Let's start with the original and copy of the ceremony.
The Yongle ceremony was presided over by the Prince of Yao and Ming Taizu and the Bachelor of Hanlin. More than 3,000 people participated in it, and the six years of Yongle (1408) took four years to complete. More than 3,000 people participated in editing and copying, and compiled 7,000 ancient and modern books, including classics, history, volumes, collections, interpretations and collections. In the sixth year of Yongle (1408), a book was written in winter, with 60 volumes of content and 22,877 volumes of text. It was installed as 1 1095 volumes, with a total word count of about 370 million, and it was named Yongle Grand Ceremony.
The ceremony was written in Nanjing and only one copy was copied. In the 19th year of Yongle (142 1), when Judy moved to the capital, she ordered Chen Xun to sort out and repair every collection of Wen Yuan Pavilion, put it in 100 cabinet and transport it to Beijing Palace. When the ceremony arrived in Beijing, it was stored in Wenlou, and other 100 cabinets were temporarily stored in Zuoshunmen North Gallery. In the sixth year of the Orthodox Church (144 1), Wenyuan Pavilion was built, so the books of Zuo Shunmen North Gallery were transported into the Pavilion, and the ceremony was still stored in Wenlou. In the 14th year of Orthodox Church (1449), the Wen Yuan Pavilion in Nanjing caught fire, and all the manuscripts and other books collected in the ceremony were burned. Since then, Dadian has become an orphan.
For various reasons, the ceremony has been put on hold since it was written. Ye Huo's Addendum records: "(Ming) studied the horse industry a lot, but he didn't have time to discuss it, and he didn't know anyone who had a short reading exhibition." There were 277 years of Amin dynasty, which lasted 16 emperors. During this period, except for the secret recipe of the golden chamber recorded by Emperor Xiaozong of Ming Dynasty in the Grand Ceremony to the Imperial Court, only Emperor Shizong of Ming Dynasty "searched by rhyme, and there were two considerations between several cases".
In the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing (1557), a fire broke out in Beijing Palace, and all the Fengtianmen and the three main halls were burned down. Sejong was afraid of damaging the nearby wenlou and ordered all the "ceremonies" to be driven away. In order to prevent accidents, he also decided to re-record a copy. The matter was shelved for several years. In the autumn of the forty-first year of Jiajing (1562), 109 people were recruited to write and paint, and copying painting officially began. Before re-recording, Sejong and Cabinet Minister Xu Jie made strict rules and regulations after careful study. The photocopiers went in early and went out late, registered to receive the ceremony, and re-recorded it completely according to the ceremony, so that the content was verbatim and the specifications were exactly the same. Copy three copies a day, no alteration, no employment. This preserves the original appearance to the greatest extent.
Re-recording was not completed when Zhu Houzong died in December of the 45th year of Jiajing (1566), and it was not completed until April of the first year of Qin Long (1567), which lasted for five years.
After the Ming Dynasty, it was discovered that the original Yongle no longer existed. Where did the original go? Future generations continue to speculate that there are mainly the following different views:
First, with the martyrdom of Ming Shizong in Yongling. Because among the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, only Xiaozong and Sejong have read Yongle Dadian. Sejong loves Yongle Grand Ceremony, so the original is likely to be buried in Yongling. There were many buried books that the living loved to read in the Ming Dynasty. In the last century, when the tomb of Zhu Tan, king of Huang Lu, was excavated in Shandong, there were books such as The History of Du Gongbu Poetry. The Ming Yongling Mausoleum is more magnificent than the Ming Tombs. With its architectural scale, it is also possible to bury the original "Grand Ceremony". However, Zhu Houzong died in December of Jiajing forty-five years, and the funeral was completed in March of the first year of Qin Long the following year. However, the recording of the ceremony didn't end until April, and it couldn't be done without the original. Yongling said there were many problems.
Second, some studies think that she is hiding in the wall of imperial history. Wang, a famous historian and professor of Shandong University, believes that the Royal Historical Pagoda, which was built in the 13th year of Jiajing (1534), has a peculiar wall, with the east-west wall being 3.5m thick and the north-south wall being 6. 1 m thick, which is rare in architecture. The original Yongle ceremony may be hidden in the imperial wall.
