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增修東萊書說

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Text ID
KR1b0013
Date
1175–1207
Dynasty
宋

Zēngxiū Dōnglái shū shuō 增修東萊書說

Augmented and Revised “Dōnglái’s Discourses on the Documents” by 呂祖謙 (zhuàn 撰) and 時瀾 (zēngxiū 增修)

About the work

A two-handed commentary on the Shàngshū 尚書 (here KR1b0001). The core was Lǚ Zǔqiān’s 呂祖謙 (Dōnglái 東萊, 1137–1181) own running exposition, written for his Jīnhuá 金華 lectures and covering only the second half of the canon — from “Luò gào” 洛誥 through “Qín shì” 秦誓; the earlier chapters survived merely as classroom notes by disciples, which Lǚ himself called “vulgar and disordered” (俚辭閒之繁亂). Two and a half decades after Lǚ’s death his most prominent student, Shí Lán 時瀾 (1156–1222), recast those notes into 22 polished juǎn, redivided Lǚ’s autograph into 13 juǎn, and combined them into the present 35-juǎn recension, signing the preface in Kāixī 3 / 1207. The book is the most important formal document of Sòng “SānshānJīnhuá” Shàngshū learning — Lǚ Zǔqiān had studied with Lín Zhīqí 林之奇 (Sānshān-school of Fúzhōu), and the Zēngxiū shū shuō (despite its 1207 imprint) carries forward the Lín-school exegetical lineage in Lǚ’s voice.

Tiyao

Imperially Authorized Sìkù Quánshū. Classics, division 2. Zēngxiū shū shuō. Books-class.

Précis. Your servants etc. respectfully submit: the Zēngxiū shū shuō in thirty-five juǎn is by Lǚ Zǔqiān of the Sòng. The Zhōngyù tōngkǎo 中興通考 lists it in ten juǎn, and Zhào Xībiàn’s 趙希弁 Dúshū fùzhì 讀書附志 in six juǎn; both disagree with the present figure. This is because those two were Zǔqiān’s original, before Shí Lán made his additions: at the time the work had not yet been assembled into a finished volume, and copyists divided it at will, producing the discrepancy. Zǔqiān’s original began at “Luò gào” and ended at “Qín shì”; the part before “Shào gào” and after “Yáodiǎn” — i.e. the front of the canon — was nothing more than disciples’ classroom notes, much of it rather vulgar in tone. Lán was the one who began trimming and polishing the prose into twenty-two juǎn, while also redividing the original into thirteen, the two together making up the present compilation. Wáng Yīnglín’s Yùhǎi 玉海 says that Lín Shàoyǐng’s [林之奇] Shū shuō ends at “Luò gào,” and that Lǚ Chénggōng’s [呂祖謙] Shū shuō begins from “Luò gào”: Zhīqí had studied with Lǚ Jūrén [呂本中, 1084–1145], and Zǔqiān again with Zhīqí, so that, with the avowed aim of completing his teacher’s account and forming a single school’s exposition, [Lǚ Zǔqiān picks up where the master leaves off]; what Lán now continues is in turn the completion of Zǔqiān’s single voice.

Lán was a man of Qīngjiāng in Wùzhōu; Lì È’s Sòng shī jìshì 宋詩紀事 collects one of his poems, but is unable to record his official career. On investigation, Zhōu Bìdà’s Píngyuán jí 平園集 contains a Jì Lán wén 祭瀾文 (a sacrificial address for Shí Lán) which calls him “Cóngzhèng láng 從政郎, sent to serve as instructor (jiàoshòu) at the Western Outer Mùzōng Yuàn Zōngxué”; while Lán’s own preface says he “entered the post of jiānchéng at Sānshān [Fúzhōu] via the xī dǐ [Western Mansion] wénxué examination” — meaning that at the time of compiling this book he was a jiānchéng, and only afterwards ended his career as jiàoshòu. Wú Shīdào 吳師道 wrote: “Shí Zhù of Qīngjiāng, zì Shòuqīng, was a same-year jìnshì with Lǚ Chénggōng. Together with his younger brother Chàng he led their ten and more clansmen and disciples all in a body to study under the Master; among the kinsmen, Shí Yún, Shí Lán and Shí Jīng were the outstanding talents of the Shí house. Chénggōng compiled his Shū shuō, and Lán with what he had heard in former days assembled it; it is what is now circulated as the Shū zhuàn.” So this book bears the alternate title Shū zhuàn 書傳.

Further, Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo 經義考 separately records, in addition to the present thirty-five juǎn, a Shí Lán Zēngxiū shū shuō in thirty juǎn, marked “extant”; this thirty-juǎn version we have not seen, and we do not know on what edition it is based. Respectfully submitted, Qiánlóng 44 / 1779, ninth month.

