Xilutang Qintong

XLTQT / ToC / Commentary
Xilutang Qintong
Qin Anthology of the Hall in the Western Foothills (1549) ¹
Compiled by Wang Zhi ² of She County, Anhui Province ³

Preface
Qinqu Jicheng. Vol III
by Zha Fuxi⁴

(This book, now) in the collection of Li Yunzong of Tianjin,⁵ passed down to us in a hand-copied volume of 25 folios, is a qin handbook miscellanea compiled by Wang Zhi of the Ming dynasty. Wang Zhi lived in the Hall of the Western Foothills (Xilutang), which he himself had constructed in She county (southeast of Huang Shan in Anhui province), and the qin essays are mostly copied from the qintong (qin system) of the Southern Song dynasty (scholar) Xu Li, ⁶ so it was called the Xilutang Qintong. In the Qing dynasty's Erxiang Qinpu (1833)⁷ and similar volumes this handbook is always listed among "extant qin handbooks", and so we can see it was then still in circulation. At present there are several different surviving hand copies. Among these, the one copied into this edition preserves (all) 25 folios. In front is a preface by Tang Gao⁸ (also of She county) dated autumn, the 7th month, 1549.

Folios 1 - 5 are divided into discussions of sound (lun sheng lü, most importantly recording the qin system of Xu Li), qin construction (most importantly repeating information from the Song dynasty Taigu Yiyin, tablature descriptions (zi pu) and miscellanea (za shuo). Among these, the descriptions of finger techniques in Folio 5 are mostly missing, only preserving the first two (double) pages. Folios 6 to 25 altoghter collect 170 qin pieces. Another edition preserves only folios 22 to 25, while still another has only the two pieces Chang Ce and Duan Ce from Folio 10. Among all the surviving handbooks from the Ming dynasty, this book contains the largest number of traditional qin pieces.⁹

Wang Zhi himself stated,¹⁰

"My great aim has been to bequeath this tablature, which was extensively selected from a great number of families; I hunted rather a lot. While storing those selected, well, (I discriminated titles, scattered the chaff), and collected them in this volume, hoping for opposing sources/volumes (for comparison?). The melodies (five tones) and their (six) modes are arranged according to type, organized for easy reference(?), great and small without omission; the tablatures and lyrics, nothing has been hidden. I began when young and continued until old, letting pass 30 years, begin/able/then/connect [?] [continuing whenever I could?]" If now we look at each of the pieces in the handbook, besides noting the Ming copies of Song originals, most of them are very rarely heard sounds bequethed from the distant past. For example (there are) the old pieces (#139-142) Guangling San, (#166/7) Jianxian (and) Ming Jun, and (#164) Feng Yun You (called Feng Xiang Qianren) from the Han and Tang dynasties (as well as) (#148) Song Yu Bei Qiu from the Song dynasty and so forth. These old pieces all have rather important value when it comes to studying the artistic rules of composing qin pieces during the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, or as a basis for identifying the period when a piece was created.

Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. 西麓堂琴統 Xilutang Qintong is entry 171 in 琴書存目 Qinshu Cunmu (1915), but it consists of only a brief reference to its mention in 與古齊琴譜 Yuguzhai Qinpu (1855). 查阜西琴學文萃 Zha Fuxi: Collected Writings about Qin, p.103, has some further information in an essay dated 1956, 西麓堂琴統鈔後記 Draft Afterword to Xilutang Qintong. Zha says that the only reference to this book in old lists is the one in 與古齊琴譜，考存琴譜 An Examination of Existing Qin Handbooks in folio 3 (p.33, l.2) of Yuguzhai Qinpu, which gives the same brief information as Qinshu Cunmu #171. Zha adds that it was not included in the listed in 二香琴譜 Erxiang Qinpu (1833; see footnote below). (Return)

2. So far I have found no further information on 汪芝 Wang Zhi other than that he was from a family of qin players (see Zha Fuxi, ibid.) in 歙縣 She county of Anhui province (see next footnote); his Hall in the Western Foothills (Xilu Tang) has not been located, and the handbook itself further identifies Wang Zhi only as 歙雲嵐山人 "a mountain man from Yunlan (cloud-vapor) Mountain in She district". (Return)

3. She county, southeast of 黃山 Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), has a 新安 Xin'an river that connected easily to Hangzhou via the 富春 Fuchun River. In the late Ming dynasty there was a rising merchant class in She county. There must also have been considerable qin activities here, as 謝琳 Xie Lin, compiler of Taigu Yiyin (1511), the most important early handbook for qin songs, also lived in this area. Today the county region is noted for its surviving old homes. (Return)

4. 查阜西 Zha Fuxi; edited by 吳鉊 Wu Zhao
(Return)

5. 李允中 Li Yunzhong; NFI. Zha Fuxi, ibid, seems to suggest it is now in the Beijing Library, but in 1998 it was reprinted. Wang Shixiang's footnote 10 in his essay Guangling San says,

"Xilutang Qintong...can only be seen in hand copied versions. Mr. Li Yunzhong of Tianjin has two incomplete volumes in his personal collection. One of the two has Folios 22-25, in a blue-column copy book, copied in the early years of the Qing dynasty. The other lacks "Finger techniques" from Folio 5, has no column pattern (lines?) and was copied rather late. Comparing them, the two volumes column (arrangement?) and size, and the writing style of the characters in the tablature, match completely, and should have been copied from the same manuscript. At the same time one can explain that they still retained the original volume's tablature style."
(Return)

6. For more on 徐理 Xu Li (10363.264xxx: a Ming dynasty military official who must be different person) see 琴史續 Qinshi Xu; 琴書存目 Qinshu Cunmu Entry 112 琴統 Qin Tong; and Xu Jian's 琴史初編 Qinshi Chubian, 6a3 (p.91). (Return)

7. 二香琴譜 Erxiang Qinpu by 將文勳 Jiang Wenxun (1833); facsimile edition, Folio 1, p.19ff 參考琴譜 lists qin handbooks, but I cannot find Xilutang Qintong among them; see footnote above. In a later article by Zha Fuxi he suggests Jiang must have acquired it after 1833; the Yuguzhai list includes it with the 21 books belonging only to Jiang. (Return)

8. 唐皋 Tang Gao 3714.xx; bio. xx (Return)

9. Suggesting it is not the repertoire of just one man. (Return)

10. The original Chinese is:

予嘗抗志遺譜，博采諸家，蒐獵頗多積之充揀，乃（析名辨義，揚糠披沙）彙為茲編，冀于反本。五音六律，比類而附，支分目舉，巨細靡遺，譜曲句子，莫有隱晦。肇自弱冠，迄于二毛，垂三十年，甫克就緒。
(Return)

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