Róngtáng shū jiě 融堂書解
Master Róngtáng’s Exposition of the Documents by 錢時 (zhuàn 撰)
About the work
The principal Sòng Shàngshū commentary in the Cíhú 慈湖 — i.e. Lù Jiǔyuān → 楊簡 → 錢時 — line of xīnxué 心學. Qián Shí 錢時 (Róngtáng 融堂, conventionally 1175–1244), a bùyī 布衣 (commoner) of Chún’ān 淳安 in Yánzhōu 嚴州, was Yáng Jiǎn’s direct disciple; the work was originally composed and submitted to the throne in 1238 in a much larger 30-fascicle form titled Shàngshū yǎnyì 尚書演義 (recorded in Yè Shèng’s 葉盛 Shuǐdōng rìjì 水東日記), and survives only in what the Sìkù compilers infer is Qián Shí’s own later abridgment under the title Róngtáng shū jiě — which is what the Yǒnglè dàdiàn preserved. The text was lost in the regular transmission stream: the SòngYuánMíng commentators who would normally have cited it (Huáng Zhèn’s 黃震 Rì chāo 日鈔, the Míng Wǔ jīng dàquán 五經大全, Zhū Yízūn’s 朱彝尊 Jīngyì kǎo 經義考) all draw a blank; the Sìkù recovery is the basis of the surviving recension.
The tíyào judges the work strikingly highly — “the most exceptional of the Sòng commentaries on the Classics” (Sòng rén jīng jiě zhōng jǐn jiàn zhī shū yě 宋人經解中僅見之書也) — for the precision of its source-criticism and the originality of its readings. Methodologically the work is xīnxué in inflection but evidentially eclectic: Qián Shí freely quotes Mǎ Róng 馬融 and Zhèng Xuán 鄭玄 (recovered through the Jīngdiǎn shìwén 經典釋文 and the Shǐjì jíjiě 史記集解 / Shǐjì suǒyǐn 史記索隱), Sū Shì 蘇軾, Kǒng Ān’guó 孔安國, and Zhāng Jiǔchéng 張九成, choosing among them on a passage-by-passage basis.
Tiyao
Imperially Authorized Sìkù Quánshū. Classics, division 2. Róngtáng shū jiě. Books-class.
Précis. Your servants etc. respectfully submit: the Róngtáng shū jiě in twenty juǎn is by Qián Shí of the Sòng. Shí, zì Zǐshì, was a man of Chún’ān. He studied under Yáng Jiǎn. In the Xīníng era — (read: in the Jiāxī era; the source carries the slip Xīníng for Jiāxī. Xīníng (1068–1077) is far too early for a disciple of Yáng Jiǎn, who lived 1141–1226; the recommendation by the chief councillor Qiáo Xíngjiǎn, who held that office only 1238–1240, places this in Jiāxī 2 / 1238. Preserved as a typographical slip) — through the recommendation of Chief Councillor Qiáo Xíngjiǎn, [Qián Shí] was appointed Mìgé jiàokān, and transferred to Shǐguǎn jiǎnyuè. Of the works he composed only the LiǎngHàn bǐjì still circulates in the world, while this book has had few transmitted copies — that is why Huáng Zhèn’s Rì chāo and Hú Guǎng et al.’s Shū jīng dàquán of the Míng do not cite it, and Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo also says “not seen.” We have now extracted from the various yùn-categories of the Yǒnglè dàdiàn the scattered material, gathered and arranged it according to the order of the canonical text, and although three chapters — Yī xùn, Zǐcái, and Tài shì — are wholly missing, and Shuō mìng and Lǚ xíng also have lacunae here and there, the rest of the chapters are intact.
Shí’s intent is fixed on bringing the Shū xù into prominence: he sets out the principal point of each chapter at its head, and for the prefaces of the lost chapters consults the Shǐjì and verifies their historical events to gloss the chapter title. He further draws on the Jīngdiǎn shìwén, Shǐjì jíjiě, and Shǐjì suǒyǐn for the explanations of Mǎ Róng, Zhèng Kāngchéng [Zhèng Xuán] and other Han scholars, and extends their meaning. The thoroughness with which he searches widely and traces back is admirably industrious. The Tang-dynasty commentators of the canon were largely bound to the standard zhùshū; the Sòng Confucians began to favor putting forward new explanations, and could not always avoid tortuous and disjointed readings. Shí, however — when he glosses the Xīhé kuàngzhí 羲和曠職 passage, follows Sū Shì; on “Kāngshū was enfeoffed when Wèi was [a vassal] in the time of King Chéng,” he keeps Kǒng Ān’guó’s interpretation; on the Kāng wáng zhī gào he draws on Zhāng Jiǔchéng’s Shū shuō — truly he can choose the good and follow it, and is not bound to the doctrines of one school.
