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春秋左傳要義

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Text ID
KR1e0044
Date
1190–1237
Dynasty
宋

Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn yào yì 春秋左傳要義

Essential Meanings of the Spring and Autumn Annals’ Zuǒ-tradition

by 魏了翁 (撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn yào yì 春秋左傳要義 in thirty-one juan (originally 60) is one of Wèi Liǎowēng’s 魏了翁 (1178–1237) Jiǔjīng yào yì 九經要義 — the great Southern-Sòng systematic compendium of selected zhùshū material on each of the Nine Classics. Its method: extracting the essence of the zhùshū on each jīng-passage, with topical sub-headings prefixed; pruning Gōngyáng / Gǔliáng-style verbose day-month-name speculation; preserving the substantial material on names, things, ritual measurements, and institutions. The Sìkù base reproduces a defective Míng exemplar in the Gānquán xiānshēng 甘泉先生 (Zhàn Ruòshuǐ 湛若水) collection, with a postface attributed to a “Lóngchí shānqiáo Péng Nián 龍池山樵彭年” — though the SKQS tíyào questions this postface’s authenticity (the lifedates do not align).

Tiyao

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

By Wèi Liǎowēng of Sòng. Also one of his compiled Jiǔjīng yào yì. The work extracts the zhùshū prose. Each entry has its own heading-title prefixed, with sequence-numbers — the same format as the other yào yì of the Nine Classics. Wèi’s preface to Lǐ Míngfù’s Chūnqiū jí yì KR1e0047 says: “I once read the various Confucians’ zhuàn-text down to the rectifiers of our dynasty (i.e., the Chéng brothers and Zhū Xī), and felt that this is the great-law-of-governing-the-world, the essential canon of mind-transmission. My fear deepened; I gathered selections to attach to the jīng. Yet still concerned my reading was not broad and my selection of meaning not refined, I dared not lightly bring it forth. Mr Lǐ then anticipated my heart and made this present book.” So Wèi himself had once gathered selected views to annotate the Chūnqiū, and that work was unfinished; what he selected from the zhùshū however is precisely preserved in the present compilation.

The zhùshū’s long-winded and cluttered day-month-name speculation has been mostly cut. On names, things, and ritual measurements, the verbose has been trimmed and the essential raised — main and secondary clearly distinguished. The Zuǒzhuàn’s strength lies in its precise institutional records: the Sāndài prose and ritual-music can still be glimpsed in outline. Its great superiority over the Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng lies precisely here. Wèi’s gathering captures the essential.

The original work was 60 juan; Zhū Yízūn’s Jīng yì kǎo notes “not seen.” The present text preserves only 31 juan. At the end is a Wànlì 萬曆 wùshēn 戊申 (1608) mid-autumn-after postface by “Lóngchí shānqiáo Péng Nián 彭年,” saying: “When the work was cut, the gathering was incomplete; later generations have no source; Mr Gānquán has this 31-juan copy, kept in the Huáigǔgé 懷古閣, and brought it forth to show me; I therefore record a few words at the back.” The work is genuinely a rare exemplar.

But “Gānquán” is the sobriquet of Zhàn Ruòshuǐ 湛若水, who passed jìnshì in Hóngzhì yǐchǒu 弘治乙丑 (1505); to Wànlì wùshēn (1608) is 104 years — Zhàn could not still have been alive. Péng Nián was a son-in-law of Wén Zhēngmíng 文徵明 by marriage; Wáng Shìzhēn’s 王世貞 preface to Péng’s poetry collection notes that “after Péng’s death, the family sold his manuscript drafts,” so by the late Wànlì he too was dead. Moreover the Jiǔjīng yào yì are all selections from the zhùshū, but the postface calls the work “precise and detailed in determination, not previously addressed by earlier Confucians” — also inconsistent. Probably the defective copy chanced to survive, and a hàoshì 好事 (curious-minded) party forged this postface without examining the year-counts.

Abstract

The Sìkù tíyào makes the principal points: that this is part of Wèi Liǎowēng’s monumental Jiǔjīng yào yì — selections from each Classic’s zhùshū; that the work prunes the zhùshū’s day-month-name speculation while preserving the institutional and ritual material; that the Zuǒzhuàn’s great strength lies in the latter, and Wèi’s selection captures it; that the original 60 juan have been reduced to 31; that the appended Péng Nián postface is forged (the chronological inconsistencies expose it).

The work is one of the most important Southern-Sòng works of zhùshū digestion, paralleling the early-modern European flores (selected anthology) genre. It made the technical fruits of the Tang zhùshū tradition accessible to Dàoxué-era Confucians without requiring them to wade through Kǒng Yǐngdá’s full text.

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, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (UHP 1992) — Wèi Liǎowēng as late-Sòng Dàoxué leader.

Other points of interest

The Jiǔjīng yào yì as a whole is one of the most ambitious Southern-Sòng classical-scholarship undertakings, paralleling the contemporaneous Lǚ Zǔqiān classical compilations and Zhū Xī’s Sìshū jí zhù. Its survival is uneven — most volumes are partial, and the Yìjīng portion is essentially lost.

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