Yu Huan
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| Yu Huan | |||||||
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| Traditional Chinese: | 魚豢 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese: | 鱼豢 | ||||||
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Yu Huan (fl. 3rd century) was a private Chinese scholar and author from Cao Wei. He was a native of what's now Xi'an, Shaanxi [1], and most notable for his work, the Weilüe, also known as the Dianlue, which is listed in the Suishu as containing 33 and 89 volumes respectively. The Jiu Tangshu listed 38 volumes of the Weilüe and 50 volumes of the Dianlüe, while the Xin Tangshu 58 listed the Weilüe as containing 50 volumes,[2] though some scholars believe it was a separate work.
Neither of these works are extant, however a chapter of Weilüe was quoted as an extensive footnote to the Records of Three Kingdoms (composed by Chen Shou) in the (30th) section on the Wuhuan, Xianbei and Dongyi by Pei Songzhi during the 5th century. It served as an additional guide to the Western Regions on the book. The chapter has only survived because it was included as an extensive note to Records of Three Kingdoms.[3][4]
Yu Huan apparently never left China, but he collected a large amount of information on the countries to the west of China including Parthia, India, and the Roman Empire, and the various routes to them. Some of this information had reached China well before Yu Huan’s time, and can also be found in the sections dealing with the ‘Western Regions’ of the Shiji, the Hanshu, and/or the Hou Hanshu.[5]
In spite of the inclusion of earlier (and sometimes fanciful) information, the Weilüe contains much new, unique, and generally trustworthy material. Most of it dates from the late second and early third centuries CE. It is this new information that makes the Weilüe such a valuable source. Much of of it appears to date from the Later Han dynasty, before China was largely cut off from the West by civil wars and unrest along its borders during the late 2nd century CE.[6]
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
- Ma Zhijie (1993). History of the Three Kingdoms: Yu Huan's Weilue. Beijing: People's Publishing House. pp. 406–410. ISBN 7-01-001271-7.
- Zhang Xinglang (1977). Collected Historical Sources of the History of Contacts Between China and the West Vol.1 : Weilue's Xirong on Daqin. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. pp. 38–43. ISBN 7-101-03030-0.
- Chavannes, Édouard (1905). Les pays d'occident d'après le Wei lio. T’oung pao Ser. 2:7. pp. 519-520.
- Hill, John E. (2004). The Peoples of the West from the Weilüe 魏略 by Yu Huan 魚豢: A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and 265 CE. Draft annotated English translation. University of Washington].[1]
