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胡氏春秋傳

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Text ID
KR1e0036
Date
1135–1140
Dynasty
宋

Húshì Chūnqiū zhuàn 胡氏春秋傳

Master Hú’s Tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 胡安國 (撰)

About the work

The Húshì Chūnqiū zhuàn 胡氏春秋傳 in thirty juan is the Chūnqiū commentary of Hú Ānguó 胡安國 (1073–1138), the foundational Southern-Sòng Chūnqiū commentary and the work that, from the early Míng to the late Qīng, served as the imperial-examination standard text of the Chūnqiū. Composed at imperial command from Shàoxīng 5 (1135), with extensive prior drafting; presented to the throne in Shàoxīng 10 (1140), with Hú elevated to Bǎowéngé zhí xuéshì 寶文閣直學士 and granted silver and silks. The work’s hermeneutical signature is to read each Chūnqiū entry as encoding political-ethical judgement applicable to contemporary affairs — particularly the Jīn 金 invasions and the appeasement vs. resistance debates of the early Southern Sòng. The Sìkù base reproduces the WYG copy.

Tiyao

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

By Hú Ānguó of Sòng. Career detailed in the Sòng shǐ rúlín zhuàn. Per the Yùhǎi: in the fourth month of Shàoxīng 5 (1135), an imperial edict charged “Huīyóugé 徽猷閣 dàizhì 待制 Hú Ānguó, an old courtier of the Jīngyán 經筵 (Imperial Lecturer’s bureau), to compose his Chūnqiū zhuàn into a finished book and present it.” In the third month of Shàoxīng 10 (1140) the work was completed and submitted; an imperial edict commended him, conferring the post of Bǎowéngé zhí xuéshì 寶文閣直學士 and granting silver and silks. So the work, long in draft, took five further years of revision after the imperial commission. Yú Wénbào’s 俞文豹 Chuī jiàn lù 吹劍錄 says: “From the original draft to the completed book, not a single character of the first draft was retained” — his pains were exceeding diligent.

The work was composed after the southern crossing, hence Hú often borrows the Chūnqiū to express opinions on contemporary events; the readings do not always strictly fit the jīng-meaning. Zhū Zǐ’s Yǔ lù 語錄 says: “Master Hú’s Chūnqiū zhuàn has forced passages, but its argument has the spirit of opening-and-closing” — a permanent verdict.

In the early Míng, fixing the examination system, the model was largely inherited from the Yuán: orthodoxy followed the ChéngZhū line; but Master Chéng’s Chūnqiū zhuàn extends only to two juan, with too many gaps; Master Zhū moreover never completed a Chūnqiū book; whereas Hú Ānguó’s school descended from Master Chéng, and Zhāng Qià’s KR1e0048 from Master Zhū — the Chūnqiū curriculum therefore prescribed these two, with respect to the orthodox lineage rather than the works themselves. Later Zhāng’s work fell out of use, leaving only Hú’s; eventually the jīng was no longer read at all, only Hú’s zhuàn — what was called “jīng yì” 經義 in those days was effectively only Hú’s zhuànyì 傳義. Throughout the Míng, Chūnqiū learning was at its weakest. Féng Mènglóng’s 馮夢龍 Chūnqiū dàquán fánlì 春秋大全凡例 says: “Among Confucian scholars’ arguments, there are doubtless some superior to Master Hú’s. But since Hú is already revered, one cannot assemble all of them and confuse the reader” — the trend is clear.

By our own dynasty, in Imperial veneration of classical learning, the Imperially-Sanctioned Compilation of Spring-and-Autumn Commentaries (Qīndìng Chūnqiū zhuànshuō huìzuǎn 欽定春秋傳說彙纂) refutes much of Hú’s old explanations: discarding the flaws and gathering the jewels, extracting his essence — sufficient to comprehend the original work. But Hú’s text has long been current and cannot now be entirely abolished; we accordingly collate and record it, preserving one school’s voice. As to its faults, the imperial Huìzuǎn has already enumerated them all; we here add nothing further.

Abstract

The Sìkù tíyào makes the principal points: that this is the foundational Southern-Sòng Chūnqiū commentary, composed at imperial commission and granted highest imperial honours; that the work’s distinctive interpretive gesture is to read the Chūnqiū as cipher for contemporary political-ethical judgement, particularly on the Jīn invasions; that this politicised reading was perceptively criticised already by Zhū Xī (“forced passages, but argument with opening-and-closing spirit”); that Hú’s work became the imperial-examination orthodoxy from the Míng through to the early Qīng (eventually displacing the jīng itself in the curriculum) and that the result was the deepest decline of Chūnqiū learning in the imperial era; that the Qīng-imperial Chūnqiū huìzuǎn refuted Hú’s positions and the tíyào registers Hú here only “to preserve one school’s voice.”

The tíyào’s tone here is unusual in being explicitly evaluative against the work’s textual authority — a register the editors normally reserve for the most prominent imperial-orthodoxy targets. The judgement reflects the high-Qīng evidential-school view that the late-imperial Chūnqiū tradition had collapsed into Hú-school dogmatism and required complete re-examination from the early commentaries up.

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).
  • Wáng Lìxīn 王立新, Hú Ānguó Chūnqiū xué yánjiū 胡安國春秋學研究 (Hú-běi: Zhèjiāng dàxué chūbǎnshè 2013) — full-length monograph.
  • Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (UHP 1992) — discusses Hú Ānguó’s place in the consolidation of Southern-Sòng Dàoxué.

Other points of interest

The institutional career of the Húshì zhuàn — examination-system canon from the Míng Yǒnglè 永樂 Chūnqiū dàquán (1415) until its formal removal under the Qīng Qiánlóng era and replacement by the Imperially-Sanctioned Huìzuǎn — is one of the most striking single-text dominances in classical-examination history. The Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual survey of Chūnqiū scholarship treats Hú’s commentary as the central late-imperial standard despite its philological weaknesses.

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