Quick Answer: What Is the Yongle Encyclopedia?
The Yongle Dadian (永乐大典, Yǒnglè Dàdiǎn), or Yongle Encyclopedia, is a vast compilation of earlier Chinese writing assembled from 1403 to 1408 in the Ming dynasty (明朝, Míng Cháo). Commissioned by the Yongle emperor (永乐帝, Yǒnglè Dì), it gathered texts for reference rather than replacing them with newly written summary articles.[1][2]
- Arrangement: Rhyme groups organize characters, and characters lead readers to materials associated with them.[2]
- Material form: The great compilation existed as handwritten volumes, not a mass-printed reference set.[4]
- Survival: The original’s fate remains unresolved; surviving manuscript volumes principally belong to the later backup copy.[3]
Separate the complete historical project from the surviving volumes and from modern reproductions of those volumes.
A photograph of a surviving Yongle Encyclopedia volume shows a witness to an enormous project, not the whole encyclopedia in miniature. Understanding its organization, manuscript copies and losses makes its surviving pages easier to read—and prevents impressive numbers from concealing what actually remains.
An Imperial Compilation: Purpose and Scale
The imperial preface presents the work as an answer to the difficulty of searching a vast inherited literature. It links collecting and ordering books with political unity and the ruler’s cultural responsibilities. That is the project’s own statement of purpose, written in an imperial voice, rather than a neutral description of every effect the compilation had.[1]
Its ambitions extended across history, geography, institutions, religious writing, objects, literary works and other material. The rules allow complete works to be incorporated in appropriate places as well as passages selected by subject. The result is a repository of earlier texts with an elaborate retrieval structure.[2]
Two units must be distinguished: juan (卷, juàn), a textual division, and ce (册, cè), a bound physical volume. The familiar totals refer to different things.[1][4]
| Number and unit | What it counts |
|---|---|
| 22,877 juan | Main text divisions. |
| 60 juan | Directory and editorial-rule divisions added to the main text. |
| 22,937 juan | The combined total of those two groups. |
| 11,095 ce | The bound-volume total, not another count of chapters. |
A surviving volume can contain more than one juan. Before comparing a library holding, a facsimile set or a reported discovery, check which unit is being counted. A number without its unit can badly distort the scale of survival.[4]
Rhyme, Characters and Cross-References: How It Was Organized
The fanli (凡例, fánlì), or editorial rules, explain the principle: use rhyme to organize characters, then characters to connect materials. Hongwu Zhengyun (洪武正韵, Hóngwǔ Zhèngyùn), a rhyme dictionary, supplies the framework. This is neither English alphabetical order nor a simple table of modern academic subjects.[2]
A character can gather several meanings. The rules use lu (律, lǜ) as an example: musical pitch standards, law and religious disciplinary rules can fall under that one character, with internal headings distinguishing the matters. A modern reader searching only for a contemporary English subject label could miss this structure.[2]
Place names also require cross-references. The rules place material for Yingtian (应天, Yìngtiān) under its significant character, while connecting earlier names such as Jiankang (建康, Jiànkāng) and Jinling (金陵, Jīnlíng) to the main treatment. Historical renaming is handled through links within the compilation rather than by assuming that different names identify unrelated places.[2]
The same rules address variant names, overlapping biographies and materials best kept whole. They express an editorial plan, not proof that every surviving entry executes it without error. For another arrangement of excerpts and literary works, compare the Yiwen Leiju ガイド。
The Yongle Original, the Jiajing Copy and Later Losses
The sixteenth-century Jiajing copy (嘉靖副本, Jiājìng Fùběn) is a later manuscript witness, distinct from the early-fifteenth-century original. A work’s title does not date its physical copy. The original’s fate remains unresolved.[3]
The later copy suffered losses before the severe disaster of 1900, followed by further dispersal. Surviving objects have individual ownership, annotation and repair histories.[3]
Reproductions reconnect access to scattered witnesses; they cannot recover absent pages. Texts extracted for later projects, including the Siku Quanshu project, are recoveries of particular works, not restoration of the complete encyclopedia.
How to Read a Surviving Volume or Digital Record
A useful catalogue example is the volume containing juan 3579–3581 under cun (村, cūn), “village.” Its record describes the first two juan as gathering geographic and historical materials associated with the character; the third gathers poetry. One character thus brings different source genres together, while three textual divisions occupy one physical object.[4]
The catalogue establishes the object’s identity and scope; it does not replace a close reading of its pages. Consult images of the relevant passage before making claims about its wording. If only a catalogue record is available, limit the conclusion to what that record documents.
- Identify the witness: Record the holding institution, shelfmark, juan range, copy date and whether you are seeing an original object or reproduction.
- Find the entry: Follow the rhyme and character heading, then identify the cited source and any internal subheading.
- Read beyond the search hit: Inspect adjacent pages and notes, keeping the quoted work’s voice separate from editorial framing.
A digital collection may offer images, metadata, searchable text or only some of these. Check the individual record’s coverage before assuming that a result is a full transcription or translation. Use the Chinese literature guide for context on the kinds of writing brought together.
FAQs About the Yongle Encyclopedia
Was the Yongle Encyclopedia originally printed?
The historical compilation was a manuscript project. A modern printed facsimile is a reproduction of surviving material, not evidence that the original complete encyclopedia circulated as a printed edition.
Does digitization mean the entire encyclopedia is available?
No. Digitizing a holding makes that surviving material accessible. It does not recover absent volumes or guarantee that every page has searchable text, a transcription or an English translation.
Was everything lost in a single fire?
No. The original’s fate and the later copy’s losses are separate questions. Damage and dispersal occurred over time; reducing the history to a single fire obscures those distinctions.
出典
[1] Public-domain imperial preface. Imperial preface to the Yongle Dadian
[2] Public-domain editorial rules. Yongle Dadian fanli: organization and retrieval rules
[3] National Library of China, Chinese Ancient Books Preservation. Xu Haiyan: a survey of facsimile publication of the Yongle Dadian (2026)
[4] Bureau of Cultural Heritage and National Central Library. Yongle Dadian, Jiajing manuscript: juan 3579–3581