The ''Gujin Tushu Jicheng'' (), also known as the ''Imperial Encyclopaedia'', is a vast encyclopedic work written in China during the reigns of the Qing dynasty emperors

Kangxi The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 1654– 20 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, born Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1661 to 1 ...

and Yongzheng. 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 Qing dynasty scholar-writer known for being the chief editor, compiler, and author of the Gujin Tushu Jicheng Chinese encyclopedia. In 1670, he became a Jinshi. Chen Menglei conducted research for over 50 years, c ...

(). Later on

Jiang Tingxi Jiang Tingxi (, 1669–1732Barnhart: Page 379.), courtesy name Yangsun (), was a Chinese painter, and an editor of the encyclopedia ''Gujin Tushu Jicheng'' (''Complete Collection of Ancient and Modern Writings and Charts''). Jiang was born in ...

helped work on it as well. It is also sometimes called the ''Qinding Gujin Tushu Jicheng'' (). 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 characters, making it the largest leishu ever printed. Topics covered included natural phenomena, geography, history, literature and government. The work was printed in 1726 using copper movable type printing. It spanned around 10 thousand rolls (). To illustrate the huge size of the ''Gujin Tushu Jicheng'', it is estimated to have contained 3 to 4 times the amount of material in the '' Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition''. In 1908, the Guangxu Emperor of China presented a set of the encyclopaedia in 5,000 fascicles to the

China Society of London China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, which has deposited it on loan to Cambridge University Library. Another one of the three extant copies of the encyclopedia outside of China is located at the

C.V. Starr East Asian Library The C.V. Starr East Asian Library is a library at Columbia University, holding collections for the study of East Asia in the United States. It is one of the largest East Asian libraries in North America, consisting of over one million volumes of C ...

at Columbia University. A complete copy in Japan was destroyed in the

1923 Great Kantō earthquake The struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshū at 11:58:44 JST (02:58:44 UTC) on Saturday, September 1, 1923. Varied accounts indicate the duration of the earthquake was between four and ten minutes. Extensive firestorms an ...

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

Compilation

The Kangxi Emperor hired

of Fujian 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 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, Ryukyu Kingdom) # 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, 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 (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Prefectures and Other Territorial Divisions - pic277.png, alt=, Map of Guangdong File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Prefectures and Other Territorial Divisions - pic245.png, alt=, Map of Jiaozhi (Vietnam) File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Prefectures and Other Territorial Divisions - pic253.png, alt=, Map of Fujian

Borders

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic021 - 元股國.png, alt=, Yuanguguo / Xuanguguo ( 玄股國), one of the countries in Huainanzi File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic097 - 斯伽里野.svg, alt=,

Kingdom of Sicily The Kingdom of Sicily ( la, Regnum Siciliae; it, Regno di Sicilia; scn, Regnu di Sicilia) was a state that existed in the south of the Italian Peninsula and for a time the region of Ifriqiya from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 un ...

(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, located in the Mediterranean Sea File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic102 - 大闍婆國.png, alt=, Image of person from Kalingga Kingdom in Java (大闍婆國) File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic106 - 三佛齊國.png, alt=,

Srivijaya Srivijaya ( id, Sriwijaya) was a Buddhist thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra (in modern-day Indonesia), which influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important centre for the expansion of Buddhism from the 7th t ...

(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 Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It is mentioned in the History of Yuan and was described by the Yuan dynasty traveler Wang Dayuan. File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Borders - pic109 - 小琉球國.png, alt=, Ryukyu Kingdom

Part 3: Society

Human Affairs

Describes some anatomy 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 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

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 the mother goddess of Chinese mythology. She is credited with creating humanity and repairing the Pillar of Heaven. As creator of mankind, she molded humans individually by hand with yellow clay. In the Huainanzi ...

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 Gujin Tushu Jicheng 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 (伏羲) diagram File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Canonical and other Literature - pic021 - 河圖交八卦之圖.png, alt=, Bagua 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 an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

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 Parity may refer to: * Parity (computing) ** Parity bit in computing, sets the parity of data for the purpose of error detection ** Parity flag in computing, indicates if the number of set bits is odd or even in the binary representation of the r ...

: even and odd numbers

Education and Conduct

File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Education and Conduct - pic001 - 太極圖.png, alt=, Taijitu and Wuxing (Chinese philosophy) 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 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 File:Counterweight trebuchet 1726.jpg, alt=,

Counterweight trebuchet A trebuchet (french: trébuchet) is a type of catapult that uses a long arm to throw a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles of greater weigh ...

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 an English-born American historian, sinologist, and writer who specialized in Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008. His ...

, 1990.

External links

故宮東吳數位古今圖書集成
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Archive.org

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{{Authority control Chinese culture Chinese encyclopedias Qing dynasty literature Sinology Chinese literature 1725 books 1726 books 18th-century encyclopedias Leishu