Zhōulǐ dìngyì 周禮訂義
The Settled Meaning of the Rites of Zhōu
by 王與之 (撰)
About the work
Wáng Yǔzhī’s 王與之 (fl. Chúnyòu era 1241–1252) eighty-juan anthology-commentary on the Zhōulǐ (KR1d0001). One of the major surviving Sòng compendia of Zhōulǐ exegesis, drawing on 51 earlier commentators — six from the HànTáng (Dù Zǐchūn 杜子春, Zhèng Xīng 鄭興, Zhèng Zhòng 鄭眾, Zhèng Xuán 鄭玄, Cuī Língēn 崔靈恩, and Jiǎ Gōngyàn 賈公彥) and 45 from the Sòng. The Sòng range covers everything from Liú Chǎng 劉敞 and Wáng Ānshí 王安石 to Zhū Xī 朱熹, Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙, Chén Fùliáng 陳傅良 (Chén Jūnjǔ 陳君舉), Yè Shì 葉適, and Yì Fú 易祓. The work was specifically requested by the imperial Library under Sòng Lǐzōng’s Chúnyòu 2 (1242); Wáng Yǔzhī was a bùyī (untitled scholar) whose copy was extracted from his home and submitted to court via the Wēnzhōu prefect Zhào Rǔténg’s 趙汝騰 memorial. The compositional method follows Lǚ Zǔqiān’s Dú Shī jì 讀詩記 anthology format, with the organizing intellectual frame anchored in the ChéngZhāng Dàoxué tradition. The text contains a preface by Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀 (1232) and a postface by Zhào Rǔténg (1237).
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Zhōulǐ dìngyì in eighty juan was composed by Wáng Yǔzhī of the Sòng. Yǔzhī (zì Cìdiǎn, native of Yuèqīng) was the recipient of an edict in the sixth month of Chúnyòu 2 [1242] of the Imperial Library at the temporary capital, requesting books, transmitted to Wēnzhōu to extract this compilation. The Wēnzhōu prefect Zhào Rǔténg memorialised in submission; he was specially granted an office and commissioned as Wénxué of Bīnzhōu, eventually ending as Tōngpàn Sìzhōu. The present text records the imperial-library memorial, prefectural memorandum, Capital Office assessment, and final edict at the head of the volume — preserving the form of the Sòng original.
A preface by Zhēn Déxiù dated Shàodìng 5 (rénchén 1232) precedes the work, ten years before its submission to court. A postface by Zhào Rǔténg dated Jiāxī 1 (dīngyǒu 1237) follows, six years before submission. So Zhào Rǔténg’s memorial says he had long known the man, and he also says that after Zhēn Déxiù’s death, Wáng Yǔzhī continued to delete the redundant and select the essential, going from breadth to concision, so that the book became all the more refined and free of defect. Of the fifty-one earlier commentators selected, only six belong to the Táng or before: Dù Zǐchūn, Zhèng Xīng, Zhèng Zhòng, Zhèng Xuán, Cuī Língēn, and Jiǎ Gōngyàn. The remaining 45 are all Sòng — every recorded essay and recorded saying was searched and gathered. The orientation is to make contemporary Confucians the centre, with old meanings only as supplementary preservation. Déxiù’s preface says: “Zhèng and Jiǎ and the other Confucians dissected names-and-things and distinguished institutions — not without merit; yet the sage’s subtle intent was finally not visible to them. Only [Chéng] of Luòyáng and [Zhāng] of Guānzhōng grasped the essential subtlety of the holy classic. Wáng of Yǒngjiā has rooted his learning in [Chéng] and [Zhāng].” So yìlǐ (philosophical meaning) is taken as root and diǎnzhì (institutional detail) as branch — hence the Sòng material is uniquely abundant.
His annotation of the Kǎogōngjì relies on the Old-Text Shàngshū Zhōuguān Sīkōng office and holds that the Dōngguān was never lost — perpetuating the absurd argument of Yú Tíngchūn. Zhào Rǔténg’s postface also commends this. It is a serious error. Yet Tíngchūn confused the five ministries and arbitrarily emended the text; Yǔzhī merely holds the position without daring to move the classic — there is at least that distinction from Tíngchūn. As to his distributing the xùguān sections among the various offices, this can be checked against Lù Démíng’s Jīngdiǎn shìwén — the Jìn-period Gàn Bǎo 干寶 had already done this, so it is not without precedent. But the practice is one’s own innovation, not what the earlier Confucians followed, and cannot be cited as an authority.
