopaedia in 5,000 fascicles to the China Society of London, which has deposited it on loan to

Cambridge University Library Cambridge University Library is the main research library of the University of Cambridge. It is the largest of over 100 libraries Libraries of the University of Cambridge, within the university. The library is a major scholarly resource for me ...

. Another one of the three extant copies of the encyclopedia outside of China is located at the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. A complete copy in Japan was destroyed in the

1923 Great Kantō earthquake The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (, or ) was a major earthquake that struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshu at 11:58:32 JST (02:58:32 UTC) on Saturday, 1 September 1923. It had an approximate magnitude of 8.0 on the mom ...

. One of Yongzheng's brothers patronised the project for a while, although Yongzheng contrived to give exclusive credit to his father Kangxi instead.

Name

The ''Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China'' is known as the ''Gujin Tushu Jicheng'' () or ''Qinding Gujin Tushu Jicheng'' () in Chinese, also translated as the ''Imperial Encyclopaedia'', the ''Complete Collection of Ancient and Modern Illustrations and Texts'', the ''Complete Collection of Ancient and Modern Writings and Charts'', or the ''Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings from the Earliest to Current Times''.

Compilation

The

Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 165420 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, personal name Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign of 61 ...

hired

Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...

to compile the encyclopedia. From 1700 to 1705, Chen Menglei worked day and night, writing most of the book, including 10,000 volumes and around 160 million words. It was originally titled the ''Compendium'' or Tushu Huibian (图书汇编). By 1706 the book's first draft was completed, and the Kangxi emperor changed the title to ''Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China'' (''Gujin Tushu Jicheng''). When the Yongzheng emperor ascended the throne, he ordered Jiang Tingxi to help Chen Menglei finish the encyclopedia for publication by around 1725.

Outline

The 6 series are as follows. # Heavens/Time/Calendrics (历象): Celestial objects, the seasons, calendar mathematics and astronomy, heavenly portents # Earth/Geography (方舆): Mineralogy, political geography, list of rivers and mountains, other nations (Korea, Japan, India,

Kingdom of Khotan The Kingdom of Khotan was an ancient Buddhism, Buddhist Saka kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin (modern-day Xinjiang, China). The ancient capital was origina ...

Ryukyu Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom was a kingdom in the Ryukyu Islands from 1429 to 1879. It was ruled as a Tributary system of China, tributary state of Ming dynasty, imperial Ming China by the King of Ryukyu, Ryukyuan monarchy, who unified Okinawa Island t ...

) # Man/Society (明论): Imperial attributes and annals, the imperial household, biographies of mandarins, kinship and relations, social intercourse, dictionary of surnames, human relations, biographies of women # Nature (博物): Procivilities (crafts, divination, games, medicine), spirits and unearthly beings, fauna, flora (all life forms on Earth) # Philosophy (理学): Classics of non-fiction, aspects of philosophy (numerology, filial piety, shame, etc.), forms of writing, philology and literary studies # Economy (经济): education and

imperial examination The imperial examination was a civil service examination system in History of China#Imperial China, Imperial China administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the Civil service#China, state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureau ...

, maintenance of the civil service, food and commerce, etiquette and ceremony, music, the military system, the judicial system, styles of craft and architecture The six series in total are subdivided into 32 subdivisions. Note that a pre-modern sense is intended in both "society" (that is, high society) and "economy" (which could be called "society" today), and the other major divisions do not match precisely to English terms.

Gallery

Part 1: Heavens/Astronomy

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Strange or Unusual Phenomena - pic01 - 紫微垣圖.png, alt=

Part 2: Geography

Territories File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Prefectures and Other Territorial Divisions - pic001.png, alt=, Map of the Qing dynasty's east coast (Mongolia and Taiwan marked as 蒙古 and 臺灣, Ryukyu and Korea marked as 琉球 and 朝鮮) File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Prefectures and Other Territorial Divisions - pic002.png, alt=, Further inside China (Chengdu marked as 成都 and the northern desert marked as 沙漠) File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Prefectures and Other Territorial Divisions - pic008 - 保定府疆域圖.png, alt=, Map of

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Prefectures and Other Territorial Divisions - pic277.png, alt=, Map of

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Prefectures and Other Territorial Divisions - pic245.png, alt=, Map of

Jiaozhi Jiaozhi (standard Chinese, pinyin: ''Jiāozhǐ''), or , was a historical region ruled by various Chinese dynasties, corresponding to present-day northern Vietnam. The kingdom of Nanyue (204–111 BC) set up the Jiaozhi Commandery (; , ch� ...

