An Nam chí lược

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The An Nam chí lược (Abbreviated Records of An Nam) is a historical book written by Vietnamese scholar Lê Tắc during his exile in Yuan China in the early 1300s. It was first published in 1335 and is one of the oldest surviving Vietnamese histories. Lê Tắc had served the Tran dynasty; after the 1285 Yuan invasion, his master was killed and Lê Tắc fled to China, living in Hanyang, Hubei. There he wrote the book to record Vietnam’s history, geography and culture.

Lê Tắc wrote from around 1285–1307 and kept adding until 1339. The work was published in 1335 during the Yuan emperor Huizong’s rule and later included in the Qing dynasty’s Siku Quanshu library. In Ming times, another author used An Nam chí lược to write Việt Kiệu thư. When the Mongol-led and later Ming rule seized Vietnamese books, many were lost; An Nam chí lược is one of the few that survived. In the early 20th century, a Japanese print (1884) brought a copy back to Vietnam, and a Vietnamese translation appeared in 1961.

Contents: It covers Vietnam from ancient times to the Trần dynasty. The title shows the Chinese name for Vietnam (An Nam) and reflects a Chinese bias, but the work still carries Lê Tắc’s Vietnamese perspective. There are 20 chapters; 19 survive, the 20th named Danh công đề vịnh An Nam chí is lost. The text is largely based on Chinese sources, but it also contains unique material, such as the first surviving reference to Lady Triệu, who rose against Eastern Wu in the 3rd century. It includes information about geography and culture, and notes the influence of Taoism in Vietnam. The opening chapter describes early Đại Việt history and traditional music and dance, showing Vietnamese songs sung in their own language with tunes influenced by Chinese music.