Shàngshū dàzhuàn 尚書大傳
The Greater Commentary on the Documents by 伏勝 (zhuàn 撰), 鄭玄 (zhù 註), and 孫之騄 (jí 輯)
About the work
The principal Hàn-dynasty exegetical compendium attached to the Shàngshū canon, conventionally attributed to Fú Shèng 伏勝 (the Western-Hàn founder of the jīnwén Shàngshū transmission), with annotations by Zhèng Xuán 鄭玄 (127–200 CE), and reconstituted in the early Qīng by Sūn Zhīlù 孫之騄 (Qíngchuān 晴川, fl. Yōngzhèng era) into a 3-juǎn working recension. The work originally circulated in 41 chapters per the Hàn shū yìwén zhì, reorganized by Zhèng Xuán into 81 chapters per the Yùhǎi’s citation of the lost Zhōngxīng guǎngé shūmù; it survived into the Sòng in 3-juǎn and 4-juǎn recensions, both already fragmentary by Yè Mèngdé 葉夢得 and Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武’s day, and was lost in independent transmission by the late Míng. Two distinct early-Qīng compilations recovered the surviving fragments: Sūn Zhīlù’s 3-juǎn Hangzhou recension (preserved in the Sìkù cún mù), and a 4-juǎn + 1-juǎn supplement Yangzhou recension (preserved in the regular Sìkù main canon as a Shū lèi fù lù 書類附錄, with Zhèng Xuán’s commentary verified by citations in the otherwise lost Hóng fàn zhèng jiàn 洪範政鑒 attested in the Yǒnglè dàdiàn).
The Kanripo catalog meta gives the WYG entry as the 3-juǎn Sūn Zhīlù recension; both the catalog meta and the WYG file structure track the Sūn Zhīlù version.
The work’s authorship is layered. Per the canonical historical account preserved in the Yùhǎi (which cites a now-lost Zhèng Xuán preface): Fú Shèng was the Qín bóshì, who in his nineties transmitted the Shàngshū to Zhāng Shēng 張生 and Ōuyáng Shēng 歐陽生; their teaching was burdened by phonetic errors, ordering errors, and seal-vs-clerical-script transcription errors; after Fú Shèng’s death the disciples discussed-and-recorded what they had heard from him, with their own opinions filling the gaps; they made zhāngjù 章句 (chapter-and-verse divisions) and a Dàyì 大義 (greater meaning), and bound their materials to the canonical text as a zhuàn (commentary). Liú Xiàng 劉向 collected these materials into 41 chapters; Zhèng Xuán reorganized into 81. So the Dàzhuàn is properly the work of Zhāng Shēng and Ōuyáng Shēng, transmitting Fú Shèng’s teaching, not Fú Shèng himself.
Substantively the work is more like the Shī wài zhuàn 詩外傳 or the Chūnqiū fán lù 春秋繁露 than like a strict canonical commentary: it stands “between canon and exegesis” (yǔ jīng yì zài lí hé zhī jiān 與經義在離合之間), preserving ancient xùn and diǎn (training-and-precedent) traditions that the more recent commentaries had lost. The Sìkù tíyào (in the parallel Yangzhou-recension tíyào, 0025701) calls it “the support-stream of the Six Arts” (liù yì zhī zhī liú yě 六藝之支流也). Juǎn 3 contains the famous Hóng fàn wǔ xíng zhuàn 洪範五行傳 — the foundational text of Hàn-period weft-prophetic zāi yì 災異 theology, source of Liú Xiàng, Liú Xīn, and Bān Gù’s Hàn shū wǔ xíng zhì. The fourth juǎn (in the Yangzhou recension; covered in the surviving Hangzhou recension’s structure as well) is the Lüè shuō 略說.
Tiyao
Imperially Authorized Sìkù Quánshū. [Classics, division 14; Books-class, second division, cún mù sub-division.] Bié běn Shàngshū dàzhuàn, three juǎn. Bǔyí, one juǎn. [Source recension: copy presented by the LiǎngJiāng governor.]
By Sūn Zhīlù of our State, edited [from earlier sources]. Zhīlù’s hào is Qíngchuān; he was a man of Rénhé. During the Yōngzhèng era he served as jiàoyù of Qìngyuán county. Fú Shèng’s Shàngshū dàzhuàn had long been without a printed edition; in society it was circulated only as transposed manuscript fragments, corrupted-and-imperfect, originally unreadable. YuánHé’s Huì Dòng 惠棟, known for being broad-and-thorough, when he composed the Míngtáng dà dào lù, had also not seen the original recension and could only draw on transferred citations from other books. So Zhīlù’s gathering-and-compiling — collecting and stitching — and arranging into three juǎn: that which has no source-citation noted is the [received] residual original text; that which has a citation “such-and-such book cites it” is what Zhīlù has supplemented. Damaged chapters and broken phrases — they rather depend on this for survival.
Recently a Sòng recension has reappeared, and Yangzhou has already cut a printing-block; this recension could properly not be preserved. But Zhīlù, before the older recension had emerged, hooked-and-investigated and consulted-and-compared, exhausting months and years to make this compilation; his diligence in loving antiquity is also not to be erased. Therefore we still preserve its title.