Third, Mr. Guo Moruo and others believe that the ceremony was destroyed at the time of the demise of the Ming Dynasty, and the original was burned at the end of the Ming Dynasty. More precisely, the original was burned by the peasant uprising army led by Li Zicheng. The rebels were forced to evacuate after occupying Beijing for 42 days. When they evacuated, they set fire to the palace building.
Fourth, it was destroyed by a fire in the Qing Dynasty. According to the records of Pavilion Collection, during the Yongzheng period, the copy of Yongle Dadian was moved from Huang Shizhen to imperial academy. When all Wang Zu saw it in imperial academy, they found that it was gone, so they guessed that the original was "someone knew that it was still in Gan Qing Palace, but they couldn't see it." By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Miao Sunquan not only inherited this theory, but also further developed it: "In the second year of Jiaqing (1797), a fire broke out in Gan Qing Palace, and the original was burned." Some scholars point out that this is groundless. Because Qianlong cleaned up the books in the palace, all the rare books were concentrated in the Zhaoren Hall next to the Qing Palace. However, the Grand Ceremony of Yongle has more than 65,438+00,000 volumes. If the original is easy to find in Gan Qing Palace, the Bibliography of Tianlu Lin Lang is not included in the Grand Ceremony, which proves that the original was not hidden in Gan Qing Palace at that time.
At present, the Yongle Grand Ceremony we see was copied during Jiajing period. Where is the original? Whether we are still far apart, because there is no clear record in the history books, we might as well send a glimmer of hope and hope to see her again one day.
The second question is, I want you to know the copy of the ceremony.
The copy of Yongle Dadian has been more than 400 years, and it has experienced war and theft. According to incomplete statistics, there are about 400 copies of Yongle Dadian scattered at home and abroad. If we continue to search, we will not rule out new discoveries in the world.
Since the copy of The Grand Ceremony was re-recorded according to the original, which no longer exists, let's introduce the copy version:
Carrier material
Paper: The "Grand Ceremony" used leather paper made of mulberry bark and Broussonetia papyrifera bark. At that time, it was used to be called white cotton paper in the north. Because "its longitudinal stripes tear like cotton silk, it is called' cotton paper'". (Song and Ming Ying Xing's Heavenly Creations) This kind of paper was mass-produced before and after Jiajing. It is white and elastic, and it is a good choice for printing books. Bibliographers used to call it "white cotton paper". The thickness of "Dadian" paper is 0. 12mm white cotton paper.
Ink: Huizhou ink was the most famous in Ming Dynasty, and its output was also large. It is made of various ingredients of Huangshan pine smoke and sold all over the country. Huizhou ink merchants such as Cheng and Fang have been operating for generations and are well-known overseas. Zhu Mo is made of cinnabar mineral, which does not fade for a long time.
Font illustration
Font: Except the initials of the title are written in a variety of seal script, official script and cursive script, the characters are all regular script. In Ming and Qing dynasties, the imperial examination papers were required to be neat and tidy, with the same size. Therefore, students and officials appointed by scientific research in Guange and Hanlin Academy are good at this word. Regular script in Ming dynasty is generally traditional Chinese characters, which are not very formal and have the rhyme of Song and Yuan Dynasties. After the end of the Ming Dynasty, influenced by Dong Qichang, the font pursued roundness, and the pavilion became increasingly mediocre. The Grand Ceremony is a masterpiece with neat fonts and free and easy spirit.
Illustrations: Various illustrations in the ceremony include stories of people, Bo Gu artifacts, palace buildings, gardening flowers and trees, maps of mountains and rivers, etc. With traditional line drawing, the character scene is vivid and delicate. When Jia Jing recorded the assistant, it was also the painter who used the original picture. Therefore, these illustrations are the remains of painters' paintings in the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and they are also of great value in painting history and book illustrations.
Column layout
The book is a hand-painted vermilion column with a frame height of 35.5 cm and a width of 23.5 cm, surrounded by two sides. Eight lines, big single line 14, 5 words, small double line 28 words. The version has a big red mouth and a red fishtail. On the fishtail, the title is "Yongle Dadian Volume ×××", and between the fishtails. Its sidebar, trunk and fishtail are all hand-painted, and hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper are needed for a grand ceremony. Hand-painted columns are also a big project. It is speculated that if the tools are not used slowly and irregularly, the sidebar and the book opening may be hollowed out and fixed with a thin plate, and then painted red on the board with a brush. The straight grid in the column is another completion. It is said that the scroll system in ancient China had more than one blank grid and a special pen bed. The words in the book are ink, and the title and oral words of quotations are red. The broken sentences are covered with small red circles to make Zhu Mo bright and easy to read.
