Qīndìng Zhōuguān yìshū 欽定周官義疏
Imperially Commissioned Sub-Commentary on the Officials of Zhōu
by 高宗弘曆 (敕撰)
About the work
The official Qīng-court commentary on the Zhōulǐ (KR1d0001) in 48 juan, commissioned by the Qiánlóng emperor (Hónglì 弘曆, 1711–1799) on his accession in 1735 and completed in the eleventh year of his reign (Qiánlóng 13 = 1748). Part of the broader Qīndìng Sānlǐ yìshū 欽定三禮義疏 commission, which includes the parallel imperial commentaries on the Yílǐ (KR1d0037) and Lǐjì (KR1d0068) — a project completing the imperial Five Classics commentary programme begun under Kāngxī (whose reign saw imperial commentaries on Yì / Shī / Shū / Chūnqiū but had not finished the Sānlǐ). Edited under Manchu princes 允祿 (Yǔnlù) and 弘曕 (Hóngzhān) as overall managers, with Ě’ěrtài 鄂爾泰, Zhāng Tíngyù 張廷玉, Zhū Shì 朱軾, Gān Rǔlái 甘汝來 as chief compilers, and a substantial cohort of scholar-editors. The work explicitly restores the title Zhōuguān 周官 (rather than Zhōulǐ) for the original classic, following Liú Xīn’s Hàn shū yìwén zhì designation and Zhū Xī’s argument; it also expels the Kǎogōngjì from the Dōngguān position (giving it a separate label) on Qīng evidential grounds.
About the work continued
The editorial structure organises commentary under seven categorised rubrics: zhèngyì 正義 (correct meaning, where the classical sense is unambiguous), biànzhèng 辨正 (correction, where post-Hàn scholars have rebutted earlier readings unanswerably), tōnglùn 通論 (general discussion, comparing across passages or across classics), yúlùn 餘論 (remaining discussion, secondary inferences), cúnyí 存疑 (preserved doubt, where multiple readings remain plausible), cúnyì 存異 (preserved variant, where archaic names-and-things have multiple competing reconstructions), zǒnglùn 總論 (overall summation). The seven-rubric apparatus is one of the distinctive features of the Sānlǐ yìshū and an important late-imperial editorial innovation.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Zhōuguān yìshū in forty-eight juan was imperially commissioned in Qiánlóng 13 [1748]. The Zhōuguān is among the latest classics to have surfaced in the Hàn; furthermore, after Liú Xīn and Wáng Ānshí used it and went astray, the Hàn Confucians (Hé Xiū) and Sòng Confucians (Sū Zhé, Hú Hóng) both raised objections. Yet for the great laws and great institutions of the Three Dynasties and earlier, this book is the only consultable source. Kāngchéng’s annotation and Gōngyàn’s sub-commentary alternately bring out and develop one another. In the Sòng there were many writers; Wáng Zhāoyǔ’s Xiángjiě and Wáng Yǔzhī’s Dìngyì are particularly broad-and-detailed. Of the Míng writers, Wáng Yīngdiàn’s Zhuàn and Wáng Zhìcháng’s Shānyì also wing-and-support their predecessors.
His Imperial Majesty has specially commanded the Confucian ministers to gather and examine all the houses since the Hàn, with detailed selection-and-recording, and case-judgements push out the subtle precision. All Hàn-Confucian fabrications are exposed and extracted, so that they cannot become parasites of the entire classic. What ChéngZhū doubted and could not finally decide is now made manifest as the sun-and-moon. Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth month of the fortieth year of Qiánlóng [1775].
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 Qīndìng Zhōuguān yìshū is the Qīng official statement on the Zhōulǐ and the most comprehensive single eighteenth-century commentary on the work prior to Sūn Yírǎng’s late-Qīng Zhōulǐ zhèngyì (1899). Compiled under the Sānlǐ yìshū commission (running from 1735 through the early Qiánlóng era, with overall completion announced in 1748), the work integrates the HànTáng zhùshū tradition with selective SòngYuánMíng material under a seven-rubric editorial apparatus that distinguishes secure interpretation, evidential correction, comparative discussion, secondary inference, preserved doubt, preserved variant, and overall summation. This rubric system was maintained for the parallel Yílǐ yìshū and Lǐjì yìshū.
The editorial principals — Ě’ěrtài, Zhāng Tíngyù, Zhū Shì, Gān Rǔlái as chief compilers; Wāng Yóudūn 汪由敦, Yǐn Jìshàn 尹繼善, Chén Dàshòu 陳大受, Yáng Míngshí 楊名時, Xú Yuánméng 徐元夢, Péng Wéixīn 彭維新, Lǐ Qīngzhí 李清植, Wáng Lánshēng 王蘭生, Lǐ Fú 李紱, Rèn Qǐyùn 任啟運 (cf. KR1d0045), Fāng Bāo 方苞 (KR1d0021, KR1d0041) as deputy compilers — represent the leading Qīng court classicists of the early Qiánlóng era. Many of them are themselves authors of Sānlǐ works admitted to the Sìkù in their own right.
The fánlì (editorial conventions) at the head are particularly important: they explicitly restore the title Zhōuguān rather than Zhōulǐ on the authority of Liú Xīn and Zhū Xī; they expel the Kǎogōngjì from the Dōngguān position; they give an extensive Yǐnyòng xìngshì (cited authorities) list including Hàn through Míng commentators; and they adopt the standard Sòng Wǔzǐ (Five Masters) name-conventions (use of zǐ for the Sòng Dàoxué masters, zì for Zhèng Xuán, names alone for other commentators).
The dating “1736–1748” brackets Qiánlóng’s accession through the formal completion announcement.
Translations and research
- Benjamin A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Council on East Asian Studies / Harvard University Asia Center, 1984; 2nd ed. Council on East Asian Studies / UCLA, 2001) — places the Qīndìng Sānlǐ yìshū in the context of early-Qīng court-sponsored classical learning.
- R. Kent Guy, The Emperor’s Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Ch’ien-lung Era (Harvard University Asia Center, 1987) — context on the Qiánlóng court’s classical-textual programme.
- No dedicated monograph on the Qīndìng Zhōuguān yìshū has been located. The work is treated in surveys of Qīng classical scholarship as the high point of court-sponsored Zhōulǐ exegesis prior to the rise of the Hàn xué private-scholar tradition.
Other points of interest
The seven-rubric editorial apparatus (zhèngyì, biànzhèng, tōnglùn, yúlùn, cúnyí, cúnyì, zǒnglùn) is a distinctive Qīng-court contribution to commentary structure and represents an institutional alternative to the Sòng Dàoxué lecture-and-recorded-saying format and the late-Míng essayist format. It is paralleled in the imperial Yìjīng and Shū commentaries of the same era.
The list of Qīng deputy-compilers (fùzǒngcái) — including Fāng Bāo and Rèn Qǐyùn — reads as a roster of the Qīng court-classicist establishment of the 1730s–1740s. Many of these scholars produced their own private Sānlǐ commentaries that are also admitted to the Sìkù. The Yìshū commission was thus simultaneously a court editorial project and a focal point of the early-Qīng court-classical scholarly community.
Links
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor
- Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/zhouli.html