禮記纂言

Lǐjì zuǎnyán 禮記纂言

A Compiled Discussion of the Book of Rites

by 吳澄 (撰)

About the work

A late-Yuán radical re-edition of the Lǐjì KR1d0052 in 36 juàn by Wú Chéng 吳澄 (1249–1333) — the senior Yuán Dàoxué scholar — completed in his eighty-fourth year (Zhìshùn 3 = 1332) at Fǔzhōu prefectural school. Wú Chéng’s editorial intervention is unusually drastic: rather than commenting on the canonical 49-piān received order, he reorganises the Lǐjì into 36 piān of his own arrangement, classifying each chapter under one of four topical headings — tōnglǐ 通禮 (general ritual, 9 piān), sānglǐ 喪禮 (mourning ritual, 11 piān), jìlǐ 祭禮 (sacrifice ritual, 4 piān), and tōnglùn 通論 (general discussion, 11 piān) — with paragraph-level rearrangement within each piān as well, “from above to below making the chapters’ meanings join and connect through”. The work parallels Wú’s similarly-titled Yílǐ yìjīng KR1d0034 in editorial method, and represents an extreme expression of late-Yuán Dàoxué confidence in the editor’s right to repair the canonical text by analytical reorganisation.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Lǐjì zuǎnyán in thirty-six juan was composed by Wú Chéng of the Yuán. [Wú] Chéng’s Yì zuǎnyán is already catalogued. Wēi Sù’s Wú Chéng niánpǔ records: in the third year of Zhìshùn [1332], when [Wú] Chéng was eighty-four, [he] resided at Fǔzhōu prefectural school; the Lǐjì zuǎnyán was completed. But Yú Jí’s xíngzhuàng states completion in the fourth year of Zhìshùn — namely the year of [Wú] Chéng’s death. Their statements somewhat disagree, but in any case [the work] is a hand-fixed text of [Wú] Chéng’s late years.

His book takes each juàn as one piān. The major thrust [is] that the Dàijì (the Lǐjì) canonical text [is] miscellaneous-and-complex, and many [passages are] suspected of cuò jiǎn (mis-bound bamboo strips). Therefore in each piān, the text is in every case organised by category of mutual-following — making the upper-and-lower meaning join-and-connect comprehensively, and their zhāngjù (chapter-and-sentence breaks) marked on the left.

The thirty-six piān sequence is also entirely [arranged] by category of mutual-following: in total tōnglǐ nine piān; sānglǐ eleven piān; jìlǐ four piān; tōnglùn eleven piān; each given a heading-rubric. As under tōnglǐ, with Qǔlǐ at the head — then Shǎoyí, Yùzǎo etc. piān are appended — all are not the old order of XiǎoDài. Other [arrangements]: as the Dà xué and Zhōng yōng, following ChéngZhū, [are] separately made into a [single] book; the Tóuhú and Bēnsāng [are] returned to the Yílǐ; the Guān yì etc. six piān are separately compiled as the Yílǐ zhuàn. All are also not in accord with the ancient.

Yú Jí praised it: “in beginning-and-end and front-and-back most precise and dense; the legacy of the former kings, the prescriptive sayings of the sages — those barely surviving and examinable have all been distinguished and preserved; each has its proper place; whereas the disorder long-stuck in the hands of specialised-experts — in one moment each has its proper structure with no remainder.” His high estimation [reaches] this much.

Examining the Hàn shū yìwén zhì — the Lǐjì originally had 131 piān; Dài Dé deleted [it] to 85; Dài Shèng deleted [it] to 49 — and so [the canonical text] is indeed different from the Yì, Shū, Shī, Chūnqiū canonical texts hand-fixed by the sages. Yet the Old Táng shū Yuán Xíngchōng biography records: when [Yuán] Xíngchōng presented the Lèilǐ yìshū, Zhāng Yuè rebutted in his memorial: “the present Lǐjì, transmitted-and-studied across generations, is established as canonical-teaching: it cannot be revised. Wèi-period Sūn Yán first changed the old text — what former Confucians criticised — and ultimately did not stand. In the Zhēnguān period, Wèi Zhēng on the basis of [Sūn] Yán’s revision further organised-and-arranged it, providing his own annotation — that book also did not stand. Now [Yuán] Xíngchōng et al. have reworked Zhēng’s annotation and made it into a one-school work — yet [it] is in conflict with the former Confucians on chapter-and-sentence breaks, with violence to the meaning. If [we] wish to use it [in instruction], I privately fear it cannot be” etc. Then ancient men passed several rounds of editorial-emendation and could ultimately not change the Hàn-Confucian original-text. Through the Táng [period], the Confucian custom remained pure-and-substantial, not shaken-and-confused by new theories — this is also one piece of evidence.

