Yongle Encyclopedia

The Yongle Encyclopedia (Chinese永乐大典/永乐大典, Pinyin Yǒnglè Dàdiǎn ) is a major Chinese encyclopedia of the 15th century ( Ming Dynasty ), which is considered the most famous and technically most mature Encyclopedia of Ancient China. It was created by over 3,000 scholars and completed in 1408; the factory covers 22,877 fascicles or 11,095 volumes. The space requirement of the manuscripts to have amounted to 40 cubic meters, which would correspond to more than 300 meters of shelving.

Survey

If stored at the imperial original manuscript of the Yongle Encyclopedia was lost mysteriously, there is only one copy, which was mutilated their existence in the course of six centuries and heavily damaged. Worldwide, there are now only about 400 volumes, which is only about four percent of the entire work; of which 221 are located in China. The National Library of China accumulates since 1912, remains of the encyclopedia and tried since 2002 to restore the fragments.

The whereabouts of the original is not known; there is to it four hypotheses:

• It was destroyed in a fire in Nanjing in 1449;
• It burned in the Palace of Heavenly Purity in the Forbidden City during the reign of Emperor Jiaqing at the time of the Qing Dynasty;
• It was destroyed by the Imperial Library ( Wenyuange ) in the Forbidden City at the end of the Ming Dynasty;
• It was hidden.

See also: History and development of the Encyclopedia