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春秋集傳纂例

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Text ID
KR1e0013
Date
770–805
Dynasty
唐

Chūnqiū jí zhuàn zuǎn lì 春秋集傳纂例

Compiled Regulatory Items for the Collected Tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 陸淳 (撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū jí zhuàn zuǎn lì 春秋集傳纂例 in ten juan is the foundational Táng-era work of the so-called Dàn–Zhào–Lù 啖趙陸 school of Chūnqiū learning. It was compiled by Lù Chún 陸淳 (later Lù Zhì 陸質, zì Bóchōng 伯沖, d. 805) on the basis of the lost Chūnqiū tǒng lì 春秋統例 of his teacher Dàn Zhù 啖助 (zì Shūzuǒ 叔佐), with the corrections and additions of Zhào Kuāng 趙匡 (zì Bóxún 伯循). The work compiles forty regulatory chapters covering the Chūnqiū’s general principles, its lineage chronologies, the textual variants, and the personal- and place-name materials. It is one of three Lù Chún works on the Chūnqiū; the other two are Chūnqiū jí zhuàn wēi zhǐ (KR1e0014) and Chūnqiū jí zhuàn biàn yí (KR1e0015). The Sìkù base reproduces a Yuán-era Pínɡyáng-fǔ 平陽府 print of the Jīn Tàihé 金泰和 3 (1203) edition of the Lǐbù shàngshū 禮部尚書 Zhào Bǐngwén 趙秉文 family-collection copy.

Tiyao

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

By Lù Chún of Táng 唐陸淳. The work expounds his teachers Dàn Zhù 啖助 and Zhào Kuāng 趙匡’s interpretations. Dàn Zhù, zì Shūzuǒ 叔佐, was originally a man of Zhàozhōu 趙州 who relocated to Guānzhōng 關中; he held the post of Magistrate (zhǔbù 主簿) of Dānyáng 丹陽 county in Rùnzhōu 潤州. Zhào Kuāng, zì Bóxún 伯循, was a man of Hédōng 河東; he was Prefect (cìshǐ 刺史) of Yángzhōu 洋州. Lù Chún, zì Bóchōng 伯沖, was a man of Wújùn 吳郡; he rose to Jǐshìzhōng 給事中 and later changed his name to Zhì 質 to avoid the taboo on Hàn Xiànzōng’s name. His career is detailed in the Táng shū rúxué zhuàn. Now, the Èr Chéng yí shū 二程遺書, Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s Shū lù jiětí, and Zhū Lín’s 朱臨 postface to this work all say that Lù Chún was the disciple of both Dàn and Zhào. The Jiù Táng shū says Lù was the disciple of Zhào, and Zhào the disciple of Dàn. The Xīn Táng shū says Zhào and Lù were both prize disciples of Dàn. Lǚ Wēn’s 呂溫 collected works contain a memorial of presentation in which Lù is said to have “taken Dàn Zhù as severe master, Zhào Kuāng as beneficial friend.” Lù’s own preface to the Xiū zhuàn shǐ zhōng jì 修傳始終記 calls Dàn “Master Dàn” but Zhào “Master Zhào” or “Mr Zhào”; the Chóng xiū jí zhuàn yì 重修集傳義 says Lù held brush and tablet at Master Dàn’s side for eleven years but does not mention serving Zhào as master. Liǔ Zōngyuán’s 柳宗元 (773–819) tomb-inscription for Lù calls Dàn his teacher and Zhào his friend. The contemporaneous evidence is therefore unambiguous: Liú Xù 劉昫 [the Jiù Táng shū compiler] and others repeated a misunderstanding.

Dàn Zhù’s Chūnqiū learning sets out to weigh the gains and losses of the three commentaries and patch up their gaps; many of his theses depart from earlier scholars. He held that the Zuǒzhuàn was not by Zuǒ Qiūmíng — that the Hàn shū’s claim that Qiūmíng transmitted to Lǔ Zēng Shēn 魯曾申, Shēn to Wú Qǐ 吳起, and from Qǐ via six generations to Jiǎ Yì 賈誼, is fabricated. He held that the names Gōngyáng Gāo and Gǔliáng Chì may not be authentic. He held that the Chūnqiū itself is plain and easy in style, but each earlier scholar followed his own commentary-tradition and refused to converse with the others, attacking each other and increasing the confusion. He held that the Zuǒzhuàn dwells in special detail on Zhōu, Jìn, Qí, Sòng, Chǔ, and Zhèng affairs because later transmission-students filled out the original from various house-sources, and incorporated divination books, dream books, oracle texts, and miscellaneous fictions; though it covers many events, its jīng-explanation is sparse — even more sparse than the Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng. This view is one-sided. Ōuyáng Xiū 歐陽修, Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武 and others express dissatisfaction; Master Chéng [Yí] 程頤 alone praises Dàn as “a singular figure, of merit in driving back heterodoxy and opening the correct way.” Setting aside the zhuàn and seeking the jīng directly indeed opened the path for Sòng learning, and brought the abuse of unrestrained subjective speculation. The fault cannot be hidden; but the achievement of breaking through the abuses of forced fitting must also not be dismissed.

