The World Status and Importance of Yongle Dadian
Yongle Dadian occupies an extraordinary position in the world history: it is a masterpiece of China's classical works, an encyclopedic document of China, and a brilliant achievement of China's ancient science and culture.
The encyclopedia Britannica calls it. The largest encyclopedia ever written in the world? It is the most famous cultural classic in China, the largest encyclopedia in the world so far, and an important symbol of China culture.
Why do you say that?
The compilation scale of Yongle Dadian far exceeds all kinds of books compiled by China's previous generation, including thousands of years of history and geography, literature and art, philosophy and religion, encyclopedic literature and so on in China before14th century. A total of 22,937 volumes, 60 volumes of contents, and sub-packaging 1 1095 volumes, the whole book is about 370 million words.
Yongle Dadian is more than 300 years earlier than the Encyclopedia compiled by Diderot in France and the Encyclopedia Britannica in Britain, and it is a treasure of world cultural heritage.
There are more than 7,000 kinds of ancient records preserved in Yongle Dadian alone, which is five or six times as many as the previous books such as Yiwen Lei Ju and Taiping Yulan. Even the large-scale series Sikuquanshu compiled in Qing Dynasty has only 3,000 kinds.
Yongle Dadian is full of legendary compilation and loss.
Because it is a rare cultural treasure and cultural relic in the world, its compilation, preservation, dispersion and collection are full of legends.
Ming Taizu just? Want to make up a book? It's not finished. In Judy's generation, when he gained fame from his nephew, he was ambitious and asked Jie Jin and others to compile books to show his righteousness. As for astronomy, geography, yin and yang, medical divination, Buddhism and Taoism, and technical vocabulary, they should all be compiled into a book, so don't get bored! ?
First call 147 people to complete the preparation, but Judy was not satisfied. The following year, Yao,, and others were ordered to rebuild, using 2 169 people in one's hand and one's hand; Two years later, it was finalized to Judy's satisfaction, and it was named Yongle Grand Ceremony, which was officially written 1408, with a volume of 22,877, a catalogue of 60 volumes and an album number of 1 1095.
There is only one original book of Yongle Dadian, which was written by Yu Yongnian and the manuscript of Jiajing period is the only one in existence.
Before Jiajing, in order to prevent the ceremony from being lost, Jiajing ordered to re-record a copy. The original is kept in Wen Yuan Pavilion, and the replica is kept in Huangshiguang. However, only 8,000 copies were saved during the Qianlong period, and some people suspected that they were not copied at that time.
What's even more surprising is that the original edition has completely disappeared, leaving only over 400 copies, totaling 1 1095. The two ceremonies lived in the palace, but they were not published and rarely circulated. Probably it was stolen, robbed and burned during the change of dynasty.
How did you break up?
For what? Original? Suddenly there was no news of her, and people speculated that the reasons were as follows: First, she was destroyed by a fire in the Wanli period at the end of the Ming Dynasty; Second, she was destroyed by the fires in Jiaqing and Gan Qing Palace in Qing Dynasty. Third, she was buried in Yongling. Martyrdom theory is more accepted by scholars. Judging from the recording progress of Yongle Dadian, it is speculated that the original was martyred in the Ming Dynasty.
In this way, people still hope to see the reappearance of the original Yongle Grand Ceremony.
For what? Copy? Generally speaking, during the Qianlong period, more than 2,000 copies were lost. Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing twice, and many precious cultural relics were lost. Yongle Dadian was not spared, and the remaining 400 volumes were collected by more than 30 institutions in 8 countries and regions.
The theft of honest officials, the looting of foreign invaders and the burning of the Imperial Academy completely destroyed the copy of Yongle Dadian. But we never stopped looking for cultural treasures, including Qianlong, which was later returned by other countries.