聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

春秋左傳讞

5 min read

Text ID
KR1e0034
Date
1115–1148
Dynasty
宋

Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn yàn 春秋左傳讞

Adjudications on the Zuǒ Tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 葉夢得 (撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn yàn 春秋左傳讞 in twenty-two juan is the third of Yè Mèngdé’s 葉夢得 Chūnqiū tetrad — devoted to yàn 讞 (“adjudication” — the term is borrowed from legal usage, meaning the formal trial-and-judgement). The work is a sustained polemical critique of the three commentaries on a passage-by-passage basis. Originally divided into a thirty-juan total covering all three commentaries (per Yè’s own self-record: 442 Zuǒ items, 340 Gōngyáng items, 440 Gǔliáng items); the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery, supplemented by Chéng Duānxué’s Chūnqiū sānzhuàn biàn yí citations, preserves the bulk of the original (442 minus 90 Zuǒ, 340 minus 65 Gōngyáng, 440 minus 84 Gǔliáng). The Sìkù editors arranged the recovery as 10 juan Zuǒzhuàn yàn, 6 juan Gōngyáng yàn, and 6 juan Gǔliáng yàn; the Kanripo catalog extent (“22 卷”) combines these. Frontmatter title 春秋左傳讞 names only the Zuǒ portion — the part of the work most often cited.

Tiyao

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

By Yè Mèngdé of Sòng. The work picks out the right and wrong of the three commentaries, taking “trust the jīng, not the zhuàn” as its mainstay — still riding the wave of Dàn Zhù KR1e0013 and Sūn Fù KR1e0018. Against the Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng he raises many objections; even on the Zuǒzhuàn, citing the closing passage “Hán and Wèi turned and lost it” (referring to the destruction of Zhì Bó 智伯), he argues that “when Zhì Bó perished, Zuǒshì was still alive” and concludes that the author was a Warring-States figure. (Note: the jīng has continuations, the zhuàn also has continuations; Yè had not fully examined this — see the discussion under KR1e0004 Zuǒzhuàn zhùshū.)

He attacks across the field: arguing that “the various lords mutually attended each other’s courts” reflects a degenerate-age practice; arguing that the speeches of Zǎi Kǒng 宰孔 advising Jìn Xiàngōng and of Lǔ Mùjiāng 魯穆姜 confessing fault are both fabrications; arguing the shí’èr cì 十二次 (twelve celestial divisions) division into twelve states is wrong; arguing the Jiágǔ 夾谷 covenant story of Confucius outwitting Qí Jǐnggōng is fictional; arguing the demolition of Hòu 郈 and Bì 費 is not Confucius’ real intent; arguing that the various lords’ comings and goings have both good and bad cases; arguing that the dukes’ deaths recorded with or without dates are not all praise-and-blame; that the Lǔ ruler’s attendances or non-attendances cannot be subject to a fixed rule. Though the work is broadly argumentative — sometimes excessively flowing — and not always precisely on target with the jīng, it always achieves its rhetorical goal: a literary giant.

But the ancients drew on the Chūnqiū to settle judicial cases — not “to use the methods of judicial settlement to manage the Chūnqiū.” Naming a book Yàn (Adjudication) is in itself improper. The Zuǒ, Gōngyáng, and Gǔliáng commentaries are by classical-master predecessors whose work preserved the canonical books; treating them as accused parties to be tried is even more improper as nomenclature. This is a Sòng-era habit of disdain for the predecessors, not to be taken as a model.

The Sòng zhì records the work as 30 juan; Yè’s own record gives 442 Zuǒ items, 340 Gōngyáng items, 440 Gǔliáng items. Per the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and Chéng Duānxué’s Chūnqiū biàn yí together: Zuǒ missing 90 items, Gōngyáng missing 65, Gǔliáng missing 84 — so it is no longer complete. But the broad outline survives. We have arranged the recovery: Zuǒzhuàn yàn 10 juan, Gōngyáng yàn and Gǔliáng yàn 6 juan each.

Abstract

The Sìkù tíyào makes the principal points: that this is Yè Mèngdé’s polemical critique of the three commentaries on a passage-by-passage basis, item-counts well-documented; that the work uses legal-trial nomenclature (yàn — adjudication) and sometimes pursues attack beyond what the evidence supports (e.g. the Warring-States dating of the Zuǒzhuàn author); that despite its rhetorical excesses Yè is “a literary giant” whose work nearly always reaches its rhetorical goal; that the editors object to both the trial-nomenclature itself and its application to the canonical commentary masters; that the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery preserves the bulk but not all of the original.

The Zuǒzhuàn yàn is one of the most fully developed Sòng-period anti-commentarial polemics. Its extreme positions — that Zuǒzhuàn is Warring-States, that the famous Confucius–Jiágǔ story is fictional, that the Lǐjì-style death-date rules are mostly fabrications — anticipate by several centuries the conclusions of Karlgren and the modern critical school.

Translations and research

See KR1e0032. The work’s anticipations of modern critical positions are noted in:

  • Karlgren, “On the Authenticity and Nature of the Tso chuan” (1926).
  • Pines, Foundations of Confucian Thought (UHP 2002).

Other points of interest

The catalog extent “22 卷” (twenty-two juan) recorded in the meta is the sum of the editor’s reconstitution: 10 (Zuǒzhuàn yàn) + 6 (Gōngyáng yàn) + 6 (Gǔliáng yàn). The Kanripo title 春秋左傳讞 names only the principal Zuǒ portion; the work as a whole is the Chūnqiū sānzhuàn yàn 春秋三傳讞.

Graph View

Backlinks