Binding form
The "Grand Ceremony" is Abao Beizhuang, that is, every page of paper is folded in half from the middle seam literally outward, the spine of the book is twisted with paper first, and then a whole piece of yellow cloth is wrapped in cardboard as the cover. After mounting, paste a long yellow silk bookmark with blue border on the top left of the book cover, entitled "Yongle Grand Ceremony ×××× Volume". Stick a small box of yellow silk label, title list and book number on the upper right. Each volume ranges from 30 to 50 leaves, and each volume is mostly two volumes, and there are also one or three volumes. This book is 52 cm high and about 3 1 cm wide.
The third question is about the dispersion of copies of the ceremony.
According to records, the Jiajing copy of Da Dian was kept in the Imperial Palace for about 150 years, and was moved to imperial academy as a pavilion during the Yongzheng period of Qing Dynasty (1723- 1735). Since then, this collection of imperial palace books has been borrowed and sorted by ministers, and it has been constantly lost and suffered various damages. In the thirty-eighth year of Qianlong (1772), it was used in the compilation of Sikuquanshu, and it was found that 2422 volumes were missing, about 1000 volumes. This time, * * * sorted out more than 300 kinds of lost books.
Jiaqing and Daoguang also used the grand ceremony when compiling the Book of the Whole Tang Dynasty and the Annals of the Qing Dynasty. During this period, due to lax supervision system, it was stolen by a large number of officials. In addition, in the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860), the British and French allied forces invaded Beijing, and imperial academy was brutally destroyed and robbed, and numerous prizes were lost. In particular, the British invaders plundered the most and shipped them back to China as trophies. In the first year of Guangxu (1875), less than 5,000 copies of Da Dian were seized during the renovation of the Hanlin Academy.
According to another record, Weng Tonghe entered imperial academy the following year to check only 800 copies of The Grand Ceremony. Finally, in the 26th year of Guangxu (1900), Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing and imperial academy became a battlefield. In addition to the destruction caused by war and man-made robbery, the copy of imperial academy was also destroyed. Invaders of various countries smuggled a large number of plundered wealth and cultural relics back to China, and the ceremony has since spread in libraries and people all over the world. Some domestic literati and calligraphers are also scrambling to buy collections, thinking that imported goods can live in them. This 10,000-volume Grand Ceremony, once hidden in the imperial palace of the Ming Dynasty and the office of the Qing government, was almost wiped out in less than a hundred years. In the second year of Xuantong (19 10), when Shi Jing Library was founded, the Ministry of Education only allocated 60 volumes of Da Dian as the initial collection of Shi Jing Library.
The fourth question is about the Yongle Grand Ceremony collected by the National Library.
The destruction of the ceremony is not only an important academic achievement of China, but also a great loss of world culture. Mr. Zheng Zhenduo, who made great contributions to the search for Yongle Dadian, said with emotion 50 years ago: If the Yongle Dadian has been preserved until now, we can see the face of ancient Chinese literature history more completely. ..... We can get a lot of rare and important information from this "grand ceremony" alone.
Textual research by scholars at home and abroad shows that Yongle Dadian has about 400 volumes. As the fourth batch of university collections in the National Library, the collection and preservation process of Yongle Dadian in the National Library is full of legends. After a hundred years of searching, the number of Yongle Dadian in the National Library has reached 222, and the number of books on the shelves is 162, of which 60 are temporarily stored in Taiwan Province Province.
In fact, when the Shi Jing Library was built in the late Qing Dynasty, the Ministry proposed to hand over the remaining ceremony of the Hanlin Academy to the Shi Jing Library for collection, but it was not handled. 19 12, the government of the Republic of China was established, and Zhou Shuren (Lu Xun) was the head of the first section of the Social Education Department of the Ministry of Education, in charge of the work of libraries, museums and other departments. With his suggestions and efforts, the Ministry of Education requested the State Council to send the remnant of the Grand Ceremony collected by imperial academy to the Ministry of Education for storage in the Shi Jing Library, and obtained the approval of the State Council. The Ministry of Education immediately sent people to Lu Runxiang to deliver 64 copies of the Grand Ceremony to the Ministry of Education. Except for 4 volumes exhibited in the Library of the Ministry of Education, the remaining 60 volumes were sent to Shi Jing Library, which is the first batch of Yongle Dadian collected by the National Library.
