Yílǐ yàoyì 儀禮要義
The Essential Meanings of the Yílǐ
by 魏了翁 (撰)
About the work
Wèi Liǎowēng’s 魏了翁 (1178–1237) fifty-juan compilation of the essentials of Yílǐ (KR1d0025) commentary, one component of his comprehensive Jiǔjīng yàoyì 九經要義 (Essentials of the Nine Classics) project — companion volumes include the Zhōuyì yàoyì (KR1a0054). The work organises each Yílǐ chapter into topical headings, with selected excerpts from Zhèng Xuán’s note and Jiǎ Gōngyàn’s sub-commentary placed below; this is broadly the same editorial pattern Wèi adopts in the Zhōuyì yàoyì. Composed during Wèi’s Jìngzhōu 靖州 exile (after 1225) and the subsequent return-to-office period before his death in 1237.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yílǐ yàoyì in fifty juan is one of Wèi Liǎowēng’s Jiǔjīng yàoyì compositions of the Sòng. He divides each chapter into separate topics, abstracting and recording the zhùshū below each — broadly the same as the Zhōuyì yàoyì; this is his book-composition style.
The Yílǐ classic is the most difficult to read; the various Confucian glosses are also rare. Recorded in history outside the Sāngfú traditions: the Suí zhì lists only four families; the Old Tángzhì also only four families; the New Tángzhì only three families. Today only Zhèng Xuán’s note and Jiǎ Gōngyàn’s sub-commentary survive. Zhèng’s note is ancient-and-obscure, sometimes not easily understood at a glance; Jiǎ’s sub-commentary is verbose and repetitive — though detailed and ample, prone to confusion-and-overgrowth, with the threads also not easily made clear. Zhū Xī’s Yǔlù says they are “not very clearly distinguished” — apparently with reason.
Liǎowēng has taken them and trimmed-and-cut, dividing-and-arranging the headings, with order-and-condition orderly, allowing the distinctions of pǐnjié (rank-and-stage) and dùshù (measurement-and-number) to be known on opening the scroll, no longer suffering from word-and-meaning entanglement. His combing-and-extracting is most meritorious for the student. Although what is selected does not extend to other houses, the Yílǐ glossatorial tradition is preserved in ZhèngJiǎ’s accounts, and the essence of ZhèngJiǎ is preserved in this book’s selection. Subsequent expositions, though many, mostly take the zhùshū as their template — so this book may be said to grasp the essentials.
Respectfully revised and submitted, third month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng [1778].
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 Yílǐ yàoyì is the Yílǐ component of Wèi Liǎowēng’s massive Jiǔjīng yàoyì essentials-compilation project — one of the most ambitious late-Sòng systematic engagements with the canonical commentary tradition. The work’s editorial method (topical heading + selected zhùshū excerpts) is designed to make the dense HànTáng commentary tradition usable by Southern-Sòng readers without the original zhùshū’s prolixity. The Sìkù editors approve the project as a service to students of the Yílǐ, noting that “the essence of ZhèngJiǎ is preserved in this book’s selection.”
The composition belongs to Wèi’s late career, with most of the editorial work likely completed during the Jìngzhōu exile (1225 onward) and finalised before his death in 1237. The bracket “1225–1237” reflects this. The work is one of the few late-Sòng commentaries that successfully transmits the HànTáng Yílǐ tradition without the contamination of the speculative Sòng-school approaches (compare the Yú Tíngchūn–Wú Chéng “Dōngguān not lost” tradition for the Zhōulǐ).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. Treated in surveys of Wèi Liǎowēng’s intellectual project and in literature on Sòng-period classical yàoyì (essentials) compilations.
Other points of interest
The Jiǔjīng yàoyì project as a whole is one of the more ambitious comprehensive-classical undertakings of the late Southern Sòng — comparable in scope only to Zhū Xī’s Sìshū jízhù + Wǔjīng zhèngyì programme. Wèi Liǎowēng’s choice to organise the project around zhùshū abstracts (rather than original commentary) reflects the late-Sòng Dàoxué recognition that the HànTáng exegetical tradition was the irreplaceable foundation of any classical reading.
Links
- Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/yili.html