Ming-Dynasty Imperial Examination Records in Tianyige Added to the China Documentary Heritage List

An image of the Metropolitan-Examination Register shown in CCTV’s series Urban Elegance – Ningbo.

Scanned excerpt from the Ming-dynasty imperial-examination records held in Tianyige; the second-place name is Wang Shouren (courtesy name Yangming), the great philosopher, thinker, educator and strategist of the Mind School, born in Yuyao, Ningbo. (photo supplied by Tianyige Museum)

9 June was International Archives Day. China’s National Archives Administration announced the sixth batch of entries for the China Documentary Heritage List: 52 archival items (or sets) nationwide were chosen. Zhejiang contributed two: the epigraphic and seal-carving documents of the Xiling Seal-Society, and the Ming-dynasty imperial-examination records preserved in Tianyige. This is the first time that holdings of the Tianyige Library & Museum have been included.

Launched in 2000, the “China Documentary Heritage Project” focuses on rescuing, conserving and developing archival treasures. To date, more than ten Chinese projects—including Oracle-bone Inscriptions—have been placed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

Tianyige now houses 379 types (409 volumes) of Ming-dynasty examination records: 41 Metropolitan-Graduate Registers (Dengke lu), 38 Metropolitan-Examination Registers (Huishi lu), 277 Provincial-Examination Registers (Xiangshi lu), 11 Military-Examination Registers and 12 other related works—the richest collection in China.

The series begins with Hongwu 4 (1371), the very first Ming examination, and ends in the Chongzhen reign, covering the provincial, metropolitan and palace levels. Many eminent figures—Wang Yangming, Zhang Juzheng, Hai Rui and others—are recorded.

More than 90 percent of these books are unique copies inside China. They are not only physical evidence for the study of the examination system but also the most direct biographical sources. They reveal dates, procedures, question content, admission ratios, model essays and biographical data, providing the most original, basic and authoritative material for reconstructing Ming examinations.

Compiled by the scholar-official Fan Qin during his career and later augmented by his descendants, the Tianyige collection is unique: very few such records survive from China’s 1,300-year examination history. Of the palace-exam compilations, for example, none survive from the Tang, only three from Song–Yuan (none in autograph form), and few from the Qing; yet 58 Ming versions remain, 41 of them solely in Tianyige—70 percent of the total. The Register of Successful Candidates, Hongwu 4 is the earliest extant piece of examination documentation and one of the “Top 100 Treasures” of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum.

Tianyige also keeps 277 Ming Provincial-Examination Registers—the largest number in the fourth national list of precious ancient books. Without this collection, the details of Ming examinations could not be fully reconstructed; its value to sinology is irreplaceable.

“Tianyige’s Ming-dynasty examination registers are the most complete and systematic Ming examination archives at home and abroad: a cultural fossil and an imprint of the age, irreplaceable and non-renewable, presenting the entire picture of the Ming system and holding immense cultural, academic and heritage significance,” said a museum representative.

For years the museum has catalogued, collated, photographed and published the collection; Selected Ming Examination Records in Tianyige has already been issued.