Author: None
Publisher: Jiuzhou Publishing House
Publishing Time: None
Features: The first time in 600 years that the world's largest encyclopedia, the Grand Canon of China, has been published, covering Confucian classics, history, philosophy, literature, astronomy, geography, Yin-Yang, divination, Buddhism, arts, and the thoughts of various schools. It includes classics, literary anthologies, poetry anthologies, dictionaries, Buddhist texts, medical texts, military texts, and art texts. Browse at will. Once a royal secret classic, now a treasure for the people. The Yongle Canon is a large-scale encyclopedia compiled under the supervision of Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty during the Yongle era. The compilation work began in the first year of Yongle (1403) and was completed in winter of the sixth year of Yongle (1408). Nearly three thousand court scholars and renowned Confucian scholars from all over the country were gathered to compile this book. The entire work consists of 22,877 volumes, with only the table of contents comprising 60 volumes, packaged into 10,950 sets, totaling approximately 370 million words, making it the Grand Canon of China’s past and present. The Yongle Canon contains an extremely rich collection of texts, with nearly 8,000 different books, more than twice as many as the Siku Quanshu. It comprehensively gathers classics, history, philosophy, literature, astronomy, geography, Yin-Yang, divination, Buddhism, arts, and the thoughts of various schools from ancient times to the early Ming Dynasty, leaving no stone unturned. To compile this book, not only were all the books from the Ming imperial library, the Wenyuan Pavilion, used, but a vast number of books were also collected from the general populace. After reviewing the completed draft, Emperor Yongle was highly satisfied and personally wrote a preface, describing it as "extending from the earliest times to the present, widely searching and collecting, compiling a profound and comprehensive canon." He also said, "With this, one can easily find what they seek, as if searching in a bag." Therefore, the Yongle Canon preserves a wealth of literary, artistic, historical, geographical, philosophical, religious, and applied scientific materials from the 15th century in China, making it three hundred years ahead of the Encyclopédie edited by Diderot and D’Alembert and the famous Encyclop?dia Britannica, with a scale far exceeding them, truly ranking as the world’s Grand Canon and the world’s encyclopedia.
The compilation method of the Yongle Canon is highly unique. It adopts a combination of phonetic and categorical organization, using the principle of "organizing characters by rhyme and connecting matters by characters." According to the rhyme index of the Hongwu Zhengyun, single characters are listed under each rhyme, with detailed annotations on their pronunciation, explanations, and scripts in Seal, Clerical, Regular, Running, and Cursive styles. Relevant content such as astronomy, geography, human affairs, terminology, as well as extraordinary writings, poems, and vernacular literature are then included based on each character. Researchers can easily trace the origins and contexts by "searching for characters by rhyme and exploring matters by characters," making the search straightforward and comprehensive.
The greatest contribution of the Yongle Canon lies in preserving the literature of various disciplines before the early Ming Dynasty. Many lost books from before the Ming Dynasty have been preserved thanks to this work. During the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty, when the Siku Quanshu was compiled, 385 books totaling more than 4,900 volumes were extracted from the Yongle Canon. These include Du Yu’s Spring and Autumn Interpretation from the Western Jin Dynasty, Lin Bao’s Yuanhe Surnames from the Tang Dynasty, the Old Five Dynasties History by Xue Jurong, included among the Twenty-Four Histories, the Annals of the Capital from the Jianyan Era from the early Southern Song Dynasty, the famous medical works Su Shen’s Good Methods and Bo Ji’s Formulas, and Chen Zhensun’s Catalogue of Books from the Zhuangzi School. Additionally, there are works such as Wen Zhuang’s Collected Poems by Xia Song, Pengcheng’s Collected Poems by Liu Fen, and Song Yuan’s Collected Poems. There are also a vast number of scientific works on medicine, agriculture, military strategy, and chemistry, as well as literary works like tales and dramas. Therefore, the Yongle Canon is a vast treasure trove, and many of its treasures remain largely unknown.
After the Qing Dynasty, the Yongle Canon suffered repeated calamities, especially during the Second Opium War and the Eight-Nation Alliance invasion, which brought devastating disasters to this work. Currently, only 370 copies, totaling 810 volumes, and approximately 20 million words of the Yongle Canon remain in the world. This book is the first time in 600 years that the magnificent Yongle Canon has been published with punctuation and simplified characters. Several scholars spent years working on it. In the past, the Yongle Canon was long kept in seclusion, merely serving as the imperial collection of the Ming and Qing emperors. After liberation, although there were photographic reproductions, they were not punctuated or simplified, making them difficult for ordinary readers to access. This book is the first to present the essence of the Yongle Canon, punctuated and organized, to the general public. It is not only a canon but also a practical and extraordinary encyclopedia that allows you to appreciate the depth and breadth of Chinese culture. At the same time, the book is exquisitely designed and decorated, making it an excellent choice for collection and gifting.
Okay, here is the translation following your instructions: 永乐大典 -> Yongle Dadian
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