(Vietnam) File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Prefectures and Other Territorial Divisions - pic253.png, alt=, Map of

Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...

Borders

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic021 - 元股國.png, alt=, Yuanguguo / Xuanguguo ( 玄股國), one of the countries in

Huainanzi The ''Huainanzi'' is an ancient Chinese text made up of essays from scholarly debates held at the court of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, before 139 BCE. Compiled as a handbook for an enlightened sovereign and his court, the work attempts to defi ...

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic097 - 斯伽里野.svg, alt=,

Kingdom of Sicily The Kingdom of Sicily (; ; ) was a state that existed in Sicily and the southern Italian peninsula, Italian Peninsula as well as, for a time, in Kingdom of Africa, Northern Africa, from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was ...

(Southern Italy), transcribed as 斯伽里野 File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic090 - 麻阿塔國.svg, alt=, Ma'ata (麻阿塔國), possibly referring to

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

, located in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic102 - 大闍婆國.png, alt=, Image of person from

Kalingga Kingdom Kalingga (; zh, t=訶陵, p=Hēlíng; Middle Chinese: ɑ.lɨŋ or She-po or She-bo ( zh, c=闍婆, p=Shépó; Middle Chinese: ͡ʑia.buɑ in Chinese sources, or Ho-ling in Arabic scriptures of Umayyad Caliphate era; was a 6th-century Indian ...

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

(大闍婆國) File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic106 - 三佛齊國.png, alt=,

Srivijaya Srivijaya (), also spelled Sri Vijaya, was a Hinduism, Hindu-Buddhism, Buddhist thalassocracy, thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra (in modern-day Indonesia) that influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important ...

(三佛齊國) File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic028 - 女人國.png, alt=, Kingdom of women ( 女人國), recorded in travels during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, possibly referring to some part of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. It is mentioned in the

History of Yuan The ''History of Yuan'' (), also known as the ''Yuanshi'', is one of the official Chinese historical works known as the '' Twenty-Four Histories'' of China. Commissioned by the court of the Ming dynasty, in accordance to political tradition, t ...

and was described by the Yuan dynasty traveler

Wang Dayuan Wang Dayuan (, fl. 1311–1350), courtesy name Huanzhang (), was a Chinese traveller from Jiangxi in the 14th century. He is known for his two major ship voyages. Wang Dayuan was born around 1311 at Hongzhou (present-day Nanchang). During 1328� ...

. File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic109 - 小琉球國.png, alt=,

Part 3: Society

Human Affairs

Describes some

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

of the human body File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Human Affairs - pic0022 - 人身明堂五臟之圖.png, alt=, Diagram of human body File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Human Affairs - pic0021 - 肝有兩葉之圖.png, alt=,

Liver The liver is a major metabolic organ (anatomy), organ exclusively found in vertebrates, which performs many essential biological Function (biology), functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the Protein biosynthesis, synthesis of var ...

diagram File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Human Affairs - pic0002 - 肺神圖.png, alt= File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Human Affairs - pic0020 - 肝神圖.png, alt=, Dragon File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Human Affairs - pic0005 - 脾神圖.png, alt=

Imperial Harem

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Palace Doors - pic002 - 女床三星圖.svg, alt=, Palace Doors,

Harem A harem is a domestic space that is reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A harem may house a man's wife or wives, their pre-pubescent male children, unmarried daughters, female domestic Domestic worker, servants, and other un ...

