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深衣考

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Text ID
KR1d0069
Date
1670–1695
Dynasty
清

Shēnyī kǎo 深衣考

An Investigation of the Shēnyī Robe

by 黃宗羲 (撰)

About the work

A short early-Qīng monograph in 1 juàn by Huáng Zōngxī 黃宗羲 (1610–1695) on the Shēnyī 深衣 (“long robe”, a chapter of the Lǐjì describing one specific class of Confucian ceremonial garment). The work surveys five earlier interpretations — those of Zhū Xī, Wú Chéng KR1d0058, Zhū Yòu 朱右, Huáng Rùnyù 黃潤玉, and Wáng Tíngxiāng 王廷相 — refutes each, and proposes Huáng Zōngxī’s own diagram-and-explanation of the garment’s construction. The catalog meta records the author as 黃宗義 (a long-standing typographical slip for 黃宗羲); the source-text and all biographical evidence confirm the author as 黃宗羲, the major early-Qīng historian and political philosopher.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Shēnyī kǎo in one juan was composed by Huáng Zōngxī of the present dynasty. [Huáng] Zōngxī has Yìxué xiàngshù lùn, already catalogued. This book first lists his own exposition; later it appends the Shēnyī canonical text and lists the diagrammatic-explanations of five schools — Zhūzǐ, Wú Chéng, Zhū Yòu, Huáng Rùnyù, Wáng Tíngxiāng — and refutes each of their fallacies.

His exposition in general dismisses former men, working to give birth to new meaning. As [he] says: the yī [upper garment] is two breadths, each two chǐ two cùn; bent into front-and-back four breadths; from the armpit downwards reduced — each retaining one chǐ two cùn; adding rèn (lapels) two breadths; the inner rèn connected to the front-right yī; the outer rèn connected to the front-left yī — also each one chǐ two cùn. Its yāoféng (waist-seam) is the same as the lower-skirt: seven chǐ two cùn. Apparently the yī every one breadth attached to the lower-skirt’s narrow head, two breadths.

Now pushing his exposition: the front-and-back four breadths below attached to the lower-skirt eight breadths; the outer right rèn and inner left rèn — also each below attached to the lower-skirt two breadths. Then the lower-skirt attached to the outer-right rèn must press down on the front-right lower-skirt; the lower-skirt attached to the inner-left rèn must be pressed down by the front-left lower-skirt. Therefore his diagram only draws the lower-skirt four breadths — apparently the back four breadths are subsumed under the front diagram; its inner-pressed four breadths then cannot be drawn. Examining the Shēnyī’s lower-skirt — twelve breadths; front-and-back each six. From the Hàn and Táng Confucians’ transmitted-and-fixed exposition, [Huáng] Zōngxī suddenly altered-and-created the four-breadth diagram — most particularly an idiosyncratic conjecture.

[On various points of the textual analysis the tíyào argues against Huáng’s reinterpretations point by point, citing Zhèng [Xuán]‘s annotation, Guō Pú’s Fāngyán zhù, and the Yùpiān and Shìmíng glossaries, and concluding:]

[Huáng] Zōngxī’s classical learning is broadly-comprehensive; [his] writings have much that may be transmitted. Yet this book then disrupts the old gǔxùn (training); much is at variance. Because his name is considerably weighty, [we] fear [the work] may mislead later [readers]; therefore [we] excerpt his errors and [re]-record [the book] to preserve. Hopefully readers will know what to choose.

Respectfully revised and submitted, sixth month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng [1778].

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 Shēnyī kǎo — together with Jiāng Yǒng’s KR1d0075 Shēnyī kǎowù “investigation of [the previous] errors” — is one of two early-Qīng monograph studies of the Shēnyī problem. The catalog meta lists the author as 黃宗義, but this is a long-known typographical slip for 黃宗羲, the major early-Qīng historian, political philosopher, and SòngYuán intellectual historian, founder of the Zhèdōng historical school, author of the Míngrú xué’àn and the Míngyí dàifǎng lù. The source-text of the SKQS confirms the author as 黃宗羲 throughout.

The Sìkù tíyào is exceptionally severe: Huáng Zōngxī’s reconstruction of the Shēnyī — a four-breadth lower-skirt rather than the canonical twelve-breadth, and a re-interpretation of rèn 衽 (lapel) as referring to the yī (upper garment) sides rather than the lower-skirt edges — is rejected at multiple textual points. The editors quote Zhèng Xuán’s annotation, Guō Pú’s Fāngyán zhù, and the Yùpiān and Shìmíng gazetteer-glossaries against Huáng on the meaning of rèn, and reject Huáng’s reading of xù rèn 續衽 as well as his reading of qū yuán yǐ yìng guī 袂圓以應規 (the round sleeve corresponding to the compass-form). The verdict — preserved despite its errors because of the author’s stature, with the warning that “readers will know what to choose” — is one of the Sìkù’s sharpest reservations on a work by a major author whose other works the editors otherwise praise.

The dating bracket 1670–1695 reflects the period of Huáng Zōngxī’s active monograph composition during his post-Míng-loyalist retirement years. The work is undatable to a precise year; Huáng wrote on classical-ritual matters across this period.

The Sìkù tíyào’s catalogue note “黃宗羲” rather than the catalog-meta’s “黃宗義” — there is no doubt about the author’s identity; the yì / xī slip is a recurring catalog-trade error.

Translations and research

  • Wm. Theodore de Bary, Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince. Huang Tsung-hsi’s Ming-i tai-fang lu (Columbia UP, 1993) — major English-language monograph on Huáng Zōngxī’s political thought; biographical foundation.
  • Lynn A. Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (Yale UP, 1984) — covers Huáng’s Ming-loyalist career.
  • Qīng shǐ gǎo 清史稿 j. 480 (biography of Huáng Zōngxī).
  • Pèng Lín 彭林, Sānlǐ yánjiū rùmén 三禮研究入門 (Fùdàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2012) — covers the Qīng Shēn-yī studies tradition.

Other points of interest

The catalog typo 黃宗義 for 黃宗羲 — note in the Abstract and frontmatter persons linked to the canonical 黃宗羲 — is an instance of the common late-Qīng / Mínguó typesetting error in which the yì radical 義 was substituted for xī 羲 in compositors’ copy. Huáng Zōngxī’s name was sometimes mis-transcribed as 黃宗義 in early-twentieth-century printings; the SKQS source text and all reliable biographical evidence give 黃宗羲.

The Shēnyī problem itself is one of the recurring set-pieces of late-imperial Chinese classical scholarship: the Lǐjì’s description of the garment’s construction is genuinely difficult, and reconstructions varied widely from Zhèng Xuán through Zhū Xī, Wú Chéng, the late-Míng commentators, and into the Qīng evidential school. Jiāng Yǒng’s KR1d0075 Shēnyī kǎowù (a generation later) explicitly takes Huáng Zōngxī as one of the principal targets for refutation, restoring the canonical HànTáng twelve-breadth-skirt reading.

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