[Wú] Chéng’s again altering-and-combining the old text — in proper-form a deletion-and-redaction — perhaps cannot avoid the criticism of usurping the [authority of the] sages. Because his organising-and-stringing has considerable order, and his exposition also at times has discoveries — being relatively distinct from such cases as Wáng Bǎi’s deleting [the] Shī — therefore [we] catalogue-and-preserve it, and append our discussion of its faults as above.

Respectfully revised and submitted, fifth month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng [1780].

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 zuǎnyán is one of the most editorially radical works in the entire late-Yuán Dàoxué Lǐjì commentarial tradition. Wú Chéng’s hand-fixed late-life text — completed in 1332 (Wú’s 84th year, per the Wēi Sù niánpǔ) or 1333 (per Yú Jí’s xíngzhuàng; the year of Wú’s death) — completely disregards the canonical 49-piān order of the XiǎoDài Lǐjì, reorganising the entire text into 36 piān under four topical headings (tōnglǐ / sānglǐ / jìlǐ / tōnglùn), with extensive paragraph-level rearrangement within each piān. Editorial decisions reflect the late-Yuán Dàoxué reception of Zhū Xī’s never-completed project on the Sānlǐ: Dà xué and Zhōng yōng are extracted (following ChéngZhū); Tóu hú and Bēn sāng are removed to the Yílǐ; six Yí-related chapters (Guānyì, Hūnyì, Xiāngyǐnjiǔyì, Shèyì, Yànyì, Pìnyì) are reframed as a separate Yílǐ zhuàn.

The Sìkù tíyào — unusual in this — gives a sharply qualified verdict. The editors acknowledge that the Lǐjì canonical text is not, like the other Five Classics, sage-hand-fixed (it being a Hàn editorial product), so editorial intervention is in principle defensible. But they cite the early-Táng case of Yuán Xíngchōng’s Lèilǐ yìshū (decisively rejected by Zhāng Yuè in 711) as evidence that the Táng-period Confucian community had already firmly rejected the principle of re-ordering the Lǐjì. The editors compare Wú Chéng’s reorganisation to Wáng Bǎi’s 王栢 notorious deletion of poems from the Shī jīng — but conclude (more leniently) that Wú Chéng’s work has “considerable order” and “at times has discoveries”, and so is included in the Sìkù with critical reservations rather than excluded.

The dating bracket 1332–1333 reflects the disagreement between the two early Yuán biographical sources (Wēi Sù’s niánpǔ completion 1332, Yú Jí’s xíngzhuàng completion 1333); both are reliable contemporaneous sources and the discrepancy is small.

Translations and research

• David Gedalecia, The Philosophy of Wu Ch’eng: A Neo-Confucian of the Yüan Dynasty (Indiana University Press, 1999) — major English-language monograph on Wú Chéng’s thought, including extended discussion of the Lǐjì zuǎnyán.
• Yuán shǐ 元史 j. 171 (biography of Wú Chéng).
• Pèng Lín 彭林, Sānlǐ yánjiū rùmén 三禮研究入門 (Fùdàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2012) — situates Wú Chéng’s Sānlǐ enterprise.
• Yáng Zhīgāng 楊志剛, Zhōngguó lǐyí zhìdù yánjiū 中國禮儀制度研究 (Huádōng shīfàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2001) — discusses Wú Chéng’s editorial reception of the Lǐjì.

Other points of interest

The Lǐjì zuǎnyán should be read as one of three parallel late-Yuán Dàoxué Sānlǐ projects: Wú Chéng’s Yílǐ yìjīng KR1d0034 (likewise reorganised), his Lǐjì zuǎnyán (the present work), and his unfinished Zhōulǐ project. Together they represent the most ambitious individual late-Yuán effort to complete what Zhū Xī had only begun in the Yílǐ jīngzhuàn tōngjiě KR1d0085.

Links

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Cheng_(Yuan_dynasty)
• Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/liji.html