The Tang Dynasty in Song-Period Stories: The Case of Yijian zhi

Abstract

A few of the many ways the Tang dynasty weighed heavily on the minds of people of the succeeding Song dynasty show themselves in the voluminous twelfth-century story collection, Yijian zhi. But these are not what we normally think of as nostalgia for the past in literary culture. This article looks at old things, that is, Tang antiques that come to life in the world of the Song as well as Tang persons who are reborn or who reappear as their original selves in the Song stories, centuries later. The storytellers’ fascination with Tang things and persons, rather than those from other time periods, is unmistakable and invites us to consider why that period seemed so distant and yet so palpably present in Song life.

Keywords:

• Hong Mai
• things
• ghosts
• retribution
• skepticism

Notes on Contributor

Ronald Egan is Confucius Institute Professor of Sinology at Stanford University.

Notes

1 This paper was originally presented at a conference honoring Paul W. Kroll, the great Tang scholar, at Boulder, Colorado in 2018, one of the reasons for its focus on the Tang in these stories.

2 For an excellent general introduction to Yijian zhi and its compiler, see Cong Ellen Zhang, ed. and trans. Record of the Listener: Selected Stories from Hong Mai’s Yijian Zhi (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2018). See also Alister Inglis, Hong Mai’s Record of the Listener and Its Song Dynasty Context (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006). A recent general Japanese study is: Ihara Hiroshi 伊原弘 and Shizunaga Takeshi 靜永健, Nansō no kakureta besutoserā “Iken shi” no sekai 南宋の隠れたベストセラー「夷堅志」の世界 (Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2015).

3 I am grateful to an anonymous Tang Studies referee for raising this point in comments on an earlier draft of this article.

4 For a study of Hong Mai’s informants, see Alister D. Inglis, “Hong Mai’s Informants for the Yijian zhi,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 32 (2002): 83–125.

5 “Zaoyi zhuafen” 皁衣髽婦, Yijian zhi 夷堅志, ed. He Zhuo 何卓 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2013 rpt. of 1981 ed.), “Dingzhi” 丁志, 4.566–67.

6 “Liu Gaizhi jiaozhou” 劉改之教授, Yijian zhi, “Zhiding” 支丁, 6.1015.

7 Xiaofei Tian, “Burn or Bury? Changing Relationship to Old Things at the Turn of the Ninth Century,” a paper presented at a conference honoring Professor Paul W. Kroll at the University of Colorado, Boulder on April 20–21, 2018.

8 For example, “Dayi guyi” 大儀古驛, Yijian zhi, “Bingzhi” 丙志 7.419–20.

9 Zhao Bian, “Ciyun seng Zhong xiwen qinge” 次韻僧重喜聞琴歌, Quan Songshi 全宋詩 (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1991–), 6: 339.4133.

10 “Wu Zushou,” Yijian zhi, “Yizhi” 19.348.

11 “Lufu gui” 潞府鬼, Yijian zhi, “Yizhi,” 20.358–59.

12 Robert Hymes has written perceptively on the complex issues of skepticism and credibility in these stories, see his “Truth, Falsity, and Pretense in Song China: An Approach through the Stories of Hong Mai,” Chūgoku shigaku 21 (2011): 1–28.

13 “Yuhua shilang” 玉華侍郎, Yijian zhi, “Yizhi,” 11.272–73.

14 Li Shangyin’s biography is “Li He xiaozhuan” 李賀小傳, Quan Tang wen 全唐文 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 780.17a–18a.

15 For example, “Tang Xiaoshi nü” 唐蕭氏女, Yijian zhi, “Dingzhi,” 18.691.

16 Xin Tangshu 新唐書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 176.5268–69.

17 The earliest source seems to be a short biographical notice written by Li Shangyin 李商隱, “Liu Yi zhuan” 劉乂傳 (another variant of his name), contained in Li Yishan wenji 李義山文集 (Sibu congkan chubian), 4.29a–30a.

18 “Liu Cha sihou wen” 劉叉死後文, Yijian zhi, “Yizhi,” 6.233.

19 Adopting the editor’s suggestion that wen 問 must be a mistake for jian 間.

20 In eastern Jiangxi, west of Nancheng. Magu was a Daoist center and the site of many mountain god cults.

21 Fish jumping through or over Dragon Gate was a standard metaphor for men passing the exam, and the three steps or levels referred to the three ranks of the candidates who passed.

22 Cai Yong (132–192) was a literatus known for his fondness for the qin. Once when someone was burning a log of paulownia wood, from the sounds the burning wood emitted Cai Yong knew it would make an excellent qin and he rescued the log from the fire. The qin he made from the wood was partly burned and was known as the “scorched tail qin.”

23 Wang Fangping and Cai Jing were Daoists associated with Magu Mountain and its Daoist sites. Stories have Wang becoming an immortal through his Daoist practices, and returning to the mountain to aid Cai Jing also become an immortal.

24 Liu now understood that in the lines about qin playing, the woman was hinting that she was a qin that had assumed human form.

25 Because the story gives the year that Liu Guo passed the examinations, that year being the year Zhan Gui placed first, Hong Mai has checked the list of those who passed, expecting to find Liu Guo’s name. But it was not there.

26 Classic of Poetry, no. 128/1.

27 A Tang garrison town in Luzhou (modern Changzhi, Shanxi).