禮記集說

Lǐjì jíshuō 禮記集說

Collected Expositions of the Book of Rites

by 陳澔 (撰)

About the work

The YuánMíng standard examination commentary on the Lǐjì in 10 juàn, by Chén Hào 陳澔 (1261–1341, zì Kědà 可大, hào Yúnzhuāng xiānsheng 雲莊先生) of Dūchāng 都昌. Composed under Yuán Yīngzōng (Zhìzhì rénxū 至治壬戌 = 1322), and bearing the same title as Wèi Shí’s KR1d0057 Lǐjì jíshuō (160 juan, much earlier and far more substantial), Chén Hào’s much shorter and pedagogically simpler digest came under the Míng Yǒnglè curriculum to displace both Wèi Shí and the older HànTáng zhùshū line as the official examination text for the Lǐjì. From the early Míng (when it was first issued together with the zhùshū at the imperial academy) to the end of the Qīng examination system, this text was the working Lǐjì of every Chinese student who sat the jìnshì. The Sìkù tíyào is sharply unfavourable: the work is praised neither for editorial precision nor for kǎozhèng depth, only for pedagogical simplicity (“its purpose was solely as an examination preparation aid”).

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Lǐjì jíshuō in ten juan was composed by Chén Hào of the Yuán. [Chén] Hào — zì Kědà, a man of Dūchāng — when the Sòng fell did not serve [the Yuán]; teaching in his native village; students called him Yúnzhuāng xiānsheng. His book extends-and-elaborates old hearings, appending his own views; wishing through plain-and-clear sayings to give convenience to first-learners. Yet on questions of dùshǔ (numerical-measure ritual) and pǐnjié (gradation), the choice is not refined, and the wording not detailed: later men have faulted him on this.

Apparently from the Hàn forward, those who governed Dàijì [number] one hundred and several tens of schools. Only Wèi Shí’s Jíshuō KR1d0057 — its citations are extremely scrupulous, considerably acclaimed by scholars. Although [Chén] Hào’s book takes over the same name, the editorial intent does not match; the breadth-and-conciseness also differ.

Examining his own preface — [he] says: “the Zhèng [Xuán] school takes [the apocryphal] chènwěi as foundation; the Kǒng shū only follows the Zhèng — this is regrettable.” Further [Chén Hào] takes Yīng Yōng’s Zuǎn yì — for the Zájì etc. piān leaving them without exposition — as an error: this is also not without insight. Yet [in the same preface] he records his family-school: stating that his father served Shuāngfēng [先生 Ráo Lǔ 饒魯] as teacher; on the basis of this canonical-text three times reached xiāngshū, [becoming] Kāiqìng míngjìnshì. Then his ambition was certainly purely as an aid to tiēkuò (examination paste-and-couplet test).

In the early Míng, [the work] together with the zhùshū was issued at the imperial academy and used to take shì. Later [the authorities] used only this book; down to the present this practice has been followed.

Zhū Mùjié’s Shòujīng tú makes [the work] sixteen juan; Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo makes it thirty juan. The base [of these counts] each must differ. The present juan-count probably still follows the old of the Míng-period imperial-printing-blocks.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth 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

Chén Hào’s Lǐjì jíshuō, completed in 1322 (Yuán Zhìzhì 2), was the most influential single Lǐjì commentary in late-imperial China by virtue of its position as the sole official examination text from the Míng Yǒnglè reform onward. Chén Hào (1261–1341) was a son of the Sòng-loyalist refusal-to-serve generation: his father had studied for fourteen years with Ráo Lǔ 饒魯 (Shuāngfēng xiānsheng) of the post-Zhū-Xī Dàoxué tradition and had passed the Sòng-period xiāng examinations three times before the dynastic transition; Chén himself never served the Yuán and taught privately in Dūchāng (modern Jiāngxī). The work was begun as a teaching tool for examination preparation and explicitly acknowledges this in the author’s preface (Zhìzhì rénxū liángyuè jìwàng 至治壬戌良月既望 = 1322 the eleventh month, sixteenth day): “fearing this is just one fool’s thousand thoughts hitting on one [reasonable] thing”.

The Sìkù editors are unusually harsh: they explicitly contrast Chén Hào’s work with Wèi Shí’s KR1d0057 (which had the same title but pre-dated Chén Hào’s by roughly a century and was the principal Sòng-period scholarly Lǐjì commentary), noting that despite the shared title their editorial methodology and quality differ profoundly. They also criticise Chén Hào for taking up Yīng Yōng’s 應鏞 (fl. early Yuán) criticism of Zhèng Xuán for “drawing on chènwěi” without offering any independent textual analysis, and for writing only as a “tiēkuò aid” (an exam-preparation phrase that in Sìkù-editorial usage is uniformly disparaging). The work’s pedagogical simplicity — explicitly designed for chūxué (beginning students) — was the very feature that made it useful as the examination standard but unsuitable as a serious classical commentary.

The work survives in multiple recensions of differing juan-count: 10 juan (the Míng official imperial printing standard, used here in the Sìkù), 16 juan (per Zhū Mùjié 朱睦㮮 Shòujīng tú 授經圖), and 30 juan (per Zhū Yízūn Jīngyì kǎo 經義考). The 10-juan recension is the late-imperial standard.

The dating is precise: the author’s own preface gives the month-and-day of completion (Zhìzhì rénxū eleventh month sixteenth day, just past full moon = 1322).

Translations and research

• Benjamin A. Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (UC Press, 2000) — extensive treatment of Chén Hào’s Lǐjì jíshuō as the late-imperial examination standard.
• Yuán shǐ 元史 j. 189 (biographical material on Chén Hào and the Yún-zhuāng circle).
• Pèng Lín 彭林, Sānlǐ yánjiū rùmén 三禮研究入門 (Fùdàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2012) — covers the Yuán-Míng Lǐjì commentary tradition.
• Yáng Tiānyǔ 楊天宇, Lǐjì yìzhù 禮記譯注 (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 1997) — modern translation that takes Chén Hào’s recension into account.

Other points of interest

Chén Hào’s Lǐjì jíshuō’s status as the late-imperial examination Lǐjì commentary explains the otherwise puzzling fact that the Lǐjì zhùshū KR1d0053 had to be “rediscovered” by Qīng evidential scholars who had grown up reading only Chén Hào’s much-condensed text. The eighteenth-century Sìkù editorial tradition is in large part a deliberate counter-reaction against the MíngQīng dominance of Chén Hào’s text, and the imperial Qīndìng Lǐjì yìshū KR1d0068 explicitly aims to reinstate the older HànTángSòng commentary line.

Links

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