Shī dìlǐ kǎo 詩地理考
Geographical Investigations on the Classic of Poetry by 王應麟 (Wáng Yīnglín, zì Bóhòu 伯厚, hào Hòuzhāi 厚齋, 1223–1296)
About the work
A 6-juǎn topographical companion to the Classic of Poetry, in effect a complete reproduction of Zhèng Xuán’s Shī pǔ 詩譜 supplemented from the Ěryǎ, Shuōwén jiězì, the dì zhì 地志 (administrative-geography sections of the standard histories), the Shuǐjīng zhù 水經注, and earlier Confucian commentary, gathering every place-name occurring in the Shī. Methodologically Wáng Yīnglín “adduces evidence and refrains from judging” (àn ér bù duàn 案而不斷) — listing the alternatives without resolving them. The Sìkù editors have mixed feelings: they accept his comprehensiveness but criticize him for failing, in some cases, to settle disputes that the evidence in fact resolves. Two illustrative cases:
(1) On Xiǎo Yǎ Liù yuè: the Xiǎnyǔn attack progressing through JiāoHuò → HàoFāng → Jīngyáng → Tàiyuán traces a westward Xiǎnyǔn invasion and an eastward Zhōu counter-march. Wáng Yīnglín follows Kǒng Yǐngdá in glossing JiāoHuò as Chíyáng’s Húzhōng (per Guō Pú’s Ěryǎ zhù) and Tàiyuán as Jìnyáng — but per the Hànshū Chíyáng was ZuǒPíngyì and Jīngyáng was Āndìng; so the Zhōu host could not have arrived at JiāoHuò before reaching Jīngyáng. The geography is reversed in Kǒng’s account, and Liú Xiàng’s shū already noted that “the thousand-lǐ Hào is still considered far.” Wáng Yīnglín failed to correct.
(2) On Dà Yǎ Hán yì: the liáng shān in stanza 1 and the Hán chéng “completed by Yānshī” in stanza 6. Wáng Yīnglín gave both the Hàn zhì dìngXiáyáng identification (Hán = the modern Hánchéngxiàn) and the Wáng Sù identification (Hán = the northern Yān state, with a Hán hóu chéng in Zhuōjùn Fāngchéngxiàn) — preserving both. He missed Wáng Fú’s Qiánfū lùn and the Shuǐjīng zhù’s evidence (the Liángshān is to the north of the Gāoliáng shuǐ) which conclusively backs the Wáng Sù reading. Holding both is here a failure of judgement.
But on a number of other questions Wáng Yīnglín preserves valuable alternative traditions: Zōuyú read as a heavenly-park (per Jiǎ Yì’s Xīn shū) against the Máo zhuàn’s “humane beast”; Sì wǒ yú zhù read as a township-gate-hall (per Hàn zhì Jǐnán Zhùxiàn) against the Máo zhuàn’s “between gate and screen”; the Biāo chí read as an actual stream (per Shuǐjīng zhù’s Biāo chí shuǐ and the Shí dào zhì’s Shèngnǚ quán) against the Máo zhuàn’s “running form.” On Èr zǐ chéng zhōu he draws in the Zuǒ zhuàn’s “robbers waiting at Shēn”; on the Sānliáng of Qín Mù gōng he cites the Kuòdì zhì on the tomb at Yōngxiàn — preservation of person-attestations beyond the bare canon. The Sìkù editors conclude that this is “broad and full citation, of the kind a Shī commentator must consult.”
Tiyao
[Translated above as About the work — the tíyào first describes the procedure (full reproduction of Zhèng Xuán’s Shī pǔ; supplementation from the lexica, the dì zhì, and the Shuǐjīng), then critiques the Liù yuè and Hán yì failures of judgement, then defends the Zōuyú / Yú zhù / Biāo chí / Èr zǐ chéng zhōu / Sānliáng citations as broad and useful evidence.]
Abstract
The Shī dìlǐ kǎo is the principal late-Sòng monument of Shī-canon historical geography and the first systematic treatment of Shī place-names. Its principal scholarly use today is as a comprehensive index of pre-Sòng identifications, with sources documented at every entry. Its weakness — already noted by the Sìkù editors — is the editorial method: where the evidence in fact decides, Wáng Yīnglín nonetheless preserves competing identifications without committing. The work is the Shī-canon counterpart to Wáng Yīnglín’s other large-scale source-anthologies and stands in the same relation to the ode-by-ode commentary as the Shī kǎo (KR1c0025) does to lost-school fragments. Composition cannot be precisely dated within Wáng Yīnglín’s late life; the bracket is the same as for the Shī kǎo (post-Sòng retirement, ca. 1270, to death in 1296).
Translations and research
No translation. The work is the principal pre-modern reference for Shī-canon historical geography and is regularly cited in the geographical apparatus of modern critical editions; see Chéng Jùnyīng 程俊英 and Jiǎng Jiànyuán 蔣見元, Shī jīng zhù xī (Zhōnghuá, 1991). Treated philologically in the Wáng Yīnglín zhùzuò jíchéng edition (Shànghǎi gǔjí). On the larger Wáng-Yīnglín scholarly project, see Pearce / Spiro / Ebrey eds., Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200–600 (Harvard, 2001), pp. 177–230 (parallel issues for late-Sòng historical geography).
Other points of interest
Wáng Yīnglín’s reluctance to choose between the Hánchéng identifications — the Sìkù editors call this a failure of judgement — is in fact characteristic of the late-Sòng kǎojù method: collect everything, settle nothing. The Sìkù editors’ impatience with this procedure is implicitly an early statement of the more aggressive critical-edition culture of the Qīng kǎozhèng tradition.