As for his reading the Tài shì as Wǔ Wáng’s address to the troops at the western foothills of [Mount] Qí, and the Mù shì as his address to the more remote Lords of the Domains; these are his own insights, not borrowed from earlier commentators. He further holds that the Wǔ chéng originally has no missing slips, the middle section recording Wǔ Wáng’s address to his army, and only the latter portion adopting the historian’s narrative voice. He sets the opening section of Kāng gào as the text of “Zhōu Gōng’s first laying of the foundations” — referring to the period when the [Eastern Capital at] Luò had not yet been founded, and Kāngshū was being enfeoffed in order to suppress the recalcitrant [Yīn] populace — and not to be moved into Luò gào [as some previous commentators had argued]. These insights are particularly outstanding, and not bound to the contorted explanations of his contemporaries. His source-material is broad and refined, his constructive arguments fresh and accurate — surely this is among the few rarely-seen classics-of-the-classics-commentaries by Sòng writers.
Yè Shèng’s Shuǐdōng rìjì records that in Jiāxī 2 the prefect of Yánzhōu, Wàn Yī 萬一, having received approval from the Shàngshū shěng 尚書省 [Department of State Affairs], submitted Shí’s writings in a single zòushì 奏狀 (memorial) — at the head of which is listed a Shàngshū yǎnyì 尚書演義 in thirty fascicles. Yet what the Yǒnglè dàdiàn preserves is named Róngtáng shū jiě — we suspect this is Shí’s own late-life redaction. We here adopt the title used in the Yǒnglè dàdiàn, while still placing the two original presentation memoranda (yuán zházhuàng èr tōng 原劄狀二通) at the front. The Jīngyì kǎo gives 8 juǎn, source unknown; we have now collated and divided the surviving material into 20 juǎn and arranged it as follows. Respectfully submitted, Qiánlóng 45 / 1780, fifth 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 Róngtáng shū jiě is the most ambitious surviving Lù-school xīnxué 心學 commentary on the Shàngshū, and the longest of the three Sìkù-preserved Sòng commentaries in the Cíhú lineage (alongside Yáng Jiǎn’s KR1b0015 and Yuán Xiè’s KR1b0016). The author Qián Shí 錢時 (Róngtáng 融堂, conventionally 1175–1244) was a bùyī 布衣 commoner of Chún’ān who studied under 楊簡 (Cíhú, 1141–1226), the senior disciple of Lù Jiǔyuān 陸九淵.
Composition history is unusually well-documented. The work originally circulated as a Shàngshū yǎnyì 尚書演義 in 30 fascicles, lectured at Yánzhōu prefectural school (under the patronage of Yuán Fǔ 袁甫 = 袁甫 and Zhèng Zhīdì 鄭之悌) and at Shàoxīng (under Wāng Gāng 汪綱), and submitted to the throne by the Yánzhōu prefect Wàn Yī 萬一 in Jiāxī 2 / 1238 alongside the chief councillor 喬行簡’s recommendation. The Yǒnglè dàdiàn preserves a recension titled Róngtáng shū jiě — which the Sìkù compilers reasonably infer to be Qián Shí’s own late-life revision of the larger Yǎnyì. The Jīngyì kǎo records an 8-juǎn edition of unclear provenance. The Sìkù reconstruction yields 20 juǎn with three chapters (Yī xùn 伊訓, Zǐcái 梓材, Tài shì 泰誓) wholly missing and two (Shuō mìng 說命, Lǚ xíng 呂刑) partially missing.
Substantively the work has two distinguishing features. First, its loyalty to the Shū xù 書序 (“Documents Prefaces”): every chapter is opened with an explicit gloss of the xù, and for the lost chapters Qián Shí cross-references the Shǐjì to gloss the title in absence of the canonical text. This is a deliberate counter-position to Cài Shěn’s Shū jízhuàn (KR1b0017), which followed Zhū Xī in dismantling the Shū xù. Second, its catholicity of source-use: Qián Shí freely quotes Mǎ Róng 馬融 and Zhèng Xuán 鄭玄 (recovered through Lù Démíng’s Jīngdiǎn shìwén and Péi Yīn’s / Sīmǎ Zhēn’s Shǐjì commentaries), Sū Shì 蘇軾, Kǒng Ān’guó 孔安國, and Zhāng Jiǔchéng 張九成, picking among them.
