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春秋正義

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Text ID
KR1e0003
Date
638–653
Dynasty
唐

Chūnqiū zhèngyì 春秋正義

The Correct Meaning of the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 孔穎達 (等奉勅撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū zhèngyì 春秋正義 in thirty-six juan is the Táng imperial zhèngyì (sub-commentary, shū 疏) on the Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn, compiled at the order of Táng Tàizōng 唐太宗 by Kǒng Yǐngdá 孔穎達 (574–648) and a panel of court erudites. The Kǒng zhèngyì takes Dù Yù’s 杜預 Jí jiě (KR1e0002) as its base, expanding upon it sentence by sentence and incorporating earlier yì shū 義疏 traditions of Shěn Wénhé 沈文何, Sū Kuān 蘇寬, and Liú Xuàn 劉炫. It is one of the Wǔ jīng zhèngyì 五經正義 — the canonical Táng imperial sub-commentaries on the Five Classics — together with the Zhōuyì, Shàngshū, Máoshī, and Lǐjì zhèngyì. The SBCK 四部叢刊 edition reproduces a Sòng-printed exemplar containing only the zhèngyì layer, as a standalone text without the Chūnqiū + Zuǒzhuàn + Dù zhù base; for the integrated zhùshū presentation see KR1e0004.

Tiyao

No SKQS tíyào in the SBCK source. The SBCK frontmatter carries the original Yǒnghuī 永徽 4 (653) memorial of Zhǎngsūn Wújì 長孫無忌 et al. presenting the work to the throne, together with Kǒng Yǐngdá’s own preface (Chūnqiū zhèngyì xù 春秋正義序). The SKQS tíyào covering this work is given under KR1e0004.

Abstract

The Wǔ jīng zhèngyì compilation was begun by Kǒng Yǐngdá in the late 630s under Táng Tàizōng’s patronage as the official curriculum for the imperial examinations. Kǒng died in 648 with the Chūnqiū portion completed in draft only; the panel of fellow scholars listed in the surviving Yǒnghuī-era 永徽 memorial — including Yú Zhìníng 于志寧, Lǐ Jī 李勣, Liǔ Shì 柳奭, Gǔ Nàlǜ 谷那律, Liú Bózhuāng 劉伯莊, Wáng Déshào 王德韶, Jiǎ Gōngyàn 賈公彥, Fàn Yìjūn 范義頵, Liǔ Xuāntōng 柳宣通, Qí Wēi 齊威, Shǐ Shìhóng 史士弘 (and others named on the title page) — completed the revisions and presented the work in 653 under the supervision of Zhǎngsūn Wújì 長孫無忌.

The Kǒng preface — preserved in the SBCK frontmatter — gives a clear statement of the editors’ programme: they take Dù Yù as primary because “in collation of the earlier scholars’ relative merits, Dù alone ranks first” (jīn jiào xiānrú yōu liè, Dù wéi jiǎ yǐ 今校先儒優劣, 杜為甲矣); they then critically engage three earlier yì shū — those of Shěn, Sū, and Liú Xuàn — accepting the substance of Liú Xuàn’s regulatory programme but rejecting many of his over 150 specific criticisms of Dù Yù as themselves erroneous. The famous remark in the preface — that Liú Xuàn’s attacking-Dù-while-following-Dù was “a worm born of wood that returns to feed on the wood” (dù shēng yú mù ér huán shí qí mù 蠹生於木而还食其木) — became a stock metaphor in subsequent classical scholarship.

The Chūnqiū zhèngyì is preserved alongside Dù Yù’s Jí jiě in the standard Shísān jīng zhùshū 十三經注疏 line (KR1e0004 in WYG). Whilst its hermeneutical conservatism — privileging Dù above the lost Eastern-Hàn masters and consistently exonerating Dù from Liú Xuàn’s regulatory critiques — was systematically attacked by Sòng xīn yì 新義 commentators (Sūn Fù KR1e0018, Liú Chǎng KR1e0021 et seq.) and by Qīng evidential scholars (Hán Tài Huá 韓泰華, Liú Wénqí 劉文淇 et al.), the work remains the indispensable doorway to the Hàn–Wèi Zuǒzhuàn commentary tradition; many of the lost Hàn glosses (those of Jiǎ Kuí 賈逵, Fú Qián 服虔, Xǔ Huìqīng 許惠卿) survive only in citations within the zhèngyì.

Translations and research

The Kǒng zhèngyì is consulted by every editor of the Zuǒzhuàn and is incorporated into the Ruǎn Yuán 阮元 1815 Shísān jīng zhùshū and the Běidà / Shànghǎi gǔjí zhěnglǐ-běn 整理本 modern punctuated editions. There is no separate translation. Recent specialist studies include Wáng Línglíng 王玲玲, Tánɡ Wǔ jīng zhèngyì yánjiū 唐五經正義研究 (Shànghǎi gǔjí 2013) and Chéng Sūdōng 程蘇東, Cóng Jīngdiǎn shìwén dào Wǔ jīng zhèngyì 從經典釋文到五經正義 (Běijīng dàxué chūbǎnshè 2014).

Other points of interest

The Liú Xuàn 劉炫 work that the zhèngyì spends so much energy refuting — Zuǒshì shū yì 左氏述義 / Guī guò 規過 — is itself lost, but a substantial portion can be reconstructed from the very rebuttals embedded in the Kǒng zhèngyì. This is one of the more striking instances in Chinese textual history of a polemical opponent’s voice surviving inside the rebuttal of itself.

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