Fāngjì jízhuàn 坊記集傳
Collected Tradition on the Record of Embankments
by 黃道周 (撰)
About the work
A late-Míng monograph commentary on the Fāngjì 坊記 (“Record of Embankments / Levees”) chapter of the Lǐjì KR1d0052 in 2 juàn by Huáng Dàozhōu 黃道周, composed in 1638 (Chóngzhēn 11) at the imperial-lecture tent and presented to the throne — one of his five parallel Lǐjì-chapter monographs of that year (with KR1d0062, KR1d0063, KR1d0065, KR1d0066). The work bears an appendix Fāngjì Chūnqiū wènyè 坊記春秋問業 (1 juan), and like the parallel Biǎojì jízhuàn KR1d0063 cross-reads the Fāngjì with the Chūnqiū — on the principle that “the sage’s fāng (warding) of disorder is none greater than the Chūnqiū”. Huáng divides the Fāngjì (originally a single chapter) into thirty chapters of his own creation, each given an analytic rubric (Dà fāng, Qù luàn, Yǐ pàn, Zhāng bié, Hé dàn etc. in juan 1; Wéi jiàn, Mù zú etc. in juan 2).
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Fāngjì jízhuàn in two juan was composed by Huáng Dàozhōu of the Míng. [Huáng] Dàozhōu has Sānyì dòngjǐ, separately catalogued. This book is [Huáng] Dàozhōu’s text compiled at the imperial-lecture tent and presented. His own preface takes [it] that the sage’s fāng (warding) of disorder is none greater than the Chūnqiū; therefore this book takes the Fāngjì as canon and at every chapter [he] enumerates Chūnqiū events to verify it.
But the Guóyǔ records: when Néishǐ Guò discussed the fall of Guó, [it] approaches the strange-and-prodigious; and [Huáng] takes [it] as borrowing-spirit-prodigy to fáng (ward) desire — the meaning approaches dim-and-obscurity. Yǐngōng first year — Zhèng bó kè Duàn yú Yān — and [he] takes [it] as occasioned-for the Three Hú-clans (SānHuán 三桓) to come-forth: the matter of the SānHuán the Chūnqiū is full-and-detailed about; yet [he] vests his meaning in Zhèng bó kè Duàn — this is leaving the form to discuss its shadow.
Further the Dàijì originally was one piān but [he] divides into thirty chapters, each chapter created with a rubric: the upper juan rubrics are Dà fāng (Great Embankment) one, Qù luàn (Removing Disorder) two, Yǐ pàn (Already Rebelled) three, Zhāng bié (Differentiating Branches) four, Hé dàn (Daybreak) five, Yuǎn hài (Distancing Harm) six, Rén fú yú shí (Men Floating on Food) seven, Guì ràng (Honouring Yielding) eight, Zuò ràng (Making Yielding) nine, Kě tuō (Trust-able) ten, Zhuó yán (Pouring-words) eleven, Ràng shàn (Yielding Goodness) twelve, Zuò zhōng (Making Loyalty) thirteen, Zuò xiào (Making Filiality) fourteen, Jìng měi (Reverencing Beauty) fifteen. Lower juan rubrics: Wéi jiàn (Subtle Remonstrance) sixteen, Mù zú (Harmonising Lineage) seventeen, Jìng biàn (Reverently Discriminating) eighteen, Jìng lǎo zhuī xiào (Reverence-Aged Pursuing-Filiality) nineteen, Shí yì (Eating-meaning) twenty, Jiào jìng jiào mù (Teaching Reverence and Harmony) twenty-one, Zú shì (Ending the Affair) twenty-two, Bú èr (Not Doubling) twenty-three, Xiān shì hòu lù (First Affairs Then Salary) twenty-four, Yí lì (Leaving Profit) twenty-five, Bié xián (Distinguishing Suspicion) twenty-six, Hòu bié (Heavy Distinction) twenty-seven, Bì yuǎn (Avoiding Distance) twenty-eight, Mín jì (People’s Order) twenty-nine, Qīn yíng (Receiving the Bride) thirty. Also not the canonical-explainer’s house-method.
