禮記注疏

Lǐjì zhùshū 禮記注疏

The Record of Rites with Commentary and Sub-commentary

by 鄭玄 (注), 孔穎達 (疏), 陸德明 (音義), 齊召南 (考證)

About the work

The standard zhùshū 注疏 line of the Lǐjì 禮記 KR1d0052 in 63 juàn: Zhèng Xuán’s 鄭玄 (127–200) Hàn-period zhù 注 (annotation) carrying the canonical reading of the text together with Kǒng Yǐngdá’s 孔穎達 (574–648) Táng Zhèngyì 正義 (the shū 疏 sub-commentary, completed under imperial commission in 642 and revised down to 653) and Lù Démíng’s 陸德明 (550?–630) Jīngdiǎn shìwén 經典釋文 Lǐjì yīnyì 禮記音義 phonological apparatus integrated suíwén (interlinearly with the text). The work is one of the Wǔ jīng zhèngyì 五經正義 — the imperial Táng classical commentary set that became the orthodox basis of all subsequent ritual scholarship — and Kǒng Yǐngdá’s Zhèngyì survives here in 63 juàn (originally seventy, condensed in the Sòng under Yíng Bǐng’s 邢昺 1000 [Xiánpíng 2] re-cut). The Sìkù edition is supplemented by Qí Zhāonán’s 齊召南 (1703–1768) kǎozhèng 考證 (32 juan) and is prefaced by an imperial reading-essay of the Qiánlóng emperor on Wén Wáng shì zǐ 文王世子.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Lǐjì zhèngyì in thirty-six juan (in the present recension reorganised into 63) was annotated by Zhèng Xuán of the Hàn and sub-commented by Kǒng Yǐngdá of the Táng. The Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書·經籍志 says: in the early Hàn, Prince Xiàn of Héjiān 河間獻王 obtained a hundred thirty-one piān recorded by the disciples of Confucius and later students; he submitted them, but at that time none transmitted them. Down to Liú Xiàng’s 劉向 collation of the classics — he located one hundred thirty piān and sequenced them; further obtained the Míngtáng yīnyáng jì 明堂陰陽記 in thirty-three piān; the Kǒngzǐ sāncháo jì 孔子三朝記 in seven piān; the Wángshǐshì jì 王史氏記 in twenty-one piān; the Yuè jì 樂記 in twenty-three piān — five sources together, two hundred fourteen piān. Dài Dé deleted the cumbersome-and-redundant, combining and recording them as eighty-five piān — what is called the DàDài jì 大戴記. Dài Shèng further deleted DàDài’s book to forty-six piān — what is called the XiǎoDài jì 小戴記. In the late Hàn, Mǎ Róng then transmitted the XiǎoDài learning, further adding Yuèlìng one piān, Míngtáng wèi one piān, and Míngtáng one piān — making forty-nine piān. The source of this account is unknown.

Now examining the Hòu Hàn shū Qiáo Xuán biography, [it] says: his seventh-generation ancestor Qiáo Rén 橋仁 composed the Lǐjì zhāngjù 禮記章句 in forty-nine piān, called the Qiáojūn xué 橋君學. Qiáo Rén is precisely the one whom Bān Gù calls “the XiǎoDài who taught Liángrén Qiáo Jìqīng”: at the time of Emperor Chéng he had served as Dà hónglú. At that time it was already called forty-nine piān: there is no statement of forty-six piān. Further, Kǒng’s shū states that Biélù (Liú Xiàng’s Biélù) takes Lǐjì as forty-nine piān, with Yuèjì nineteenth — at the head of the forty-nine piān. The shū in every case quotes Zhèng’s Mùlù: the end of Zhèng’s Mùlù must say “this in Liú Xiàng’s Biélù belongs to such-and-such category.” The Yuèlìng mùlù says “this in Biélù belongs to Míngtáng yīnyáng jì”; the Míngtáng wèi mùlù says “this in Biélù belongs to Míngtáng yīnyáng”; the Yuèjì mùlù says “this in Biélù belongs to Yuèjì” — perhaps the eleven piān now made one piān. Then all three piān are present in Liú Xiàng’s Biélù: how can [we] take them as added by Mǎ Róng?