Imperial Perfection

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Imperial Perfection - pic023.svg, alt= File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Imperial Perfection - pic125.png, alt=

Part 4: Nature

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Spirits and the Supernatural - pic54 - 女媧神圖.svg, alt=, Image of

Nüwa Nüwa, also read Nügua, is a mother goddess, culture hero, and/or member of the Three Sovereigns of Chinese mythology. She is a goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. She is credited with creating humani ...

Plant Kingdom

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Plant Kingdom - pic099 - 石龍芮圖.png, alt=, Ranunculus sceleratus (石龍芮)

Part 5: Philosophy

Canonical and other Literature section

File:Gǔjīn Túshū Jíchéng page.png, alt=, Page from the ''Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China'' File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic001 - 古河圖.svg, alt=, Guhe diagram (古河圖) File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic012 - 河圖生成圖.png, alt=, Hetu Shengchengtu (河圖生成圖) File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic019 - 伏羲則河圖數定卦位圖.png, alt=,

Fuxi Fuxi or Fu Hsi ( zh, c=伏羲) is a culture hero in Chinese mythology, credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking, as well as the Cangjie syste ...

(伏羲) diagram File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic021 - 河圖交八卦之圖.png, alt=,

Bagua The ''bagua'' ( zh, c=八卦, p=bāguà, l=eight trigrams) is a set of symbols from China intended to illustrate the nature of reality as being composed of mutually opposing forces reinforcing one another. ''Bagua'' is a group of trigrams—co ...

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic023 - 河圖序乾父坤母六子圖.png, alt=, Qiankun (乾坤) diagram File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic030 - 周易互卦合河圖變數圖.png, alt= File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic125 - 行圖（變圖解圖附下）.svg, alt= File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic075 - 天地極數圖.svg, alt=, Tiandiji number diagram (天地极数图) File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic043.svg, alt=, Bagua trigrams File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic100 - 性圖.svg, alt=, Xingtu (性图) with calendar dates

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic008.png, alt=, Odd numbers: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc. File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic034 - 奇偶圖.png, alt=, Parity: even and odd numbers

Education and Conduct

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Education and Conduct - pic001 - 太極圖.png, alt=,

Taijitu In Chinese philosophy, a ''taijitu'' () is a Character (symbol), symbol or diagram () representing ''Taiji (philosophy), taiji'' () in both its monist (''Wuji (philosophy), wuji'') and its Dualism in cosmology, dualist (yin and yang) forms in a ...

and

Wuxing (Chinese philosophy) ( zh, c=五行, p=wǔxíng), usually translated as Five Phases or Five Agents, is a fivefold conceptual scheme used in many traditional Chinese fields of study to explain a wide array of phenomena, including terrestrial and celestial rela ...

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Education and Conduct - pic129.png, alt= File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Education and Conduct - pic134 - 伏羲太極圖.svg, alt=, Fuxi's Taijitu

Study of Characters

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - The Study of Characters - pic04 - 王應電六義圖解.png, alt=, Wang Yingdian liuyi tujie (王應電六義圖解)

Part 6: Economy

Military

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Military Administration - pic303 - 輪流進弩圖.svg, alt=,

Crossbowmen An arbalist, also spelled arbelist, is one who shoots a crossbow. Background An extensive list of archaic words for medieval crossbowmen is given by Payne-Gallwey. Richardson, in his 1839 dictionary, did not make specific reference to the cross ...

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Military Administration - pic302 - 輪流發弩圖.png, alt= File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Military Administration - pic062 - 樓船圖.png, alt=,

Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

File:Counterweight trebuchet 1726.jpg, alt=,

Counterweight trebuchet A trebuchet () is a type of catapult that uses a hinged arm with a sling attached to the tip to launch a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles ...

Punishments and blessing

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Punishments and Blessing - pic0009 - 貫索九星圖.png, alt=, Nine star diagram (九星图)

Food

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Foods and Other Articles of Commerce - pic001.png, alt= File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Foods and Other Articles of Commerce - pic414.svg, alt=

References

Citations

Sources

* ''Search for Modern China'',

Jonathan Spence Jonathan Dermot Spence (11 August 1936 – 25 December 2021) was a British-American historian, Sinology, sinologist, and author specialised in History of China, Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 199 ...

, 1990.