Manshu

Template:Incomplete translation

Manshu (蠻書)
by Fan Chuo, edited by Palace Museum Library, translated from Template:ISO 639 name by Walter Stanish and Wikisource

Template:Plain sisterA 9th century Middle Chinese text regarding the geopolitics of southwest China, particularly the historic kingdom of Nanzhao. It is an important historical source for the period. This translation is based upon a digitized version of the recompiled 1774 movable type edition edited by the 武英 (Palace Museum Library).

[[Category:Works originally in Template:ISO 639 name]]

Front Matter

On the Southern Barbarians (蠻書)

Chapter 1: Distances within Yunnan and at its Borders (云南界内途程; yúnnán jiè nèi túchéng)
Describing the routes from Jiāozhǐ (交阯城; ie. North Vietnam), Chéngdū (成都府; ie. Sichuan), Yōngzhōu (邕州; ie. Guangxi) and Qiánzhōu (黔州; ie. Guizhou) to Yángxiefai (陽苴咩城; ie. Dali).
Chapter 2: Geography; or Mountains and rivers; or Mountains, River-plains, Rivers, and Headwaters (山川江源; shānchuān jiāng yuán)
Describing the areas around Tuòdōngchéng (柘東城; ie. Kunming), Diàncāngshān (玷蒼山; ie. Dali), west of Yǒngchāng (永昌; ie. Bǎoshān) including the Gāolíqíshān Mountains (高黎其山) and the Nùjiāng River (怒江; ie. upper Salween), north of kunming (xichang area), around kunming, and the Láncāngjiāng River (ie. Mekong) River and Yǒngchāng (永昌; ie. Bǎoshān).
Chapter 3: The Six Kingdoms (六诏; liù zhào)
Describing the kingdoms of Méngguī (蒙巂); Móxiēzhào (磨些詔) or Yuèxī (越析) and the Yuzèng Tribe (於贈部落) or Yángduò (楊墮); Làngqióng (浪穹) and The Breaking of the Wave (劍浪); Téngdǎn (邆賧); Shīlàng (施浪); Shīwàngqiān (施望千), Jiànchuān (劍川) and Tǔbō (吐蕃; ie. post-Tibetan Empire Kham Tibet); and Méngshè (蒙舍); as well as the history of The Recorded Oath (誓文).
Chapter 4: Nomenclature or Names and classifications (名类; míng lèi)
Describing the Western Cuàn (西爨) and the Eastern Cuàn (東爨) or Cuàn (爨) and their historic domains; The Birth of Nánzhào (南詔); Nánzhào (南詔) attacks Ānnán (安南; ie. Chinese imperial controlled north Vietnam); The Dújǐn Barbarians (獨錦蠻), the Móuxún (牟尋) and Lòngdòng (弄棟); The Qīnglíng Barbarians (青蛉蠻); The tribes north of the Iron Bridge (鐵橋); The Chángkūn Barbarians (長裈蠻) of Jiànchuān (劍川); The River Barbarians (河蠻); The Shī Barbarians (施蠻); The Shùn Barbarians (順蠻); The Mó Barbarians (磨蠻); The Móxiē Barbarians (磨些蠻); The Pūzi Barbarians (撲子蠻); The Xúnzhuàn Barbarians (尋傳蠻); The Luǒxíng (or Naked) Barbarians (裸形蠻); The Wàngjūzi Barbarians (望苴子蠻); The Yù Tribe (喻部落); The Black, Gold and Silver Tooth Barbarians (黑金銀齒蠻) and the Leg and Face Tattoo Barbarians (繡腳面蠻) of Yǒngchāng (Prefecture) (永昌; ie. modern Baoshan); The Pierced Nose Barbarians (穿鼻蠻), Long Mane Barbarians (長鬃蠻), Ridgepole Range Barbarians (棟峰蠻) and other barbarians are located to the south of Tuòdōngchéng (柘東城; ie. modern Kunming); The Máng Barbarians (茫蠻; ie. Pyu?) south of Yǒngchāng (永昌城; ie. modern Baoshan); The Fēngpá Barbarians (豐琶蠻); The Chóngmó Barbarians (崇魔蠻; lit. 'Devil Worshipping Barbarians').
Chapter 5: The Six Market-city Prefectures^[1]) (六𧸘; liù jian)
Describing Dàhé City (大和城); Lóngkǒu City (龍口城); Dàlǐ City (大厘城); Yángxiefai City (陽苴咩城), Téngchuān City (邆川城); Méngshěchuān (蒙舍川) (Qúliǎnzhào (渠斂趙) and Shíhéchéng (石和城), Báiyá City (白崖城) and Bólòngchuān (勃弄川)).
Chapter 6: Cities and towns of Yunnan (云南城镇; yúnnán chéngzhèn)
Yúnnán City (雲南城; ie. modern Yunnanyi), Nòngdōng City (弄棟城), Tuodong City (柘東城), Jìnníng Prefecture (晉寧州), Shíchéngchuān (石城川), Ānníng Town (安寧鎮), Níngběi City (寧北城), Tiěqiáo (Iron Bridge) City (鐵橋城), Kūnmíng City (昆明城), Yǒngchāng City (永昌城; ie. modern Baoshan), etc.
