尚書疏衍

Shàngshū shū yǎn 尚書疏衍

Subcommentary and Elaborations on the Documents by 陳第 (zhuàn 撰)

About the work

A 4-juǎn late-Míng Shàngshū commentary by Chén Dì 陳第 (Yīzhāi 一齋, 1541–1617), the founding figure of Chinese historical phonology. The work is structured as a topical commentary in four juǎn: juǎn 1 contains four general essays — Shàngshū kǎo 尚書攷, Gǔwén biàn 古文辨, Yǐn shū zhèng 引書證, Shàngshū píng 尚書評 — covering Chén Dì’s positions on transmission and authenticity; juǎn 2 covers selected entries from the Yú shū 虞書 (Yáo diǎn, Shùn diǎn, Dà Yǔ mó, Gāo Yáo mó, Yì Jì); juǎn 3 covers the Xià shū and Shāng shū; juǎn 4 covers the Zhōu shū. The author’s preface explains the unusual genesis: Chén Dì in his youth had read only the canonical text without commentary, working out his readings by sustained reflection (kǒu sòng xīn wéi, dé qí yì yú shēn sī 口誦心維,得其意於深思); only later did he combine his independent readings with the ancient and modern commentaries.

The Sìkù WYG copy lacks the standard Sìkù tíyào; the tíyào below is taken from the Kyoto University Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào edition (entry 0024502).

Tiyao

Imperially Authorized Sìkù Quánshū. [Classics, division 12; Books-class, second division.] Shàngshū shū yǎn, four juǎn. [Source recension: copy presented by the Jiāngsū provincial governor.]

By Chén Dì of the Míng. Dì has the Yì xiàng tú zàn, already entered in our catalog. The book carries an autograph preface, saying: “In youth I received the Shàngshū; I read the canon without reading the zhuànzhù, recited orally and meditated mentally, and obtained much of the meaning by deep reflection. Later I went on to take from ancient and modern commentaries-and-subcommentaries, and appended what I had previously obtained from deep reflection.” Yet Dì’s scholarship is broad and deep; the books he composed — the Máo Shī gǔ yīn kǎo and the Qū Sòng gǔ yīn yì — are all amply grounded with substantive roots. In writing this book, although he did not begin from glossology, he in fact is by no means like the school-of-the-mind self-asserters who use empty discourse to explain the canon.

For example: in discussing the Shùn diǎn’s “five ruì, five yù, five qì” 五瑞 五玉 五器, he holds that one should not use the Zhōu lǐ to gloss the Yú shū, and rejects the commentators’ and subcommentators’ forced parallels — his reasoning is firm and unshakeable. In his discussion of the Wǔ chéng having no slip-displacement, and of the Hóng fàn not being from the tortoise[-shell] pattern, he is also able to break the strained-and-forced explanations of the various Confucians.

Only — he firmly trusts the Méi Zé Gǔwén and considers Master Zhū’s doubting it to be wrong; on Méi Zhuó’s two compilations Shàngshū kǎo yì and Shàngshū pǔ he attacks particularly hard. In this respect he has not yet investigated the textual sources thoroughly. Canonical-texts-and-their-school-transmission have, since Hàn times, been each in its own gate-and-faction; one may well let each [reader] honor what he has heard.

— [Submission date not preserved on the WYG copy; the tíyào itself is signed by the standard Sìkù compilers.]

Abstract

The Shàngshū shū yǎn is the Shàngshū commentary of Chén Dì 陳第 (1541–1617), the founder of Chinese historical phonology — a figure whose principal scholarly legacy is in Shī and Chǔcí studies (the Máo Shī gǔ yīn kǎo 毛詩古音考 of 1606 and the Qū Sòng gǔ yīn yì 屈宋古音義) but who also produced a substantive Shū commentary that the Sìkù compilers — though noting one major flaw — generally endorse.

The composition window in the frontmatter (1590–1617) covers Chén Dì’s mature productive period after his retirement from frontier military service (c. 1583); the Shū yǎn is a work of his post-1583 scholarly life.

