尚書七篇解義

Shàngshū qī piān jiě yì 尚書七篇解義

Exposition of the Meanings of Seven Documents Chapters by 李光地 (zhuàn 撰)

About the work

A 2-juǎn selective Shàngshū commentary by Lǐ Guāngdì 李光地 (1642–1718), the prominent Kāngxī-court grand secretary and editor of the Yùdìng Xìnglǐ jīng yì 御定性理精義. The work covers only seven chapters of the canon — Yáo diǎn, Shùn diǎn, Dà Yǔ mó, Gāo Yáo mó, Yì Jì, Yǔ gòng, and Hóng fàn — and is explicitly an unfinished project (wèi jìng zhī běn 未竟之本). The methodological orientation is not glossology-and-philology but distilled doctrinal exposition: “the wording is concise and the meaning often refined” (cí zhǐ jiǎn yuē ér duō yǒu jīng yì 詞旨簡約而多有精義).

The work is positioned ambivalently between the early-Qīng kǎojù turn and the older yìlǐ 義理 tradition. On the Gǔwén Shàngshū / Dà Yǔ mó question, Lǐ Guāngdì takes a compromise position: the gǔwén is not entirely forged, but Kǒng Ān’guó has “deleted and added” (shān tiān 刪添) and post-Eastern-Hàn Confucians have “surreptitiously emended” (qiè cuàn 竊竄). This is the tiáo tíng 調停 (mediating) position the Sìkù compilers identify as Lǐ Guāngdì’s characteristic move.

Tiyao

Imperially Authorized Sìkù Quánshū. [Classics, division 2.] Shàngshū qī piān jiě yì. [Books-class.]

Précis. Your servants etc. respectfully submit: the Shàngshū qī piān jiě yì in two juǎn — by Lǐ Guāngdì of our State. This book glosses only Yáo diǎn, Shùn diǎn, Dà Yǔ mó, Gāo Yáo mó, Yì Jì, Yǔ gòng, and Hóng fàn — seven chapters. It is presumably an unfinished text. What it explains does not take glossology as its strength; the wording is concise and the meaning often refined.

In the Dà Yǔ mó chapter, [the author] does not treat the gǔwén as forged but says that Kǒng Ān’guó deleted and added [material], and after the Eastern Hàn Confucians further surreptitiously emended; therefore the prose is plainly easy. This [position] cannot avoid being a mediating-and-compromising response.

In the Yǔ gòng chapter, in glossing the “Five Submissive-zones each five-thousand [li],” he uses a flying-bird-figure (fēi niǎo tú 飛鳥圖) computation, holding that the place where the frontier zone reaches its limit is at 42 degrees of polar elevation; that the place where the wide-sea bears the sun is at 23 degrees of polar elevation; that one degree corresponds to 250 li; and so the north-south distance is exactly five-thousand. He thereby strains [the canonical text] to fit the canonical phrase “entering into the Southern Sea.” This is also because Lǐ Guāngdì being a man of Mǐn [Fújiàn] did not wish his home region to fall outside the Yǔ gòng’s Yángzhōu boundary; therefore he established this argument. Together with his glossing Hóng 洪 as “great” and fàn 範 as “instruction,” and saying that the Hóng fàn is precisely the Gù mìng’s “great instruction” (dà xùn 大訓) — these all cannot escape being clever-but-not-firm.

As for the Yáo diǎn’s discussion of [calendrical] precession; the Shùn diǎn’s discussion of the gài tiān 蓋天 (umbrella-heaven) and hún tiān 渾天 (encompassing-heaven) [astronomical models], the twelve provinces, the Shī and gē, the shēng lǜ 聲律; the Yǔ gòng’s discussion that Qián shuǐ 潛水 connects with Miǎn shuǐ 沔水 but Miǎn shuǐ does not enter Wèi shuǐ 渭水, that Pénglí 彭蠡 is precisely modern Cháo Hú 巢湖, that Huì yú huì 㑹于滙 refers to Póyáng, that Yuán Xí Zhū Yě 原隰瀦野 is not a place name — these are all words with real verification, not the propped-up speculation of a jīngshēng (examination-candidate) home-school. Respectfully submitted, Qiánlóng 42 / 1777, tenth 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 qī piān jiě yì is a partial Kāngxī-era Shàngshū commentary by Lǐ Guāngdì 李光地 (1642–1718), the major Fújiàn-born Kāngxī-court grand secretary, Wényuángé dàxuéshì 文淵閣大學士, and supervisor of the Yùdìng Xìnglǐ jīng yì 御定性理精義 (1715, also in the Sìkù). The work is incomplete: only 7 chapters are glossed (the four Yú shū / Xià shū canonical openings — Yáo diǎn, Shùn diǎn, Dà Yǔ mó, Gāo Yáo mó / Yì Jì — plus the Yǔ gòng and the Hóng fàn), and the project was not extended to the Shāng shū or Zhōu shū.

