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春秋辨疑

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Text ID
KR1e0027
Date
1100–1130
Dynasty
宋

Chūnqiū biàn yí 春秋辨疑

Discussion of Doubts in the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 蕭楚 (撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū biàn yí 春秋辨疑 in four juan is the surviving Chūnqiū work of Xiāo Chǔ 蕭楚 (1064–1130), a Northern–Southern-Sòng transition figure who refused office under the Cài Jīng 蔡京 regime, retiring to write. Originally circulated under the title Chūnqiū jīng biàn 春秋經辨 (per Zēng Mǐnxíng’s 曾敏行 Dú xǐng zá zhì) or Chūnqiū jīng jiě 春秋經解 in 10 juan (per the Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì); the present 4-juan title Biàn yí with 44 essays is the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery, slightly defective from the original 49-essay total reported in regional gazetteers. The Sìkù base is the WYG / Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery.

Tiyao

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

By Xiāo Chǔ of Sòng. Chǔ, zì Zǐjīng 子荊, was a man of Lúlíng 廬陵. In the Shàoshèng 紹聖 era he travelled to the Tàixué 太學 and was forwarded to the Lǐbù 禮部 examination but failed. At that time Cài Jīng 蔡京 (1047–1126) was monopolising state power; Xiāo, indignant at his villainy, said “Cài will be Sòng’s Wáng Mǎng,” and swore not to take office; he retired and wrote books, illuminating Chūnqiū learning. Zhào Yáng 趙暘, Féng Xiè 馮澥, and Hú Quán 胡銓 all studied with him. He died in the fourth year of Jiànyán 建炎 (1130).

Zēng Mǐnxíng’s Dú xǐng zá zhì records his work Chūnqiū jīng biàn circulating in Lúlíng. The Sòng shǐ records his Chūnqiū jīng jiě in 10 juan. Zhū Yízūn’s Jīng yì kǎo notes both are lost, citing only Hú Quán’s preface. The present text contains Hú Quán’s preface in agreement with the Jīng yì kǎo citation, but the title is Chūnqiū biàn yí — a small discrepancy; perhaps a later retitling that the Sòng shǐ did not record. The Jiāngxī tōng zhì and Wàn xìng tǒng pǔ both say the work has 49 essays; the present text has only 44 — some are lost. The Sòng zhì says 10 juan; the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserves only 2 juan; the present 4-juan division is from the Míng-period editor’s redivision.

The work’s main thesis: regulation must return to the Heavenly King, with strict warning against威福 (dispensation of favour and punishment) being delegated to inferiors. Although composed largely in response to the dominant ministers’ concentration of power, its arguments are upright and substantial, genuinely catching the spirit of the sage’s “trim and chisel” of the Chūnqiū. Different from Hú Ānguó KR1e0036, who forcibly fits contemporary affairs to the jīng, contradicting jīng-meaning; different too from Sūn Fù KR1e0018, who although nominally honouring the king dives into elaborate forensic fault-finding — Xiāo’s intellectual disposition is distinct from both. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shū lù jiětí records: “Hú Quán entered the examinations through the Chūnqiū; on returning home he prostrated himself at Xiāo’s chuáng 牀 (couch); Xiāo told him ‘a scholar studies not merely to take a jì 第 (examination rank): the body may be killed, the learning cannot be insulted; do not be the ruin of my Chūnqiū, that would be best.’ Afterwards Hú by his solitary loyalty and direct speech blazed forth for a thousand years” — so the master-disciple practice of the Chūnqiū was not mere mouth-reading and ear-reception. Each essay carries its own annotation, all by Xiāo himself; some annotations are added by Hú Quán and other disciples. We have separately marked the original notes and the disciple-additions, and added our own collation underneath, so each is distinct.

Abstract

The Sìkù tíyào makes the principal points: that the work is by Xiāo Chǔ (1064–1130), a Lú-líng-based Northern-Sòng / Southern-Sòng transition figure who refused office under Cài Jīng’s regime; that the work’s principal thesis — concentrating regulation in the imperial centre and warning against delegation of wēifú — is methodologically distinct from both Hú Ānguó’s politicised reading and Sūn Fù’s rigorist forensic style; that Xiāo’s master–disciple line passed through Hú Quán 胡銓 (1102–1180), the famous Southern-Sòng anti-appeasement polemicist, giving the work an unusual political weight in the post-1127 Southern-Sòng period; that the present text is partial (44 of 49 original essays) and the title-history is complicated.

The Hú Quán teacher-pupil anecdote — “the body may be killed, the learning cannot be insulted; do not be the ruin of my Chūnqiū” — is one of the locus-classicus statements of Sòng-period Confucian intellectual transmission, frequently cited in later Confucian biographical literature.

Translations and research

  • Lǐ Wěitài 李偉泰, Sòng-rén Chūnqiū xué dōu lùn 宋人春秋學論衡 (Tāiběi: Wénjīn 1995).
  • Sūn Wěimíng 孫衛明, Sòng dài Chūnqiū xué yánjiū 宋代春秋學研究 (Bēijīng: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè 2009).

Other points of interest

Xiāo Chǔ’s transmission to Hú Quán made the Chūnqiū biàn yí a Southern-Sòng patriotic-resistance text by association; Hú Quán’s Wú gē shū 戊戌書 (1138) — the famous memorial demanding the execution of Qín Guì 秦檜 (1090–1155) — was framed in Chūnqiū-praise-and-blame language directly traceable to Xiāo’s hermeneutic.

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