On the Sanbao taijian xia xiyang-ji and some of its sources

Abstract

The novel Sanbao taijian xia xiyang-ji, a work in one-hundred chapters, written in 1597 by Luo Maodeng, has hitherto received very little attention in scholarly writings. Ostensibly it deals with Zheng He's (1371-1434) seven voyages to southeast Asia and the Persian Gulf between 1405 and l433. However, in the novel these seven voyages are merged into one, interspersed with a considerable amount of material borrowed from popular fiction and both the Buddhist and Taoist Tripitakas. The major historical sources used by Luo Maodeng appear to be Ma Huan's Yingyai shenglan and Fei Xin's Xingcha shenglan, both of them quoted extensively. It is not possible to identify on the basis of material now extant any other historical sources that might have received sustained use. Indeed, the contents of the novel make it unlikely that other such sources were used. This is supported by the fact that, apart from Zheng He and Wang Jinghong, most of the characters used in the novel either had nothing whatever to do with the voyages or were not historical at all. The former applies to Jin Bifeng, now elevated to guoshi (National Teacher), who lived at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, the latter to the Heavenly Teacher Zhang (Zhang Tianshi). A close study of the novel has led me to the conclusion that its historical value is minimal, and it can only be relied on when supporting material can be found in an independent source. Thus I have been able to show that a "list of tributes", assumed by the late Professor Duyvendak to be a genuine one dating to the year 1410, is in fact made up from several sources, the major one being Ma Huan's work.