The shū further quotes [Zhèng] Xuán’s Liùyì lùn 六藝論: “Dài Dé transmits records of eighty-five piān — namely the DàDài Lǐ; Dài Shèng transmits Lǐ of forty-nine piān — namely this Lǐjì.” [Zhèng] Xuán was Mǎ Róng’s disciple: if the three piān really were Mǎ’s additions, [Zhèng] Xuán cannot have not known — how could he have attributed forty-nine piān to Dài Shèng?

Moreover, what Mǎ Róng transmitted was the Zhōulǐ; whereas the XiǎoDài learning — once transmitted to Qiáo Rén, once to Yáng Róng — its later transmitters were Liú Yòu, Gāo Yòu, Zhèng Xuán, Lú Zhí. Mǎ Róng was entirely unconnected with its transmission: how then would he have added three piān? We know that the present forty-nine piān is in fact the original Dài Shèng book; the Suí zhì is mistaken.

In the Yányòu period of the Yuán dynasty, when the examination law was implemented, Lǐjì was fixed to use the Zhèng Xuán annotation. So the Yuán Confucians’ speaking of ritual mostly had a foundation. From the Míng Yǒnglè period, when the imperial Lǐjì dàquán KR1d0060 was edited, the Zhèng annotation began to be discarded and replaced with Chén Hào’s Jíshuō KR1d0059; and ritual learning consequently fell to ruin. Yet the scholars who pondered ancient meanings — those who loved them never died out.

Of those who composed sub-commentaries (shūyì 疏義) in the early Táng, two schools still survived: those of Huáng Kǎn 皇侃 and Xióng Ānshēng 熊安生 (Note: the Míng Northern Directorate edition takes Huáng Kǎn as Huángfǔ Kǎn and Xióng Ānshēng as Xióng Ān, in both cases mangling the personal names — sufficient evidence of the laxity of the editorial proofreading; respectfully attached here for correction). In the Zhēnguān period, [Kǒng] Yǐngdá et al. were ordered to edit the Zhèngyì — taking the Huáng [Kǎn] school as base, with Xióng [Ānshēng] supplementing the unprovided. Yǐngdá’s preface states: “Xióng then violates the canonical-text proper, citing many extraneous-meanings; like one who goes south to Chǔ via the north — though the horse is fast, the further it goes the more distant. He further wishes to interpret the canonical-text only by gathering difficult passages — like working out tangled silk threads with the hand: though the hand be busy, the silk grows yet more entangled. Although Huáng’s chapters are detailed-and-correct, [they are] slightly broad-and-extensive; further, while ostensibly following the Zhèng school, at times they conflict with Zhèng meanings — this is fallen-trees not returning to their roots, dead foxes not heading toward their hill: both schools’ faults — neither is satisfactory.” Therefore his book strives to expound the Zhèng annotation, unable to avoid forced-construals here and there. Yet for gathering old materials, words rich and reasoning broad — those who speak ritual exhaust their probing without reaching its bottom. Like casting bronze along a mountain or boiling salt out of the sea — even Wèi Shí’s KR1d0057 book cannot glimpse its shore-and-bank; Chén Hào’s school is then like a stalk to a pillar.

Respectfully revised and submitted, eighth month of the forty-second year of Qiánlóng [1777].