Dàn’s book was originally titled Chūnqiū tǒng lì 春秋統例 in only six juan. After his death, Lù Chún and Dàn’s son Yì 異 collected the surviving material, asked Zhào to add or subtract, and renamed the result Zuǎn lì. It was completed in the year Yǐmǎo of Dàlì 大曆 (775), in forty chapters in ten juan. The Táng shū yìwén zhì records the same juan-count. The present text matches, and is presumably the original arrangement. The first eight chapters are general principles for the whole work; chapter nine treats the lineages of the twelve Lǔ dukes; from chapter thirty-six onwards: jīng–zhuàn textual errors, personal names, state names, place names. The chapters that develop the editorial principles proper amount to only twenty-six chapters in the middle of the work.

Yuán Jué’s 袁桷 postface says that the work had long been lost, and that what he obtained was a Bǎozhāngguìgōng 寶章桂公 collation copy; he had heard of a small-format Shǔ edition but never seen one. Wú Lái’s and Liǔ Guàn’s 柳貫 postfaces both say that they obtained the Píngyángfǔ print of the Jīn Tàihé 3 (1203) Zhào Bǐngwén family copy. By the Yuán the work was already hard to come by; that it has reached us in this form is a remarkable survival.

Abstract

The Sìkù tíyào makes the principal points: that the work is the foundational Dàn–Zhào–Lù school Chūnqiū manual; that the master–disciple lineage as traditionally garbled by the Jiù Táng shū needs to be corrected (Dàn was master to both Zhào and Lù; Zhào was Lù’s senior friend, not Lù’s master); that the methodological core of the school is its readiness to set aside the three commentaries and read the Chūnqiū directly — a programme regarded by Chéng Yí as opening the way for Sòng learning, but criticised by Ōuyáng Xiū and others as licensing arbitrary speculation; that the present text in forty chapters in ten juan, organised around regulatory principles, lineage tables, and textual notes, is the original Tang arrangement, transmitted via a remarkable Yuán-period exemplar.

The work’s intellectual significance is the precise hinge it occupies between the HànTáng commentary tradition and the Sòng xīnyì 新義 (new interpretation) tradition. It is the first major Chūnqiū work to declare the Sān zhuàn as collectively unreliable witnesses, and the first to systematically prefer direct reading of the classical text over reading-through-commentary. Sūn Fù’s KR1e0018 Chūnqiū zūn wáng fā wéi, Liú Chǎng’s KR1e0021 Chūnqiū quán héng, and Hú Ānguó’s KR1e0036 Húshì Chūnqiū zhuàn — the three foundational Sòng xīnyì works — all build directly on this Lù Chún / Dàn Zhù platform.

Translations and research

Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §48.1.1 places the Chūnqiū commentary tradition in its broader context. Specialist studies:

  • Lǐ Wěitài 李偉泰, Dàn Zhù sān-jiā Chūnqiū jí qí xuépài yánjiū 啖助三家《春秋》及其學派研究 (Tāiběi: Wénshǐzhé 1995) — fundamental Chinese-language monograph on the Dàn–Zhào–Lù school.
  • Sūn Chūnzài 孫春在, Tang dài Chūnqiū xué yánjiū 唐代春秋學研究 (Bēijīng: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè 2014).
  • Zhāng Gāopíng 張高評, Chūnqiū shū fǎ yǔ Zuǒzhuàn xué shǐ 《春秋》書法與《左傳》學史 (Wǔhàn: Wǔhàn dàxué chūbǎnshè 2016) — covers the regulatory-item tradition from Dù Yù through Dàn–Zhào–Lù to Hú Ānguó.

Other points of interest

The Lù Chún / Dàn–Zhào school’s setting-aside of the Sān zhuàn anticipates by three centuries the analogous xīnyì trend among Northern-Sòng Chūnqiū commentators (Sūn Fù, Liú Chǎng, Hú Ānguó), and was one of the principal Tang-era classical movements that fed directly into the Sòng Dàoxué 道學 reformulation of Confucianism — a connection explicit in Chéng Yí’s praise.

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