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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

omitted a last text, the importance of which as folklore can be determined only by first entering into
some details about its nature, date and authorship; it is the one from the 樑四公記 Liang ssŭ
kung chi (the alternative title Liang ssŭ kung-[子]tzŭ chi has less authority), or « Account of the four
gentlemen of the Liang [dynasty] » (not « princes » as in d'HERVEY DE SAINT-DENYS, Ethnographie,
Orientaux, 392, and LAUFER, TP, 1915, 203, or « dukes » as in SCHLEGEL, TP, III, 497, and LAUFER,
TP, 1915, 338). There is no independant edition, nor has the work been preserved in its entirety.
It has hitherto always been quoted second hand by d'HERVEY DE SAINT-DENYS, WYLIE, SCHLEGEL,
DE GROOT, LAUFER and others, none of whom noticed that the only connected text was that preserved
in ch. 81 of the T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi (end of the 10th cent.; it has been partly copied in ch. 113
of the later edition of the Shuo fu [c. 1360-1366], and, with one or two obvious corrections, in T'u-
shu chi-ch'êng, shên-i tien, 311, 3-6). But even in the T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi the text is not complete.
Another encyclopaedia of the end of the 10th cent., the T'ai-p'ing yü-lan, cites a number of passages
from the Liang ssŭ kung chi, most of which correspond, with occasional divergent readings, to
the text in the T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi; such passages are found at 805, 8 b; 808, 5 b (incomplete; it is
this incomplete quotation which has been used by LAUFER in TP, 1915, 201-202); 814, 4 a; 820, 9 b-
10 a (used at second hand, from the Ko-chih ching yüan, by LAUFER in TP, 1915, 338); 845, 5 b;
857, 3 b; 865, 6 a; but the T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi lacks a long passage, certainly original, given in the
T'ai-p'ing yü-lan, 803, 9 a-10 a, and I have noticed other omissions. Moreover, the T'ai-p'ing kuang-
chi mentions no name of author, whereas the complete text, as it was still extant in the first half of
the 13th cent., had at the beginning a mention of authorship and at the end a lengthy colophon
(cf. 直齋書錄解題 Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i, 7, 4).
The Liang ssŭ kung chi is given in the Shuo fu as the work of 張說 Chang Yüeh (667-730),
and this ascription is expressly supported at an earlier date by a passage of the 護法論 Hu fa lun,
a Buddhist work written c. 1170 (藏, VIII, 92; NANJIŌ, Catalogue, No. 1502). I accepted this in
BEFEO, IV, 283), and so did DE GROOT (Relig. system of China, IV, 260-261) and LAUFER (The
Diamond, 7). Chang Yüeh is a well-known statesman and writer (but not a painter, in spite of
GILES, Biogr. Dict., No. 134, DE GROOT, and LAUFER); his name does not occur in the long catalogue
of painters of the T'ang dynasty in the Li-tai ming-hua chi); but in his collected works there is no
mention of the Liang ssŭ kung chi, and it is very doubtful whether he was the author. In the Hsin
T'ang shu (58, 8 b; the indication of the Chiu T'ang shu by DE GROOT is a slip), the work is given
as written by 盧諶 Lu Shên, with a note to the effect that others mention 梁載言 Liang Tsai-
yen as the author, and Liang Tsai-yen alone is named as the author in the Sung shih (203, 7 b). About
the year 1235, 陳振孫 Ch'ên Chên-sun, who still possessed the complete text, in one chapter, says
(Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i, 7, 4) that the work bears the name of Chang Yüeh as the author, but that
the 節 閏書目 Kuan-ko shu-mu (a Sung official catalogue) ascribes it to Liang Tsai-yen and the
Hsin T'ang shu to Lu Shên or Liang Tsai-yen. Ch'ên Chên-sun adds that, according to the Han-
tan shu-mu (another Sung catalogue), Liang Tsai-yen had obtained (得 tê) the Liang ssŭ kung chi
from 田 通 T'ien T'ung of 臨 淄 Lin-tzŭ (in Shan-tung), though some copies gave as author either
Chang Yüeh or Lu Shên. The ascription to Chang Yüeh at the beginning of the book cannot be
explained, Ch'ên Chên-sun says, since the facts about T'ien T'ung are expressly mentioned at the
end. Unfortunately, this colophon is no more extant, and it is not easy to see how it would confirm
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