The Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era (Chinese: 太平御覽; pinyin: Tàipíng Yùlǎn) is a massive encyclopedia compiled by a number of officers commissioned by the imperial court of the Song Dynasty with the lead editor being Li Fang from 977 to 983 during the era of Taiping Xingguo. It is divided into 1,000 volumes and 55 sections, which consisted of about 4.7 millions Chinese characters. It included citations from about 2,579 different kinds of documents spanning from books, poetry, ode, proverbs, steles to miscellaneous works. After the compilation, the Emperor Taizong of Song is said to have finished reading the book within a year with 3 volumes per day.
Famous quotes containing the words imperial, readings and/or era:
“Insensibility, of all kinds, and on all occasions, most moves my imperial displeasure.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“The eating of a MacDonald’s meal is like the reading of Reader’s Digest—small, easily digested, carefully processed, carefully cut down, abridged. Reader’s Digest gives us knowledge that is easily compartmentalized, simplified, ideologically sound.”
—Clive Bloom, British educator. “MacDonald’s Man Meets Reader’s Digest,” Readings in Popular Culture: Trivial Pursuits?, St. Martin’s Press (1990)
“Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himself remained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)