UM scholar discovers precious edition of The History of the Northern Dynasties collated by renowned Japanese sinologist

Prof Li Ping from the University of Macau’s (UM) Faculty of Social Sciences earlier conducted a study on the collection of The Twenty-Four Histories in South China. He found that as the city of the most strategic importance in South China, Guangzhou has an abundant collection of various editions of The History of the Northern Dynasties, even surpassing the number of The History of the Southern Dynasties. This finding indicates that scholars from the Pearl River Delta Region have given a lot of attention to North China since ancient times.

Of the 61 copies of The History of the Northern Dynasties housed in the public libraries, university libraries, and research libraries in Guangzhou, which were printed before the Republican Era and come in 19 different editions, Prof Li found that the oldest edition is the one housed in Sun Yat-Sen University’s library, which was published by the Imperial Central University in the Ming dynasty (1593)

The 400-year-old book is very well-preserved. But what makes it truly unique and precious are the 4,090 collation notes peppering the pages.  A study of the origin of the five seals revealed, much to Prof Li’s pleasant surprise, that the author of the collation notes was one of the most important Japanese sinologists from the Tokugawa Period. Although there are a number of The History of the Northern Dynasties published by the Imperial Central University in different editions housed at home and abroad, there is only one collated by this Japanese sinologist.