Editorial Notes

ON THE TRANSLATION

For a complete English translation of the Guideways, general readers may wish to con- sult the recent version by Anne Birrell (1999) despite her highly imaginative rendition of the names of places and things. Another English version by Hsiao-Chieh Cheng et al. (1985) may be useful but is also problematical in many places. Specialist readers will probably prefer the more reliable Italian version by Riccardo Fracasso (1996) or the one in French by Rémi Mathieu (1983). The latter two are sinological in style, however, with all names romanized instead according to the phonology of modern standard Mandarin. While this approach is sufficient for the scholar, it presents two problems for non- specialists. First, almost all Chinese graphs possess one or more meanings, and the nat- ural tendency when reading is to register their significant references as much as possi- ble in addition to recognizing their sounds. The names of places and things in the Guideways can be seen to fall into three categories: those that convey fairly compre- hensible meanings that can often be related to the accompanying descriptions; those that register an ambiguous meaning or multiple meanings that may or may not be re- lated to the descriptions; and those that cannot be understood with any certainty even if the graphs may function semantically in other contexts. Romanizing the names con- veniently avoids the many problems that arise with translation, but, for the English- language reader, it obscures the native experience of the text by suppressing much of its imagery. Second, it is certain that the original readers and most later ones before the rise of modern standard Mandarin never pronounced these names exactly as they are ro- manized today due to differences in historical phonology and dialect variations. The earliest commentator, Guo Pu, already noticed these problems in the early fourth cen- tury C.E. and sought to include his own suggestions, but it is not always clear just how accurate or helpful they are. Although the tradition of reading the text takes note of these suggestions in the absence of other aids, it has not yet been possible to locate a single origin of the text in time or place. Nor are the principles of Guo's phonological methods always obvious: often, he merely states how a graph should be pronounced. Thus, at present there is no reliable means to recover the authentic early pronuncia-

xvii tions as they might have been spoken by an ancient Chinese during the period when the text was first compiled. Since the focus of this book is on presenting the strange creatures for English-lan- guage readers, certain compromises have been inevitable. Regarding pronunciation, I have followed contemporary Western scholarly practice by providing romanizations of all names using the system. Most are in accord with modern standard Man- darin, but in certain cases as noted, I have, like Fracasso and Mathieu, followed the sug- gestions of Guo Pu and later Chinese commentators. Though these are probably anachronistic, for the most part, they remain the closest indications we have. In addi- tion, I have undertaken the risky venture of providing translations whenever possible of the names of creatures, places, and things. Though well aware of the risks involved in the more polysemous cases, I offer these translations as reasonable significations that would have occurred to traditional Chinese readers both to facilitate the reader's con- tact with this difficult text and to stimulate further consideration among specialists of what these names might have meant. In a few cases, I have decided to follow existing translations of names in Birell (1993,1999) and other previously published works in the hope of contributing to a common nomenclature for Chinese mythology. Neverthe- less, I have refrained altogether from translating when the meaning is genuinely unde- cidable or nonsensical or where the graphs appear to have been solely a transliteration. To give a more concrete idea of the problems, there is a bird whose name, Qiezhi [no. 199],* can mean "stealing-fat" and a mountain, Lema [see no. 210], whose name can mean "happy-horse." On the other hand, the creature called Conglong [no. 35], if translated, would literally be known as "Onion-Deaf," even though it has no connec- tion with onions or deafness. Some creatures are said to be named after the sound they make, and these can be signified either by meaningful graphs or by onomatopoetic ones. As for ambiguous cases, the graph ying in Ying River may be translated as "eminent," "brave," "flower," "heroic," "beauty," "handsome," and so forth. Here, I must admit that my choice may appear subjective in the absence of supporting evidence, and I offer such preferences only as hypotheses awaiting further confirmation. does not always indicate whether a noun is singular or plural. In the Guideways, it is sometimes stated that many creatures of a type can be found in a place or that such a creature can be found in a number of places. In many cases, it is not certain from the text whether the creature is a type or whether it exists only as an individual. Thus, I have tended to present each creature in the singular, reserving the plural for when the text specifically indicates or clearly implies it. This book presents translations of sections of the original text relevant to the illus- trations of the strange creatures in bold type. These are based on the standard edition, the Guideways through Mountains and Seas with Supplementary Commentaries (Shan- haijing jianshu, 1809) by Hao Yixing, which includes Guo Pu's commentary as well as his own. Others, such as those of Bi Yuan, Wang Fu, Wu Renchen, and Wang Chongqing, have also been consulted along with the more recent editions of Yuan Ke, Fracasso,

^Numbers in brackets refer to the creatures in the illustrations (see plates).

XVIII EDITORIAL NOTES Mathieu, Cheng et al., and Birrell. Following the translations is additional information that I have gathered and that I hope can shed further light on these strange creatures. Considerable later material about early Chinese mythology has been preserved, though its historicity is often difficult to assess. I have tried to present the Guideways as both an early text and one that has continued to be read through two millennia under chang- ing conditions of reception. Regrettably, considerations of time and space have pre- vented me from adding as much later material as I would have liked.

Measures

The following measures appear in the Guideways. There was considerable local varia- tion throughout during the premodern period as well as different official stan- dards through the centuries. Those listed below are approximate equivalences based on data from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century.