The composition window in the frontmatter (1690–1718) covers Lǐ Guāngdì’s mature productive period; the work was likely undertaken in the same late-Kāngxī years as Hú Wèi’s Yǔ gòng zhuīzhǐ (KR1b0053) and Hóng fàn zhèng lùn (KR1b0054). The Sìkù submission was Qiánlóng 42 / 1777.

The work is methodologically distinguished from contemporary kǎojù projects by its yìlǐ 義理 (principle-and-meaning) orientation. Lǐ Guāngdì’s preferred register is concise philosophical-political exposition rather than evidentiary verification — the Sìkù compilers’ own characterization, “the wording is concise and the meaning often refined,” reads the work as a doctrinal-essay collection rather than a comprehensive philological commentary.

The Sìkù tíyào’s detailed substantive review identifies three areas of weakness and four of strength.

Weaknesses:

1. The Dà Yǔ mó / Gǔwén compromise: Lǐ Guāngdì’s tiáo tíng 調停 position — accepting the gǔwén’s general authenticity while attributing its specific awkwardnesses to “deletion-and-addition” by Kǒng Ān’guó plus later “surreptitious emendation” — is recognized as a mediating-and-compromising response in the post-Yán-Ruòqú philological climate, neither fully accepting nor fully rejecting the forgery thesis.
2. The Yǔ gòng Wǔ fú 五服 frontier-zone five-thousand-li computation. Lǐ Guāngdì’s elaborate calculation — using astronomical-zenith data (42° polar elevation at the frontier, 23° at the wide sea, 250 li per degree, north-south distance of 5,000 li) — is straining the canonical text to make Fújiàn (Lǐ Guāngdì’s home) fit within the Yǔ gòng Yángzhōu zone. The tíyào’s diagnosis is direct: “because Lǐ Guāngdì was a Mǐn person and did not wish his home region to fall outside Yǔ gòng’s Yángzhōu boundary.”
3. The Hóng fàn / Gù mìng identification: Lǐ Guāngdì glosses Hóng 洪 as “great” and fàn 範 as “instruction,” then identifies the Hóng fàn as the Gù mìng’s “great instruction” — a clever but unsupported equation.

Strengths:

1. The Yáo diǎn precession discussion — i.e., the calendrical correction for the changing position of the equinoxes over time, a topic the Yáo diǎn’s star-positioning passages had attracted scholarly attention to since the Sòng.
2. The Shùn diǎn astronomy discussion — the gài tiān / hún tiān models of the heavens, the twelve provinces, Shī and gē poetry-and-music, the shēng lǜ pitch-pipes.
3. The Yǔ gòng hydrography — the Qián-Miǎn 潛沔 / Wèi 渭 connection-or-not, the Pénglí / modern Cháo Hú identification, the Huì yú huì / Póyáng identification, the Yuán Xí Zhū Yě 原隰瀦野 not-a-place-name reading.

The compilers’ verdict — “words with real verification, not the propped-up speculation of an examination-candidate home-school” — is positive but qualified. The work is treated as solid in its hydrographic and astronomical-historical discussions, weaker in its doctrinal-political compromises.

Lǐ Guāngdì’s institutional position — at the center of the Kāngxī court, with intimate access to the imperial canon-redaction projects — gives the work a quasi-official quality, even though it is not formally a yùdìng 御定 imperial work. It should be read alongside the Rì jiǎng Shū jīng jiě yì (KR1b0045, the official Kāngxī daily-lecture commentary) as part of the late-Kāngxī court’s extended classical-textual project.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language translation of the Shàngshū qī piān jiě yì is known. For Lǐ Guāngdì broadly see his Kāngxī-court career as treated in Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi (New York: Knopf, 1974); for his philosophical work see Anne Birdwhistell, Li Yong (1627–1705) and Epistemological Dimensions of Confucian Philosophy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), which treats the late-Kāngxī Lǐ-school context. For the work itself see 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 Sìkù tíyào’s frank diagnosis of Lǐ Guāngdì’s Yǔ gòng Wǔ fú computation as personal-geography-driven — “because he did not wish his home region to fall outside the Yángzhōu boundary” — is one of the more candid Sìkù assessments of an author’s regional-bias-driven over-reading. It is methodologically interesting that the compilers preserve the work despite this acknowledged bias, presumably because Lǐ Guāngdì’s institutional standing and his strengths in the hydrographic and astronomical discussions warrant inclusion.

The work’s incompleteness is itself documentary. Lǐ Guāngdì died in 1718; his Yùdìng Xìnglǐ jīng yì and other imperial commissions occupied much of his late life. The unfinished Shàngshū qī piān jiě yì is one of those kǎojù-adjacent projects of the Kāngxī court that did not reach full development before the Yōngzhèng-Qiánlóng-era kǎojù generation took over and adopted more rigorous philological methods.

Links

• CBDB: see 李光地 person note
• Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4661944 (李光地)
• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Shū lèi, Shàngshū qī piān jiě yì entry (Kyoto Zinbun digital edition)