On the basis of carefully sorting out and properly protecting these 60 volumes of The Grand Ceremony, Shi Jing Library collects them everywhere and widely. During this period, the library changed its name several times, but the collection of the ceremony never stopped. By 1934, the collection of Yongle Dadian has reached 93 volumes.
193 1 year, after the September 18th Incident, the situation in North China was turbulent and the government ordered the antiquities to move south. Beiping Library first boxes Dunhuang scriptures, rare books of ancient books, rubbings of epigraphy, maps and precious books in western languages, and then stores them in safer places such as Tianjin Continental Bank. 1May, 933, the Ministry of Education ordered Beiping Library to select the best works of Song and Yuan Dynasties, Yongle Dadian, records of Ming history and collected works of Ming people and move them to the south to prevent accidents. After the Beiping Library receives the electricity, it will transport the rare books and records including Yongle Dadian to Shanghai, store them in the warehouse of Gongxiang Concession, and set up the Shanghai office of the National Beiping Library to take charge of the management. On the preserved packing list, we can clearly see the situation of the Yongle Grand Ceremony transported to the south at that time.
1937 After the "August 13th Incident", Shanghai fell, and soon the European War broke out, which further worsened the domestic situation and threatened the security of the collection in Shanghai Library. Mr. Yuan Tongli, the acting curator, and Mr. Qian Cunxun, the Shanghai office, contacted the American side through the embassy in the United States and decided to re-select these rare books and transport them to the United States for preservation. Among the selected 3,000 volumes, there are 60 volumes of Yongle Dadian. It arrived in the United States before the Pacific War and was kept by the Library of Congress. 1965, these rare books were transferred to Taiwan Province province, and now they are temporarily stored in Taiwan Province province.
The eight-year Anti-Japanese War was a national disaster, but the work of patriotic cultural figures to rescue and collect rare books of ancient books never stopped. Mr. Zheng Zhenduo, who lives in Shanghai, keeps going in and out of bookstores, looking for rare books and keeping in touch with the National Library. Director Yuan Tongli raised money everywhere to buy books. There are two volumes of Yongle Dadian in the rare books collected during that period.
From 65438 to 0949, after the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the Party and the government paid more attention to the protection of cultural heritage, and the collection of Yongle Grand Ceremony also took on a brand-new situation.
195 1 year, the Department of Oriental Studies of Leningrad University of the Soviet Union returned the volume 1 1 to the government of China. The Ministry of Culture will receive it and distribute it to the National Library. To commemorate this move, Guo Tu held the "Yongle Grand Ceremony" exhibition to publicize the value of the "Grand Ceremony" and its plundering experience. This exhibition has greatly aroused the patriotic enthusiasm of people from all walks of life. Some patriots and book collectors have submitted their collections of The Grand Ceremony to the national map for centralized collection.
195 1 On August 20th, 2008, Mr. Zhou Shutao donated the book Yongle Dadian collected at home to the country for free, and sent a letter to the national map: "My servants collected the book Yongle Dadian, with a rhyme of 7602-7603, and would like to donate it to your museum, so that ... Almost at the same time, at the initiative of Mr. Zhang Yuanji, the board of directors of the Commercial Press unanimously approved to present the book "Da Dian" 2 1 collected by the Oriental Library of the Commercial Press to the national map. Subsequently, Mr. Zhao also donated a book "Da Dian" to his family. 1958, Peking university tune "grand ceremony" four volumes to the national map. The Guangdong Cultural Management Association also transferred 3 volumes. Mr. Zhang Jipeng, Mr. Wang, Mr. Xu, Mr. Chen Liru and Mr. Wang also donated the ceremony to.
Later, in 1954, the Lenin Library of the Soviet Union returned 52 volumes to China, in 1955, the German Democratic Republic returned 3 volumes to China, and the Soviet Academy of Sciences also returned 1 volume through the China Academy of Sciences Library. In this way, the 67-volume Yongle Dadian, which was once far away from the old country, returned to the embrace of the motherland and was "reunified" in the national territory.