The Sìkù compilers credit Qián Shí with a number of original readings that they explicitly rate above the consensus: (a) reading the Tài shì 泰誓 as Wǔ Wáng’s speech to the troops at the western foothills of Mount Qí (i.e. before crossing the Yellow River), and the Mù shì 牧誓 as a speech to the remote feudal lords, distinguishing the two addresses by audience rather than by sequence; (b) holding that Wǔ chéng 武成 has no missing slips, with the apparent textual hiatus explained as a shift from Wǔ Wáng’s direct address to historian’s narrative voice; (c) reading the opening section of Kāng gào 康誥 as belonging to the period of “Zhōu Gōng’s first laying of the foundations,” before the founding of the eastern capital at Luò 洛, with Kāngshū enfeoffed at Wèi precisely to control the recalcitrant Yīn populace — and therefore not properly attached to Luò gào as some earlier commentators (Sū Shì in particular) had argued.
The Sìkù verdict — “surely this is among the few rarely-seen classics-of-the-classics-commentaries by Sòng writers” — is the highest the compilers grant to a Lù-school text in the Sìkù Shū lèi sequence, and explicitly recognizes that even hostile transmission lines (the Cài zhuàn lineage represented by Huáng Zhèn, Hú Guǎng) had simply lost track of the work before they could discount it.
The Sìkù WYG copy preserves at the front the two memoranda (zházhuàng 劄狀): (1) Qiáo Xíngjiǎn’s recommendation memorial naming Yáng Jiǎn, Yuán Fǔ, Zhèng Zhīdì, and Wāng Gāng as the patrons who had earlier recognized Qián Shí’s qualities; (2) Wàn Yī’s submission memorial. These together constitute a primary-source dossier for the recommendation pathway by which a Lù-school commoner-classicist was brought to court attention in the late Sòng — an unusually clean case of how the xué àn 學案 transmission lines actually intersected with imperial patronage.
The composition window in the frontmatter (1210–1244) covers Qián Shí’s mature productive period, with the original Yǎnyì in 1238 and the abridgment Róngtáng shū jiě presumably finalized between then and his death.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation of the Róngtáng shū jiě is known. Modern Chinese-language scholarship has begun to recover Qián Shí as the principal late-Cíhú Shū-exegete: see Xú Hóngxīng 徐洪興, Lù Wáng xīnxué de jīngdiǎn quánshì 陸王心學的經典詮釋 (Beijing: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè, 2009); Wáng Yùyǔ 王毓宇, Qián Shí Róngtáng xué yánjiū 錢時融堂學研究 (Hangzhou: Hángzhōu shīfàn dàxué M.A. thesis, 2011). For the Liǎng-Hàn bǐjì (his other surviving work, on Hàn-dynasty history, distinct from the Shū jiě) see the modern punctuated edition in the Sìkù quánshū jīngbù 四庫全書經部 reprint series.
Other points of interest
The Qiáo Xíngjiǎn recommendation memorial preserved at the front of the WYG copy is unusual evidence: it lists not only Yáng Jiǎn (Cíhú) as Qián Shí’s master, but also names 袁甫 (then Bǎozhānggé dàizhì 寶章閣待制, formerly Huīzhōu prefect) and Wāng Gāng (then prefect of Shàoxīng) as the regional officials who had hosted Qián Shí’s lectures. The dossier therefore documents a circuit — Yánzhōu, Huīzhōu, Shàoxīng — through which a single Lù-school xīnxué commoner-classicist was lecturing in the 1230s, before the Mongol pressure finally closed off such circuits. This is one of the few Sòng Shàngshū commentaries whose underlying lecturing economy can be reconstructed in such detail.
The reading of Tài shì / Mù shì as differentiated by audience (rather than sequence) was particularly influential on the late-Yuán and early-Míng Shū tradition, and the Wǔ chéng-no-missing-slips position became a recurring counter-orthodoxy against the Cài zhuàn’s acceptance of slip displacement.
Links
- CBDB id 42101
- Wikidata: no entity
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Shū lèi, Róngtáng shū jiě entry (Kyoto Zinbun digital edition)