The work’s distinctive structural feature is the four-essay opening of juǎn 1 (Shàngshū kǎo, Gǔwén biàn, Yǐn shū zhèng, Shàngshū píng) — i.e., separated topical essays on the Shū’s transmission, the Gǔwén authenticity question, the canonical citations of Shū in other texts, and a general critical evaluation. Only after these does the work enter the chapter-by-chapter commentary mode (juǎn 2–4). This is unusual for the Shū lèi: most SòngYuánMíng Shàngshū commentaries proceed straight to the chapter-by-chapter mode without the topical-essay framing.

The Sìkù compilers’ substantive endorsement focuses on three readings: (1) the Shùn diǎn “wǔ ruì wǔ yù wǔ qì” critique — i.e., refusing to import Zhōu lǐ glosses into the Yú shū, which is a methodologically clean position with strong philological grounding; (2) the rejection of Wǔ chéng slip-displacement (a position previously taken by Qián Shí in KR1b0020); (3) the rejection of the Hóng fàn tortoise-pattern origin doctrine (against the Hé tú Luò shū speculative tradition).

The Sìkù’s single substantive criticism is Chén Dì’s insistence on the authenticity of the Gǔwén Shàngshū with the Kǒng zhuàn, and his vigorous attack on Méi Zhuó’s Shàngshū kǎo yì (KR1b0038) and Shàngshū pǔ. The compilers note (politely) that Chén Dì had not investigated the transmission question thoroughly; their tactful conclusion — “canonical-text school-transmissions have been variously inherited since Hàn times; let each honor what he has heard” — registers the disagreement without doctrinal assault. This is one of the more thoughtful Sìkù assessments of a late-Míng commentary’s strengths and weaknesses.

The Chén Dì / Méi Zhuó disagreement is methodologically significant. Both were Wànlì-era philologists; both contributed substantial work to the Sìkù; both worked on the Gǔwén problem from opposite conclusions. Méi Zhuó’s case (forgery) eventually won the Qing kǎojù tradition through Yán Ruòqú; Chén Dì’s case (authenticity) was the late-Míng mainstream that the Sìkù compilers themselves no longer accept but treat with respect. The Sìkù compilers’ decision to preserve both works in the Shū lèi — Méi Zhuó (KR1b0038, just five entries earlier) and Chén Dì (KR1b0043) — and to engage each on its own merits is exemplary curatorial practice.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language translation of the Shàngshū shū yǎn is known. For Chén Dì’s broader phonological-philological achievement see Bernhard Karlgren, “The Reconstruction of Ancient Chinese,” T’oung Pao 21 (1922); William Boltz, “Old Chinese,” in The Sino-Tibetan Languages (London: Routledge, 2003), and the standard Chinese-language treatment in Wáng Lì 王力, Hànyǔ shǐ gǎo 漢語史稿 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1957/1980). For Chén Dì’s career as a frontier officer and traveler-ethnographer see Tonio Andrade, How Taiwan Became Chinese: Dutch, Spanish, and Han Colonization in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), which uses Chén Dì’s Dōng fān jì 東番記 (1603) as a key Chinese-language ethnographic source for early-seventeenth-century Taiwan.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù WYG copy is unusual in lacking a standard Sìkù tíyào paratext; the tíyào exists separately in the Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào (Kyoto Zinbun digital edition entry 0024502) but was apparently not transcribed onto the Quán shū recension. This is one of several Shū lèi entries (alongside KR1b0030) where the tíyào is preserved only in the catalog volume.

Chén Dì’s combination — late-Míng frontier officer turned phonologist turned classical commentator — is methodologically distinctive: his historical-phonological work on the Shī depends on a kind of empirical-evidentiary attitude (the Odes rhyme regularly because their phonology was different) that, applied to the Shàngshū, produced the Shū yǎn’s firm refusal of forced parallels (the Zhōu lǐ / Yú shū refusal) but also, paradoxically, his firm trust in the Gǔwén Shàngshū against Méi Zhuó’s evidentiary attack. The two stances are reconcilable only as instinctive epistemic conservatism: trust the received text, but do not impose later-period institutions onto its language.

Links

• CBDB: no current id confirmed for this 陳第
• Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5089502 (陳第)
• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Shū lèi, Shàngshū shū yǎn entry