Wǔ gào jiě 五誥解
An Exposition of the Five Proclamations by 楊簡 (zhuàn 撰)
About the work
A short Sòng commentary on the five “Proclamation” chapters (gào 誥) of the Shàngshū 尚書 (KR1b0001) — Kāng gào 康誥, Jiǔ gào 酒誥, Zǐcái 梓材, Shào gào 召誥, Luò gào 洛誥 — by Yáng Jiǎn 楊簡 (Cíhú 慈湖, 1141–1226), the foremost disciple of Lù Jiǔyuān 陸九淵 and the leading Sòng exegete of xīnxué 心學 (“mind-doctrine”). The choice of object follows the Hán Yù 韓愈 dictum that the Zhōu gào and Yīn pán are “twisted, knotty, and difficult to chew” (jí qū áo yá 佶屈聱牙); the same rationale governs Lǚ Zǔqiān’s 呂祖謙 Shū shuō (KR1b0013), which also handled the Zhōu proclamations first. The text was lost during the YuánMíng transition and survives only in the Yǒnglè dàdiàn 永樂大典 reconstruction by the Sìkù compilers, Zǐcái alone now being missing.
Tiyao
Imperially Authorized Sìkù Quánshū. Classics, division 2. Wǔ gào jiě. Books-class.
Précis. Your servants etc. respectfully submit: the Wǔ gào jiě in four juǎn is by Yáng Jiǎn of the Sòng. Jiǎn’s Cíhú yìzhuàn 慈湖易傳 has already been entered in our catalog. Long ago Hán Yù noted that “the proclamations of Zhōu and the Pán of Yīn are twisted and knotty”; Sòng-dynasty Confucians like Lǚ Zǔqiān, in his Shū shuō, also explained the Zhōu gào first and only afterwards turned to the books of Yú, Xià, and Shāng — surely on the principle that once one has mastered the difficult, the rest is easy to investigate. Jiǎn made this book to gloss only the five chapters from “Kāng gào” onward, on the same intuition.
Jiǎn studied under Lù Jiǔyuān: hence, when he raises matters such as the policies of xīn mín 新民 (“renewing the people”) and bǎo chì 保赤 (“protecting the new-born”), he traces them back ultimately to xīnxué 心學. He also wrote at the height of the Zì shuō 字說 [Wáng Ānshí’s Etymological Treatise] vogue, and is fond of forced graphic-etymological readings as a way to claim novelty; his diction can be involuted and overburdened, not always saying what he wants to say. Yet, as for instance: where the Kāng gào says “favor those not yet favored, encourage those not yet encouraged” he focuses the responsibility on the person of the ruler; where it says fú niàn xún shí 服念旬時* (“observe and ponder for ten and three days”) he doubts the Kǒng zhuàn’s reading “three months” as too long; where the Jiǔ gào says jué xīn jí hèn 厥心疾狠 (“their hearts wickedly stubborn”), he refers it to the heart of the people; where the Shào gào says gù wèi yú mín yán 顧畏于民碞 (“fear the rocks of the people”), he understands that the people-as-foolish are still numinous and frightening, like cliffs (yán 碞 = sheer rock); where the Luò gào says gōng wú kùn zāi 公無困哉 (“Duke, do not be wearied”), he reads kùn 困 as carrying the meaning of juànqín 倦勤 (weariness-with-the-throne) — in all of these he is able to correct received readings and put forward his own insight.
As for using the explanation of Zhèng Kāngchéng [鄭玄] and Gù Biāo 顧彪 on “Xiān bǔ Lí shuǐ” 先卜黎水 (i.e. on the prior divinations regarding the new capital Luò); using Sū’s Shū zhuàn on “When [Zhōu Gōng] enfeoffed Kāng Shū, [the city of] Luò had not yet been founded”; using Wáng’s Shū yì 書義 [Wáng Ānshí’s Shàngshū commentary] on the gloss of fù zǐ míng pì 復子明辟 and on the jùdòu 句讀 of qí fù bó wéi 圻父薄違 — he is also able to tie together various opinions and not bind himself to a single school’s learning.
This book had long been lost. The Wényuángé shūmù records it as one cè (binding), Jiāo Hóng’s Jīngjí zhì lists it as one juǎn, Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo says “not seen.” We have now extracted the entries scattered through the various rhyme categories of the Yǒnglè dàdiàn and gathered them under their proper headings; only the Zǐcái chapter is missing, and the rest of the chapters and verses are intact. We have respectfully arranged the surviving material in the order of the canonical text into four juǎn. Respectfully submitted, Qiánlóng 46 / 1781, 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 Wǔ gào jiě is one of the most important surviving Sòng Shàngshū commentaries from the xīnxué 心學 (Mind-school) tradition, and the only one of Yáng Jiǎn’s Shàngshū writings transmitted into the Sìkù. Yáng Jiǎn wrote it as a deliberately limited project — a gloss only on the five “Proclamation” chapters of the Zhōushū 周書 portion of the canon, on the principle (shared with Lǚ Zǔqiān, KR1b0013) that the linguistically intractable gào should be solved first.
