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周官新義

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Text ID
KR1d0004
Date
1071–1075
Dynasty
宋

Zhōuguān xīnyì 周官新義

New Meaning of the Zhōuguān

by 王安石 (撰) · 鄭宗顏 (輯, Kǎogōngjì jiě appendix)

About the work

Wáng Ānshí’s 王安石 (1021–1086) commentary on the Zhōulǐ (KR1d0001), written under imperial commission as part of the Sānjīng xīnyì 三經新義 (the Reform-school official commentaries on the Shī, Shū, and Zhōulǐ) during the Xīníng 熙寧 era of Sòng Shénzōng (r. 1067–1085). It is the central classical-philological document of the Xīnfǎ 新法 reform movement and the most consequential post-Hàn commentary on the Zhōulǐ — the work through which Wáng justified his programme of state-economic reorganisation by appeal to the supposed institutional model of the Duke of Zhōu. The received Sìkù version is sixteen juan (recovered from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 after the original 22-juan complete edition was lost), with a two-juan Kǎogōngjì jiě 考工記解 appendix compiled by Zhèng Zōngyán 鄭宗顏 from Wáng Ānshí’s Zì shuō 字說 entries on the technical vocabulary of crafts.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Zhōuguān xīnyì in sixteen juan, with the appendix Kǎogōngjì jiě in two juan, was composed by Wáng Ānshí of the Sòng. Wáng’s career is given in his Sòngshǐ biography. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s 晁公武 Dúshū zhì says: in the Xīníng era a Bureau of Classical Meanings (jīngyì jú 經義局) was established and the Sānjīng yì (Three-Classics commentaries) compiled, all rooted in Wáng Ānshí’s exegesis. The Three Classics are Shū, Shī, and Zhōulǐ. The Xīn jīng Máoshī yì runs to twenty juan, the Shàngshū yì to thirteen — both now lost. Zhōuguān xīnyì was originally twenty-two juan; the title was still listed in the Mid-Wànlì recompilation of the Inner-Cabinet catalogue, so Zhū Yízūn’s 朱彝尊 Jīngyì kǎo 經義考 dared not register it as lost — but only noted “not seen.” Yet outside there are no transmitted copies, and even in the Inner-Cabinet old holdings since the Míng there is in fact no such book; only in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn is it most fully preserved. (For the Inner-Cabinet catalogue is based on the Wényuāngé catalogue, which in turn was the list of works requisitioned to compile the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn; at that time complete copies were obtained, so the extraction is exhaustive.)

According to Cài Tāo’s 蔡絛 Tiěwéi shān cóngtán 鐵圍山叢談: when Wáng Yuánzé 王元澤 [Wáng Pāng 王雱] received the imperial command to compose the Sānjīng yì, his father Senior Counsellor Wáng Jièfǔ 王介甫 was the supervising director. The Shī and Shū sections largely came from Yuánzé’s hand and the brushes of various disciples; Zhōuguān xīnyì, however, was actually drafted in detail by the Senior Counsellor himself. In the Zhènghé 政和 era the relevant offices reported that the imperial-treasury-registered Wúshì Zīduō 吳氏資多 holdings included the Senior Counsellor’s writings; the court ordered them deposited in the Imperial Library, and so we are able to see them. The Zhōuguān xīnyì brushwork resembles “slanting wind and fine rain” — surely Jièfǔ’s own hand. So among the Three-Classics commentaries, only the Zhōulǐ is in fact a Wáng Ānshí autograph work.

People are quick to say that Ānshí ruined Sòng learning by means of the Zhōulǐ. But that the Zhōulǐ could not be implemented in later ages was known not only to others but to Ānshí himself. Ānshí’s intent was that the Sòng, weakened by long accumulation, must be revived by enrichment-and-strengthening; and fearing that fùqiáng policies would be assailed by the Confucians, he latched onto the meanings of a classic to gag their mouths — not because he genuinely believed the Zhōulǐ could be put into practice. When in due course the policies were entrusted to unsuitable men and applied without regard to the proper procedures, manifold abuses arose and the Sòng was greatly damaged. But these abuses were not in fact caused by the Zhōulǐ. Luó Dàjīng 羅大經 in Hèlín yùlù 鶴林玉露 has a poem on Ānshí’s “Releasing Fish”: “He mistook the Cāngjī for the Six Ministries; from this the Central Plain became sparse and bleak.” Even this is to fall for Ānshí’s own ruse without examining the deeper aim of his “borrowing of the Six Arts.” To attack the Zhōulǐ on this basis, and to attack Ānshí’s Zhōulǐ annotation on this basis, is to indulge his cunning concealment-by-association and to charge it as if the offence were mere pedantry.

