''Sancai Tuhui'' (, ), compiled by Wang Qi () and his son Wang Siyi (), is a Chinese '' leishu'' encyclopedia, completed in 1607 and published in 1609 during the late

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

, featuring illustrations of subjects in the three worlds of heaven, earth, and humanity. The work contains a large number of posthumous and contemporary depictions of Chinese emperors.

Title

The title of this encyclopedia has been variously translated into English as "Illustrations of the Three Powers",http://ibs001.colo.firstnet.net.uk/britishlibrary/controller/subjectidsearch?id=8190&idx=1&start=4 "Collected Illustrations of the Three Realms", "Pictorial Compendium of the Three Powers", and others; in the original title, "Sancai" () refers to the three realms of "heaven, earth, and man", and "Tuhui" () means "collection of illustrations".

Description

This encyclopedia is organized into 106 chapters in 14 categories (

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

biographies A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curri ...

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

, and such), with text and illustrations for the articles. Reproductions of this encyclopedia are still in print in China. While it contains some inaccurate or mythological articles (for example, the articles on the

horseshoe crab Horseshoe crabs are arthropods of the family Limulidae and the only surviving xiphosurans. Despite their name, they are not true crabs or even crustaceans; they are chelicerates, more closely related to arachnids like spiders, ticks, and scor ...

and the crane), it also distinguished itself from the common "everyday encyclopedias" (, ''riyong leishu'') at that time by being accurate in some other articles (for example, accurate depictions of the Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese people's

clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, garments, dress, apparel, or attire) is any item worn on a human human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin s ...

, and a very accurate

world map A world map is a map of most or all of the surface of Earth. World maps, because of their scale, must deal with the problem of projection. Maps rendered in two dimensions by necessity distort the display of the three-dimensional surface of t ...

(the Shanhai Yudi Quantu).

References

External links

* http://www.ncl.edu.tw/rarebook/oldcol.htm * https://web.archive.org/web/20050316001242/http://www.lib.ntu.edu.tw/dbs/dbs/ref/BOOKchin.htm * https://archive.today/20031217211032/http://www.xhlib.net/xinshu02.htm (World Maps in the Ming Dynasty from the Shanghai Xuhui District Library) * http://www.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/~ihpcamp/pdf/92year/wang-cheng-hua-2.pdf - Wang, Cheng-hua. , pp. 8–9. * http://horseshoecrab.sinica.edu.tw/15th.htm * https://web.archive.org/web/20051128075412/http://www.fhk.gov.tw/fhkbook/hist/hist.asp-sq_no=45.htm * http://www.rice.edu//fondren/erc/projects/jingban/ (A map from the Chinese encyclopedia) {{Authority control Ming dynasty literature Encyclopedias in Chinese Leishu 1609 books 17th-century encyclopedias

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References

External links