Siku Quanshu
| Siku Quanshu | |||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 四庫全書 | ||||||||
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| Simplified Chinese | 四库全书 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | complete books of the four [imperial] repositories | ||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Sìkù Quánshū |
| Wade–Giles | Ssu-k'u Ch'üan-shu |
The Siku Quanshu, variously translated as the Complete Library in Four Sections, Imperial Collection of Four, Emperor's Four Treasuries, Complete Library in Four Branches of Literature, or Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, is the largest collection of books in Chinese history.
During the height of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century, the Qianlong Emperor commissioned the Siku Quanshu to demonstrate that the Qing dynasty could surpass the Ming dynasty's 1403 Yongle Encyclopedia, which was the world's largest encyclopedia at the time.
The editorial board included 361 scholars, with Ji Yun and Lu Xixiong (陸錫熊) as chief editors. They began compilation in 1773 and completed it in 1782. The editors collected and annotated over 10,000 manuscripts from the imperial collections and other libraries, destroyed some 3,000 titles, or works, that were considered to be anti-Manchu, and selected 3,461 titles, or works, for inclusion into the Siku Quanshu. They were bound in 36,381 volumes () with more than 79,000 chapters (), comprising about 2.3 million pages, and approximately 800 million Chinese characters.
Scribes copied every word by hand, and according to Wilkinson (2000: 274), "The copyists (of whom there were 3,826) were not paid in cash but rewarded with official posts after they had transcribed a given number of words within a set time." Four copies for the emperor were placed in specially constructed libraries in the Forbidden City, Old Summer Palace, Shenyang, and Wenjin Chamber, Chengde. Three additional copies for the public were deposited in Siku Quanshu libraries in Hangzhou, Zhenjiang, and Yangzhou. All seven libraries also received copies of the 1725 imperial encyclopedia Gujin tushu jicheng.
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