Chapter 7: Products of regions under Yunnan governance (云南管内物产; yúnnán guǎnnèi wùchǎn)
Planting and harvesting patterns, rice, wheat, barley, rice alcohol, plows, agricultural taxation, silk production, origin of silk production, cultural norms for wearing silk, Clothing of Neighbouring Areas, Kham Tibetan textile production, Salt, Xuánzōng's Attack of 749, Further Notes on Salt, Shēngmá (升麻), Tōnghǎi (通海), Ānníng (安寧), Lángjǐng (郎井), Lǎndǎn City (覽賧城), Lúnán (瀘南), Kūnmíng City (昆明城), Tibetan salt preparation by charcoal, Nanzhao salt preparation by evaporation, Lóngqièhé River (龍怯河), Liǎnxún (斂尋), Míqián Well (彌潛井), Shāduī Well (沙追井), Ruòyē Well (若耶井), Huìnì Well (諱溺井), Jiànchuān (劍川), Xìnuòdèng Well (細諾鄧井), Líshuǐ City (麗水城), Luójū Well (羅苴井), salt cake size standards, salt in trade, Tea, Trees, Herbs and Fruits, tea of Yínshēng City (銀生城), herbal drink of the Méngshè Barbarians (蒙舍蠻), lychee, betel-nut (Areca catechu), hēlílēi (unidentified black tree-borne fruit), coconut, sugar palm, Yǒngchāng (永昌; ie. modern Baoshan), Líshuǐ (麗水), Zhǎngbàng (長傍) and Jīnshān (金山), Dàlí City (大厘城), tangerines, Níngdǎn (寧賧), Líshuǐ City (麗水城), jackfruit, muskmelons of Seoul (Korea), realgar, orpiment, qīngmùincense, huògēnuò wood, the mí vine, wild mulberry wood, military bowmaking, Gold panning, method of panning, relative value of nuggets, laws and taxes on gold, the sand punishment, forced labour, Silver, Tin, Amber, Horses, method of raising horses, stables vs. paddocks, Rhinoceros, pit traps for rhinos, thunderstorms when killing rhinos, military use of rhino hides, Tigers, use of skin as clothing, relative coloration by habitat, Musk, Buffalo, different species of buffalo and their range, Deer, Fish and Water Animals, fish, geese, ducks, great pheasants, reed-birds, crocodiles, kingfishers, magpies, mallard ducks, pigeons or doves, crows, mynahs, Elephants, Culinary Resources, pigs, goats, cats, dogs, mules, donkeys, leopards, rabbits, geese, ducks, cooking preferences, Weaponry, the duó qiào, the zhū gě, the 'Duóqiào that Fell from Heaven', the Yùdāo, use of poisons, smelting.
Chapter 8: Native barbarian customs (蛮夷风俗; mányí fēngsú)
Clothing, tóu náng (頭囊) headgarb, caochang (曹長) skirts, tiger skins (大蟲皮) / boluo skins (波羅皮), qūjū (佉苴) belts, female hair ornaments, Women and courtship, the Nanzhao harem, imperial harems, music and courting of youth, wedding matters, Festivals and holidays, winter holidays, courtship in nature, lunar new year, other holidays, Dining, wine drinking etiquette, the popularity of geese, the équē (鵝闕) dish, tableware of kings and commoners, Weights, Measures and Currency, Barbarian chǐ (尺), Barbarian lǐ (裏), measure-weights, silk bolt lengths, field sizes, manner of commerce and barter, Architecture, ordinary houses, barns, Funerary rites , White Barbarian burials, Mengshe and Black Barbarian cremations, cremation vessels, Spoken languages, standardization and relative popularity, similarities with Middle Chinese, negotiation by xingnuo ('walking promise') messenger, Western Cuan vocabulary, Eastern Cuan vocabulary, Military Culture, military provisioning, military behaviour, military policy.
Chapter 9: Points on the southern barbarians (南蛮条教; nánmán tiáo jiào)
Southern customs, military culture ...
Chapter 10: Countries beyond the southern barbarian borders (南蛮疆界接连诸蕃夷国名; nánmán jiāngjiè jiēlián zhūfān yí guómíng)
Mínuò (彌諾國) and Míchén (彌臣國), Biāo (驃國), Kūnlún (昆侖國), Roman Brahman Country (大秦婆羅門國), Little Brahman Country (小婆羅門), Midnight Country (夜半國), the Country of the Queen (女王國), Water Zhenla (水真蠟國) and Land Zhenla (陸真蠟國), Nánzhào (南詔), the Tibetan Tubo Dynasty (吐蕃).

