In the Zhenguan Period, poetry and essays flourished under the reign of Taizong.

 

In the past few years, the countrywide effort to compile and publish all sorts of documents from the Tang Dynasty can count numerous achievements. Reams of works on Tang law and Tang jurisprudence are now in print, including the Tang Code with Commentary and the Six Canons of Tang (an additional commentary to the Tang Code elaborating upon administrative matters), as well as other historical materials from the Tang and Song Dynasties and even works by individual scholars from the Tang Dynasty. This is not to mention the Old Book of Tang and the New Book of Tang in the 24 official histories of ancient and imperial China.

 

Publishing is a multi-step process, so the release of so many works in such a short time reflects great synchronicity between the discovery, collation and publication of these documents. Between 2000 and 2010 for instance, four large-scale works were completed: Collection of Epigraphy in Tang Dynasty and its sequel, edited by Zhou Shaoliang and Zhao Chao, in 2000 and 2001 respectively; Supplement of Articles in Tang Dynasty, edited and revised by Chen Shangjun, in 2004; Appendix of Articles in Tang Dynasty, edited by Wu Gang, in 2007; and Author Index in Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, edited by Chen Shangjun, in 2009.

 

Chen, president of the Chinese Society for Tang Dynasty Literature, believes this momentum will continue. “Since 2009, between 3,000 to 5,000 essays from the Tang Dynasty have been discovered. I believe that a large-scale compilation of these essays will come out soon.”

 

The Tang Dynasty is regarded as a cultural golden age in imperial Chinese history. Tang poetry and essays draw readers and scholars worldwide, while records from the dynasty possess tremendous historical value and cultural significance. In fact, scholars have been compiling Tang documents since imperial times. Today however, China’s scholars are doing more than passing down the torch: as new articles keep being discovered, scholars in China are trying to combine traditional methods with modern techniques made available from science, creating a whole new look for the compiling of Tang documents.  

 

Aside from the sheer breadth of some of the documents being gathered and collated, one of the notable features of this ongoing scholarly work is the amount of time much of it takes to complete. For instance, a recently published complete collection of the famed poet Du Fu’s works was in progress for decades before it made it to the printing press. Annotation of Du Fu’s Complete Works edited by Xiao Difei, was a nationally planned project as part of an effort to compile Tang Literature after the founding of the People’s Republic of China,” explained Du Zexun, a professor from the Institute of Classical Literature at Shandong University’s Advanced Institute for Confucian Studies. “It has taken three generations of scholars’ endeavors over the course of nearly thirty years to complete.”   

 

Scholarship on Tang Dynasty literature and history generally falls into four areas: the Chinese mainland, Chinese Hongkong and Chinese Taiwan, Japan, and the West. Chinese mainland scholars are still in the foremost position for collating and researching primary documents.

 

“We are sort of in a spot where we don’t have anyone to talk these issues over with,” Chen Shangjun commented gravely, referring to China’s leading position in basic document research. He pointed out that Taiwan has a lot of advantages from which the Mainland can learn, namely, more familiarity with and fluency in Western research methods, and more facility putting new concepts and new research avenues into practice. However, “due to the limits of academic standards, scholars in Taiwan are obviously falling behind in the revision, distinction, annotation and compilation of documents.”  

 

Japanese scholars are known for their meticulous and systematic research, which has drawn the attention of other academics worldwide. For instance, between 1989 and 1991 Hiraoka Takeo authored 12 volumes for a collection entitled Handbook of Tang Dynasty Studies, which serves primarily as a resource to aid fellow scholars. He also wrote Historical Materials of Tang History in an attempt to restore the former importance accorded to research on Tang documents. Catalogue of Imperial Orders in Tang Dynasty, written by Ikeda Yukata in 1991, reorganized all of the imperial orders listed in Illustrious Persons in the Literary World, Collection of Tang Imperial Orders, and Full Collection of Tang Literature chronologically. The work was intended as a supplement to the timeline of Tang History in Hiraoka’s Historical Materials of the Tang History.

 

Chen Shangjun commented that the next generation of Japanese scholars has yet to pick up the mantle of their academic forbearers and have altogether gone in different directions.  

 

“Relatively speaking, Western scholars lack punctiliousness and a systematic approach in compiling Tang documents,” Du Wenyu, professor of the College of History and Civilization at Shaanxi Normal University, observed. He noted that while some Western scholars have worked on compilations of documents about Dunhuang and the Western regions in China, few of them have studied documents from or relating to the Tang Dynasty (construction of the Mogao caves at Dunhuang flourished during the Sui and Tang Dynasties).

 

Wu Minxia, director of the Shaanxi Office for the Collation of Ancient Books director of the Institute for Ancient Books at the Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences, forecasted that foreign sinologists will have a relatively moderate influence on domestic scholars. He noted that the depth of foreign research is inevitably slight because of foreign scholars are working with an insufficient document base and they have no solution by which to muster a Chinese cultural identity.   

 

This is not to say that Chinese scholars are not encouraging foreigners to study Tang documents. On the contrary there is a push for Chinese scholars to make the most of academic collaboration with foreign scholars, with each side playing to its strengths and together fostering an atmosphere of mutual respect. For Chinese scholars, this involves actively trying to adapt and apply lessons from the West and Japan’s excellent academic practices.  

 

Some scholars’ work has already paved the way. For instance, Documents from Turpan and Dunhuang and Studies on the History of Tang Dynasty, written by Li Jinxiu, a researcher from the Institute of History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), gives a comprehensive introduction and analysis of both Chinese and Japanese scholars’ achievements on the Sui and Tang Dynasties and the Five Dynasties through materials collected at Turpan and Dunhuang.

 

Today, modern digital techniques play a significant role in collation, adding both precision and ease to the task. Bibliographic databases, full-text retrieval databases and comprehensive databases are being developed one after another. CASS already has two retrieval systems for Tang texts, one for poetry and one for literature, while Nanjing Normal University has a similar retrieval system that includes poetry from the Song Dynasty and Five Dynasties and Northeast Normal University has comprehensive retrieval system for political documents from the Zhenguan Period (the reign of Tang Dynasty Emperor Taizong from 626-649, considered one of the most exemplary periods in imperial Chinese history).

 

While modern techniques certainly facilitate research and bolster the collator’s toolkit, Cheng Shangjun iterated the need to retain traditional research methods.

 

“Traditional research methods are still a powerful force. Their continuance reflects Chinese scholarship passing the torch,” Li Hao, a professor from Northwest University seconded. Through the efforts of Chinese scholars, the compilation of Tang Dynasty documents has made substantive progress, and the movement has gleaned international attention, Li added. Still, he advised that Chinese scholars should reach out to the greater academic community, seeking more opportunities for collaboration.

     

 

The Chinese version appeared in Chinese Social Sciences Today, No. 447, May 8, 2013

 

                                                                                                                           Translated by Zhang Mengying