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春秋釋例

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Text ID
KR1e0012
Date
270–284
Dynasty
晉

Chūnqiū shì lì 春秋釋例

The Spring and Autumn Annals: Explanation of the Regulatory Items

by 杜預 (撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū shì lì 春秋釋例 in fifteen juan is Dù Yù’s 杜預 (222–284) systematic handbook of the Chūnqiū’s “regulatory items” (lì 例), companion volume to his Chūnqiū jīng zhuàn jí jiě (KR1e0002). The two were intended to be read together — the Jí jiě providing the line-by-line annotation, the Shì lì providing the topical and structural framework. The Sìkù base reproduced in Kanripo is a Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 reconstruction in fifteen juan, since the original Sòng-period text was lost between the late Sòng and early Míng. The work survives only in this reconstructed form, divided into thirty fragmentary chapters with a substantial Yuán-period postface by Wú Lái 吳萊.

Tiyao

The Sìkù tíyào (text from the Kyoto Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào):

By Dù Yù of Jìn 晉杜預. His career is detailed in the Jìn shū biography. The work begins from the principle that “the jīng must be threaded together, but the regulatory items must come from the zhuàn; the zhuàn’s regulatory items in turn return to the fán 凡 (general formulae).” The Zuǒzhuàn uses fán fifty times, distinguishing forty-nine: each is a “norm-bequeathed-by-the-Duke-of-Zhōu, a regulation of the ancient state-historian; the Master incorporated them in his redaction so as to constitute the unitary body of the classic.” The various entries prefixed shū 書 (“recorded”), bù shū 不書 (“not recorded”), xiān shū 先書 (“recorded first”), gù shū 故書 (“therefore recorded”), bù yán 不言 (“not stated”), bù chēng 不稱 (“not called”), shū yuē 書曰 (“the entry says”), and so on, distinguish departures from norm — these are biàn lì 變例 (variant regulatory items). There are also items not recorded in the older state-historian’s books that happen to fit Confucius’ purpose, which Confucius incorporated as principles in their own right. Without comparison among the items, praise and blame cannot be made clear. Hence the Shì lì gathers the regulations together, with sections on geographical names, lineage genealogy, and chronological calculation, each of these subdivided. First it lists several entries from the jīng and zhuàn to encompass each domain, with the relevant fán attached, supplemented by the author’s own summary. Hence the title “Shì lì” (Explanation of the Regulatory Items). The geographical-names section follows the Tàishǐ 泰始 (265–274) imperial map of commanderies and kingdoms; the lineage genealogy follows Liú Xiàng’s Shì běn 世本. The Shì lì and the Jí jiě form a single warp-and-weft, mutually reinforcing.

The Jìn shū states: “After the conquest of Wú, Dù was at leisure and produced the Jí jiě; he also referred to the various house genealogies, naming the result Shì lì; and he produced the Méng huì tú 盟會圖 and the Chūnqiū cháng lì 春秋長歷, completing a single school of learning. Only late in life did the work come to maturity.” Now examining the Tǔdì míng 土地名 section: it says “the Sūn family usurped the title in Wú, hence the records of the south-of-the-river region (Jiāngbiǎo 江表) are particularly summary” — placing this section’s drafting before the conquest of Wú, which is why it lists many late-Hàn / Three-Kingdoms commanderies that no longer obtained under the Jìn. As for Méng huì tú and Cháng lì, these are individual chapters of the Shì lì, not separate works (clear from Dù’s preface to the Jí jiě) — the Jìn shū statement is therefore inexact.

The Jìn shū also notes that contemporary critics found Dù’s prose plain and direct (zhì zhí 質直), and that “the world did not value it; only the Director of the Imperial Library Zhì Yú 摯虞 prized the work.” Yet Jī Hán’s 嵇含 Nán fāng cǎo mù zhuàng 南方草木狀 records that Jìn Wǔdì 晉武帝 bestowed on Dù Yù “ten thousand sheets of mì xiāng 蜜香 paper” for transcribing the Shì lì and the Jí jiě — making clear the work was esteemed at the time, and the Jìn shū statement again imprecise.

From the Suí shū jīngjí zhì onwards, the work is registered in fifteen juan; only Wú Lái’s [Yuán-period] postface gives forty juan — perhaps an idiosyncratic Yuán-era subdivision. From the Míng onwards the work was lost; only the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserved thirty chapters with Liú Bēn 劉蕡’s Táng-period preface. Six of these chapters preserve the regulations without the supporting jīng-and-zhuàn text; the others have many lacunae. We have collated them chapter by chapter, supplementing from Kǒng Yǐngdá’s zhèngyì and citations in other works, correcting errors, and dividing into twenty-seven chapters in fifteen juan, restoring the original arrangement; Wú Lái’s postface is appended.

According to the Jí jiě preface, the Shì lì originally contained forty bù 部 (sections); the Chóngwén zǒngmù records fifty-three regulations (lì 例); Kǒng Yǐngdá’s zhèngyì says that “in the Shì lì, identical matters constitute a bù, similar matters are appended; isolated jīng-entries that do not enter any regulation are gathered at the end. The forty bù run in order: starting from Yǐngōng’s accession; events that came earlier are placed earlier; lineage-genealogy and geographical names — these being not regulations — are placed before the final section. Hence the Tǔdì míng begins with the meeting at Chuí 垂 (the first place-event recorded), and the Shì zú pǔ 世族譜 begins with Wú Hài’s 無駭 death. Wú Hài’s death is later than the meeting at Chuí, hence geographical names come before the lineage-genealogy.” Since the original arrangement is lost, we have followed Kǒng’s general account, expanding it: each section is sequenced by the order in which the events appear in the jīng; the Cháng lì chapter is placed after the Tǔdì míng and Shì zú pǔ, since the Jí jiě preface places chronological calculation after geography and genealogy.

