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Rare Books

永樂大典 : [卷 10270-10271]

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Description: Cover title. On double leaves, oriental style. Ming Jiajing 41 nian zhi Ming Longqing yuan nian [1562-1567] jian zhi mo xie hong hei liang se chong chao ben. Ba hang er shi ba zi. 明嘉靖41年至明隆慶元年[1562-1567]間之摹寫紅黑兩色重抄本. 八行二十八字. Manuscript, in red and black ink, copied between the 41st year of the Jiajing - 1st year of the Longqing reign periods of the Ming dynasty. Eight columns per half-folio; 28 Chinese characters per column.The Yongle Encyclopedia (Yongle dadian 永樂大典), a title that could also be translated as the Great Compendium of the Yongle Reign, was commissioned in 1403 by the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty to compile and preserve important texts from ancient and imperial China into a single set. When completed in 1408, the Encyclopedia consisted of 22,877 sections bound in 11,095 volumes and was considered the largest of its kind in the world. Organization of the content was based on the Hongwu zhenyn 洪武正韻, a rhyming dictionary developed in the fourteenth century. These sections, 10270 and 10271, of the Yongle Encyclopedia deal with the education of an heir apparent. Its contents were taken from the "King Wen as Son and Heir" chapter of the Book of Rites (Liji 禮記), a collection of texts on social forms and rituals compiled by Confucian scholars during the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). In 1557, after a fire that nearly destroyed the set, the Jiajing Emperor ordered copies to be made from the original. From 1562 to 1567, a team of 109 court scribes transcribed the entire Encyclopedia. Today only about 419 unique Jiajing volumes have survived. The fate of the original volumes is still unknown.
Type: Rare Books(Opens in new tab)
Date: Ming Jiajing 41 nian Ming Longqing yuan nian [1562-1567] ; 明嘉靖41年-明隆慶元年 [1562-1567]
Call number: 645576
Provenance: Gift of Mabel Whiting, 1968. In 1900, this volume was taken out of China by Joseph Whiting, a Presbyterian missionary in Beijing, after the Siege of the International Legations from which many rare Chinese works then housed in the library of the Hanlin Academy were burned or looted.
Restrictions: RESTRICTED. Available with curator approval. Extended retrieval and delivery time required. A published facsimile is available see 646888
Dimensions: 50 cm
Associated people: Xie, Jin, (1369-1415.); Yao, Guangxiao, (1335-1419.); Gao, Gong, (1512-1578.)
Find out more: View in the Huntington Digital Library(Opens in new tab); View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

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