Mu Tianzi zhuan 穆天子傳

The short book Mu Tianzi zhuan 穆天子傳 "Biography of King Mu, Son of Heaven", also called Zhou wang youxing ji 周王遊行記 "The travels of the king of Zhou", is the fantastic biography of King Mu 周穆王 (r. 976-922 BCE), one of the first rulers of the Western Zhou dynasty 西周 (11th cent.-770 BCE).

The book has an amazing history of transmission. It was discovered in 281 CE in Jixian 汲縣 in a tomb of the Warring States period 戰國 (5th cent.-221 BCE), namely the grave of King Xiang 魏襄王 (r. 335-319 BCE) of the state of Wei 魏. It was part of the library buried during the funeral. Among the texts (known as Jizhongshu 汲塚書 "Tomb books from Ji"), which were written on bamboo slips, was the biography of King Mu, as well as that of his consort. The text had a length of 6 juan and was written in the ancient small seal script (xiaozhuan 小篆). Emperor Wu 晉武帝 (r. 265-289) of the Jin dynasty 晉 (265-420) therefore ordered the scholars Xun Xu 荀勖 (died 289) and He Jiao 和嶠 (died 292) to transcribe it into modern chancery script (lishu 隸書).

The first five chapters of the book describe, in an annalistic style, the travel of King Mu to the west, the course he and his companions, seven "worthies" took, what they saw and whom they encountered. On their journey, they finally reached the land of the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu 西王母), who feasted them with food and wine.

The last chapter is actually a separate text called Sheng Ji lu 盛姬錄 and describes the illness and death of Consort Sheng, and her interment by King Mu.

The imperial bibliography Jingji zhi 經籍志 in the official dynastic history Suishu 隋書 classified the Mu Tianzi zhuan as a kind of imperial diary (qijuzhu 起居注), but because of the fictional character of the book, it was later rated as a novella (xiaoshuo 小說). The Ming-period 明 (1368-1644) scholar Hu Yinglin 胡應麟 (1551-1602) called the Mu Tianzi zhuan the forerunner of Chinese fiction.

Modern scholars like Ding Qian 丁謙 (1843-1919) and Gu Shi 顧實, (1878-1956), attempted to reconstruct the path of King Mu’s travel. They identified the capital Zongzhou 宗周 mentioned in the text with the city of Luoyang 洛陽 and the land of the Queen Mother with the Pamir Range. In this way, they tried to establish a picture of early China's relationships with Inner Asia, assuming that such contacts existed long before the famous journey of Zhang Qian 張騫 (175-114 BCE) in search of allies against the Xiongnu 匈奴 during the Former Han period 前漢 (206 BCE-8 CE).

The original text is not preserved in full. Of the 8,514 characters, only a part of 6,622 have survived. The Mu Tianzi zhuan is to be found in the Daoist Canon Daozang 道藏 and the series Han-Wei congshu 漢魏叢書, Sibu beiyao 四部備要, Siku quanshu 四庫全書 and Bilinlangguan congshu 碧琳琅館叢書.

The oldest commentary was written by the Jin-period 晉 (265-420) scholar Guo Pu 郭璞 (276-324). During the Qing period 清 (1644-1911), Tan Cui 檀萃 (1724-1801), Hong Yixuan 洪頤煊 (1765-1837) and Zhai Yunsheng 翟雲升 (1776-1860) commented on the Mu Tianzi zhuan. In 1990, the Shanghai Guji Press 上海古籍出版社 published a modern edition in a joint version with the texts Shenjiying 神異經, Hainei shizhou ji 海內十洲記 and Bowuzhi 博物志.