Lǐjì xīnyì shū 禮記新義疏
New Sub-Commentary on the Lǐjì
by 賀瑒 (撰)
About the work
A single-juàn reconstruction of 賀瑒 Hè Yáng’s (452–510) lost Lǐjì xīnyì shū 禮記新義疏 — a Liáng-court sub-commentary (shū 疏) on the Lǐjì (KR1d0049). Hè Yáng was a leading Liáng-court ritualist, Tài-cháng 太常 under Liáng Wǔdì, and an important Lǐjì exegete alongside 皇侃 Huáng Kǎn (the Lǐjì Huáng-shì yìshū 禮記皇氏義疏 author). The CHANT reconstruction (CH2e1107) is drawn from Tang-Sòng lèishū citations.
Abstract
The opening preserved fragment is a meta-exegetical reflection on Zhèng Xuán’s preface to the Lǐjì: Zhèng xù: lǐ zhě, tǐ yě 鄭〈序〉「禮者，體也」 (Zhèng [Xuán’s] preface: “Lǐ [ritual] is tǐ [body / substance]”). Hè Yáng’s gloss: qí tǐ yǒu èr 其體有二 (its tǐ has two senses) — yī shì wù-tǐ 一是物體 (one is wù-tǐ, “thing-body”: that all things noble-and-base, high-and-low, large-and-small, refined-and-coarse have their own tǐ) — èr yuē lǐ-tǐ 二曰禮體 (the second is lǐ-tǐ, “ritual-body”: that ritual itself has an embodied structure).
This tǐ / yòng distinction — exegetically derived from Zhèng Xuán’s terse lǐ-zhě-tǐ-yě preface gloss — is doctrinally important for the Liáng-court Lǐjì exegesis as a synthesis-attempt between Confucian-ritual substantialism and the newly-influential Buddhist tǐ-yòng metaphysics. Hè Yáng’s xīnyì-shū — new sub-commentary — explicitly markets itself against the prior Northern-Wèi and earlier-Liáng Lǐjì sub-commentary traditions through this tǐ-distinction methodological move.
The substantive content covers selected Lǐjì piān with detailed yì-shū commentary, drawing on Hè Yáng’s broader synthesis of canonical Confucian ritualism with Liáng-court Confucian-Buddhist syncretism.
The dating bracket (502–520) reflects Hè Yáng’s documented late-life position in the early-Liáng court; his death is in Liáng shū 48 (列傳 42, Rúlín).
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. Hè Yáng’s broader Lǐjì scholarship is treated in:
- 楊志剛 Yáng Zhìgāng, Sānlǐ xué shǐ 三禮學史, on Liáng-court Lǐjì exegesis.
Other points of interest
The tǐ-yòng exegetical distinction articulated in the opening fragment is one of the earliest documented Confucian-ritualist deployments of the tǐ-yòng terminology that would later become canonical in Sòng-Míng Neo-Confucianism. Hè Yáng’s xīnyì-shū in this respect anticipates a metaphysical framework that would not become fully systematic for another five centuries.
Links
- Chinese Text Project — Tōngdiǎn: https://ctext.org/tongdian