(Guess before we got there: Given the previous translator Gordon H. Luce's focus on Burmese history, this is probably the area he was most interested in. Judging from his map, the text covers the Mon Kingdom of Dvaravati, the Pyu of Burma,^[2] and the upper Brahmaputra valley / Assam region. Note also that Chapter 2 contains probable reference to Cambodia and Champa (Zhenla), chapters 2, 3, 4 and 6 reference Tibet, chapters 1, 4 and 6 reference what is now north Vietnam, chapters 4 and 6 references Myanmar, chapter 6 references India, Persia (Iran), and probably either Thailand or Cambodia.) Chapter 7 draws allusion to fruit of Seoul, Korea.

References

↑ The character in question, which can be viewed at the internet archive's scanned copy of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries《四库全书》edition (courtesy of Zhejiang University Library and archive.org) and which also has an entry at Chinese Wiktionary (with no known meanings listed), combines 贝 (meaning shell, and later shell money — as supposed in the Sino-Tibetan etymology notably including a similar phonetic in the Kachin language, and a not dissimilar Proto-Zhuang-Tai record) with 佥 (meaning a gathering), and is thus in a rough semantic sense plausibly a term used for local markets in the region where the use of shells as currency was widespread and well documented — to Westerners, famously allegedly by Marco Polo — through at least the Yuan dynasty.

The character is actually 𧸘 in Unicode however that usually only displays as an empty box (sometimes known as "tofu") on most computers owing to font limitations on rare Chinese characters. Mandarin pronunciation (as irrelevant as that may be for a source of this age) is alleged by Chinese Wiktionary (probably direct from the Unicode Unihan database) as being liàn, biǎn, or jiǎn — for what that's worth... the earlier two having some plausible phonetic similarity with the Proto-Sino-Tibetan and Proto-Zhuang-Tai, respectively. My probably reliable general comprehension is that the closing consonant is the least reliable portion of a character's phoneme when brought forward to Mandarin from ancient pronunciation, with many closing sounds (evidenced for example with final 'k' in Cantonese, which is more honest with respect to Tang Dynasty pronunciations) dropped entirely or morphed in to softer variants. Thus instead of (lian or bian or jian) we can vaguely reconstruct the phoneme as follows — (l or b or j) + (possibly an ee type sound, or some longer form or dipthong variant thereof) + (optionally some kind of closing consonant: probably not n). We can probably get some further input from an appropriately experienced linguist here.

