Manchu Sources in Taiwan

MANCHU SOURCES IN TAIWAN The following note was specially written for Ching-shih wen-t'i by Professor Li Hstieh-chih. It was translated for the Bulletin by Jerry Norman who is presently studying Manchu in Taiwan under the direction of Professor Huang Lu, and working on the compilation of a Manchu-English dictionary. In the past there hasn't been a single scholar concerned with Ch'ing history who has not hoped to find some new historical material, and indeed many have exhausted their every resource in trying to track down additional sources. But what most of these people have had in mind is additional Ch'ing dynasty Chinese records. For the most part Ch'ing historians have neglected Manchu material. Since the Manchus, who ruled China for over two hundred and fifty years, had their own language and writing system, one should first look to Manchu as a source of more detailed historical records. But for the past several decades, scholars concerned with Ch'ing history have taken the view that after the Manchus entered China proper, they were for the most part quickly assimilated culturally and linguistically and that a great number of them abandoned their language and writing system and used Chinese. So why should one learn Manchu in order to do research on Ch'ing history? In fact this is a great error. Although by the end of the Ch'ing dynasty, it is true that most Manchus had abandoned the use of their own language, in the beginning and in the flourishing middle part of the dynasty, the Manchus, out of a feeling of national pride, still used Manchu as the main language in their secret communications, in documents relating to purely Manchu affairs, and in memorials from Manchu officials to the emperor. Judging from the Manchu material now available, the number of Manchu documents from the period of T'ai-tsu and T'ai-tsung until the T'ung-chih period is truly vast. (I am referring to the materials now in Taiwan.) If scholars in the field of Ch'ing history do not consult these precious first-hand sources, they have only themselves to blame. Let us take for example the Original Annals in Old Manchu (-£] xfe "J /? Tto1 ) covering the period of T'ai-tsu and T'ai-tsung which we are now working on. Although it contains only forty ts'e, it is the only first-hand material for the reigns of T'ai-tsu and T'ai-tsung. Later Chinese records, such as the T'ai-tsung Wen Huang Ti Shih Lu (^ 1^ Ì. jL W ? §§^ ) are entirely based on these earlier Manchu materials. The six volume Japanese translation of the Man-wen Lao-tang ( jgjL jr ? j$g ) published recently by the Toyo Bunko in Tokyo is based on the Ch'ien-lung edition of 1767 which was in turn based on a part of the thirty-seven ts'e of the Original Annals in Old Manchu which we are now editing here in Taiwan; the Ch'ienlung revision is written in the revised Manchu script which was in general use at that time. The version that the Japanese translation is based on is a conscious revision of the original, and differs from it greatly in many sections.* *See our study^^f%M $ $£$ tylifafiffo Comparative Study of the "Old Archives in Manchu" and the "Original Archives in Old Manchu", Annual Bulletin of the China Council for Far Eastern Studies, No. 4, June 1965*. Taipei, See also my article ? ß ßfi ¡$¡ -jjti 7j{ ffiñ jfe &%^ i M ó5 #r fa '- Printed in - i * fc Ktyft& ifaik TaiPei 1966* - 3 How much Ch'ing historical material in Manchu survives and where is it located? The answer to this question will open a door to those scholars of Ch'ing history who desire to use Manchu material. When one examines the catalogues of Fuchs, Li Te-ch'i, and Poppe and Hurwitz, one can see that although they contain a great many books, over ninety percent of these are works that underwent editing and revision at the hands of Ch'ing dynasty Manchu officials. Furthermore, with the exception of a number of dictionaries, grammars, glossaries and...