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"Yiwenzhi" (), or the "Treatise on Literature", is the bibliographical section of the ''
Hanshu The ''Book of Han'' or ''History of the Former Han'' (Qián Hàn Shū,《前汉书》) is a history of China finished in 111AD, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. I ...
'' (''Book of Han'') by the Chinese historian
Ban Gu Ban Gu (AD32–92) was a Chinese historian, politician, and poet best known for his part in compiling the ''Book of Han'', the second of China's 24 dynastic histories. He also wrote a number of '' fu'', a major literary form, part prose ...
(32–92 AD), who completed the work begun by his father
Ban Biao Ban Biao (, 3–54 CE), courtesy name (), was a Chinese historian and politician born in what is now Xianyang, Shaanxi during the Han Dynasty. He was the nephew of Consort Ban, a famous poet and concubine to Emperor Cheng. Ban Biao began the ...
. The bibliographical catalog is the last of its ten treatises, and scroll 30 of the 100 scrolls comprising the ''Hanshu''. The basis for the catalog came from Liu Xin's '' Qilüe'' (七略), which gives detailed bibliographical information about holdings in the Imperial Library,A.F.P. Hulsewé: ''Han shu'', in: Loewe (1993:130) which itself was an extension on '' Bielu'' (別錄) by Liu Xin's father Liu Xiang, on which the two had collaborated. The catalog provides important insights into the literature of the various Chinese intellectual currents of the pre-Qin period (Nine Schools of Thought), of which only some 20% are presently known.


Origin of the bibliography

"Yiwenzhi" closely adheres to the bibliographical system devised by Liu Xiang and Liu Xin with minor exceptions. The introductory paragraph of the treatise, most likely taken verbatim from ''Qilue'', is quite informative: "Many books were in great disarray in the time of Chengdi, upon which Chen Nong (陳農) was ordered to collect all the books in the world, and high officials to collate books in the Imperial Library; Luminous Grand Master, Liu Xiang, was put in charge of works by the Confucians, the philosophers, and the shi and fu poets; Lieutenant General of the Shanglin Imperial Garden Garrison, Ren Hong (任宏), of works by militarists, Grand Astronomer-Historian, Yin Xian (尹咸), of works by astrologers and diviners, and Surgeon to the Emperor, Li Zhuguo (李柱國), of works by herbalists and alchemists. Liu Xiang wrote an abstract for each completed work, catalogued, and memorialized it to the emperor. Liu Xin expanded the system to cover a great many books, and memorialized the ''Seven Abstracts'', or the ''Qilue''." Liu Xin created a seventh domain Jilue (輯略) to separate books he himself wrote, but Ban Gu, while using Liu Xin's Qilue material, reverted to the six-domain system of Liu Xiang, and reclassified Liu Xin's works into the other six domains. Furthermore, Ban Gu added titles that appeared after ''Qilue'' (before 23) and before his time of writing the Hanshu (before 92), including some of his own.


Material and morphology of books in the "Yiwenzhi"

Scrolls in bamboo strips, mostly for text, were referred to as ''pian'' (篇), while those in woven silk, mostly for large pictorial representations, as ''juan'' (卷); both are called scrolls because they were rolled up, bound, and tagged for identification. The practice of using scroll pouches called ''ji'' (帙) to hold five to ten scrolls had been in existence (''
Shuowen Jiezi ''Shuowen Jiezi'' () is an ancient Chinese dictionary from the Han dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the ''Erya'' predates it), it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give ...
'' defines the character as "book clothes"), but
paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
had not been invented by
Cai Lun Cai Lun (; courtesy name: Jingzhong (); – 121 CE), formerly romanized as Ts'ai Lun, was a Chinese eunuch court official of the Eastern Han dynasty. He is traditionally regarded as the inventor of paper and the modern papermaking process. ...
until 13 years after Ban Gu's death. The earliest form of back-bone binding of books, the butterfly binding (蝴蝶裝), was not invented until around 1000.


Contents


Research

Commentaries on "Yiwenzhi" were done by
Yan Shigu Yan Shigu () (581–645), formal name Yan Zhou (), but went by the courtesy name of Shigu, was a famous Chinese historian, linguist, politician, and writer of the Tang Dynasty. Biography Yan was born in Wannian (, in modern Xi'an, Shaanxi). His an ...
(581–645) and
Wang Yinglin Wang may refer to: Names * Wang (surname) (王), a common Chinese surname * Wāng (汪), a less common Chinese surname * Titles in Chinese nobility * A title in Korean nobility * A title in Mongolian nobility Places * Wang River in Thaila ...
( 王應麟; 1223–1296). Modern researchers on the topic include Gu Shi (顾实), Chen Guoqing and others.


Comparison to the ''Pinake'' of Alexandria

The Hanshu Yiwenzhi catalogued the Former Han Imperial Library holdings under "6 domains, 38 classes, 596 families; 13,269 scrolls in all" (大凡書,六略三十八種,五百九十六家,萬三千二百六十九卷。) concludes the treatise. An estimated 20% of the titles are extant today. This compares favourably with the estimated 10% survival of the ''
Pinakes The ''Pinakes'' ( grc, Πίνακες "tables", plural of ) is a lost bibliographic work composed by Callimachus (310/305–240 BCE) that is popularly considered to be the first library catalog in the West; its contents were based upon the hol ...
'' titles that consisted of works in Greek, Egyptian, Aramiac, Hebrew, Persian, and other languages, in the
Great Library of Alexandria The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The Library was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, t ...
of the 3rd century BCE, which according to one tradition, at one time held some 120,000 parchment scrolls and papyri.


References


Footnotes


Works cited

* {{cite book , chapter=''Han shu'' 漢書 , first=A.F.P. , last=Hulsewé , authorlink=A.F.P. Hulsewé , editor-first=Michael , editor-last=Loewe , title=Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide , url=https://archive.org/details/earlychinesetext00loew , url-access=limited , page
129
��136 , year=1993 , publisher=Society for the Study of Early China & Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California Berkeley , location=Berkeley , isbn=1-55729-043-1


External links


Chinese Text Project 《藝文志》
Chinese classic texts