『白古通記』와 明淸 시기 ‘雲南史’ 서술

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the position of the Chronicle of Ancient Bai Kingdom (Baigutongji) wihin the broad historiography of “Yunnan history” as well as its characteristics and limitations. Since the early Ming work is currently lost, one can only make conjecture about its full content through examinations of several fragmentary passages preserved in other documents. In all probabilities, the work included the information about the history and geography of Dali(大理) area, as well as various folktales from the region, Also included in the book is the historical lineage of the ’Bai kingdom(白國)’. The first king of the ’Bai kingdom’ was the son of Ashoka the Great who supposedly came into the Yunnan area. The Bai kingdom was succeeded by Bai state of Zhang clan, the Nanzhao Kingdom of Meng clan, and finally the Dali Kingdom and Dali Chief Administrative Area (zongguan fu) of Duan clan successively. This political lineage reflected the Buddhist world view of the Dali people at the time. Some researchers argue that the ruling elites among Bo people(白人;僰人), native people of Dali, authored Baigutongji, based on their own transmitted historical traditions, to resist against the invasion and assimilation policies of Ming Empire. And the wide circulation of the work contributed to the formation of future ’Bai people (白族)’. This article argues this account is an exaggeration. The increasing publication of the local gazetteers and the regional histories during the Ming-Qing period was only a result, among many, caused by the various political and intellectual choices that the indigenous ruling elites made in the context of the Chinese imperial expansion in Yunnan. That is to say, the change of economic and cultural environment under the Chinese rule (such as general economic development and operation of Civil Service Exam) stimulated the native intellectuals’ efforts in publishing local gazetteers and regional histories, prompting collection and documentation of ”indigenous traditions”. Historical traditions constituting Baigutongji were also recorded in this context. In other words, there is no evidence to show that indigenous intellectuals recorded the traditions collected in the book, stimulated by “national” sentiment, or that they used the Baigutongji as a tool to maintain the “nation”. At that time, non-Chinese intellectuals (or gentries) in the Dali area were organized by the unit of clan and each clan made their political decision individually. chose their own destiny. In all likelihood, the native elites must have not forgotten the history of the native states (guo) that had exited in the area including the legendary Baizi state, the Nanzhao Kingdom, the Dali Kingdom, and the Dali zongguanfu. However, the independent kingdom or Tusi (ie. zongguan fu) no longer existed in the area any more by the Ming period. Instead, the native elites, who had submitted to the Ming, only received the hereditary positions of native offices (tuguan, 土官)’ from the empire, while cooperating with it. Furthermore, some of them even actively pursued the personal career success as imperial officials. The Ming empire and the Han Chinese officials in the area called them with various collective names such as Bairen(白人), Boren(僰人) or Minjia(民 家). However, the native elites, divided by loyalty toward their own clan, neither had shared political interests nor a common political and cultural identity.