Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/Chang Tsung-yüan
CHANG Tsung-yüan 章宗源 (T. 逢之), 1752?–1800, scholar, was a native of Shan-yin, Chekiang, and a distant relative of Chang Hsüeh-ch'êng [q. v.]. His family, once well-to-do, met reverses of fortune during his grandfather's time, chiefly owing to a disastrous tidal wave. His father, Chang Chin-lin 章錦麟 (T. 玉書, H. 石亭, 1714–1789), held a minor post in the Board of Revenue and in 1748 was made head of a post station in Shantung. Chang Tsung-yüan was born and reared at Tzŭ-ch'uan, Shantung, where his father served as jail-warden during the years 1749–68. Later he lived with his family in Peking where he studied under Shao Chin-han [q. v.]. It was through the latter's influence that he came to devote himself to the reconstruction or collation of lost or distorted texts. He obtained his chü-jên degree in 1786. About 1794 he lived at the residence of Ho T'ien-ch'ü 何天衢 (T. 在山, H. 緩齋, chü-jên of 1784), a native of Po-chou, Anhwei, who, like him, was a disciple of Shao Chin-han. Returning to Peking about three years later (1797?), Chang Tsung-yüan became an ardent devotee of a Buddhist monk named Ming-hsin 明心, (lay name Wang Shu-hsün 王樹勳) who attracted much notoriety by his esoteric doctrines. A few years later Ming-hsin was banished, and Chang Tsung-yüan, implicated with him, was deprived of his chü-jên degree. In addition to this misfortune Chang's landlord, annoyed by his poverty and his peculiarities of temper, burnt the greater part of the manuscript drafts of the works to which Chang had devoted the best years of his life. Disheartened and in destitute circumstances, he fell ill and died in 1800.
Manuscript drafts of six texts reconstructed by Chang Tsung-yüan later came into the possession of Sun Hsing-yen [q. v.], who with Yen K'o-chün [q. v.] and other scholars edited and printed them in Sun's P'ing-ching kuan ts'ung-shu. Among them is the 漢官儀 Han kuan i, 2 chüan, a 'lost' history of governmental organization in the Han dynasty, written about 197 A.D. by Ying Shao 應劭 (T. 仲遠[瑗]), an official and scholar of the Later Han dynasty. The most important single contribution by Chang Tsung-yüan is the 隋書經籍志考證 Sui-shu ching-chi chih k'ao-chêng, in which he criticized the bibliographical section of the Sui Dynastic History. Only a part of the manuscript drafts of this voluminous work was preserved by Ho Yüan-hsi (see under Chang Hai-p'êng) and also by Ch'ien I-chi and Ch'ien T'ai-chi [qq. v.]. The part dealing with the section on historical works in the above-mentioned bibliography was printed in 1877 in 13 chüan, and this part seems to have some relation to the lost Shih-chi k'ao of Chang Hsüeh-ch'êng. It is reported by some that Ma Kuo-han [q. v.], in compiling his Yü-han shan fang chi-i shu, made use of the manuscript drafts of Chang Tsung-yüan, but this seems to be an error.
[1/490/14b; 2/72/41b; 4/134/20a; 10/23/20b; Wang Chung-min 王重民, 清代兩個大輯佚書家評傅 in 輔仁學志 Fu-jên hsüeh-chih, vol. III, no. 1 (1932).]
Hiromu Momose