But his intent’s existing-in-instruction-and-warning, in the [topics] between jūnchén (ruler-and-subject), fùzǐ (father-and-son), fūfù (husband-and-wife), xiōngdì (older-and-younger brothers) — tracing the source of disorder from-which-it-self-arises and probing the misfortune to its ultimate-finish — speaks of [these matters] quite cogently-and-cuttingly. Further the Fāngjì text — like saying “establishing the state not exceeding one thousand chariots; the metropolitan-city not exceeding one hundred zhì; family-wealth not exceeding one hundred chariots — by this fáng the people, [yet] the various lords still have rebellers” — this is implicitly serving as a precedent-rubric for the Chūnqiū recording the strength of dàifu. Further saying “the Chūnqiū not designating the kings of Chǔ and Yuè when they died” — clearly displays the Chūnqiū’s method. Mèngzǐ cites Confucius saying “I have stolen its yì” — the Fāngjì’s expounding fundamentally is an instance of the Chūnqiū’s yì dispersed-and-seen. Then [Huáng] Dàozhōu’s book is also not idle and without basis, fully a forced-fitting.
Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth 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 Fāngjì jízhuàn is the parallel Lǐjì-chapter monograph to Huáng Dàozhōu’s Biǎojì jízhuàn KR1d0063, cross-reading the same chapter with the Chūnqiū. The Sìkù tíyào — unlike its judgement on the Biǎojì — finds the cross-reading textually more justified for the Fāngjì: the chapter’s central formula “yǐ cǐ fāng X, X yóu yǒu…” (in this way warding off X, X still has…) does explicitly invoke a series of social ills (rebellion, fratricide, neglected burial, struggle over profit) that are the central subject matter of the Chūnqiū’s historical record. Mencius’s quotation of Confucius “the Chūnqiū’s yì I have stolen” — and the structural connection of the Fāngjì’s “warding” formula with the Chūnqiū’s bāobiǎn judgement — make Huáng’s interpretation respectable in editorial principle even where individual cross-references are forced.
The thirty-chapter analytic rubric system Huáng imposes on the Fāngjì is not classical — the original chapter is a single text — and the Sìkù editors object to it on the same grounds as the parallel Biǎojì division. Two specific weak interpretations are flagged: (i) Huáng’s reading of the Néishǐ Guò passage on Guó’s fall as “borrowing-spirit-prodigy to fáng desire” is criticised as approaching the dim-and-obscure; (ii) Huáng’s connecting Yǐngōng 1 Zhèng bó kè Duàn yú Yān with the later SānHuán (Three Hú-clans of Lǔ) is criticised as “leaving the form to discuss its shadow” — substituting indirect symbolic readings for direct historical interpretation.
The verdict is mixed but generally more positive than for the Biǎojì: the work is preserved for its political-moral seriousness (instruction-and-warning in the jūnchén / fùzǐ / fūfù / xiōngdì domains) and its substantive Chūnqiū engagement, despite its philological flaws.
Translations and research
- Lynn A. Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (Yale UP, 1984) — biographical material on Huáng Dàozhōu’s late-Míng career.
- Míng shǐ 明史 j. 255 (biography of Huáng Dàozhōu).
- Pèng Lín 彭林, Sānlǐ yánjiū rùmén 三禮研究入門 (Fùdàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2012) — covers the late-Míng Lǐjì commentary tradition.
Other points of interest
The accompanying Fāngjì Chūnqiū wènyè (1 juan, an appendix) records jīngyán exchanges with disciples on the application of Fāngjì doctrine to Chūnqiū cases. The work is methodologically continuous with Huáng’s broader political-Confucian interpretation of the late Míng court’s failures: the Fāngjì’s “embankment / warding” framework is read as a diagnosis of how political-moral institutions had failed in the late-Míng — a reading that is recognisable in retrospect as Huáng’s pre-doomed insight into the structural collapse of Ming governance just six years before the dynasty fell.
Links
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Daozhou
- Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/liji.html