— Director-General, Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. — Director of Final Collation, Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The work is the joint production of two generations of the Sòng “Wùzhōu” 婺州 / “Jīnhuá” 金華 Shàngshū tradition. Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙 (Dōnglái 東萊, 1137–1181) — the founder of the Lǚ school of historiography and a friend of Zhū Xī 朱熹 — gave the lectures during his teaching career in Jīnhuá in the 1170s. The autograph half of the work covered the back half of the canon (“Luò gào” 洛誥 through “Qín shì” 秦誓) and was already circulating in early form before Lǚ’s death, leading to the discrepant pre-recension juǎn counts (10 juǎn in the Zhōngyù tōngkǎo 中興通考, 6 juǎn in Zhào Xībiàn’s Dúshū fùzhì 讀書附志). The remainder of the canon — Yáo diǎn 堯典 down through “Shào gào” 召誥 — survived only as rough disciples’ notes which Lǚ himself, in his lifetime, considered inadequate for publication.

Twenty-six years after Lǚ’s death his most prominent disciple Shí Lán 時瀾 (1156–1222) — encouraged by Zhèng Zhào 鄭肈 of Quánzhōu, with whom he had become close after entering the Sānshān (Fúzhōu) Imperial Academy as jiānchéng 監丞 — undertook the editorial recovery of the lost half. He polished the disciples’ notes into 22 juǎn, redivided Lǚ’s autograph into 13 juǎn, combined the two halves into the present 35-juǎn recension, and dated his preface to Kāixī dīngmǎo 開禧丁卯 (Kāixī 3 / 1207), eleventh month, on the day of the winter solstice. The bracket 1175 (Lǚ’s mature lecturing) – 1207 (Shí Lán’s editorial completion) gives the defensible composition window for the received recension.

The transmitted text bears the alternate title Shū zhuàn 書傳 (Wú Shīdào 吳師道, SòngYuán xué àn) and is closely tied — via Wáng Yīnglín’s 王應麟 Yùhǎi 玉海 commentary — to Lín Zhīqí’s 林之奇 (1112–1176) Shàngshū jíjiě 尚書集解 (KR1b0010): Lín’s own commentary terminated at “Luò gào,” and Lǚ deliberately began his own where his teacher had left off, so that the two together would constitute a single complete Shàngshū exegesis from the lineage of SānshānJīnhuá. The Zēngxiū therefore should be read alongside Lín’s commentary as the second half of one continuous project.

A bibliographic puzzle, raised but not resolved by the Sìkù compilers, is Zhū Yízūn’s 朱彝尊 Jīngyì kǎo 經義考 entry of an additional, separate Shí Lán Zēngxiū shū shuō in 30 juǎn marked “extant”; the Sìkù staff did not see it, and it is not known on what recension that listing is based — possibly a separate edition of Shí Lán’s solo expansion (the part originally by disciples) before its merger into the 35-juǎn version, or possibly a chimerical record. (The 35-juǎn version submitted to the Sìkù in Qiánlóng 44 / 1779 is the only one transmitted.)

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language translation of the Zēngxiū Dōnglái shū shuō is known. Lǚ Zǔqiān as a scholar has been studied at length: see Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1992), chapter on Lǚ; and the translation in James M. Hargett, Stairway to Heaven: A Journey to the Summit of Mount Emei (which incorporates Lǚ-school historiographical context). For the Lín-Lǚ-Shí continuum specifically, the standard source remains the Sòng-Yuán xué àn 宋元學案 sections on the Dōnglái xuépài 東萊學派 and on Lín Zhīqí. A modern critical edition is in Huáng Língěng 黃靈庚, ed., Lǚ Zǔqiān quánjí 呂祖謙全集 (Hángzhōu: Zhèjiāng gǔjí chūbǎnshè, 2008), vols. for 經學部分.

Other points of interest

The case is unusual in Sòng exegetical history because we know precisely how the disjuncture between disciples’ lecture-notes and the master’s autograph was bridged, and by whom: Shí Lán’s preface explicitly thematizes the editorial labor of cleaning up líci 俚辭 (vulgar / colloquial diction) and fánluàn fǔzá 繁亂複雜 (verbose and disordered passages), and is candid that he is responsible only for the disciples’ half of the text. As such, the Zēngxiū is one of the cleaner Sòng cases in which post-mortem editorial reconstitution is openly acknowledged in the recension itself — comparable in spirit to (e.g.) the editorial framing of the Lúnyǔ jíjiě 論語集解 prefatory matter, but explicit about the ratio of master’s voice to editor’s voice on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

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