Youyang zazu 酉陽雜俎

Youyang zazu 酉陽雜俎 "A table full of miscellaneous writings from south of Mt. You" is a collection of fantastic stories compiled during the Tang period 唐 (618-907) by the writer and politician Duan Chengshi 段成式 (803-863), courtesy name Kegu 柯古. Duan hailed from Linzi 臨淄 in the prefecture of Qizhou 齊州 (modern Zibo 淄博, Shandong) and inherited the post of Counsellor-in-chief (zaixiang 宰相) from his father Duan Wencheng 段文昌 (773-835). Later on, Duan was regional inspector (cishi 刺史) of Yezhou 葉州 and Vice Minister in the Court of Imperial Sacrifices (taichang shaoqing 太常少卿). Duan Chengshi was known as a highly educated person and an essayist. Together with Li Shangyin 李商隱 (813-858) and Wen Tingyun 溫庭筠 (801-1866), he is one of the authors of the so-called Sanshiliu ti zhangzhou 三十六體章奏 "Thirty-six-style memorials", written in the so-called couplet style (pianti 駢體). He also authored a book called Luling guanxia ji 廬陵官下記, which is lost. Of his collection Shuofu 說郛 (not the great Shuofu 說郛 of Tao Zongyi 陶宗儀!), only some 60 fragments are preserved, and only 18 of his 56 poems.

The word You 酉 in the title refers to Mt. Xiaoyou 小酉山, a mountain near present-day Yuanling 沅陵, Hubei. At the foot of the hill is a cave that, for many centuries, served as a storeroom for a library of secret Daoist books.

The Youyang zazu consists of two collections, the first (Qianji 前集) including 30 chapters in 20 juan, and the supplement (Xuji 續集), with 6 chapters in 10 juan. It records bizarre stories of immortals, Buddhas, ghosts, ordinary people, as well as of strange animals, plants, foodstuffs, monasteries and temples, and so on. On the one hand, the stories are characterised as such of the very popular style of strange personalities and phenomena (zhiguai 志怪, chuanqi 傳奇). On the other hand, there are numerous tales of curious places and things, which rather belong into the category of descriptive geography, similar to Zhang Hua's 張華 (232-300) Bowuzhi 博物志 from the Jin period 晉 (265-420).

Duan Chengshi has collected some stories from the tales of others, but he is also the original author of a substantial part of the text. Some of the titles are quite cryptic and do not directly expose the content, like the story of the jar (Hushi 壺史) about Daoist magic, the chapter of the shell (Beibian 貝編), which has Buddhist content, the body/corpse's grave (Shixi 尸穸), which speaks of funeral rites, or a fantastic story with the title of Nuogaoji 諾皋記. In the supplementary part, there is a very detailed description of the construction of Buddhist monasteries in the capital, Chang'an 長安 (today's Xi'an 西安, Shaanxi), the Sitaji 寺塔記, which is of great value as a source for the history of Buddhism, the arts, and construction, and is sometimes dealt with as a separate text of its own.

The Youyang zazu is included in the series Jindai mishu 津逮秘書, Xuejin taoyuan 學津討原, Hubei xianzheng yishu 湖北先正遺書, Sibu congkan 四部叢刊, Congshu jicheng 叢書集成 and the Siku quanshu 四庫全書.