YUNG-LO TA-TIEN

Pinyin Yongluo Dadien (Chinese: The Great Canon [or Vast Documents] of the Yung-lo Era), Chinese compilation that was the world's largest known encyclopaedia. Compiled by thousands of Chinese scholars under the direction of the Yung-lo emperor (reigned 140224), it was completed in 1407. The work contained 22,877 manuscript rolls, or chapters, in 11,095 volumes and was designed to include all that had ever been written on the Confucian canon, history, philosophy, and the arts and sciences. It was, in effect, a vast collection of excerpts and entire works from the mass of Chinese literature. Fewer than 400 volumes of the three manuscript copies of the set survived into modern times. A 100-volume portion was published in Chinese in 1962.