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春秋後傳

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Text ID
KR1e0038
Date
1175–1203
Dynasty
宋

Chūnqiū hòu zhuàn 春秋後傳

A Later Tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 陳傅良 (撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū hòu zhuàn 春秋後傳 in twelve juan is the Chūnqiū commentary of Chén Fùliáng 陳傅良 (1137–1203), one of the principal Yǒngjiā 永嘉 school Dàoxué opponents and a leading Southern-Sòng classicist. Composed in his late years; left as a near-finished draft at his fatal illness, completed by his pupil Zhōu Miǎn 周勉 in some sections. The work’s hermeneutical signature: it combines the Gōngyáng / Gǔliáng method of reading the not-recorded alongside the recorded — using each commentary’s silence as evidence — with the Zuǒzhuàn’s factual record. Subsequent admirers, especially the Yuán scholar Zhào Fǎng 趙汸 (1319–1369), regarded it as the most accomplished Sòng Chūnqiū commentary. The Sìkù base reproduces the WYG copy.

Tiyao

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

By Chén Fùliáng of Sòng. Fùliáng, zì Jūnjǔ 君舉. (Note: 傅良 sometimes appears as 傳良; the various editions vary. But his zì is “Jūnjǔ” — taking the meaning of “Fù Yuè 傅說 was raised from the rammed earth” — so we standardise to 傅.) Sobriquet Zhǐzhāi 止齋, native of Ruìān 瑞安 in Wēnzhōu 溫州. Jìnshì of Qiándào 8 (1172); rose to Zhōngshū shèrén 中書舍人 and Bǎomógé dàizhì 寶謨閣待制; posthumous title Wénjié 文節. Career detailed in the Sòng shǐ biography.

The work has a postface by his pupil Zhōu Miǎn 周勉, saying: “When he composed this work, the draft was nearly finished but he fell ill. Learners eager to obtain the book had others copy it; passages he had cut sometimes remained on margin notes; corrections he had inserted were sometimes detached and lost.” So what is now transmitted is no longer Fùliáng’s complete original.

Zhào Fǎng’s Chūnqiū jí zhuàn preface, among Sòng Chūnqiū commentators, most highly praises Fùliáng — saying he uses Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng readings to supplement the Zuǒshì: “what is not recorded confirms what is recorded; from what is recorded, infer the not-recorded — capturing the essence of Chūnqiū learning, eminent among classical scholars after the Sān zhuàn.” Zhào regrets, however, Fùliáng’s mistake of “taking the Zuǒshì’s record as the original Lǔ-state historian’s text, not knowing that cèshū 策書 (court tablets) had its own form, on which the Master based his redaction; the Zuǒshì had not seen this. The ‘not-recorded’ formulae at the head of the zhuàn are all shǐ fǎ 史法 (historian’s methods), not the principles of redaction. The Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng often raise their meanings via ‘doubt at not being recorded’ — actually a different teacher-line from the Zuǒshì. Mr Chén combines them and seeks across them; this rather loses the basis. Hence on cases where the Zuǒshì records but the jīng does not, taking these as the Master’s redaction-cuts: many turn out not to fit the sage.”

Now, the Zuǒshì made the zhuàn for the Chūnqiū, not for the cèshū; cases of “such-and-such therefore not recorded” do sometimes capture the jīng-meaning, but to take them as a separate set of shǐlì 史例 (historian’s regulatory items) is unlikely. Moreover the two “the unredacted Chūnqiū” entries [where the Gōngyáng preserves a different reading from the Zuǒ] — the Gōngyáng zhuàn preserves them as oral transmission — would not be unknown to the Zuǒshì. Probably these are not sufficient grounds to fault Fùliáng; only the conjunction of Gōngyáng / Gǔliáng with Zuǒshì hits the precise weakness.

Since Wáng Bì abolished xiàngshù and discussion of the Yì multiplied; since Dàn Zhù abolished the three commentaries and discussion of the Chūnqiū multiplied. Among the Five Classics commentaries, Yì and Chūnqiū are the two with the most book-records; empty argument runs free, and the proofs follow accordingly. Fùliáng, in an age of welling speculation, alone returned to old text and sought the sage’s subtle intent. Lóu Yuè’s preface records: “Among the disciples, he selected three who were thoroughly versed in the Sān zhuàn — Cài Yòuxué 蔡幼學, Hú Zōng 胡宗, Zhōu Miǎn — and one of them always travelled with him in office; whenever questions arose, the response came as quick as an echo.” His scrutiny is exceedingly careful. Moreover, although the work is full of new ideas, every entry of his zhuàn notes “this follows such-and-such doctrine” or “this follows such-and-such text” — his citations are exceedingly broad. With this institutional method, the world’s empty-bellied praise-and-blame talkers would have somewhere to recoil.

Fùliáng also wrote Zuǒshì zhāng zhǐ 左氏章旨 in 30 juan; Lóu Yuè’s preface refers to both works together. Zhū Yízūn’s Jīng yì kǎo notes “not seen.” The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserves rough outlines, but already incomplete and not assemblable into a complete work; we therefore do not gather it.

Abstract

The Sìkù tíyào makes the principal points: that this is the Chūnqiū commentary of Chén Fùliáng, the leading Yǒng-jiā-school Chūnqiū scholar of the Southern Sòng; that the work was incomplete at his death and parts were filled in by his pupil Zhōu Miǎn; that the methodological distinction is the conjunction of the Gōngyáng / Gǔliáng “not-recorded” hermeneutic with the Zuǒzhuàn’s factual record — a method admired by Zhào Fǎng but criticised for assuming that the Zuǒ’s narrative is identical with the canonical cèshū; that despite this critique, Chén’s work is exceptionally well-grounded — every interpretation traceable to its source-citation, in deliberate contrast to the speculative tradition.

The work is also of interest as one of the principal classical-commentary outputs of the Yǒngjiā school — the Southern-Sòng “utilitarian” intellectual current centred on the Yǒngjiā prefecture, in opposition to the Dàoxué of Zhū Xī. Yè Shì 葉適 (1150–1223) was a younger Yǒngjiā contemporary of Chén Fùliáng’s.

Translations and research

  • Lǐ Wěitài 李偉泰, Sòng-rén Chūnqiū xué dōu lùn 宋人春秋學論衡 (Tāiběi: Wénjīn 1995).
  • Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Utilitarian Confucianism: Ch’en Liang’s Challenge to Chu Hsi (Harvard 1982) — for the Yǒng-jiā school context, though focused on Chén Liàng.
  • Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (UHP 1992) — places Chén Fùliáng in the wider Southern-Sòng Dàoxué debates.

Other points of interest

Chén Fùliáng’s editorial method — having selected disciples specialising in each of the three commentaries travel with him so that he could question them at any time — is an exceptional case of pre-modern collaborative classical scholarship. The institutional support of textual scrutiny that this provides is a precondition for the work’s well-grounded character.

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