Máoshī jiǎngyì 毛詩講義
Discourses on the Mao Recension of the Classic of Poetry by 林岊 (Lín Jié, zì Zhòngshān 仲山)
About the work
A 12-juǎn commentary, originally 5 juǎn, recovered by the Sìkù editors from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. The Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì, Mǎ Duānlín’s Jīngjí kǎo, and the Wényuān gé shūmù all give the original juǎn-count as 5; the work was lost from circulation since the early Míng (Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo notes “perished”). The text consists of Lín Jié’s lectures delivered while serving as prefect of Quánzhōu 全州 — at the rebuilt QīngXiāng shūyuàn 清湘書院, recorded by his pupils into a working volume. Methodologically Lín Jié follows the Máo zhuàn and Zhèng jiān tradition, weighing their disagreements and adjudicating; “the framework does not exit the ancients, but his synthesis is genuinely thorough — without the disease of branching speech and twisted explanation.” The Sìkù editors note the work’s significance: at the moment when, under Guāngzōng and Níngzōng (1190s–1200s), the anti-xù doctrine was at its zenith, Lín Jié in remote Quánzhōu was lecturing the xù tradition to his pupils — a “firm believer who held the watch” against the dominant fashion. The dating is set from the Jiādìng-era prefecture of Quánzhōu (the lectures’ delivery occasion).
Tiyao
By the Sòng Lín Jié. Jié zì Zhòngshān, of Gǔtián. Tèzòu míng of Shàoxī 1 (1190); during the Jiādìng era he held Quánzhōu. The Sòngshǐ gives him no biography, but the Fújiàn tōngzhì says he was nine years in the prefecture, with much benevolent governance, rebuilt the QīngXiāng shūyuàn, taught the students there with diligence, urging genuine practice; the prefecture’s people enshrined him in the Liǔ Zōngyuán shrine — he was a true xúnlì (model administrator). This volume is his discussions of the Máoshī. From the format, these were lectures while in office, recorded by his pupils into a volume. Mostly compressing jiān and shū, glossing yi wén, taking the Máo and Zhèng and adjudicating their differences. Although the framework does not exit the ancients, the synthesis is thorough — no disease of branching words or twisted explanations. At the GuāngNíng boundary, the anti-xù arguments were strongest. Lín Jié alone laboured to expound ancient meaning to instruct the rising generation — also a firm believer and careful preserver. The Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì, Mǎ Duānlín’s Jīngjí kǎo, and the Wényuān gé shūmù all give the juǎn-count as 5. From the early Míng on it has had no transmitted edition; so Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo says “lost.” Now from the various rhymes of the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn we have re-collated and gathered, preserving its outline; what is missing in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn is left missing too. Because of the increased bulk we have re-organized into 12 juǎn, no longer following the original division.
Abstract
The Máoshī jiǎngyì is the principal extant late-Southern-Sòng provincial-academy lecture-text on the Máoshī. Its primary scholarly interest lies less in its philological novelty (Lín Jié follows the Máo-Zhèng tradition closely) than in its institutional setting: it documents how the xù-tradition continued to be taught in southern frontier prefectural academies even at the height of Zhū-Xī-school dominance in the central Mǐn academies. The Quánzhōu shūyuàn setting links the work to the Liǔ Zōngyuán cult of the southern transit zone (Liǔ had been prefect of nearby Liǔzhōu in the early ninth century). Composition is bracketed by Lín Jié’s tenure as Quánzhōu prefect (the Tiyao gives Jiādìng era, ca. 1208–24, with nine years in office per the Fújiàn tōngzhì).
Translations and research
No translation. Briefly noticed in regional studies of Mǐn and Liǎngguǎng shūyuàn culture; not the subject of dedicated study in any Western language. The work has occasionally been cited in modern reconstructions of provincial pedagogy under the late Sòng (e.g. Dèng Hóngbō 鄧洪波, Zhōngguó shūyuàn shǐ, Dōngfāng, 2004).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ brief note on the Liǔ Zōngyuán shrine enshrinement — and the Fújiàn tōngzhì’s identification of Lín Jié as “a xúnlì” (after Sīmǎ Qiān’s biographical category in the Shǐjì) — indirectly preserves one of the better-attested examples of how southern frontier prefects in the late Sòng cultivated a Táng-period continuity by attaching themselves to the cult of an earlier local-government predecessor.