Yongle Encyclopedia
E359248
The Yongle Encyclopedia is a vast 15th-century Chinese imperial compendium that sought to collect and preserve the entirety of known knowledge, literature, and scholarship of its time.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Yongle Encyclopedia canonical | 2 |
| 永樂大典 | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3461477 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Yongle Encyclopedia Context triple: [Yongle Emperor, commissionedWork, Yongle Encyclopedia]
-
A.
Book of the Eight Tones
The Book of the Eight Tones is a liturgical hymn book used in Eastern Christian worship that organizes chants according to eight musical modes.
-
B.
Records of the Grand Historian
Records of the Grand Historian is an influential ancient Chinese historical text by Sima Qian that systematically chronicles Chinese history from legendary times through the early Han period.
-
C.
Daozang
Daozang is the vast canonical collection of Taoist scriptures, rituals, and commentaries compiled over centuries as the primary literary foundation of Taoist religious and philosophical tradition.
-
D.
Sesame and Lilies
"Sesame and Lilies" is a collection of influential Victorian-era lectures by John Ruskin that explore education, gender roles, and the moral responsibilities of men and women in society.
-
E.
Tripitaka
Tripitaka is the traditional Buddhist canon, comprising three collections of teachings that form the foundational scriptures of the Buddhist religion.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Yongle Encyclopedia Target entity description: The Yongle Encyclopedia is a vast 15th-century Chinese imperial compendium that sought to collect and preserve the entirety of known knowledge, literature, and scholarship of its time.
-
A.
Book of the Eight Tones
The Book of the Eight Tones is a liturgical hymn book used in Eastern Christian worship that organizes chants according to eight musical modes.
-
B.
Records of the Grand Historian
Records of the Grand Historian is an influential ancient Chinese historical text by Sima Qian that systematically chronicles Chinese history from legendary times through the early Han period.
-
C.
Daozang
Daozang is the vast canonical collection of Taoist scriptures, rituals, and commentaries compiled over centuries as the primary literary foundation of Taoist religious and philosophical tradition.
-
D.
Sesame and Lilies
"Sesame and Lilies" is a collection of influential Victorian-era lectures by John Ruskin that explore education, gender roles, and the moral responsibilities of men and women in society.
-
E.
Tripitaka
Tripitaka is the traditional Buddhist canon, comprising three collections of teachings that form the foundational scriptures of the Buddhist religion.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (53)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Chinese encyclopedia
ⓘ
imperial encyclopedia ⓘ reference work ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs | Yongle Dadian ⓘ |
| arrangementPrinciple | radical-and-rhyme order ⓘ |
| chiefCompiler | Yao Guangxiao ⓘ |
| commissionedBy | Yongle Emperor ⓘ |
| compiledInPeriod | Ming dynasty ⓘ |
| compiler |
Liu Jichi
ⓘ
Xie Jin ⓘ |
| contains |
excerpts from classical texts
ⓘ
full texts of earlier works ⓘ illustrations ⓘ |
| copiedInReign | Jiajing Emperor ⓘ |
| copyProduced | Jiajing-era manuscript copy ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | China ⓘ |
| dateOfCompilationEnd | 1408 ⓘ |
| dateOfCompilationStart | 1403 ⓘ |
| editorInChief | Yao Guangxiao ⓘ |
| estimatedTotalCharacters | over 370 million ⓘ |
| extantVolumesApproximate |
about 400 volumes
ⓘ
less than 10 percent of original ⓘ |
| format | manuscript ⓘ |
| historicalSignificance |
major source for otherwise lost Chinese texts
ⓘ
one of the largest encyclopedias ever compiled by hand ⓘ |
| influenced | later Chinese encyclopedic compilations ⓘ |
| keptAt |
Forbidden City
ⓘ
Hanlin Academy ⓘ |
| lostDueTo |
fires
ⓘ
looting ⓘ wars ⓘ |
| notableEvent | volumes destroyed in the 1900 Boxer Rebellion ⓘ |
| numberOfBoundVolumes | 11,095 ⓘ |
| numberOfChapters | 22,877 ⓘ |
| numberOfContributors | over 2,000 scholars ⓘ |
| numberOfVolumesOriginal | 22,877 juan ⓘ |
| originalEditionStatus | lost ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | Classical Chinese ⓘ |
| patron | Yongle Emperor ⓘ |
| placeOfCompilation | Nanjing ⓘ |
| purpose | to collect and preserve all known knowledge and literature of its time ⓘ |
| script | regular script ⓘ |
| subjectMatter |
Chinese history
ⓘ
Chinese literature ⓘ arts ⓘ medicine ⓘ philosophy ⓘ religion ⓘ science ⓘ technology ⓘ |
| survivalStatus | partially extant ⓘ |
| titleInChinese |
永樂大典
ⓘ
linked to:
Yongle Encyclopedia
|
| writingMaterial | paper ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Yongle Encyclopedia Description of subject: The Yongle Encyclopedia is a vast 15th-century Chinese imperial compendium that sought to collect and preserve the entirety of known knowledge, literature, and scholarship of its time.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Yongle Encyclopedia