What book is Yongle Dadian?

Yongle Dadian is a collection of ancient China classics compiled by Yao and others at the behest of Ming Taizu during Yongle period of Ming Dynasty. It was originally named "literary masterpiece", and later Ming Chengzu personally wrote the preface and named it "Yongle Grand Ceremony". The book has 22,877 volumes (60 volumes in the catalogue, 22,937 volumes in * * *), 1 1095 volumes, about 370 million words, and 7,000 ancient and modern books are collected.

The original Yongle Dadian has not yet determined whether there is a permanent tomb, but the copy of the Dadian was destroyed, most of it was destroyed by war, and a considerable part was stolen by later generations in the name of repairing books. Today, there are only over 800 volumes, which are scattered all over the world.

The contents of Yongle Dadian include classics, history, poetry, book collection, astronomy and geography, Yin and Yang medicine, divination, interpretation of Tibetan scriptures, drama, science and technology, agriculture and so on, covering thousands of years of intellectual wealth of the Chinese nation. Encyclopedia Britannica called China's Ming Dynasty book Yongle Dadian "the largest encyclopedia in world history". It has become an important symbol of China culture.

Historical influence

Due to the voluminous volume and the large number of people involved in the compilation of Yongle Dadian, it is inevitable that there are differences and mistakes before and after, but this does not affect its great value. Yongle Dadian is the most famous ancient book in China and the largest encyclopedia in the world so far.

Its scale is far ahead of all kinds of books compiled by previous generations, which can be called a book of ten thousand volumes, leaving many rich stories and mysteries for future generations. It was compiled in Yongle period of Ming Dynasty, and preserved the historical geography, literature and art, philosophy and religion and encyclopedic documents of China before14th century. * * * 22,877 volumes, sub-packed into 1 1095 volumes, the whole book is about 370 million words. ?

The encyclopedias of China's history, geography, literature, art, philosophy and religion before14th century are preserved. Compared with the encyclopedias compiled by Diderot and British encyclopedias, it is more than 300 years earlier and is a treasure of world cultural heritage. According to rough statistics, there are seven or eight thousand kinds of ancient classics selected and preserved in Yongle Dadian, which is five or six times more than previous generations, such as, Tai Lan, Yuan Gui and so on.