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 Lǐjì zhùshū is the canonical zhùshū 注疏 of the Lǐjì and the orthodox foundation for all subsequent Three-Rites scholarship. Zhèng Xuán’s late-Hàn annotation closed the Sānlǐ corpus into a single integrated commentary set with his parallel Zhōulǐ zhù and Yílǐ zhù, and Kǒng Yǐngdá’s mid-seventh-century Zhèngyì (one of the Wǔ jīng zhèngyì) became the standard imperial sub-commentary down to the Sòng, after which it was expanded by Wèi Shí’s KR1d0057 Lǐjì jíshuō, and ultimately replaced as the examination standard by Chén Hào’s KR1d0059 Lǐjì jíshuō under the Míng Yǒnglè curriculum. The Sìkù tíyào is unusually polemical on the question of editorial transmission, working systematically through the Suí jīngjí zhì, the Hàn shū yìwén zhì, the Hòu Hàn shū Qiáo Xuán biography, Liú Xiàng’s Biélù, and Zhèng Xuán’s Liùyì lùn to demonstrate that the received forty-nine-chapter XiǎoDài Lǐjì is not Mǎ Róng’s expansion of a Dài Shèng forty-six-chapter base (as the Suí jīngjí zhì claims) but is in fact Dài Shèng’s own forty-nine-chapter book — the Suí zhì being mistaken.

The chapter-count argument is one of the central textual questions in Lǐjì scholarship and the Sìkù editors take a clear position. The original Táng Zhèngyì was in 70 juan; reduced to 63 juan in the Sòng (recorded by Yíng Bǐng 邢昺 in Xiánpíng 2 [999/1000]) by combining several short chapters per juan. The Qí Zhāonán kǎozhèng (32 juan) appended to the Sìkù edition supplies a parallel critical apparatus on the orthography and transmission, including corrections of the names of Liùcháo Lǐjì commentators garbled in the Míng Northern Directorate edition (Huángfǔ Kǎn → Huáng Kǎn, Xióng Ān → Xióng Ānshēng).

The Qiánlóng yùzhì essay on Wén Wáng shì zǐ prefacing the imperial edition argues — on the basis of a Yǒnglè dàdiǎn citation of Chén Màoshǎng’s 陳懋賞 Jíshuō — that the canonical text yú qí shēn yǐ shàn qí jūn 於其身以善其君 is a copyist’s slip for yú qí zǐ yǐ shàn qí jūn 於其子以善其君 (since 身 and 子 in archaic seal script are graphically similar), and that this textual error has propagated through Zhèng Xuán’s annotation and Kǒng Yǐngdá’s zhèngyì into the orthodox tradition. The emperor explicitly declines to alter the canonical text — “the jīng text is consulted in long use; there is no principle of correcting it” — but records the conjecture for future investigators.

Translations and research

• Pierre-Henri Durand, “Liji”, in Anne Cheng (ed.), Histoire de la pensée chinoise (Seuil, 1997) — solid French overview placing the Lǐjì commentarial tradition.
• Sūn Xīdàn 孫希旦, Lǐjì jíjiě 禮記集解 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1989) — the indispensable Qīng-period summative commentary that effectively replaces the Lǐjì zhùshū for serious modern work, while quoting it extensively.
• Wáng Wénjǐn 王文錦 et al. (eds.), Lǐjì zhèngyì 禮記正義, 3 vols. (Bēijīng dàxué chūbǎnshè, 1999, in the Shísān-jīng zhùshū punctuated edition) — the standard modern punctuated edition of the present work.
• Pèng Lín 彭林, Sānlǐ yánjiū rùmén 三禮研究入門 (Fùdàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2012) — covers the Lǐjì zhùshū in the context of Sānlǐ scholarship.

Other points of interest

The Qiánlóng yùzhì preface — Yùzhì dú Lǐjì Wén Wáng shì zǐ piān 御製讀禮記文王世子篇 — is a striking example of imperial active engagement with classical-philological detail at the eighteenth-century Qīng court: the emperor’s textual conjecture (shēn 身 → zǐ 子) is methodologically respectable and rests on early-script palaeography, anticipating later evidential-school methodology even while declining to make any practical alteration to the imperial canon.

Links

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Rites
• Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/liji.html