during Emperor Huizong's reign, is an officially compiled bibliography from the Song Dynasty. It records a total of 3,445 works and 30,669 volumes, making it the largest catalog in Northern Song China.
History
In the first year of Jingyou (1034), Emperor Renzong of Song ordered scholars such as Zhang Guan, Li Shu, and Song Qi to revise and organize the books in the Three Departments and Secretariat. They were tasked with removing redundant materials, correcting errors, and compiling a catalog. Soon after, Emperor Renzong also appointed scholars including Wang Yaochu, Nie Guanqing, Guo Zhen, Lü Gongchuo, Wang Zhu, and Ouyang Xiu to further refine the entries, discuss their arrangement, and compile the catalog. They modeled their work on the Tang Dynasty's Kaiyuan Qishu Sibu Lu. After seven years of effort, the 60-volume catalog was completed in July of the first year of Qingli (1041). In December of the same year, it was presented to Emperor Renzong by Wang Yaochu and named Chongwen Zongmu, making it the earliest surviving national bibliography in China (though now incomplete).
The Chongwen Zongму is rich in content and comprehensive in structure. Each category includes a preface, known as a "classical sequence," and each book has an introduction. The format was later emulated by scholars such as Chao Gongwu and Chen Zhen孙. Due to its extensive volume, there were inevitably some discrepancies. Subsequent revisions included 17 corrections by Huang Boshi in his Dongguan Yulun and 22 corrections by Jiao Hong in his Gushi Jingji Zhì. Zheng Qiao, in his work the Tongzhi under the section "Yiwen Lue," suggested abandoning the introductions of the Chongwen Zongsu and criticized them as overly verbose and useless in his Xiaozhou Lue.
The Chongwen Zhongmu builds on the legacy of the Tang Dynasty's "Kaiyuan Qishu Sibulu" and paves the way for the Qing Dynasty's "Siku Quanshu Zongmu". Over a span of eight hundred years, it remains the only comprehensive officially compiled catalog. The Song Dynasty's Three Departments and Secretariat suffered multiple fires, and the Chongwen Zhengmu was crucial for replenishing lost books. During the early Qing Dynasty, when the Siku Quanshu project began, scholars extracted introductions from works such as the Yongle Dadian. The Siku Quanshu Zongsu praised it as "the treasure trove of the imperial library and the jade garden of the literary world."
Catalog
• Classics: Yi (I Ching), Shu (Book of Documents), Shi (Book of Songs), Li (Rituals), Yue (Music), Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals), Xiaojing (Classic of Filial Piety), Lunyu (Analects of Confucius), Xiaoxue (Elementary Education).
• Histories: Zhengshi (Official Histories), Bianian (Chronological Histories), Shilu (Veritable Records), Zashi (Miscellaneous Histories), Weishi (False Histories), Zhiguan (Offices and Positions), Yizhu (Ceremonial Rites), Xingfa (Law and Punishment), Dili (Geography), Shizu (Clans), Suishi (Seasons), Zhuanji (Biographies), Mulu (Catalogs).
• Masters: Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism, Mohism, Logic, Yin-Yang, Miscellaneous, Agriculture, Fiction, Military, Encyclopedias, Mathematics, Arts and Crafts, Medicine, Divination, Astronomy, Calendars, Five Elements, Daoist Texts, Buddhist Texts.
• Literature: Anthologies, Individual Works, Literary History.
References
• 崇文總目 (Chinese)
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The Chongwen Zongmu, renamed to the Mishu Zongmu during Emperor Huizong's reign, is an officially compiled bibliography from the Song Dynasty. It records a total of 3,445 works and 30,669 volumes, making it the largest catalog in Northern Song China.
《崇文總目》，徽宗時改名《秘書總目》，凡六十六卷，是宋代的官修書目，是北宋最大的目錄書。