Shū jīng dàquán 書經大全
The Comprehensive Compendium on the Documents Classic by 胡廣 (fèng chì zhuàn 奉敕撰)
About the work
The Shàngshū portion of the early-Míng imperially commissioned Wǔ jīng dàquán 五經大全 redaction (1414–1415), in 10 juǎn. Compiled by a Hànlín team under Hú Guǎng 胡廣 (1369–1418) and presented in Yǒnglè 13 / 1415, the work establishes the institutional CàiShěn 蔡沈 monopoly on Shàngshū exegesis that would govern the late-Imperial examination curriculum from the Wǔ jīng dàquán through to the Qīng abolition of the examination system in 1905. The work is not an original scholarly composition; it is, in the Sìkù compilers’ frank assessment (citing Wú Rénchén 吳任臣 via Zhū Yízūn’s 朱彝尊 Jīngyì kǎo), almost entirely a re-edited compilation of two earlier Yuán works on Cài Shěn’s Shū jízhuàn (KR1b0017): 陳櫟’s Shàngshū jízhuàn zuǎnshū (KR1b0027) and 陳師凱’s Shū Càizhuàn pángtōng (KR1b0031). The Yuán-period 6-juǎn layout of the Cài jízhuàn itself is here re-divided into 10 juǎn of the imperial Dàquán format.
The work’s broader institutional significance is large. The Yánȳòu (1314+) examination reform had canonized the Cài zhuàn as the Shàngshū curricular standard, but in practice the Yuán curriculum still combined it with the HànTáng zhùshū. The Hóngwǔ-emperor’s Shū zhuàn huì xuǎn (KR1b0036, 1394) had institutionally documented Cài’s errors, opening a corrective space. The Yǒnglè Dàquán re-closes the discussion: from 1415 onward, the Cài zhuàn alone — supplemented only by the Dàquán’s editorial framing — is the official examination text, and the HànTáng zhùshū, the Sòng Cài-correction tradition, and the Hóngwǔ-emperor’s 66 corrections all become institutionally invisible within the examination curriculum.
Tiyao
Imperially Authorized Sìkù Quánshū. [Classics, division 2.] Shū jīng dàquán. [Books-class.]
Précis. Your servants etc. respectfully submit: the Shū jīng dàquán in ten juǎn is the work of Hú Guǎng of the Míng and others, by imperial commission. The Shū takes Cài Shěn’s Jízhuàn as the chief authority — that was already so under the Yánȳòu tribute-examination provisions. Yet the Yuán institutional system still combined it with the HànTáng zhùshū: hence Wáng Chōngyún’s Shū yì chéng shì, by being able to draw on the Kǒng zhuàn, could establish [its meanings on] this basis. The Míng Tàizǔ personally verified the heavenly phenomena and recognized that the Cài zhuàn could not entirely be relied on; therefore he commissioned the Shū zhuàn huì xuǎn, which collated the ancient meanings in order to correct [Cài’s] errors and was promulgated to the empire. So in the Hóngwǔ era, the Cài zhuàn was still not held as sole authority. The system of treating the Cài zhuàn as the sole examination standard takes its origin precisely from this present book.
The work’s position, however, is not, as in the Shī jīng dàquán (which entirely copied Liú Jǐn’s Shī zhuàn tōngshì) or the Chūnqiū dàquán (which entirely copied Wāng Kèkuān’s Húzhuàn zuǎnshū), purely transcribed; but it is in fact also not freshly compiled by Hú Guǎng et al. Therefore Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo cites the words of Wú Rénchén: “the Shū zhuàn was originally in six juǎn; the Dàquán divided it into ten; the principal thesis is from the two Mr Chéns” — the two Mr Chéns being one Chén Lì’s Shàngshū jízhuàn zuǎnshū, and one Chén Shīkǎi’s Shū Càizhuàn pángtōng. The Zuǎnshū is dogmatic preservation of the Cài zhuàn; the Pángtōng is particularly thorough on the verification of names-of-things and quantitative-measures. Although they cannot avoid moments of apologetic protection of the Cài zhuàn, on the whole — comparing them with Mr Liú on the Shī and Mr Wāng on the Chūnqiū — they have substantive grounding. Therefore this book among the Wǔ jīng dàquán is still relatively superior. Respectfully submitted, Qiánlóng 46 / 1781, 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 Shū jīng dàquán is one of the Wǔ jīng dàquán — the early-Míng imperial classical-curriculum commissions of 1415 — and is the institutional moment at which Cài Shěn’s Shū jízhuàn (KR1b0017) became the unrivaled sole authority for the Shàngshū portion of the late-Imperial examination canon. Compiled under Hú Guǎng 胡廣 alongside the parallel Shī jīng, Chūnqiū, Lǐjì, and Yìjīng Dàquán volumes (and the Sì shū dàquán and Xìnglǐ dàquán of the same year), it occupies a position of vast political-curricular consequence and modest scholarly contribution.
