Shàngshū guǎng tīng lù 尚書廣聽錄
Records for Broadening Hearing on the Documents by 毛奇齡 (zhuàn 撰)
About the work
A 5-juǎn miscellany of Shàngshū notes by Máo Qílíng 毛奇齡 (1623–1716) — the late-life companion piece to his Gǔwén Shàngshū yuān cí (KR1b0049). The title draws on the Hàn shū yìwén zhì’s formula “shū yǐ guǎng tīng” 書以廣聽 (“the Shū serves to broaden hearing”); the work’s project, as Máo Qílíng explained to his students, is to rectify the historical record of the Three Dynasties (三代), correcting received misunderstandings of specific events: e.g., that Wǔ Wáng issued a gào to Kāngshū; that Zhōu Gōng resided at Luòyì; that Chéng Wáng pacified Zhōu Gōng; that Zhōu Gōng retained Shào Gōng. Máo argues that none of these episodes occurred as the received commentary describes them.
The work’s composition history is unusual: Máo originally intended to compose a full annotated Shàngshū commentary, never completed it, and instead assembled his accumulated working notes (begun at Yǔzhōu 禹州, continued at Sōngshān 嵩山, repeatedly redrafted) into the present compilation, finalizing the project only after the Yuān cí was complete. The 5 juǎn total 145 entries (25 + 31 + 13 + 33 + 43).
The Sìkù tíyào’s assessment is balanced: Máo’s defense of the Kǒng zhuàn in this work veers into one of his characteristic over-reaches — claiming, when Kǒng Ān’guó’s gloss on Shùn diǎn echoes Zhōu lǐ phrasing, that the source is a now-lost “chuán Yú lǐ” 傳虞禮 (transmitted Yú ritual) rather than the Zhōu lǐ. The compilers note dryly that no such Yú lǐ book is recorded anywhere — Confucius himself complained that the Qǐ and Sòng records of pre-Zhōu ritual were not sufficient to verify (qǐ Sòng wú zhēng 杞宋無徵). On the other hand, Máo’s míngwù diǎngù 名物典故 citations are often substantive: “set aside the speculative readings; take the precise arguments; on canonical meaning the work makes no small contribution” (zhì qí yì duàn zhī shuō ér qǔ qí jīng hé zhī lùn, yú jīng yì bù wú xiǎo bǔ yě 置其臆斷之說而取其精核之論,於經義不無小補也).
Tiyao
Imperially Authorized Sìkù Quánshū. [Classics, division 2.] Shàngshū guǎng tīng lù. [Books-class.]
Précis. Your servants etc. respectfully submit: the Shàngshū guǎng tīng lù in five juǎn — by Máo Qílíng of our State. Qílíng wanted to annotate the Shàngshū but did not reach [the project]; therefore taking what he had previously miscellaneously recorded he ordered it into a finished book, and using the Hàn zhì’s phrase “the Shū [serves] to broaden hearing” he named it.
Qílíng once said to his disciples: “the Shàngshū’s factual matters have many corruptions: e.g. Wǔ Wáng addressing Kāngshū; Zhōu Gōng residing at Luòyì; Chéng Wáng pacifying Zhōu Gōng; Zhōu Gōng retaining Shào Gōng — none of these events occurred.”
The aim of this book is broadly to verify the Three-Dynasty events as fact. He first composed [the work] at Yǔzhōu, continued composing at Sōngshān; the manuscript went through many revisions; only after he had composed the Shàngshū yuān cí (KR1b0049) did he at last edit the work into five juǎn.
His firm defense of the Kǒng zhuàn extends to the claim that, where Ān’guó’s gloss on the Shùn diǎn matches phrasing from the Zhōu lǐ, the gloss is from a transmitted Yú lǐ, not in fact from the Zhōu lǐ. Now: regarding [the loss of records on the antique ritual of] Qǐ and Sòng, Confucius had already lamented [that the records were inadequate to verify]; we do not know from what book this “transmitted Yú lǐ” of his could have come — one may say [Máo Qílíng] has clung obstinately to his own view, regardless of where he ends up.
Yet on names-of-things and institutional records, the citations-and-verifications often have things worth taking. Set aside the speculative-judgment readings, and take the precise-and-substantive arguments — on canonical meaning the contribution is no small one. Respectfully submitted, Qiánlóng 42 / 1777, 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 Shàngshū guǎng tīng lù is the Shàngshū notebook of Máo Qílíng’s late life, compiled in the same period as his more famous Yuān cí (KR1b0049). The composition window in the frontmatter (1700–1716) covers the late-Kāngxī period after the Yuān cí’s drafting. The Sìkù submission was Qiánlóng 42 / 1777, in the early wave of Shū lèi entries.
