CHŎNGJO 正祖, King of Korea & YI Pyŏng-mo 李秉模.

Hyangnye happ’yŏn 鄉禮合編 [Collected Community Rituals].

1797. Woodblock-printed. 4, 1, 16, 39; 40, 33, 2 folding leaves. Three kwŏn in two volumes. Small folio (341 x 216 mm.), orig. semi-stiff patterned wrappers, handwritten title on upper covers, old stitching. [Hansŏng]: [Chujaso], Preface dated 1797.

Very rare Korean collection of community rituals (K. hyangnye 鄉禮), compiled by and printed for the King of Korea. We find no copy in Korea, and only three copies in WorldCat (Berkeley, Columbia, and Harvard).

The reign of King Chŏngjo of Korea (r. 1776-1800) witnessed a shift in the sovereign’s role in relation to Confucian teachings. “Chŏngjo sought to formulate the sage-king as an active ruler who instructed his ministers rather than received instruction from them, was directly involved in the administration of the state, and exercised discretion when and how he, in his sagely wisdom, deemed fit.”–Christopher Lovins, King Chŏngjo (SUNY: 2019), p. 29. As the guardian and propagator of Confucian learning, he oversaw various editorial and printing projects carried out by the royal publishing house, the Chujaso 鑄字所.

The compilation and publication of the Collected Community Rituals reflected King Chŏngjo’s belief that a king’s ritual transformation of his people must begin at the local level. The Collected Community Rituals opens with the royal edict dated 1797, followed by a list of community ritual records compiled throughout Chinese and Korean history. The bulk of the work is devoted to the rituals of the banquet and archery competitions, followed by coming-of-age (K. kwanrye 冠禮) and marriage rituals. Detailed interlinear commentaries were compiled by scholars of the Kyujanggak 奎章閣, the Royal Library of the Korean court, under the leadership of Yi Pyŏng-mo (1742-1806). Their names are listed at the end of volume two.

The original printing used the chŏngyuja 丁酉字 (kabinja style of movable metal type of 1777), and copies were distributed to localities throughout Korea. They were also sent to regional governmental printing houses, where they were cannibalized to produce woodblocks for further printing.

Nice set, preserved in a jil. Our copy also has prayers for ancestral, mountain, and land deities, as well as instructions for offering rites, all handwritten in black ink on the endpapers. Red leaf-shaped seals on the first leaf of both volumes read 逸民山水 (?).

❧ Asami Library, 4.14. King Chŏngjo, Hongjae chŏnsŏ 弘齋全書, in Han’guk munjip ch’onggan 韓國文集叢刊, digital access via krpia.co.kr.