Encyclopedia and dictionaries in premodern and early modern Japan: Chinese heritage and the local reordering of knowledge
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Matthias Hayek
Abstract
The Wakan sansai zue 和漢三才図会(Illustrated Compendium of the Three powers of Japan and China), is an illustrated book by Terajima Ryōan 寺 島良安, printed and published in Japan around 1715. Divided in three broad parts (or “powers”) of Heaven, Earth and Humanity, it belongs to a long line of “books ordered by categories” (leishu, Jp. ruisho 類書) a genre of reference books originating from China, often translated as “encyclopedias”. Although Ryōan’s work does share similarities and a common framework for organizing knowledge with Chinese and Japanese precedents, it also introduces significant changes that makes it quite unique in its genre. In this chapter, I will try to underline Wakan sansai zue’s originality as a product of a long history of adaptation of Chinese categories to local (Japanese) realities, that came to fruition within a particular context that saw the rise of commercial publishing.
Abstract
The Wakan sansai zue 和漢三才図会(Illustrated Compendium of the Three powers of Japan and China), is an illustrated book by Terajima Ryōan 寺 島良安, printed and published in Japan around 1715. Divided in three broad parts (or “powers”) of Heaven, Earth and Humanity, it belongs to a long line of “books ordered by categories” (leishu, Jp. ruisho 類書) a genre of reference books originating from China, often translated as “encyclopedias”. Although Ryōan’s work does share similarities and a common framework for organizing knowledge with Chinese and Japanese precedents, it also introduces significant changes that makes it quite unique in its genre. In this chapter, I will try to underline Wakan sansai zue’s originality as a product of a long history of adaptation of Chinese categories to local (Japanese) realities, that came to fruition within a particular context that saw the rise of commercial publishing.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface and acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Introduction: Regionally specified knowledge compendia between encyclopedia and chorography 1
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I Universal history, encyclopedia, and chorography: Early modern practices and forms of knowledge compilation
- The local, the regional, and the universal in knowledge compilations: Observations on the Codex Aldenburgensis 41
- Encyclopedia and dictionaries in premodern and early modern Japan: Chinese heritage and the local reordering of knowledge 95
- Imago et descriptio: Narrating Sicily in the modern period 147
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II Creating and organizing New Spanish knowledge: Early colonial compendia and “cultural encyclopedias”
- Dreams and the sacred thresholds of P’urhépecha power in the Relación de Michoacán 175
- Constructing a native heritage in New Spain? Bernardino de Sahagún’s Florentine Codex (1577) as a “cultural encyclopedia” 209
- Order and organization of knowledge on the New World in José de Acosta’s Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590) 323
- The problem solver: Colonial knowledge, authority, and the compilation of natural marvels in Juan de Cárdenas’s Problemas y secretos (1591) 339
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III Writing history and depicting knowledge: Compendia and “cultural encyclopedias” from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries
- Mastering the chaos of cross-cultural encounter in Andrés Pérez de Ribas’s Historia de los triumphos de nuestra santa fee (1645) 363
- Jesuit historiography and the making of the Kingdom of Quito: Juan de Velasco’s Historia del Reino de Quito (1789) 399
- A mid-nineteenth-century ethnographic atlas of the Tibetan world: The British Library’s Wise Collection 423
- Notes on the contributors 445
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface and acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Introduction: Regionally specified knowledge compendia between encyclopedia and chorography 1
-
I Universal history, encyclopedia, and chorography: Early modern practices and forms of knowledge compilation
- The local, the regional, and the universal in knowledge compilations: Observations on the Codex Aldenburgensis 41
- Encyclopedia and dictionaries in premodern and early modern Japan: Chinese heritage and the local reordering of knowledge 95
- Imago et descriptio: Narrating Sicily in the modern period 147
-
II Creating and organizing New Spanish knowledge: Early colonial compendia and “cultural encyclopedias”
- Dreams and the sacred thresholds of P’urhépecha power in the Relación de Michoacán 175
- Constructing a native heritage in New Spain? Bernardino de Sahagún’s Florentine Codex (1577) as a “cultural encyclopedia” 209
- Order and organization of knowledge on the New World in José de Acosta’s Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590) 323
- The problem solver: Colonial knowledge, authority, and the compilation of natural marvels in Juan de Cárdenas’s Problemas y secretos (1591) 339
-
III Writing history and depicting knowledge: Compendia and “cultural encyclopedias” from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries
- Mastering the chaos of cross-cultural encounter in Andrés Pérez de Ribas’s Historia de los triumphos de nuestra santa fee (1645) 363
- Jesuit historiography and the making of the Kingdom of Quito: Juan de Velasco’s Historia del Reino de Quito (1789) 399
- A mid-nineteenth-century ethnographic atlas of the Tibetan world: The British Library’s Wise Collection 423
- Notes on the contributors 445
