Kaogongji 考工記

Kaogongji 考工記 "Records on the examination of craftsmanship" is a book on a wide range of fields in artisanry. It dates from the late Spring and Autumn period 春秋 (770-5th cent. BCE) and is transmitted as the last part of the Confucian Classic Zhouli 周禮. During the Former Han period 前漢 (206 BCE-8 CE) somebody handed Prince Xian of Hejian 河間獻王 (d. 129 BCE) an old-script copy of the book Zhouli, but the sixth chapter, that on the "winter offices" (dongguan 冬官), was missing.

The Minister of Works' (sikong 司空) task was the monitoring of official work for the royal palace, the capital and its surroundings, and the needs of the royal state of the Zhou dynasty 周 (11th cent.-221 BCE) in general. The Kaogongji was thereupon added to the Zhouli as a kind of surrogate for the missing chapter. Because of this the last chapter of the transmitted Zhouli is not called Dongguan sikong 冬官司空, but Dongguan Kaogongji 冬官考工記. The Qing period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Jiang Yong 江永 (1681–1762) believed that the Kaogongji had been compiled in the regional state of Qi 齊. This assumption was confirmed by Wang Zhizao 王芝藻 (around 1700), who undertook a linguistic analysis demonstrating that many terms (like jiaobei 茭椑, zhonggu 終古 or qisu 戚速) belonged to the tongue of Qi (modern Shandong). In many ancient and modern editions, the Kaogongji is published separately, and not as part of the Zhouli.

In this shape it is found in Lin Xiyi's 林希逸 (1193-1271) commentary Yuzhai Kaogongji jie 鬳齋考工記解, Xu Guangqi's 徐光啟 (1562-1633) Kaogongji jie 考工記解 and Dai Zhen's 戴震 (1724-1777) Kaogongji tu 考工記圖. The most widespread compound editions are to be found in the collection of Zheng Xuan's 鄭玄 (127-200) commentaries on the Classics, Zhou-Qin jingshu shizhong 周秦經書十種, Sun Yirang's 孫詒讓 (1848-1908) Zhouli zhengyi 周禮正義 and in the series Lanling bishi congshu 琳琅祕室叢書.

The Kaogongji describes the works of the "hundred artisans" (baigong 百工), with the production of tools, implements, vehicles, weapons, court robes and music instruments. It provides detailed information on special skills like silk spinning, dyeing, tanning, painting (with lacquer varnish), the construction of city walls and buildings, and the casting of bronze tools. It gives insight into the arts of woodcarving, the processing of metal, of animal skins, the application of colours, engraving and polishing, and the production of ceramics. Chinese scholars have counted 30 different chapters, but of the chapters Duanshi 段氏 "The farrier", Weishi 韋氏 "The saddler", Qiushi 裘 氏 "The furrier", Kuangren 筐人 "The basket maker", Jiren 楖人 "The arrow maker" and Diaoren 雕人 "The sculptor" only the headlines survive. The intention of the text was to provide clear standards for each type of work supplied to the royal court.

Concerning vehicles the Kaogongji reports on the main parts of single-wheeled and double-wheeled vehicles, namely wheels (lun 輪), palanquins (gai 蓋), the body of the carriage (yu 輿) and the drawbar (yuan 轅). Quite interesting are the details on war chariots that show differences between the vehicles of different ages. In the field of weaponry, the descriptions on the manufacturing of bows and arrows are very detailed. They include a method to check the straightness of arrows by waterlevel, and lay the focus on the selection of excellent material. The "six levels in metallurgy" (jin you liu qi 金有六齊) give evidence of the gradual change of alloys by adding increasing amounts of tin to copper to obtain different types of brass and bronze.

The chapter on music illustrates the various parts and the production of different types of bells, drums and soundstones. The determination of the correct note is related to arithmetics and shows the achievements of Chinese mathematicians during that age, as can be seen in the description of the exact dimensions of a bell:

Figure 1. Parts of an Ancient Bell

Source: Dai 2003: 47.

The oldest separate commentary on the Kaogongji was written by the poet Du Mu 杜牧 (803-853). It is known as Du zhu Kaogongji 杜注考工記. In his "new commentary" on the Zhouli, Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021-1086) added his 2 juan-long commentary Kaogongji jie 考工記解. Dai Zhen wrote the illustrated commentary Kaogongji tu (with 59 images), as well as notes to it, Kaogongji tuzhu 考工記圖注. Chen Yaotian 程瑶田 (1725-1814) authored the study Kaogong chuangwu xiaoji 考工創物小記, and Lü Diaoyang 呂調陽 (1516-1580) the Kaogongji kao 考工記考. Other Qing-period commentaries are Kaogongji kaobian 考工記考辨 by Wang Zongsu 王宗涑 (fl. 1836), Kaogongji chezhi tujie 考工記車制圖解 by Ruan Yuan 阮元 (1764－1849), Kaogongji niaoshou chongyu shi 考工記鳥獸蟲魚釋释 by Chen Zongqi 陳宗起 (1798-1832), and Kaogongji bianzheng 考工記辨證 by Chen Yan 陳衍 (1856-1937).

The oldest surviving edition of the Kaogongji dates from 837, as part of the twelve texts that were inscribed in stone (see Stone Classics) during the Kaicheng reign-period 開成 (836-840) of the Tang dynasty 唐 (618-907). The earliest print was produced by the Yueweicao Hall 閲微草堂 during the Qianlong reign-period 乾隆 (1736-1795), and the earliest modern print was published in 1955 by the Commercial Press 商務印書館. The latest edition is Kaogongji tushuo 考工記圖說 by Dai Wusan 戴吾三 from 2003.