What is more worthy of our appreciation is that in 1950s and 1960s, when China's economy was very difficult, Premier Zhou Enlai attached great importance to the collection of cultural relics and bought back a batch of precious ancient books from Chen Qinghua, a famous Hong Kong bibliophile, with special funds, including four volumes of Yongle Dadian. By 1965, the collection of Yongle Dadian reached 220 volumes.
There is also a legendary story in the collection process of the ceremony. 1983, a copy of Yongle Dadian was found in the home of Sun Honglin, a farmer in Yexian County, Shandong Province. When it was discovered, the head and foot of this volume of Yongle Dadian no longer existed, but there were patterns and shoes in the book. Fortunately, although the peasant women at that time could not read, the tradition of respecting words and cherishing paper inherited from their ancestors made this book "Da Dian" preserved, which can be regarded as a blessing in its circulation. After learning about the important value of this book, the Sun family sent it to the Yexian Cultural Center, which sent it again, and it was repaired by professional restorers. This book, which has lived abroad for many years, has finally merged with other "ceremonies". Up to this year, the collection of Yongle Dadian in the National Library has reached 22 1 volume.
In 2007, China ancient books protection plan was launched. When experts went to Shanghai to identify the first batch of national precious ancient books, they presented the new book Yongle Grand Ceremony. After two years of operation, it will soon enter the National Library of Tibet. This book is a book with the word rhyme lake, which can be combined with the original picture of Tibet.
The collection and preservation of Yongle Dadian is a microcosm of the collection of rare books in the National Library, which reflects the history of the collection of rare books in the National Library from one side. Over the past century, the support of the government, many patriots and people who care about the cause of the national library, the return of foreign collection units, and the hard work of several generations of library staff have all moved people. Being a staff member of the National Library is an unforgettable thing.
The fifth issue is the Yongle Grand Ceremony outside the National Library.
In addition to the collection of the National Library, Shanghai Library, Sichuan University and public and private collectors in Britain, Japan, Germany, the United States and other countries and regions also have nearly 200 volumes of Yongle Dadian. As far as we know, there are mainly 30 Tibetan collectors:
National Library of China, Shanghai Library, Sichuan University Library, Taiwan Province Provincial Central Library, Taiwan Institute of History and Language, Japanese National Assembly Library, Japan Oriental Library, Japan Humanities College, Japan Kyoto University Affiliated Library, Japan Tian Li Library, Japan Jingjiatang Library, Japan Stowe Library, Japan Osaka Prefectural Library, Japan Takeda Zhuobu, Japan kazuo ishiguro, Japan Nana Ogawa Hongzhi, Japan British Museum, Oxford University Library, Oriental Language Institute, University of London, Cambridge University, Madden, Hamburg University Library, Mok Library, Cologne, Berlin Ethnology Museum, Library of Congress, Harvard University Library, Cornell University, Boston Library, Far East College, Hanoi, Vietnam, Li Wangzhi Library, South Korea.
We see more British and Japanese collectors. Because when Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, imperial academy became a battlefield, and the distance between the British Embassy and imperial academy was less than 1 m, which explains why there are more Yongle Dadian in British collections. In Zhai Lance's diary, a volume of "The Grand Ceremony" recorded in the Library of Congress now comes from England. 1989 Five volumes of Yongle Dadian were discovered in Ireland. In 2002, the scanned copy of Aberdeen's Yongle Dadian was presented to the National Library at the 600th International Symposium on Yongle Dadian, and there was also no record. At the meeting, scholars revealed that the New York Public Library also collected the Yongle Grand Ceremony. However, the number of Japanese collections of Yongle Dadian may be due to geographical factors. 1920, Oriental Library once bought 10 copies of Yongle Dadian in Wenqiutang Bookstore of Kitaro Tanaka, and then bought 1943 copies of Yongle Dadian for six times, with a total of 63 volumes and 34 volumes. About 1940, the Oriental Library tried to buy 49 copies of Liu's Jiayetang at one time, but it failed because of the war and lack of funds. Through the Manchuria Railway at that time, it was collected in Dalian Library. After the war, they were returned to Beijing Library through the old Soviet Union. Perhaps through our general survey of ancient books, there will be new discoveries.
List of existing Yongle Grand Ceremony Records