樊绰

Fan Chuo was a figure of the Tang dynasty, yet public sources offer very limited information about his life: his birth and death years, native place, and official career are all difficult to verify. The works attributed to him that survive today mainly concern the history, geography, and customs of the Nanzhao and Yunnan region. The best known is Yunnan Zhi, also called Manshu, and different editions of Manshu, including an unannotated version, are also in circulation; three of his works are collected here. These texts systematically record the mountains, roads, ethnic groups, local products, customs, and political conditions of the southwestern frontier in Tang times. They have a pronounced documentary character, and their style is plain, concise, and free of elaborate description. Such writings have long been regarded as important sources for the study of Tang-era Yunnan and ethnic relations, and they provide relatively early firsthand material for understanding Nanzhao society. They are often mentioned in the categories of historical reading and classic works. Because the author's own life is obscure, readers may treat his works as a window onto Tang perceptions of the frontier.