— [Submission date and Director-General signatures expected as standard. The cún mù listings typically conclude with the standard formula.]
Abstract
The Shàngshū dàzhuàn is the foundational Hàn exegetical compendium for the Shàngshū, conventionally attributed to Fú Shèng 伏勝 (the Western-Hàn founder of the jīnwén Shàngshū tradition) but in fact the work of his disciples Zhāng Shēng 張生 and Ōuyáng Shēng 歐陽生 transmitting his teaching. The Hàn-period text was reorganized by Zhèng Xuán 鄭玄 (127–200 CE), then survived into the medieval period in fragmentary 3-juǎn and 4-juǎn recensions before being lost in independent transmission by the late Míng.
The composition window in the frontmatter (-150 to 200) is the canonical Hàn dating: from the post-Wéndì transmission to Cháo Cuò (after c. 175 BCE) through the time of Zhèng Xuán’s commentary (late second century CE). The Sūn Zhīlù compilation itself dates from the 1720s–1730s.
Two distinct early-Qīng compilations recover the surviving fragments:
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The Sūn Zhīlù 3-juǎn Hangzhou recension (the present entry, KR1b0059, classified by the Sìkù compilers as cún mù).
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The Lú Jiànzēng 盧見曾 / Kǒng Guānglín 孔廣林-edited 4-juǎn + 1-juǎn supplement Yangzhou recension (in the regular Sìkù main canon as Shū lèi fù lù 書類附錄, separate Sìkù entry 0025701, with Zhèng Xuán’s commentary verified by Hóng fàn zhèng jiàn citations preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiàn).
The Sìkù tíyào on the Yangzhou recension (0025701) is the canonical scholarly account of the text’s history. It identifies four key features:
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The work as composed by 張生 / 歐陽生 from 伏生’s teaching, formally transmitted via 劉向’s compilation (41 piān) and 鄭玄’s reorganization (81 piān); not by 伏生 himself.
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The work’s jiào hé 校核 status — between the Shī wài zhuàn and the Chūnqiū fán lù, treating the canonical text expansively rather than philologically.
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The juǎn 3 Hóng fàn wǔ xíng zhuàn as the foundational source of the entire Hàn weft-prophetic zāi yì 災異 (“disaster-and-anomaly”) tradition through Liú Xiàng, Liú Xīn, Jīng Fáng 京房, Dǒng Zhòngshū 董仲舒, and the Hàn shū wǔ xíng zhì. The tíyào is careful to note that the yuè lìng 月令 had earlier presented the same content; the zāi yì tradition cannot all be blamed on 伏生.
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The presence in the recension of Tài shì 泰誓 (a chapter not transmitted in the canonical 28 jīnwén chapters) and references to Jiǔ gòng, Dì gào, Guī hé, Yǎn gào (all chapters lost from the canonical Shàngshū); these indicate that 伏生 in his old age remembered fragments beyond the 28 quán piān (complete chapters) — he had simply not transmitted them as full texts.
The Sìkù compilers’ decision to preserve the Sūn Zhīlù recension as cún mù — even after the Yangzhou recension had become available and the Sòng recension had been recovered — registers the high kǎojù tradition’s institutional preservation principle: a serious compilation that collected previously scattered fragments deserves to have its title recorded, even when superseded.
The work’s substantive importance for early-Chinese intellectual history is large. The Hóng fàn wǔ xíng zhuàn is one of the principal documentary sources for early Hàn-period correlative cosmology; the Lüè shuō 略說 preserves miscellaneous Hàn-period discussions of canonical-administrative topics; the work generally is the closest surviving witness to the lost jīnwén Shàngshū school traditions of the early Hàn.
Translations and research
No complete Western-language translation of the Shàngshū dàzhuàn is known. Sections on cosmology and astrology are translated and discussed in Hans Bielenstein, Han Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); the Hóng fàn wǔ xíng zhuàn portions are treated in Michael Loewe, Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), and in Aihe Wang, Cosmology and Political Culture in Early China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). For the textual history of the Dàzhuàn and the comparative early-Qīng recensions see Ma Yong 馬雍, Shàngshū dàzhuàn yánjiū 尚書大傳研究 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá shūjú, 2008), the standard modern monograph.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù’s parallel preservation of the Sūn Zhīlù cún mù and the Yangzhou fù lù recensions is itself a documentary case in kǎojù recovery practice: the Sìkù compilers explicitly preserve a now-superseded fragmentary compilation alongside the more complete one, on the grounds that the earlier compiler’s diligence merits recognition. This is methodologically distinctive — most Sìkù curatorial decisions were either inclusion (in the main canon) or exclusion (with title preservation in cún mù), but the simultaneous preservation of two recensions of the same text is unusual.
The Hóng fàn wǔ xíng zhuàn portion’s role as the founding source of Hàn weft-prophetic theology made the Dàzhuàn a contested text in the late-Sòng to Qīng xìnglǐ / kǎojù debates: rejected by 胡渭 (in his Hóng fàn zhèng lùn, KR1b0054) and the orthodox ZhūXī tradition, but vindicated by the kǎojù generation as a primary source for early-Chinese cosmological thought. The Sìkù compilers’ nuanced positioning — preserving the work, but only as cún mù / fù lù (not as a Shū lèi main entry) — registers this ambivalence.