Lǐjì zhèngyì cán 禮記正義殘
The Correct Significance of the Book of Rites — Fragment
by 孔穎達 (等奉勅撰)
About the work
A fragmentary edition (cán 殘) of Kǒng Yǐngdá’s 孔穎達 (574–648) Lǐjì zhèngyì — the Táng-period shū sub-commentary that became one of the Wǔ jīng zhèngyì — preserved here in 9 juàn representing partial chapters 51–62 (the latter portion of the original 70-juan recension before its Sòng-period reduction to 63 juan). The Sìbù cóngkān reproduction is from a SòngYuán imprint surviving in fragmentary form. The full integrated zhùshū recension of Kǒng Yǐngdá’s zhèngyì with Zhèng Xuán’s annotation and Lù Démíng’s yīnyì survives complete as Lǐjì zhùshū KR1d0053 in the Sìkù; the present SBCK fragment preserves the zhèngyì alone, without the Zhèng annotation or the Lù yīnyì, and represents the earliest direct printing-witness to the standalone Lǐjì zhèngyì tradition.
Abstract
The Lǐjì zhèngyì was composed under imperial commission of Táng Tàizōng beginning in Zhēnguān 16 (642), with revisions completed and presented to the throne in Yǒnghuī 4 (653) under Gāozōng. The work is one of the Wǔ jīng zhèngyì 五經正義 — the Táng imperial classical commentary set that fixed the orthodox sub-commentary on each of the Five Classics. The Lǐjì member of the set was edited primarily on the basis of Huáng Kǎn’s 皇侃 (488–545) Lǐjì yìshū 禮記義疏, with supplements from Xióng Ānshēng’s 熊安生 (d. ca. 580) Lǐjì yìshū — a methodology Kǒng Yǐngdá explicitly states in his preface (translated in the Lǐjì zhùshū tíyào KR1d0053).
The original recension was 70 juan; reduced to 63 juan in the early Sòng (Yíng Bǐng’s 邢昺 Xiánpíng 2 imprint, 1000 CE) by combining several short chapters per juan. Surviving printing-witnesses to the zhèngyì alone (without integration with the Zhèng annotation) are rare — the SBCK cán is one of the principal surviving early imprints of the standalone tradition. The fragment covers parts of juàn 51–63 of the original recension, including the Bēnsāng / Wènsāng / Fúwèn / Jiānzhuàn / Sānnián wèn / Shēnyī / Tóuhú / Rúxíng / Dàxué / Guānyì / Hūnyì / Xiāngyǐnjiǔyì / Shèyì / Yànyì / Pìnyì / Sāngfúsìzhì sections — that is, the latter chapters of the Lǐjì.
The principal scholarly value of the cán lies in its preservation of an earlier text-form of the standalone Lǐjì zhèngyì than what was integrated into the zhùshū recension. Comparison with the Lǐjì zhùshū KR1d0053 reveals minor textual variants in some passages that may reflect editorial smoothing in the integrated recension; the cán is thus a useful Sòng-Yuán-period witness to the early zhèngyì text-form. Wáng Sēn 王森 and other modern Lǐjì text-critical scholars have made use of the SBCK reproduction to refine the zhèngyì text.
The dating bracket 642–653 reflects the original composition period of the Táng imperial zhèngyì; the present cán is itself a SòngYuán imprint preserved fragmentarily in the SBCK reproduction.
Translations and research
- The standard scholarly access to the Lǐjì zhèngyì is now through the punctuated Shísān-jīng zhùshū edition (Wáng Wénjǐn et al., Bēijīng dàxué chūbǎnshè, 1999); the SBCK cán serves as an independent collation witness.
- Pèng Lín 彭林, Sānlǐ yánjiū rùmén 三禮研究入門 (Fùdàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2012) — covers the Lǐjì zhèngyì tradition.
- Kǒng Lìng-cún 孔令存, “Tángdài Lǐjì zhèngyì de wénběn liúchuán” 唐代《禮記正義》的文本流傳, in various journal venues — modern Chinese textual studies of the Lǐjì zhèngyì tradition that take the SBCK cán into account.
Other points of interest
The SBCK reproduction of the Lǐjì zhèngyì cán is one of a small number of surviving early printing-witnesses to the standalone Wǔ jīng zhèngyì tradition before the zhèngyì was integrated with the parent annotation in the standard Sòng-period zhùshū compilations. Comparable surviving fragments exist for several of the other Wǔ jīng zhèngyì, but none of these is more than fragmentary.
Links
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kong_Yingda
- Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/liji.html