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Erhai congtan 洱海叢談

Oct 25, 2019 © Ulrich Theobald

Erhai congtan 洱海叢談 "Various talks about Lake Erhai" is a geographical description of the province of Yunnan written during the early Qing period by the Buddhist monk Tonggui 同揆, who lived himself in Mañjuśrī Monastery (Wenshu Si 文珠寺) in Dali 大理.

He came to Yunnan in 1681, with the imperial armies suppressing the rebellion of the Three Feudatories, and left this province again in 1686 to his home in Changzhou 長洲 (Cheung Chau, an island close to Hong Kong). The short book about Yunnan was finished two years later. It describes the region of Dali with Lake Erhai 洱海 and Mt. Cangshan 蒼山 and its history, beginning in the Han period 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE), when the kingdom of Dian 滇 was first incorporated into the Chinese empire. Apart from geographic information, the text describes the customs of the local population.

The Erhai congtan is to be found in the series Zhaodai congshu 昭代叢書 and Xiaofanghuzhai yudi congchao 小方壺齋輿地叢鈔.

Sources:
Gao Wende 高文德, ed. (1995). Zhongguo shaoshu minzu shi da cidian 中國少數民族史大辭典 (Changchun: Jilin jiaoyu chubanshe), 1728.
Li Xueqin 李學勤, Lü Wenyu 呂文郁, ed. (1996). Siku da cidian 四庫大辭典 (Changchun: Jilin daxue chubanshe), Vol. 1, 1116.
Wang Zhaoming 王兆明, Fu Langyun 傅朗云, ed. (1991). Zhonghua gu wenxian da cidian 中華古文獻大辭典, Vol. Dili 地理卷 (Changchun: Jilin wenshi chubanshe), 270.
Wu Feng 吳楓, ed. (1987). Jianming Zhongguo guji cidian 簡明中國古籍辭典 (Changchun: Jilin wenshi chubanshe), 660.