1 bu p =5 Chinese feet (chi R)or 60.5 inches 1 chi K = a Chinese foot or 14.1 inches (linear), 12.1 inches (itinerary) 1 li JL = 1/3 of a mile or 1821.15 feet 1 ren iH] =7 Chinese feet or 98.7 inches 1 xun if- = 8 Chinese feet or 112.8 inches 1 zhang = 10 Chinese feet or 141 inches 1 fx = 1.33 lbs.

1 shi if = 160 lbs. (weight), 23.4 gallons (volume)

CHINESE DATES AND DYNASTIES

Traditional dates of reigns and events for the Xia and Shang kings and for earlier thearchs are generally indicated based on Legge's translation of The Bamboo Annals (1966 ed.) when possible. The reader is advised, though, that these are not to be taken as accurate. Nivison has pointed out that many of the later dates are often a year late (Loewe [1993], 46). The earlier dates are not based on firm historical evidence but are provided sim- ply to suggest how these periods and events were chronologically arranged according to one example of traditional Chinese . For Chinese commentators such as Guo Pu and others up until the modern period, this chronology was sometimes rel- evant to their understanding of the text. Dates for the kings follow Shaugh- nessy in Loewe (1993), 509. Later dates follow the tables in volume 2 of Cihai (Hong Kong, 1979), Wilkinson, Chinese History: A Manual (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), and Loewe and Shaughnessy, eds., The Cambridge History ofAncient China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 28-29. The following are generally accepted dates for the more important dynasties and feudal states. However, the historical existence of the Xia dy- nasty is still a matter of scholarly debate, as are the exact dates of the Shang, the found- ing of the Zhou, and the origins of many of the feudal states of the Zhou.

EDITORIAL NOTES X I X Chinese Dynasties

Xia trad. c. 20th cent.-c. 16th cent, b.c.e. Erlitou period c. 1900-1350 B.C.E. Shang c. 1600-e. 1045 B.C.E. Zhou C. 1045-256 B.C.E. C. 1045-771 B.C.E. 770-256 B.C.E. 77O-476 B.C.E. 475-221 B.C.E. ?—206 B.C.E. 445-225 B.C.E. Han 424-23O B.C.E. Zhao 475-222 B.C.E. Chu 11th Cent.-223 B.C.E. 11th cent.-222 b.c.e. Jiang 11th cent.-379 b.c.e. Tian Qi 410-221 B.C.E. Jin ?-369 B.C.E. Qin 221-206 B.C.E. Han 206 B.C.E.—220 C.E. Western Han 206 B.C.E.—8 C.E. Xin ( Interregnum) 9-23 C.E. Eastern Han 25-220 C.E. 220-280 Wei 220-265 Shu-Han 221-263 Wu 222-280 Western Jin 265-316 Eastern Jin 317-420 Six Dynasties 222-589 304-439 Southern Dynasties 420-589 (Liu) Song 420-479 Southern Qi 479-502 Liang 502-557 Chen 557-589 Northern Dynasties 398-581 () 386-534 534-55O Western Wei 535-556 55O-577 557-581 Sui 581-618 Tang 618-907

EDITORIAL NOTES Five Dynasties 907-960 Latter Liang 907-923 Latter Tang 923-936 Latter Jin 936-946 Latter Han 947-950 Latter Chou 951-960 Ten Kingdoms 902-979 Wu 902-937 903-925 Wu-Yue 907-978 Chu 927-951 Min 909-945 917-971 Jingnan 924-963 Latter Shu 933-965 937-975 951-979 Song 960-1279 Northern Song 960-1126 Southern Song 1127-1279 Liao (Qidan/Khitan) 907-1125 Northern Liao 1122-1123 Western Liao 1124-1211 Western Xia (Dangxiang/Tangut) 1032-1227 Jin (Nuzhen/Jirchen) 1115-1234 Yuan (Menggu/Mongol) 1279-1368 Ming 1368-1644 Qing (Manzhou/Manchu) 1644-1911 Republic of China 1912- Taiwan, ROC 1949- People's Republic of China 1949-

ABBREVIATIONS

The following abbreviations are used in the notes and bibliography.

B Birrell, Chinese Mythology Bbcs Baibu congshu jicheng C Birrell, trans., The Classic of Mountains and Seas Csjc Congshu jicheng chubian F Fracasso, trans., Libro dei monti e dei mari G Ma, Guben shanhaijing tushuo H Hao Yixing, ed., Shanhaijingjianshu Hwcs Han Wei congshu

EDITORIAL NOTES X X I HY Harvard- Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series ICS The Chinese University of Hong Kong the ICS Ancient Chinese Text Concordance Series M Mathieu, trans., Étude sur la mythologie et l'ethnographie de la Chine ancienne: Traduction annotée du Shanhaijing Qszcs Qiushuzhai congshu S Cheng et al., trans., Shan hai ching: Legendary Geography and Wonders of Ancient China Sbby Sibu beiyao Sbck Sibu conkan chubian Skqs Yingyin wenyuange siku quanshu Ssjzs Shisanjing zhushu Y Yuan Ke, ed., Shanhaijing jiaozhu Zzjc Zhuzijicheng

XXII EDITORIAL NOTES