The composition window is bracketed by Yáng Jiǎn’s mature productive career; without internal dating, a defensible bracket is roughly 1180–1225 (his death in 1226 by Western reckoning). The catalog meta gives Yáng’s lifedates as 1140–1225, but the Sòngshǐ, CBDB, and the standard secondary literature give 1141–1226 — the corrected dates are in his person note (楊簡).
The Sìkù compilers’ summary is unusually substantive on the work’s distinguishing features. They credit Yáng with five specific exegetical breakthroughs — five corrections of the received Kǒng zhuàn 孔傳 readings — all of them characteristically xīnxué in their orientation: the Kāng gào moralizing of huì bù huì, mào bù mào “favor those not yet favored, encourage those not yet encouraged” onto the ruler’s person; the redating of the Kāng gào’s xún shí 旬時 (10+13 days) as against Kǒng’s “three months”; the Jiǔ gào’s jí hèn 疾狠 hearts as the people’s hearts rather than the wicked Yīn officers’; the Shào gào’s mín yán 民碞 as the awe-inspiring numinosity of even the “stupid” common people; and the Luò gào’s kùn 困 read as juànqín 倦勤 (weariness with the throne). At the same time the compilers acknowledge Yáng’s two characteristic vices: a tendency to forced graphic-etymological readings (a habit acquired in the wake of Wáng Ānshí’s 王安石 Zì shuō 字說 vogue), and an involuted, overburdened style.
The text is praised for its catholic willingness to use Zhèng Xuán 鄭玄 / Gù Biāo 顧彪 on the bǔ Lí shuǐ problem, Sū Shì’s 蘇軾 Shū zhuàn on the geography of the founding of Luò 洛, and Wáng Ānshí’s Shàngshū yì 尚書義 on the fù zǐ míng pì 復子明辟 question and on the jùdòu of qí fù bó wéi 圻父薄違 — i.e. it is a xīnxué commentary that nevertheless freely draws on Han, Tang, Sū-school, and Wáng-school readings.
The transmission is reconstructive. The Wényuángé shūmù 文淵閣書目 (early Míng) lists the work in one cè; Jiāo Hóng’s 焦竑 Jīngjí zhì 經籍志 (late Míng) in one juǎn; Zhū Yízūn’s 朱彝尊 Jīngyì kǎo 經義考 (early Qīng) flags the title “not seen.” The Sìkù compilers reconstructed the text by extracting entries from the Yǒnglè dàdiàn 永樂大典 (which had broken Yáng Jiǎn’s commentary apart by yùn 韻 (rhyme) categories), reassembling them in canonical order, and dividing the result into 4 juǎn. The Zǐcái 梓材 chapter is irrecoverably lost. The submission was made in Qiánlóng 46 / 1781.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation of the Wǔ gào jiě is known. For the xīnxué exegetical project of which Yáng Jiǎn is the leading representative, see the entry on Yáng Jiǎn in Sòng-Yuán xué àn 宋元學案 juǎn 74 (Cíhú xué àn 慈湖學案); and Hoyt C. Tillman, “The Idea of Lu Jiuyuan’s Xīn xué” in his Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1992). For Yáng’s exegesis specifically, Lín Sūxiá 林素芳, Yáng Cíhú jīng xué yánjiū 楊慈湖經學研究 (Taipei: Wénshǐzhé chūbǎnshè, 1990) treats the Yìzhuàn and the Wǔ gào jiě together.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào’s catalog of Yáng Jiǎn’s five xīnxué readings against the Kǒng zhuàn is in itself a useful piece of Qing-era doxography: it identifies precisely which exegetical moves count, in the eyes of the imperially commissioned canon-makers, as the legitimate fruit of xīnxué applied to the Documents, distinct from the merely “involuted” or graphological excesses for which Yáng was elsewhere criticized.
The text’s subordination of xīn mín 新民 (“renewing the people,” the famous Dàxué 大學 phrase) and bǎo chì 保赤 (“protecting the new-born,” from the Kāng gào itself) under xīnxué foundations represents one of the earliest sustained attempts to read the Shàngshū through the Lù-school philosophical lens, and is therefore an important document in the prehistory of late-Míng xīnxué canonical hermeneutics (Wáng Yángmíng 王陽明 → Líu Zōngzhōu 劉宗周).