The Tǔdì míng preface says: “Following the names of all kingdoms, commanderies, counties, and cities of the present day, with mountains and waterways and roads, extending to the four limits — all are charted; the place-names of the Chūnqiū covenants and meetings are then listed against this.” The work was titled Gǔ jīn shū Chūnqiū méng huì tú 古今書春秋盟會圖, with a one-juan supplementary annotation. The Shì lì maps were originally based on the imperial Director-of-Works’ map (Sī kōng tú 司空圖) at the start of the Tàishǐ era; after the conquest of Wú, the fourteen commanderies of the south sent in maps, and the Jīng-, Yáng-, and Xú-zhōu provinces were updated, no longer following the Sī kōng tú. The maps in this book are now lost. There is also an attached Méng huì tú shū 盟會圖疏 listing commanderies and counties, but these are YuánWèi, Suí, and Táng administrative names — not Tàishǐ-era — and one entry on Yángchéng 陽城 records affairs of Empress Wǔ Zétiān 武則天: clearly Dù’s original was lost and the surviving annotation is a Táng-period supplement. The Tǔdì míng explanations also contain post-Dù interpolations; we have left the original text as transmitted but added evaluative notes at the foot of each.

Dù’s commentary, while not free of forced agreements with the Zuǒzhuàn (as the Sìkù tíyào on KR1e0004 observed), is in this work especially careful and well-organised, on a level not surpassed in subsequent scholarship. The regulations are derived directly from examination of the classical text and capture its essential structure — not the fanciful day-and-month allegories of the Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng schools. Zhì Yú’s praise — “Zuǒ Qiūmíng made the zhuàn for the Chūnqiū, and the Zuǒzhuàn came to circulate independently; the Shì lì was made for the zhuàn, and what it elucidates is not only the Zuǒzhuàn, hence it too circulates independently” (note: in the Jìn shū this reading “gù” 故 is unclear; it may be a corruption of “dāng” 當; we have retained the transmitted reading) — is no idle compliment.

The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn base preserves a Sòng-period exemplar; the entry on the Fūrén nèi nǚ guī níng 夫人內女歸寧 regulation ends with “totalling so-and-so many characters; jīng and zhuàn together so-and-so characters; Shì lì so-and-so characters” — showing the precision of the original Sòng-era collation, which can still be glimpsed today. Among the corrections enabled by the present recovery: the Cháng lì records “Year 4 of Wéngōng, twelfth month, rényín day, Lady Fēng 風氏 died,” with Dù’s note “the twelfth month begins on gēngwǔ, no rényín fits” — but the present zhùshū text reads “eleventh month.” The eleventh month begins on gēngzǐ, three days later being rényín; one cannot say “no rényín.” Again, on Year 6 of Xiānggōng, the jīng says “twelfth month, the Lord of Qí destroyed Lái 萊,” but the present Zuǒzhuàn reads first “eleventh month the Lord of Qí destroyed Lái — Lái relied on plotting,” then “Yàn Ruò 晏弱 besieged Táng 棠; in the eleventh month on a bǐngchén day, he destroyed it.” Now the Cháng lì gives the eleventh month as beginning on dīngchǒu, with no bǐngchén; the twelfth month begins on dīngwèi, with bǐngchén on day ten. Dù’s commentary attaches this day to the twelfth month with no qualification. Both of the present zhuàn readings of “eleventh month” must be corruptions of “twelfth month.” Such corrections are too many to enumerate.

The Chūnqiū takes the Zuǒzhuàn as its root, the Zuǒzhuàn takes Dù’s annotation as its gateway, and the Jí jiě takes the Shì lì as its wing. Through these one may pursue the Chūnqiū’s editorial intent — a key to ancient learning, a deep treasury for the seeker after the classics.

Abstract

The Sìkù tíyào makes the principal points: that the work is the systematic counterpart to the Jí jiě, organised around Dù Yù’s theory of the fifty fán and the regulatory items; that it includes geographical, genealogical, and chronological monographs (the Tǔdì míng, Shì zú pǔ, and Cháng lì), all originally complete monographs but now disrupted; that the textual transmission is a Qīng Yǒnglè dàdiǎn reconstruction, since the work was lost in the Míng; that the recovery enables important textual corrections to the Zuǒzhuàn itself.

The Shì lì is the principal lost work of Dù Yù now (partially) recovered, and the indispensable handbook for understanding the structure of his Jí jiě. The Cháng lì portion is also of substantial astronomical importance, providing the only extant pre-Liú Xīn 劉歆 Sān tǒng lì 三統曆 reconstruction of the Chūnqiū calendar.

Translations and research

  • Yáng Bójùn 楊伯峻, Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn zhù 春秋左傳注 (Zhōnghuá 1990) draws extensively on the Shì lì for its calendrical and geographical notes.
  • Sūn Yǎngzhì 孫永治, Dù Yù Chūnqiū shì lì yánjiū 杜預《春秋釋例》研究 (Sānlián 2018) — modern Chinese-language monograph.
  • Newell Ann Van Auken, The Commentarial Transformation of the Spring and Autumn (SUNY 2016) discusses Dù Yù’s Shì lì alongside the Jí jiě.

Other points of interest

The Yuán scholar Wú Lái 吳萊’s postface (preserved with the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn fragments and reproduced in the WYG edition) gives the work as forty juan rather than fifteen. The discrepancy is not resolved — possibly Wú Lái saw a separately subdivided manuscript that no longer survives, or the figure is a copyist’s error.

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