Chūnqiū jízhuàn shìyì dàchéng 春秋集傳釋義大成
Comprehensive Achievement of Glosses on the Collected Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals
by 兪皋 (撰)
About the work
The Chūnqiū jízhuàn shìyì dàchéng in twelve juan is the Chūnqiū commentary of Yú Gāo 兪皋 (the catalog uses the graphic variant 兪; the standard form is 俞), zì Xīnyuǎn 心遠, of Xīnān 新安 (Huīzhōu) under the Yuán. Yú’s teacher, his fellow-villager Zhào Liángjūn 趙良鈞, had been a Sòng jìnshì who refused Yuán office and taught the Chūnqiū locally; Yú is the inheritor of that lineage. The work has the unusual feature of arranging four commentaries — Zuǒ, Gōngyáng, Gǔliáng, and Hú Ānguó’s Chūnqiū zhuàn KR1e0036 — jointly under each lemma of the jīng. This is one of the earliest texts in which Hú is treated as on a par with the canonical three. Wú Chéng’s 吳澄 preface (the same Wú Chéng who is the author of Chūnqiū zuǎnyán KR1e0057, q.v.) explicitly identifies this as a concession to shíshàng 時尚 — current taste — and observes that “the term sìzhuàn 四傳 takes its rise from this preface” (the SKQS tíyào repeats this point). Hú’s progressive ascendancy over the next century, culminating in his Míng-dynasty official adoption, is thus traced by the SKQS editors back to Yú’s book and Wú’s preface as the inflection point.
But Yú’s actual commentary is not Hú-orthodox. Where Hú’s exegesis goes too far in its forensic moralism, Yú silently corrects it. His self-preface and fánlì 凡例 (sixteen interpretive rules) explicitly take Chéng Yí’s lost Chūnqiū zhuàn (then circulating only in fragments) as the zōng 宗 — the master model — and never once mention Hú by name. The SKQS editors take this to show that Yú was using the four-commentary format as a vehicle for promulgating the (lost) Chéngzǐ tradition, while letting market-taste keep Hú in nominal place.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào (translated):
We your servants respectfully report. The Chūnqiū jízhuàn shìyì dàchéng in twelve juan is by Yú Gāo of Yuán. Gāo, zì Xīnyuǎn, was a man of Xīnān. Originally his fellow-villager Zhào Liángjūn 趙良鈞 took the jìnshì in the closing years of Sòng, and was appointed xiūzhí láng 修職郎 jiàoshòu of Guǎngdé jūn 廣德軍 jūnjiàoshòu. After Sòng fell he did not take office but taught the Chūnqiū locally; Yú Gāo studied under Liángjūn and on the basis of what Liángjūn taught him composed this book.
Beneath the jīngwén 經文 he sets out the three commentaries in full; Hú Ānguó’s zhuàn is also placed there alongside them. Wú Chéng’s preface says: “He concurrently lists Húshì in compliance with current taste; and the term four-commentaries (sìzhuàn 四傳) takes its rise here.” From this the dignifying of Húzhuàn proceeds.
But while Yú does indeed lay out four commentaries in parallel, on those points where Húzhuàn has gone over-biased or over-violent he corrects with substantial care. Wú Chéng’s claim — “if you contemplate the shì 釋 (gloss) below the jīng, the shì of the four commentaries are right or wrong without need to be argued — they show themselves” — may justly be called a balanced verdict from a zhuānmén ér tōng 專門而通 specialist who is yet broad-minded.
Examining Yú’s self-preface, his sixteen interpretive lì 例 are all set with Chéngzǐ’s Chuán 傳 as their zōng; he repeats Chéngzǐ’s principle that “the subtle words and hidden meanings of the Chūnqiū are shícuò shíyí 時措時宜 — circumstance-suiting — and that yì bù tóng ér cí tóng 義不同而辭同, shì tóng ér cí bù tóng 事同而辭不同 are pervasive” — that is, the Chūnqiū cannot be straitened into examples-and-rules. He also says: “The student should diligently play with (shúwán 熟玩) Chéng’s Chuán”, but never once mentions Ānguó. His teacher’s learning was rooted in Chéngzǐ; at that time Chéngzǐ’s Chuán was not yet in finished form and Húzhuàn was the version being widely taught and recited — hence Yú included Hú alongside the three for parallel discussion. Statistically and as a whole, the book’s general thrust is fairly visible — and it never reaches the extreme of the Míng scholars who eventually treated Húzhuàn as canon.
Reverentially examined and submitted, Qiánlóng 53 (1788), seventh month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief proofreader: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The work is the earliest Chūnqiū commentary that prints the four zhuàn (Zuǒ, Gōngyáng, Gǔliáng, Hú) under each lemma in parallel. The format itself — sìzhuàn bìng liè 四傳並列 — was novel and would dominate the YuánMíng instructional textbook tradition. The SKQS tíyào is unusual in flagging this as a concrete textual-historical inflection point in the slow rise of Húzhuàn from “fourth wheel” to “official orthodoxy” (the latter under the Yǒnglè Wǔjīng dàquán compilation of 1415).
The work’s actual commentary, by contrast, is Chéng-zǐ-leaning, not Hú-leaning — a tension the SKQS editors detect and praise. The opening matter — the jīngwén programme essays of Dù Yù 杜預 (Zuǒ-tradition), Hé Xiū 何休 (Gōngyáng), Fàn Níng 范甯 (Gǔliáng), Chéng Yí 程頤, and Hú Ānguó — is reproduced in full as a kind of gānglǐng 綱領, providing the reader a self-contained survey of the four interpretive frameworks. The opening also includes a programme of shìcì túshuō 世次圖説 — succession-diagrams for the twenty principal Chūnqiū states (Zhōu, Lǔ, Qí, Jìn, Sòng, Wèi, Zhèng, Cáo, Chén, Cài, North-Yān, Qín, Chǔ, Wú, Qǐ, Téng, Xǔ, Zhū, Jǔ, Xuē) with capsule histories. This is a useful piece of Yuán-period Chūnqiū state-by-state geography.
Composition is bounded by Wú Chéng’s preface (Wú died 1331) and the post-Sòng-fall reset (Yú was teaching well after 1280). A bracket of c. 1300–1331 is reasonable.
Translations and research
- Lǐ Wěitài 李偉泰, Sòng-rén Chūnqiū xué dōu lùn 宋人春秋學論衡 (Tāiběi: Wénjīn 1995), with discussion of the Yuán sì-zhuàn phenomenon.
- Sūn Wěimíng 孫衛明, Sòng dài Chūnqiū xué yánjiū 宋代春秋學研究 (Bēijīng: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè 2009).
- Yáng Xīn-xūn 楊新勳, Sòng dài yí-jīng yán-jiū 宋代疑經研究 (Bēijīng: Zhōnghuá shū-jú 2007).
Other points of interest
The book contains a Chūnqiū shìcì túshuō 春秋世次圖説 — a state-by-state genealogical and geographical survey — which is one of the better Yuán-period summaries of the institutional geography of the Chūnqiū states. The system of fánlì (sixteen rules — for yuè 月 / shí 時 / wáng 王 conventions, for péngzú 朋族 / cì 次 conventions, for zhēngfá 征伐 / ménghuì 盟會, etc.) is a useful Yuán-period attempt to systematise the Chūnqiū’s recording conventions.
Links
- Catalog meta:
data/catalogs/meta/KR1e.yaml - CBDB person 44224 (Yú Gāo)