Yuhai shanfang ji yishu 玉函山房輯佚書

Yuhan shanfang ji yishu 玉函山房輯佚書 "The Jade-Case Mountain Studio Collection of Lost Books" is a series of collectanea (congshu 叢書) compiled by the late Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Ma Guohan 馬國翰 (1794-1857). It is specialized on fragments of lost books and includes 594 different ancient writings (the latest dating from the Tang period 唐, 618-907) with a total length of 708 juan, and a supplement of 14 juan. Ma Guohan died before the completion of the collection so that it was never printed during this lifetime. Only in 1870, Ding Baozhen 丁寳楨 (1820-1886）revised Ma's collection and published as a 100-volume edition it in the Luoyuan Press 濼源書院.

Ma Guohan (1794-1857), courtesy name Cixi 詞溪, style Zhuyu 竹吾, hailed from a Shandong family and occupied several positions of magistrate (zhixian 知縣) before he became prefect (zhizhou 知州) of Longzhou 隴州 in Shaanxi. For his sincere fulfilment of his tasks, he was granted an audience with the emperor in 1838, but refused further promotion in order to be able to dedicate himself to studies.

The idea to reconstruct lost books on the base of surviving fragments came to him already at the age of 22 sui, so that he collected such fragments over a long period of time, reading a tremendous amount of writings and commentaries. In the course of his research, Ma Guohan also tried to eliminate forged quotations from real ones, so that his collection can not be esteemed highly enough. He did not only invest a lot of time in his studies, but also a considerable amount of money, with which he purchased a library with a size of more than 57,000 juan.

The first version of the collection was completed in 1844, and Ma Guohan chose the name of Mt. Yuhan near Jinan 濟南, Shandong, as the name for his series. This is also his studio name. It was printed for the first time in 1849, but only the parts of the Confucian Classics (Jingbian 經編) and the masters and philosophers (Zibian 子編). Ma retired to his home town Jinan in 1853, exhausted by his work, and died a few years later, before his series was printed in full. The part on historiographic writings (Shibian 史編) was printed by Ding Baozhen in 1883 via the Langhuan Studio 螂嬛馆 in Changsha 長沙, Hunan, and then again in 1884 by Master Li 李氏 from Zhangqiu 章邱, and in the same year by the Chunan Shuju Press 楚南書局. A modern four-volume publication came out in 1990 as a facsimile edition produced by the Shanghai Guji Press 上海古籍出版社.

The Yuhan shanfang jiyi shu is arranged according to the categories of the four traditional types of literature, yet for the fourth part, belles-lettes (ji 集), Ma Guohan did not collect any books. The Classics part includes commentaries to the fields Yijing 易, Shangshu 尚書, Shijing 詩, Zhouguanli 周官禮, Yili 儀禮, Liji 禮記, books on rituals (Tongli 通禮), books on music (Yue 樂), Chunqiu 春秋, Xiaojing 孝經, Lunyu 論語, Mengzi 孟子, Erya 爾雅, treatises to all five Classics (Wujing zonglei 五經總類), apocryphal writings (Chenshu 緯書) and lexicography (Xiaoxue 小學).

The historiographical part is divided into the parts miscellaneous histories (zashi 雜史), miscellaneous biographies (zazhuan 雜傳) and bibliographies (mulu 目錄). The Masters part included Confucian treatises (rujia 儒家), agronomical treatises (nongjia 農家), Daoist treatises (daojia 道家), legalist treatises (fajia 法家), dialectic treatises (mingjia 名家), Mohist treatises (mojia 墨家), strategist treatises (zonghengjia 縱橫家), treatises of miscellaneous thinkers (zajia 雜家), novellas (xiaoshuojia 小說家) such on astronomy and astrology (tianwen 天文), Yin and Yang 陰陽, the Five Agents (wuxing 五行), mantic treatises (zazhan 雜占) and those on various arts (yishu 藝術).

For each category and sub-category, Ma wrote a short preface. He furthermore added a supplement (Bubian 補編) as well as his own book on the meaning of the classics, the 31-juan-long Mugengtie 目耕帖.

The whole collection focuses on the commentaries to the Confucian Classics, while the two other parts are somewhat neglected, probably because the series was not completely finished in the first publication. The Yuhanshanfang jiyi shu is nevertheless a very important source for texts that have not been transmitted as a whole. With his series, Ma Guohan made an excellent contribution to the study of early Chinese texts.

Wang Renjun 王仁俊 (1866-1913) later compiled supplements to the series, namely Yuhanshanfang jiyi shu xubian 玉函山房輯佚書續編 and Yuhanshanfang jiyi shu bubian 玉函山房輯佚書補編, the first republished by the Shanghai Guji Press 上海古籍出版社 in 1989.

Other books written by Ma Guohan are Zhuruyi 竹如意, Hong'ou huaxuan quanpin 紅藕花軒泉品, Yuhan shanfang wenji 玉函山房文集 (the collected prose writings of Ma Guohan) and Yuhan shanfang shiji 玉函山房詩集 (the collected poetry of Ma Guohan).