Chapter 17 Section 3 Classification and Cataloging of Books

The books of the Sui and Tang dynasties mostly follow the four categories of classics, history, sons and collections. The ten chronicles (30 volumes) in "Sui Shu" were originally compiled for the compilation of the historical annals of the Five Dynasties.Among them, "Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi" adjusted and supplemented the four classifications previously advocated by Xun Xu in the Western Jin Dynasty and Li Chong in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (the order of the four parts of the two is different), forming a complete Chinese book classification system.It determines the order as classics, history, sons, and collections, and then divides them into several subdivisions under each department.The classics are divided into 10 categories: Yi, Shu, Poetry, Ritual, Music, Spring and Autumn, Analects (Fuerya, General Meaning of the Five Classics), Xiaojing, Primary School, and Prophecy; the history is divided into official history, ancient history, miscellaneous history, hegemony, and daily life There are 13 categories of notes, old affairs, official posts, ritual notes, criminal law, miscellaneous biographies, geography, genealogy, and book records; There are 14 categories of calendar, five elements, and medical prescriptions; the collections include Chuci, Bieji, and Zongji.After the collection department, Taoist scriptures (jingjie, bait clothes, talismans, Fangzhong) and Buddhist scriptures (sutras, laws, and treatises) are attached.This classification method lasted for 1300 years from the beginning of Tang Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty, and many people still use this classification method when compiling ancient book catalogues.

It is worth noting that "Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi" has one general preface, four post-prefaces to four parts, 40 classified sub-prefaces, two prefaces to Taoism and one post-preface, a total of 48 articles.These are very important documents for studying the academic history (especially the history of book development) before the early Tang Dynasty.In the general preface, it describes the brief process of book development before the early Tang Dynasty, from the production of books, the deletion of books by Confucius, the burning of books by the Emperor Qin, to the correction of books by Liu Xiang and Liu Xin in the Western Han Dynasty, the correction of books by Ban Gu and Fu Yi in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the correction of books in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, until The school books of Niu Hong and Liu (Shang Qiao Xia Ji) in the Sui Dynasty outline a history of book development for us.As for the suborder of the classification, the academic value is higher. For example, the Book of Records of the Ministry of History lists 29 bibliographies compiled by scholars of various generations since Liu Xiang in the Western Han Dynasty, providing a search basis for future generations to inquire about relevant books.

The description of the book catalog is an important content of the book catalogue, and the book reflects its content and form through the description. Therefore, the description not only shows the knowledge level of the book cataloger, but also marks the maturity of the bibliography.Viewed from this perspective, the bibliographic level of Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi is quite high, basically including the bibliographic items required by modern bibliography, namely the title, author, edition, notes and other main contents.First of all, it describes the title of the book and the number of volumes; secondly, it describes the author, including the era, official position, and name.Thirdly, describe the different editions; in addition, give notes on those that cannot be included in the title, author and edition of the book.The content of the annotations is very wide, and some of them also annotate the titles of the books;It was written by the pseudo-Yan Tai Fu Changshi Tianrong; some also noted the incompleteness or loss of the book, such as "four volumes of "Book of Changes", annotated by Huang Ying, a scholar in Jin Dynasty, and ten volumes in Liang, which are incomplete today". The book description style of Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi played an exemplary role in the cataloging work of subsequent generations.

Several bibliographies compiled by the Sui Dynasty have long been lost.The most famous bibliography recording the books of the Sui Dynasty is "Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi" compiled in the Tang Dynasty, which includes the "Catalogue of Sui Daye Zhengyu Books" compiled by Liu (Shang Qiao Xia Ji) sent by Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty in the early years of Daye . Apart from Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi, the most important catalogs compiled in the Tang Dynasty were Qun Shu Si Bu Lu and Gu Jin Shu Lu. "Qunshu Sibulu" was compiled by Yuan Xingchong, Yin Jianyou, Wu Yu [jiong Jiong], Wei Shu, Yu Qin and others in the fifth year of Kaiyuan (717 AD), with a total of 200 volumes.There are major and minor prefaces, problem solving, and 2655 volumes of books, 48169 volumes. It is one of the famous official catalogs in my country.After the catalog was completed, Wu Yi, one of the editors, pointed out that this bibliography has some shortcomings, including incomplete collection of government books, and errors in classification and problem solving.However, this catalog has been lost in the Song Dynasty, so it is impossible to comment further.

In order to make up for the shortcomings of Qunshu Sibulu, Wu Yi "revised more than 300 articles that were lost in the old biography, and added more than 6,000 volumes of new books", and compiled 40 volumes of "Gujin Shulu", divided into classics and history. There are 45 subcategories in four volumes, zi and ji, with 3,060 titles and 51,852 volumes.The collection of books in this bibliography was also limited to the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty. Judging from the above situation, "Gujin Shulu" is just a revised version of "Qunshu Sibulu".This bibliography was included in the second catalog of the history department catalog of "Song History·Yiwenzhi" compiled in the Yuan Dynasty, but unfortunately it was lost later.

The second volume of "Book of Tang Jing Ji Zhi" was written by Liu Yan (xu Xu) and others in the Later Jin Dynasty of the Five Dynasties.This catalog is taken from Wu Yu's "Gujin Shulu", and the original sequence and annotations are deleted. It also ends in the Kaiyuan period of Tang Dynasty, and the subsequent books are not included.Its purpose is to "record the four books in the heyday of Kaiyuan to show the prosperity of art and literature." The books after Kaiyuan are included in the author's biography. The four volumes of "New Book of Tang Yiwenzhi" were written by Ouyang Xiu and others in the Song Dynasty.It is still based on "Gujin Shulu". In addition to recording the books contained in "Shulu", 27,127 volumes of writings written by Tang people after Kaiyuan were added.Each category in the "Yiwenzhi" is divided into two parts: "recorded" and "unrecorded", the former refers to the original description of "Gujin Shulu"; the latter refers to the works of the Tang Dynasty supplemented by Ouyang Xiu and others.In this way, future generations can understand the whole picture of the collection of books in the Tang Dynasty.