The work’s defining project is the factual rectification of the Three-Dynasty historical record. Máo Qílíng’s quoted statement to his students — that received accounts of Wǔ Wáng addressing Kāngshū, Zhōu Gōng residing at Luòyì, Chéng Wáng pacifying Zhōu Gōng, and Zhōu Gōng retaining Shào Gōng are all factually false — places his project at the intersection of canonical exegesis and bǎi shǐ 稗史 (alternative-history) reconstruction. This is methodologically a unique register among the Sìkù Shū lèi entries: most other works gloss canonical text or correct commentaries; the Guǎng tīng lù tries to correct the underlying historical narrative of which the canonical text is a witness.
The Sìkù tíyào’s identification of the “chuán Yú lǐ” 傳虞禮 (“transmitted Yú ritual”) fabrication is methodologically pointed. Máo Qílíng, having committed himself in the Yuān cí to the authenticity of the Gǔwén Shàngshū and the Kǒng zhuàn, is here forced to defend specific Kǒng zhuàn glosses on the Yúshū against the obvious charge that they reflect Zhōu lǐ terminology rather than authentic Yú-period ritual. His escape — positing a now-lost Yú lǐ book that Kǒng Ān’guó allegedly drew on — is, as the compilers note, both unverifiable and incompatible with Confucius’s own qǐ Sòng wú zhēng admission that pre-Zhōu ritual records were inadequate. The Sìkù compilers register this as “piān zhí yǐ jiàn” 偏執已見 (stubbornly clinging to one’s own view), but they preserve the work because the míngwù diǎngù 名物典故 (names-of-things and historical-institutional precedent) sections are substantive.
The work pairs structurally with the Yuān cí (KR1b0049) as Máo Qílíng’s two-volume late-life Shàngshū contribution: where the Yuān cí defends the Gǔwén against Yán Ruòqú’s evidentiary attack, the Guǎng tīng lù rebuilds the underlying Shàngshū-anchored Three-Dynasty historical narrative the Yuān cí’s defense presupposed. Both works form a unified — if increasingly indefensible — late-Kāngxī conservative position against the rising Qing kǎojù tide.
The 145 entries are unequally distributed across the five juǎn (25 / 31 / 13 / 33 / 43), with no obvious thematic principle organizing the partition. The zǒng lùn (general argument) at the head of juǎn 1 sets the project’s frame; the rest are individual entries on specific Shàngshū passages, episodes, or institutional terms.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation of the Shàngshū guǎng tīng lù is known. For Máo Qílíng broadly see his entry in 毛奇齡 person note. The work is treated in survey form within the broader Gǔ-wén historiography literature: Jiǎng Shànguó 蔣善國, Shàngshū zōngshù 尚書綜述 (Shanghai: Shànghǎi gǔjí, 1988); Liú Qǐyú 劉起釪, Shàngshū yánjiū yàolùn 尚書研究要論 (Jǐnán: Qílǔ shūshè, 2007); Cài Gēnxiáng 蔡根祥, Sòngdài Shàngshū xué àn 宋代尚書學案 (Taipei: Huámùlán, 2006), Qing-section.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the few late-Imperial Shū commentaries that treats Shàngshū exegesis as a vehicle for narrative-historical correction rather than for canonical-doctrinal arbitration. Máo Qílíng’s project — to use philology to recover what really happened in the Three-Dynasty past — runs counter to the dominant Qing kǎojù tendency, which would soon (with Cuī Shù 崔述 in the late eighteenth century, and the early-twentieth-century yí gǔ 疑古 / “doubt-antiquity” movement under Gù Jiégāng 顧頡剛) treat the same evidence as deconstructing the Three-Dynasty narrative entirely.
The composition geography (Yǔzhōu in Hénán, then Sōngshān in the same region) marks Máo Qílíng’s long sojourn in the Hénán literary world during the 1690s and early 1700s, a period of considerable intellectual exchange with the post-Wǔ-Yīng-diàn Beijing circle.
Links
- CBDB: see 毛奇齡 person note
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15912024 (毛奇齡)
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Shū lèi, Shàngshū guǎng tīng lù entry (Kyoto Zinbun digital edition)