荆楚岁时记

《荆楚岁时记》，凡一卷。是介绍中国南方长江中游荆楚地方年中每月行事的记录。作者是南梁宗懔。隋代的杜公瞻作注。

内容是由正月初一至岁晚（除夕）的百姓日常生活，其中辟邪、辟病的风俗占篇幅一半。原书提到端午节“是日竞渡”，其下注曰：“按五月五日竞渡，俗为屈原投汨罗日，伤其死所，故命舟楫以拯之。”

中秋与端午、春节并称为“三节”，不过，《荆楚岁时记》却对八月十五中秋只字未提，仅载八月十四日作“眼明囊”之事。

《荆楚岁时记》原书已佚，但由于宋代编纂《太平御览》《岁时广记》等多所征引，明人自类书引文辑出一卷。有明万历二十年《广汉魏丛书》本、万历四十三年《宝颜堂秘籍》本、《说郛》本、《四库全书》本。

The Jingchu Suishiji, also known by various English translations, is a description of holidays in central China during the 6th and 7th centuries. It was compiled by Du Gongzhan in the Sui or early Tang (early 7th century) as a revised, annotated edition of Zong Lin's mid-6th-century Record of Jingchu or Jingchuji. The original Record is now lost; the original text of the Jingchu Suishiji seems to have been lost as well, with current editions consisting of various attempts of Ming and Qing scholars to recover the text from fragments in other works.

History

Zong Lin (宗懍, Zōng Lǐn, w Tsung Lin; AD 498–561) was a member of the Nanyang immigrants to Jiangling, Hubei, who composed his Record of Jingchu under the Liang. It seems likely he wrote the book after moving to Chang'an in 554. Aside from the Jingchu Suishiji and other fragments, the original text is now lost.

Du Taiqing (t 杜臺卿, s 杜台卿, Dù Táiqīng, w Tu T‘ai-ch‘ing; born c. 536) drew from Zong's work in composing his own seasonal calendar, the Precious Canon of the Jade Candle (t 《玉燭寶典》, s 《玉烛宝典》, Yùzhú Bǎodiǎn, w Yü-chu Pao-tien), shortly after 581. It survives in an incomplete Japanese manuscript, probably from the 14th century.

His nephew Du Gongzhan (杜公瞻, Dù Gōngzhān, w Tu Kung-chan; died after 590) used the Precious Canon to revise and annotate Zong's text sometime in the late Sui or early Tang. Du's family came from Boling (probably Dingzhou, Hebei) and some of his notes are about the differences in the festivals' observance in northern China. The original text of this work—in which it is sometimes difficult to distinguish Zong's text from Du's emendations—seems to have been lost under the Song (10th–13th centuries). Surviving editions of the work differ greatly and appear to be Ming and Qing (14th–20th-century) attempts to recreate the work from fragments elsewhere in sources like the Yiwen Leiju and Taiping Yulan. Du died in office as the magistrate of Anyang.

Contents

Jingchu was the area reckoned as the former territory of Chu, now mainly in Hubei and Hunan around the middle stretches of the Yangtze River. The Suishiji is an annotated record of its major festivals in the mid-6th to early 7th century, during the chaos of Sui's creation and collapse and just before the stability and grandeur of the Tang. The surviving 37 or so paragraphs also draw from literary sources to outline the history of the festivals as then understood. Some are traced to gods and legendary ancestors, others to agricultural rhythms, and others to historical figures or events. The work also includes irregularly observed rituals and celebrations concerning disease, bodily functions, marriage, childbirth, dancing, and the exorcism of evil spirits.

Importantly, the Jingchu Suishiji records changing Chinese rituals, cuisine, and entertainment as religious and calendrical changes led to a "new canon" of major festivals. The Chinese New Year, Lantern, Tomb Sweeping, Dragon Boat, Double Seven, Ghost, and Double Ninth Festivals all took most of their present form during the periods leading up to the composition of the Jingchu Suishiji (from the late Han to the Six Dynasties). The Double Seven and Double Ninth Festivals reflect the growing use from the late Han onward of monthly dating rather than the old sexagenary cycle of heavenly stems and earthly branches. Similarly, the new reckoning gave added importance to the proper new year festival, which added features from the old popular "new year" La sacrifices and exorcisms that had occurred in the 12th month after midwinter.