Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

36
IXTEODUCTION.
That the Inspector of Maritime Trade at the great port of Ts'uan-chou
in Fu-ki6n should have been interested in foreign trade and peoples, that he
should have had peculiar facilities for obtaining information on the subjects
from the foreign sailors and traders who frequented his port, and that his
statements should be found clear, matter-of-fact, and often agreeing with the 5
narratives of mediaeval Arab writers and giving information concerning
countries of the West never known to the Chinese from personal observation,
is all made clear to us by Ch'6n Chou-sun's few words.
Notwithstanding the use made of Chan's book by Ma Tuan-lin and
others, it has remained very little known in China, solely, it is to be suppos- 10
ed, through the habit of nearly all Chinese writers of incorporating bodily
into their writings the work of others without giving the names either of
the authors or of their books. The numerous Chinese biographical works with
all their fullness, are, with the one exception ofCh'onChon-sun's, absolutely
silent as to our author. His name is mentioned neither in the biographical 15
section of the Sung Annals nor, apparently, in the minor records of those and
of later times, such as the Biographical Treasury of the Ming dynasty (Wan-
sing-t'ung-p'u), the first general biographical record published after the life-
time of Chau Ju-kua.
The Chu-fan-chi, though of great value for a knowledge of the oriental 20
s,ea-trade of the Sung period, is but seldom quoted in Chinese works. Much
of it was incorporated by Ma Tuan-lin in his great Encyclopedia, andT'o-t'o
made frequent use of it in his Annals of the Sung dynasty, in both cases, as
is usual with Chinese authors, and as Chau-Ju-kua did himself with his
chief authority, Ch6u K'u-fei, as well as with the many others he quotes, 25
Without a single word of acknowledgment. A comparison of the complete
text of the Chu-fan-chi with the extracts made from it by Ma and T'o-t'o
shows how much valuable information we would have lost if we knew this
work only through their quotations. The same would be true ofChduK'ii-fei,
if we knew his Ling-wai-tai-ta only through Chau Ju-kua's frequent, but so
not always comprehensive, extracts. The one completes and frequently elu-
cidates the other, besides both having great intrinsic value.
Chau Ju-kua's chief authority is C h6uK'u-fei; in a number of sections
of his work he confines himself to quoting him textually, and in a still larger
number he adds but a phrase or two (and that not always wisely) to Chou's 35
text. He has also used the various dynastic histories, the T'ung-tienandafew
other works. The most interesting part of his work, and, so far as the num-
ber of countries is concerned, the largest, is that in which he has set f
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