Gōngshì kǎo 宮室考
Investigation of Palaces and Rooms
by 任啟運 (撰)
About the work
Rèn Qǐyùn’s 任啟運 (1670–1744) two-juan investigation of the architectural and spatial vocabulary of pre-Qín ritual classical texts, supplementing Lǐ Rúguī’s KR1d0031 Yílǐ shìgōng with substantial expansion. The work organises material under the rubrics: mén (gates), guān (towers), cháo (audience halls), miào (temples), qǐn (residences), shú (gate-side schools), zhù (forecourt), děngwēi (rank-and-status), míngwù (named-things), mén dàxiǎo guǎngxiá (gate dimensions), Míngtáng (Bright Hall), Fāngmíng (Square-Bright), Bìyōng (Hoop-Pond royal academy). The Sìkù tíyào engages substantial counter-arguments against several of Rèn’s specific claims — particularly his identification of xiāng (廂) as positions east-and-west of the fáng, with jiāshì (夾室) east-and-west of the hall — judged not to fit the classical evidence — but acknowledges the work as substantial kǎozhèng and a valuable supplement to the Yílǐ reading.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Gōngshì kǎo in two juan was composed by Rèn Qǐyùn of the present dynasty. Qǐyùn has Zhōuyì xǐxīn already catalogued. The book outside Lǐ Rúguī’s Shìgōng separately for category-and-sequence: mén (gates), guān (towers), cháo (audience halls), miào (temples), qǐn (residences), shú, zhù, děngwēi, míngwù, mén dàxiǎo guǎngxiá, Míngtáng, Fāngmíng, Bìyōng — kǎozhèng quite detailed-and-precise. Only saying “fáng-east is Dōngxiāng; west is Xīxiāng; north yōng (墉), east yōng, west yōng, south hù (戶) attached to the táng; east is Dōngtáng; west is Xītáng; táng upper east-and-west wall is xù (序); xù-east is Dōng jiāshì; west is Xī jiāshì; south yōng, east yōng, west yōng, north hù attached to the east — east is Dōngtáng; west is Xītáng.”
By his account, the east-and-west xiāng are at fáng’s east-and-west; the east-and-west jiāshì are at the táng’s east-and-west; east-and-west xiāng’s south, east-and-west jiāshì’s north — then [the location of] Dōng and Xī táng. Yet examining this in the classics-and-traditions, in fact wholly without grounds. Yílǐ Jìnlǐ jì note: “Dōngxiāng — Dōngjiā front xiāngyì waiting-event place”; Tèshēng kuìshí lǐ note: “Xītáng — Xījiā front near-south”; sub-commentary: “namely Xīxiāng also.” Ěryǎ Shìgōng: “shì having east-and-west xiāng called miào”; Guō Pú’s note: “jiāshì front táng — is Dōngxiāng — also called Dōngtáng; Xīxiāng also called Xītáng also.” By this then DōngXī xiāng are the DōngXī táng — clearly at DōngXī jiāshì’s front; yet Qǐyùn says they are at DōngXī jiāshì’s rear — wrong.
Gōngshí dàfū lǐ: “the duke yields, retreats to the xiāng down”; “the duke receives the Zǎifū’s bùnbó”; Note: “xiāng is Dōngjiā’s front waiting-event place; receiving bùnbó at the xù-end” — apparently Dōngxiāng is connected to the xù-end; the duke is supposed to receive the silk at the xù-end, hence first standing at Dōngxiāng to wait, the place being near so the affair convenient. If Dōngxiāng were east of the fáng, north of the jiāshì, then south distant from the xù-end with one zhèngtáng in between — using this to wait on affair, where could be more inconvenient? So using the classic to verify Qǐyùn’s account — none matches.
Furthermore Hàn shū Zhōu Chāng zhuàn: “Lǚhòu side-ear-listened at the Dōngxiāng”; Yán Shīgǔ’s note: “zhèngqǐn’s east-and-west shì all called xiāng.” If Dōngxiāng were obscurely-positioned east of the fáng, far at jiāshì’s north, then how could one side-ear-listen there? Furthermore Jīn Rìdī zhuàn: “Mǎng Héluó from outside entered; from Dōngxiāng upward saw Rìdī’s complexion change; ran-and-headed for the lying-quarters” — apparently from Dōngtáng hurrying-into the room — so saying “from outside entered.” If Dōngxiāng were fáng-east, jiā-north, then it is “from inside coming out”!
Hòu Hàn shū Zhōu Jǔ zhuàn: “the Son of Heaven himself went out and sat in the open at the Déyáng diàn Dōngxiāng praying for rain” — then Dōngxiāng not concealed east of the fáng, [obscurely north of the] jiā is plain. So using history to verify Qǐyùn’s account — also none matches.
[Several more counter-arguments follow about Yánlǐ’s small-officer-providing the basin in Dōngtáng-down, and Tèshēng kuìshí lǐ’s mistress-overseeing the cooking in Xītáng-down, both contradicting Qǐyùn’s spatial scheme.]
Qǐyùn does not fully investigate the entire Yílǐ and self-establishes new accounts — hence his lapses such as these.
[Continuing on his discussions of the four-school of Zhōu — Chéngjūn, Dōngjiāo, Dōngxù, Gǔzōng, Yúxiáng — also unsupported.]
But, as for those that hold the ancestral-temple as in the Zhìmén interior; citing Lǐyùn’s “Zhòngní attended the zhà; affair-finished, went out to guān-upper”; the Gǔliáng zhuàn’s “ritual sending-the-daughter, the mother does not go out the sacrifice-gate; various mothers, brothers do not go out the quēmén” — these kinds are quite precise-and-careful and can be consulted with Zhèng’s note.
The Yílǐ one classic has long become a lost-discipline; Qǐyùn can study-and-bind it through, making its order-and-condition orderly — although there are some intervening flaws and errors, yet broadly precise-and-evidential — also not unworthy of the title “exhausting-the-classic.”
Respectfully revised and submitted, eleventh 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 Gōngshì kǎo is one of the principal Qīng-period systematic supplements to Lǐ Rúguī’s KR1d0031 Yílǐ shìgōng. Rèn Qǐyùn’s distinctive contribution is the comprehensive topical organisation (gates, towers, audiences, temples, residences, gate-side schools, ranks, named-things, dimensions, Míngtáng, Fāngmíng, Bìyōng) extending beyond Lǐ Rúguī’s text-by-text approach. The Sìkù editors mount a substantial counter-argument against Rèn’s specific spatial scheme (locating DōngXī xiāng east of the fáng and jiāshì east-and-west of the táng) but approve the broader kǎozhèng method and several specific clarifications.
The dating “1733–1744” brackets Rèn’s late career (1733 jìnshì) through his death.
Rèn Qǐyùn was a deputy compiler on the Qīndìng Sānlǐ yìshū commission (KR1d0018 KR1d0037 KR1d0068); his independent work supplements the official imperial commentary with private investigations.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. Treated in surveys of mid-Qīng Sānlǐ spatial-architectural scholarship.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ rebuttal of Rèn Qǐyùn’s xiāngjiāshì spatial scheme is one of the more sustained spatial-architectural arguments in the Sìkù Sānlǐ tíyào. The argument draws on cross-references from the Yílǐ, the Ěryǎ Shìgōng, Hàn shū, Hòu Hàn shū, and Yán Shīgǔ’s Hàn shū notes — a model evidential-cross-disciplinary attack that demonstrates how Rèn’s spatial scheme would create implausible motion-paths in the recorded ritual procedures.
Links
- Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/yili.html