The
Book of the Later Han (compiled in the 5th century from older sources) relates that the songs were recorded in western
Sichuan and a Chinese translation presented to
Emperor Ming of Han (58–75 AD). This episode is recorded in the "Treatise on the Southern Barbarians" chapter, which includes the Chinese translation, but not the original songs. The Bailang people are described as living to the west of Wenshan, a mountain of the
Minshan range in the southern part of modern
Mao County. According to the oldest extant commentary on the
Book of the Later Han, by
Li Xian (651–684), the Chinese translation was taken from the
Dongguan Hanji, which also included a transcription of the Bailang version in
Chinese characters. Only a few fragments of the
Dongguan Hanji are extant, but Li included this transcription in his commentary, and another variant is found in the 12th-century
Tongzhi. Thus in addition to the distortion inherent in transcription, interpretation is complicated by the transmission history of the text and uncertainty about the pronunciation of
Eastern Han Chinese. Several features of the text have led scholars to doubt the traditional view that the songs were translated from Bailang to Chinese: the songs reflect a Chinese world-view, contain many Chinese words and phrases (in addition to apparent loans) and generally follow Chinese word order. In addition, the Chinese versions rhyme while the Bailang versions generally do not. Most modern authors hold that the songs were composed in Chinese and their words translated (where possible) into equivalent Bailang words or phrases, retaining the metrical structure of the Chinese original. This view is disputed by
Christopher Beckwith, who claims that the Bailang version shows patterns of
assonance and
consonance when the characters are read in a southwestern variety of Eastern Han Chinese. ==Classification==