The works of these forty-five Sòng commentators have today lost eight or nine parts in ten; they survive only because of this anthology. Although the work prefers the noble-and-near and underrates the remote-and-old — and is not the equal of Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s 李鼎祚 Zhōuyì jíjiě 周易集解 in preserving ancient meanings — its breadth of compilation is at least the equal of Fáng Shěnquán’s 房審權 Zhōuyì yìhǎi 周易義海.
We further note that Qiū Kuí’s Zhōulǐ bǔwáng xù says: “In the Jiāxī era [1237–1240] Wáng Cìdiǎn of Dōngjiā wrote a Zhōuguān bǔyí 周官補遺, by which the six ministries of the Zhōulǐ were at last made into a complete book.” The present text contains no Bǔyí — it is unclear whether it was a separate work, or attached and now lost. Yet “emending the classic on private intent” is a position best left unpreserved, so there is no need to inquire too deeply.
Respectfully revised and submitted, fourth 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 Zhōulǐ dìngyì is the most comprehensive surviving anthology of Sòng Zhōulǐ exegesis. Its 51-commentator roster — assembled by Wáng Yǔzhī, a bùyī of obscure circumstances who refused to enter the examination system — is a unique snapshot of the Sòng Zhōulǐ commentary tradition at the moment of late-Lǐzōng Dàoxué consolidation, ten to twenty years before the Mongol conquest extinguished the Southern Sòng. Its anthology format, modelled on Lǚ Zǔqiān’s Dú Shī jì, became the dominant SòngYuánMíng pattern for Zhōulǐ compilation (compare KR1d0013 Zhōulǐ jíshuō, Zhōuguān jíchuán of Máo Yìnglóng KR1d0014, etc.).
Forty-five of the 51 commentators cited are Sòng-period; for many, Zhōulǐ dìngyì is the sole surviving witness to their Zhōulǐ work. The biānjí xìngshì shìcì 編集姓氏世次 — the prefatory roster of cited authorities, with biographical data — is in itself a major bibliographic resource for late-Sòng scholarship. The compositional and submission history of the work is preserved at the head: an imperial-library edict, a Wēnzhōu prefectural notification, the Capital Office’s recommendation, and the final imperial decision.
The Sìkù editors take two positions on the work: an enthusiastic endorsement of its anthology value and conservation function, and a sharp criticism of its endorsement of Yú Tíngchūn’s “Dōngguān not lost” thesis. They distinguish Wáng Yǔzhī’s restrained version of the thesis (which holds the position but does not modify the classic) from Yú Tíngchūn’s aggressive textual surgery in KR1d0006 — granting that this is “at least a distinction” from the originator.
The catalog dating window 1230–1242 brackets Zhēn Déxiù’s preface (1232) and the imperial submission of the work (1242), with the bulk of the compositional work falling in this period.
Translations and research
- Yè Chúnfāng 葉純芳, Sòngdài Zhōulǐ xué shǐ 宋代周禮學史 (Líng-bō chūbǎn 2010) — extended discussion of Zhōulǐ dìngyì’s anthological method and its position in late-Sòng Zhōulǐ scholarship.
- Zhōulǐ dìngyì itself remains the principal source for late-Sòng Zhōulǐ commentary fragments and is regularly cited in the Zhōnghuá-shūjú edition of Sūn Yírǎng’s Zhōulǐ zhèngyì 周禮正義.
Other points of interest
The full text of the imperial-library edict, the Wēnzhōu prefectural notification (with its detailed accounting of how many manuscript leaves had been copied, the use of yellow brocade for the imperial copy, and the names of the prefectural officials processing the request), and the Capital Office’s recommendation that Wáng be granted office not as a self-promoting writer but as a bùyī whose work had been requested are all preserved at the head of the work and constitute a remarkable internal documentary witness to Sòng book-collection administrative procedure.
Links
- Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/zhouli.html