The Sìkù compilers’ frank assessment is documentary: the work is, by Wú Rénchén’s analysis, principally a re-edition of two earlier Yuán works (陳櫟’s Zuǎnshū and 陳師凱’s Pángtōng), with the layout re-divided from the Càizhuàn’s native 6-juǎn organization into the Dàquán’s 10-juǎn format. The compilers also note that this is less damaging than the parallel Shī jīng dàquán (which more brazenly copied 劉瑾’s Shī zhuàn tōngshì) and the parallel Chūnqiū dàquán (which copied Wāng Kèkuān’s Húzhuàn zuǎnshū): the Shū jīng dàquán at least preserves the Yuán Pángtōng’s genuine míngwù dùshù 名物度數 (names-things-quantities) substance.
The composition window is fixed (Yǒnglè 12–13 / 1414–1415, as part of the Wǔ jīng dàquán commission). The Sìkù submission was Qiánlóng 46 / 1781.
Substantively, the Dàquán canonizes Cài Shěn’s reading on every disputed point — including those points where the Hóngwǔ-emperor’s Shū zhuàn huì xuǎn (KR1b0036) had documented Cài’s errors only twenty-one years earlier. The Yáodiǎn rotational-direction reading reverts to Cài; the Hóng fàn “xiāng xié jué jū” reverts to Cài; and so on. Of the Hóngwǔ-emperor’s 66 corrections, none survive into the Dàquán as institutional text. This regression — from the corrective spirit of 1394 to the closed-orthodox spirit of 1415 — is one of the most striking institutional reversals in the late-Imperial classical curriculum, and is a useful index of how rapidly the Yǒnglè court was willing to rewrite the Hóngwǔ-imperial canonical decisions when they conflicted with the doctrinal-political needs of the new reign.
The Sìkù’s relative endorsement — “still relatively superior” (shàng wéi chā shèng 尚為差勝) — among the Wǔ jīng dàquán siblings is therefore best understood as faint praise within a project the compilers regard as broadly second-rate.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation of the Shū jīng dàquán is known. For the Wǔ jīng dàquán commission as a whole see Benjamin A. Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), and Hilde de Weerdt, Competition over Content: Negotiating Standards for the Civil Service Examinations in Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Asia Center, 2007). For the political-curricular logic of the Yǒnglè-era closures see John D. Langlois, Jr., “The Hung-wu Reign, 1368–1398” and Edward L. Dreyer, “The Yongle Reign, 1402–1424,” in The Cambridge History of China vol. 7. The Shū jīng dàquán’s subordination to 陳櫟 (KR1b0027) and 陳師凱 (KR1b0031) is treated in Cài Gēnxiáng 蔡根祥, Sòngdài Shàngshū xué àn 宋代尚書學案 (Taipei: Huámùlán, 2006).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù compilers’ willingness to identify the Dàquán as essentially derivative of two named Yuán predecessors — and to relay Wú Rénchén’s bibliographic verdict that the Shī and Chūnqiū Dàquán siblings were even more derivative — is a small but pointed editorial moment. The Qīng kǎojù sensibility is here being applied to the early-Míng imperial canon-redactions themselves, with the conclusion that the Wǔ jīng dàquán commission was partly a political consolidation under cover of new scholarship.
The institutional regression from the Hóngwǔ Huì xuǎn (KR1b0036, 1394, 66 corrections) to the Yǒnglè Dàquán (this work, 1415, 0 corrections retained) is the cleanest documentary case of the Yǒnglè court’s willingness to overwrite the Hóngwǔ-imperial decisions on classical matters. The Sìkù compilers’ close engagement with this point in the parallel tíyào on KR1b0036 — and their argument there that the Yǒnglè-era Tàizǔ shílù falsified the Huì xuǎn compilers’ list — should be read together with the present tíyào.
Links
- CBDB id 34471 (胡廣)
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1640275 (胡廣)
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Shū lèi, Shū jīng dàquán entry (Kyoto Zinbun digital edition)