Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan information

Xǐngshì Yīnyuán Zhuàn

Cover of Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan, collection of the Zhejiang University
Author	Xizhou Sheng (西周生 "Scholar of the Western Zhou"; anonymous)
Original title	醒世姻緣傳
Language	Chinese
Genre	novel of manners
Published	17th-century
Publication place	China

The Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan (Chinese: 醒世姻緣傳; pinyin: Xǐngshì Yīnyuán Zhuàn; lit. 'The Story of a Marital Fate to Awaken the World'), also translated as Marriage Destinies to Awaken the World, The Bonds of Matrimony, A Marriage to Awaken the World and A Romance to Awaken the World, is a Chinese classic novel of the late Ming or early Qing dynasty. Consist of 100 chapters and over one million words, it was one of the longest Chinese novels of the period. Scholar Daria Berg calls it "one of China's most underrated traditional vernacular novels" and "one of the most grand-scale explorations of the world in fiction", a saga of two families, one a reincarnation of the other, whose "catalog of vices and moral decay conjures up the apocalyptic vision of a doomed nation".^[1]

Originally named E Yinyuan (惡姻緣, A Cursed Marital Fate), the novel takes the Buddhist doctrine of karma and vipāka as its basic motif.