Sanyuan Zonglu: household, marriage and burial sections across editions

Revised 2026-10-24: added the modern edition's compilation and commentary credits and grounded the content outline in an identifiable catalogue.

*Sanyuan Zonglu* (三元總錄) brings together traditional material on dwellings, marriage and burial. “Written by Liu Hongquan of the Ming” is an incomplete description of editions that also name later contributors.

Attribution and edition

The Hangzhou Library catalogue records a 2010 Zhongyi Guji Chubanshe edition, ISBN 978-7-80174-860-7, crediting Wang Daoheng of the Qing as compiler, Liu Hongquan of the Ming as author, and Li Xiang for vernacular explanations. These are the responsibilities recorded for that edition; they do not prove when every passage originated.

The Wikisource contents attribute the work to Liu Hongquan and arrange it as an upper juan on 宅元 (dwellings), a middle juan on 婚元 (marriage), and a lower juan on 塋元 (burial). This is a reading and retrieval aid, not a completed investigation of the author's biography or original composition date.

What the three sections contain

The listed dwelling material concerns sites, construction, gates, stoves and entering a home. The marriage section includes matching, wedding times and directions, marriage documents and some miscellaneous astronomical or omen entries. The burial section includes burial days, coffining, reburial, mourning and ritual texts. Published contents.

In this context “three yuan” should not be treated as proof that the book is a specialist manual on the Xuan Kong system of three periods and nine cycles. Nor are its three themes sealed modern academic categories.

When comparing editions, distinguish original text, later appendices and modern explanation. Record the edition and page before turning a passage into a rule. Marriage and burial prohibitions document historical beliefs; they do not demonstrate effects on relationships, building safety or descendants' fortunes. This revision checked catalogues and contents, not every early printing.

LamjinLab's date-selection tool is a related study aid, whose page states its data coverage. This article does not claim that the entire book has been implemented.

Sources checked

• Hangzhou Library bibliographical and MARC record: publication credits and three-part synopsis.
• Sanyuan Zonglu contents and transcription entry point on Wikisource: section titles and listed topics; compare transcription with scans for detailed work.