Tōngyí 通疑
Penetrating the Doubts [of Ritual]
by 虞喜 (撰)
About the work
A single-juàn reconstruction by Tang-Sòng lèishū-citation of 虞喜 Yú Xǐ’s (281–356) lost Tōngyí 通疑 — one of three closely-related biàn lǐ (variant-ritual) treatises by Yú Xǐ catalogued in this corpus alongside KR1d0095 Guǎnglín 廣林 and KR1d0096 Shìzhì 釋滯. The CHANT reconstruction (CH2c1353) draws all surviving citations from Dù Yòu 杜佑’s Tōngdiǎn 通典 juàn 95 and 98 (mourning-ritual sections). The format throughout is question-and-answer: a Lǐjì or Yílǐ passage (typically from Záji 雜記 or Sāngfú xiǎojì 喪服小記) is quoted, 劉智 Liú Zhì’s Shìyí 釋疑 issues a ruling, and Yú Xǐ’s Tōngyí supplies a complementary or correcting judgement. The five preserved exchanges concern (i) the mourning owed to a deceased jìmǔ 繼母’s kin after her own death; (ii) the Záji rule that a qiè 妾 mourns the nǚjūn’s kin only while she has not yet been raised to jìshì 繼室; (iii) the textual question of whether the Sāngfú xiǎojì phrase shēng bùjí zǔ fùmǔ zhū fù kūndì contains a corrupt kūndì 昆弟; (iv) the descent of grandsons-to-cí-mǔ-grandmother mourning; and (v) the protocol for parents lost behind enemy lines whose death cannot be confirmed (cf. the parallel case-debate at KR1d0093 Hòuyǎng yì).
Abstract
Yú Xǐ’s Tōngyí is one of the three principal Eastern-Jìn biàn lǐ monographs by a single major scholarly hand to survive (in Tōngdiǎn citation) as a recoverable text. Its dialogic structure with Liú Zhì’s Shìyí — Liú Zhì poses or quotes a Lǐjì / Sāngfú difficulty and issues a first opinion, Yú Xǐ then responds — preserves a paired Jìn-court ritualist colloquium of historical importance for two questions: (a) the textual transmission of the Sāngfú xiǎojì (Yú Xǐ defends the received kūndì 昆弟 reading against Liú Zhì’s emendation as a yǎn zì 衍字 (“interpolation”), on grounds that the canonical text logically requires both elder and younger brothers as a liǎng-shī — “both-sided” — illustration); and (b) the liǎng-dí / hòuyǎng problem of post-260s Jìn court ritual (where Yú Xǐ proposes a three-year mourning-search-and-then-fixed-period rule for parents missing in the Wèi-Wú frontier, consciously moderating Liú Zhì’s stricter “xiōng fú yǐ chú, hòu shēng zhě bùdé zhuī fú” rule into a more practicable observance).
The recoverable text is entirely embedded in Tōngdiǎn 95 and 98. The dating bracket above reflects Yú Xǐ’s documented life (281–356); the Tōngyí itself is not separately dated by any preface or colophon but is reasonably placed in his retired-scholar Yúyáo 餘姚 period (post 325) when his comparable Zhìlín xīnshū 志林新書 (KR3l0156) and Āntiān lùn 安天論 were also compiled.
The title “Tōngyí” (literally “thoroughgoing-through doubts”) deliberately parallels its companion title Guǎnglín 廣林 (“broadening the Lín-classics”) and Liú Zhì’s Shìyí 釋疑 (“resolving doubts”), reflecting a coherent Jìn ritual-scholarship genre of yí 疑-collections: case-by-case judgements on individual ritual cruxes presented as scholarly biàn-lùn 辨論 rather than as continuous commentary.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. Treated in surveys of Jìn ritual-scholarship and in Tōngdiǎn-source-studies as one of the three principal Yú Xǐ ritual fragments.
Other points of interest
The Yú Xǐ / Liú Zhì pairing across Tōngyí, Shìyí, and KR1d0093 Hòuyǎng yì documents a coherent Eastern-Jìn ritual-scholarly circle that should be read together with the broader KR1d0099 Lǐ záwèn 禮雜問 and KR1d0101 Lǐlùn 禮論 question-collection genre. The two scholars frequently take opposed positions, with Yú Xǐ tending toward a defence of the received canonical text and a moderation of Liú Zhì’s stricter rulings.
Links
- Chinese Text Project — Tōngdiǎn 95: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=549988
- Chinese Text Project — Tōngdiǎn 98: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=550043