聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

左氏傳續說

4 min read

Text ID
KR1e0040
Date
1175–1181
Dynasty
宋

Zuǒshì zhuàn xù shuō 左氏傳續說

Continued Discussions of the Zuǒ-tradition

by 呂祖謙 (撰)

About the work

The Zuǒshì zhuàn xù shuō 左氏傳續說 in twelve juan is the continuation of KR1e0039 Zuǒshì zhuàn shuō, supplementing what the earlier work did not exhaust. Composed in Lǚ Zǔqiān’s 呂祖謙 late years (the Sìkù tíyào infers this from Lǚ’s revisions of two specific positions taken in his earlier KR1e0041 Zuǒshì bó yì). Lost in printed form between the Sòng and the Míng; recovered from Yǒnglè dàdiǎn fragments by the Sìkù editors. The Sìkù base is the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery.

Tiyao

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

By Lǚ Zǔqiān of Sòng. The work is composed as a continuation of the Zuǒshì zhuàn shuō, supplementing what was not exhausted there — hence titled Xù shuō (Continued Discussions). Long without transmitted exemplar; what survives in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn is from autumn of Xīgōng 14 to year 33, and from summer of Xiānggōng 16 to year 31 — the old text-base is missing these and not worth recording. The remainder is complete from head to tail, sequenced according to the zhuàn-passage order, and can still be assembled.

Among them, the entries on Yú Pián 臾騈 sending Hú Shègū’s 狐射姑 family, and Mèng Xiànzǐ 孟獻子 loving Gōngsūn Áo’s 公孫敖 two sons — both correct positions from the Bó yì KR1e0041 as wrong. So this work was completed in his late years.

The work follows the zhuàn-passages and explains them in sequence; the argument is somewhat less broad than the earlier Shuō. But on the zhuàn-text’s record, it draws out the buried meaning and pinpoints the flaws — as in his judgement of “the Zuǒshì has three ailments: (1) failure to make the great meaning of ruler-and-minister relations clear; (2) liking to attach human affairs to natural anomalies; (3) when recording Guǎn Zhòng and Yàn Yīng affairs the spirit pours forth, but on the sage’s affairs there is no atmosphere.” Although this still shows a Sòng-Confucian preoccupation with overturning ancient masters, the actual analysis truly catches the Zuǒshì’s defects. As to the great Zhōu institutions of court, sacrifice, military, official-system, taxation; as to the rise-and-fall of Jìn and Chǔ and the alignments of the various states — Lǚ’s exposition is exceedingly clear and fluent. Only on Zǐfú Jǐngbó 子服景伯 — descended from the Huán 桓-line, but Lǚ takes him as descended from the Xiāng 襄-line — there is a small error.

Lǚ was deeply versed in historical affairs, knew that empty talk cannot explain the jīng, hence studied the zhuàn-text exhaustively to root the gains-and-losses in the textual evidence; he did not raise the high call to abolish the commentaries. Compared with Sūn Fù KR1e0018 and the like, his learning has far more grounding.

Abstract

The Sìkù tíyào makes the principal points: that this is the late-life continuation of KR1e0039, composed in Lǚ Zǔqiān’s last years; that two positions from his earlier KR1e0041 Bó yì are explicitly corrected here, dating the work after that earlier composition; that the methodological signature of the work is a critique of the Zuǒzhuàn’s defects from within (the famous “three ailments” passage) without abandoning the Zuǒzhuàn’s evidentiary primacy — distinguishing Lǚ from Sūn Fù and the DànZhào tradition; that the analysis of Zhōu institutions and inter-state politics is exceptionally clear; that one minor error on Zǐfú Jǐngbó’s lineage is noted.

The work is one of the most accomplished pieces of grounded Zuǒzhuàn scholarship in the Southern-Sòng. The famous “three ailments” critique — failure on ruler-minister, addiction to omen-attaching, decline of inspiration on sage-affairs — was widely cited in subsequent Zuǒzhuàn criticism.

Translations and research

See KR1e0039.

Other points of interest

The “three ailments” passage was taken up centrally in the eighteenth-century Qīng evidential-school reassessment of the Zuǒzhuàn; it is cited in the prefatory material of the Imperially-Sanctioned Spring-and-Autumn compilation (Qīndìng Chūnqiū huìzuǎn) and acknowledges Lǚ as one of the most reliable Sòng-period guides to Zuǒzhuàn defects.

Graph View

Backlinks