(Update: September 2017. User:Justinrleung pointed out that "When it refers to the administrative division, it is read as jiǎn (based on Song dynasty《唐書釋音》九儉切)." ... clarifying "Hanyu Da Zidian cites 唐書釋音 for the fanqie for 𧸘. I've checked and its corresponding scanned version; it seems to use 瞼 instead of 𧸘. 唐書 itself (editions: 欽定四庫全書, 武英殿二十四史, 摛藻堂四庫全書薈要) also uses 瞼 instead of 𧸘. That said, Hanyu Da Zidian also cites Gu Zuyu (a Qing dynasty scholar), who says 𧸘 is pronounced as 簡". So there you have it: jian.)
↑ Luce marks the capital at Halin or Halingyi (ဟန်လင်းကြီး [həlɪ́ɴdʑí]), located in the Mu valley, one of the largest irrigated regions of precolonial Burma. The earliest artifacts of Halin—city's wooden gates—are radiocarbon dated to 70 CE. The city was rectangular but with curved corners, and brick-walled. Excavated walls are approximately 3.2 km long on the north-south axis and 1.6 km on the east-west. At 664 hectares, the city was nearly twice the size of Beikthano. It has four main gates at the cardinal points, and a total of 12 gates, based on the zodiac. A river or canal ran through the city. Traces of a moat exist on all sides except the south, which had dammed reservoirs. The script at the site is the earliest writing in the Pyu realm (and in Burma), probably based on a later version of the Brahmi script, Guptan Brahmi.

[1] The character in question, which can be viewed at the internet archive's scanned copy of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries《四库全书》edition (courtesy of Zhejiang University Library and archive.org) and which also has an entry at Chinese Wiktionary (with no known meanings listed), combines 贝 (meaning shell, and later shell money — as supposed in the Sino-Tibetan etymology notably including a similar phonetic in the Kachin language, and a not dissimilar Proto-Zhuang-Tai record) with 佥 (meaning a gathering), and is thus in a rough semantic sense plausibly a term used for local markets in the region where the use of shells as currency was widespread and well documented — to Westerners, famously allegedly by Marco Polo — through at least the Yuan dynasty.

The character is actually 𧸘 in Unicode however that usually only displays as an empty box (sometimes known as "tofu") on most computers owing to font limitations on rare Chinese characters. Mandarin pronunciation (as irrelevant as that may be for a source of this age) is alleged by Chinese Wiktionary (probably direct from the Unicode Unihan database) as being liàn, biǎn, or jiǎn — for what that's worth... the earlier two having some plausible phonetic similarity with the Proto-Sino-Tibetan and Proto-Zhuang-Tai, respectively. My probably reliable general comprehension is that the closing consonant is the least reliable portion of a character's phoneme when brought forward to Mandarin from ancient pronunciation, with many closing sounds (evidenced for example with final 'k' in Cantonese, which is more honest with respect to Tang Dynasty pronunciations) dropped entirely or morphed in to softer variants. Thus instead of (lian or bian or jian) we can vaguely reconstruct the phoneme as follows — (l or b or j) + (possibly an ee type sound, or some longer form or dipthong variant thereof) + (optionally some kind of closing consonant: probably not n). We can probably get some further input from an appropriately experienced linguist here.

(Update: September 2017. User:Justinrleung pointed out that "When it refers to the administrative division, it is read as jiǎn (based on Song dynasty《唐書釋音》九儉切)." ... clarifying "Hanyu Da Zidian cites 唐書釋音 for the fanqie for 𧸘. I've checked and its corresponding scanned version; it seems to use 瞼 instead of 𧸘. 唐書 itself (editions: 欽定四庫全書, 武英殿二十四史, 摛藻堂四庫全書薈要) also uses 瞼 instead of 𧸘. That said, Hanyu Da Zidian also cites Gu Zuyu (a Qing dynasty scholar), who says 𧸘 is pronounced as 簡". So there you have it: jian.)

[2] Luce marks the capital at Halin or Halingyi (ဟန်လင်းကြီး [həlɪ́ɴdʑí]), located in the Mu valley, one of the largest irrigated regions of precolonial Burma. The earliest artifacts of Halin—city's wooden gates—are radiocarbon dated to 70 CE. The city was rectangular but with curved corners, and brick-walled. Excavated walls are approximately 3.2 km long on the north-south axis and 1.6 km on the east-west. At 664 hectares, the city was nearly twice the size of Beikthano. It has four main gates at the cardinal points, and a total of 12 gates, based on the zodiac. A river or canal ran through the city. Traces of a moat exist on all sides except the south, which had dammed reservoirs. The script at the site is the earliest writing in the Pyu realm (and in Burma), probably based on a later version of the Brahmi script, Guptan Brahmi.

[1]

[2]