So Ānshí’s crimes of clinging to power and planting factions are utterly inexcusable. But his classical exegesis and the New Policies are two separate matters. Master Chéng [Yí] approved the ease of his readings; Zhū Xī and Wáng Yīnglín both approved his Shàngshū yì — what is being said is that each holds for its own scope. Looking at this present book, only its glossatorial use of the Zì shuō is excessively tortured. Otherwise its line-by-line classical exegesis — for instance on the “eight regulations governing the metropolitan districts” (bā zé zhī zhì dūbǐ 八則之治都鄙), the “eight statutes governing the people” (bā tǒng zhī yù wànmín 八統之馭萬民), the “nine connections binding the states” (jiǔ liǎng zhī jì bāngguó 九兩之繫邦國) — all genuinely opens up the meanings, and there is no place where wording is twisted to harm the Way. Therefore Wáng Zhāoyǔ 王昭禹, Lín Zhīqí 林之奇, Wáng Yǔzhī 王與之, and Chén Yǒurén 陳友仁 in their Zhōulǐ commentaries draw extensively on his account. Even the Qīndìng Zhōuguān yìshū KR1d0018 does not refuse to cite him. How can it then be entirely set aside on account of the man? In Ānshí’s Memorial in Five Items presented to Shénzōng, and in the Shénzōng rìlù citations of Ānshí’s references to the Zhōuguān, and in the Píngbān xīngjī 平頒興積 passage refuted by Yáng Shí 楊時 in Guīshān jí 龜山集 — all the relevant material is in the Dìguān section. Now the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn lacks two juan from the Dìguān and Xiàguān, so these accounts cannot be checked. But what is missing happens to coincide with what was most flawed, and so what survives need not be censured too harshly.

Ānshí had not himself annotated the Kǎogōngjì, but the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn fully preserves an account of it. By Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì, this was Zhèng Zōngyán’s 鄭宗顏 compilation of Ānshí’s Zì shuō glosses, written to fill the gap. We have included it here as well, as an exemplary work in this single tradition.

Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The Zhōuguān xīnyì is the central classical document of the Wáng Ānshí Reform school and the textbook on which official examinations were based throughout the Xīníng–Yuányòu period (1069–1086) when the Reform Bureau was operative. Its twenty-two-juan original was already a casualty of the post-Yuányòu anti-Reform purges and was missing from circulation by the early Míng. The Sìkù editors recovered the bulk of the text from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, where it had been preserved in the imperial-library copy of 1408. Two juan (parts of Dìguān and Xiàguān) are missing in this recovery — including, the editors note with some satisfaction, exactly the passages most often cited as the source of the New Policies’ worst abuses (e.g., the píngbān xīngjī 平頒興積 passage critiqued by Yáng Shí 楊時, 1053–1135).

The exegetical method is heavily reliant on Wáng’s Zì shuō — a Reform-school graphological lexicon that derives meanings of characters from speculative analyses of their constituent components. This is the core target of contemporaneous and later philological criticism. In other respects the commentary is a serious line-by-line reading. The Sìkù tíyào (drafted by Jǐ Yún and his editors with conspicuous post-Reform hindsight) accomplishes the rhetorical feat of denouncing Wáng’s politics while defending his exegesis as scholarly — explicitly distinguishing the Zì shuō glosses (judged “tortured”) from the line-by-line institutional exegesis of the bā zé, bā tǒng, jiǔ liǎng passages (judged genuinely insightful).

The Kǎogōngjì jiě appendix, compiled by Zhèng Zōngyán 鄭宗顏 from Wáng’s Zì shuō, is independent in genesis and circulated separately in the Sòng before being absorbed into the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn file. It is the principal surviving testimony to how the Reform school approached the technical vocabulary of pre-Qín craft technology.

Translations and research

  • James T. C. Liu, Reform in Sung China: Wang An-shih (1021–1086) and his New Policies (Harvard University Press, 1959) — standard English-language study; treats Zhōuguān xīnyì as the classical anchor of the Xīnfǎ.
  • Higashi Ichio 東一夫, Ō Anseki shinpō no kenkyū 王安石新法の研究 (Kazama 1970) — the standard Japanese monograph.
  • Liú Chéngguó 劉成國, “Wáng Ānshí Zhōuguān xīnyì de jīngxué shǐ dìwèi” 王安石《周官新義》的經學史地位, Zhōngguó zhéxué shǐ (2003) — modern reassessment of the commentary.
  • Yáng Tiānbǎo 楊天保, Wáng Ānshí xuéshù sīxiǎng yánjiū 王安石學術思想研究 (Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè 2007) — chapter on the Zhōuguān xīnyì.

Other points of interest

The Wényuāngé Sìkù copy reproduces the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery, including the editors’ patches. For Wáng’s autograph original, the Northern Sòng edition described by Cài Tāo (preserved in the imperial library after confiscation from the Wúshì Zīduō family collection in the Zhènghé era) is now lost. The Reform school’s own Zhōulǐ gloss tradition is otherwise represented in the corpus by KR1d0005 Zhōulǐ xiángjiě of Wáng Zhāoyǔ 王昭禹, who closely follows Wáng Ānshí.

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