Yanxing guijian 言行龜鑑

Yanxing guijian 言行龜鑑 “Vigilant self-reflection of words and deeds” was written during the Yuan period by Zhang Guangzu 張光祖, about whom nothing is known. The book of 9 juan length was finished in 1303, as can be learnt in the preface of Xiong He 熊禾. It is based on the concept of Zhao Shanliao’s 趙善璙 Zijingbian 自警編 and makes use of different biographical collections like 典型錄, Houdelu 厚德錄, Shanshanlu 善善錄 or Mingchen yanxing lu 名臣言行錄 and to bring together the biographies of persons of exemplarious conduct and virtuous behaviour. Zhang selected his sources as simple, ordinary, yet solid and reasonable texts providing valuable material for deep reflections. The descriptive catalogue Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao describes the book as ordinary, yet never tiresome. The original version of Zhang’s book is lost, but the compilers of the imperial series Siku quanshu 四庫全書 retrieved 472 fragments and quotations of it in the Ming-period encyclopaedia Yongle dadian 永樂大典 and thus created a reconstructed version. The book was divided into eight topics, with 82 sub-topics. These categories are learning and knowledge (xuewen 學問), cultivation of moral conduct (dexing 德行), interacting with others (jiaojie 交際), the Way of the family (jiadao 家道), engagement and withdrawal (chuchu 出處), politics (zhengshi 政事), governance (minzheng 民政), and military affairs (bingzheng 兵政). The sub-categories cannot be reconstructed. Inside each chapter, examples of virtuous conduct (shanxing善行 are presented first before going over to paradigms of written texts (jiayan 嘉言), in other words, first practice, then theory. The biographies or examples are arranged chronologically. The text is included in the series Siku quanshu and Siku quanshu zhenben chuji 四庫全書珍本初集.