Shiwen leiju 事文類聚

Shiwen leiju 事文類聚 "Classified collection based on historical facts and on literature" is an encyclopaedia in four parts written during the Song period 宋 (960-1279) by Zhu Mu 祝穆 (1190-1256), courtesy name Hefu 和甫, Hefu 和父 or Bohe 伯和, style Zhangyin Laoren 樟隱老人, from Shexian 歙縣, Anhui, and author of the geographical book Fangyu shenglan 方輿勝覽.

During the Yuan period 元 (1279-1368), Fu Dayong 富大用 added two further parts, and Zhu Yuan 祝淵 a seventh part. Zhu Mu's original was finished in 1246, the first supplement by Fu Dayong in 1326. The first collection (qianji 前集) has a length of 60 juan, the second collection (houji 後集) 50 juan, the third collection (xuji 續集) 28 juan, and the fourth (bieji 別集) 32 juan, making a total of 170 juan. The "new collection" (xinji 新集) by Fu Dayong is 36-juan long, and his "outer collection" (waiji 外集) 15 juan. Zhu Yuan's collection of "left-overs" (yiji 遺集) is 15-fascicles long, and another, "miscellaneous collection" (zaji 雜集) 2 juan. All collections together, the so-called Gujin shiwen leiji 古今事文類聚, have thus a total size of 238 juan.

It is not known who first put the different collections together to one book. Apart from the Yiji collection, there are no overlapping themes, so that the books of Zhu Mu and Fu Dayong can indeed be seen as one, while Zhu Yuan's supplement mainly contributes sources left out in Fu's waji collection.

The special character of the Shiwen leiju collections is that they bring together facts from more or less scientific sources and the use of poems and prose literature. Each chapter is headed by a list of the sources used for the encyclopaedia, then follows a part dealing with the topic in factual matters (shishi 事實), and finally a part where literary sources (wenji 文集) are quoted. This is a pattern already used in the Tang-period 唐 (618-907) encyclopaedias Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚 and Chuxueji 初學記, but not in this systematic way. The last great encyclopaedia making use of this method is the Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) Gujin tushu jicheng 古今圖書集成.

The strong point of the Shiwen leiju is that it quotes full writings and not only sentences of paragraphs. Because of this method, many interesting old writings have survived, like Shu Xi's 束晰 (264-306) Bingfu 餅賦. Zhang Pu 張溥 (1602-1641) served himself of the Shiwen leiju for his anthology Baisanjia ji 百三家集.

There is a print produced in 1326 by the Wuxi Academy 武溪書院 which was reprinted in 1604 by Tang Fuchun 唐富春. In 1763, the Jixiu Studio 積秀堂 reprinted the edition containing all seven collections. The Shiwen leiju is included in the series Siku quanshu 四庫全書.