春秋纂言

Chūnqiū zuǎnyán 春秋纂言

Compiled Sayings on the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 吳澄 (撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū zuǎnyán (catalog “19 juan”, actually 12 juan main commentary + 7 juan zǒnglì 總例 / general-rules) is the Chūnqiū commentary of Wú Chéng 吳澄 (1249–1331) of Línchuān 臨川 — among the most important Yuán Confucian scholars and the principal continuator of Zhū Xī’s classical project at the Guózǐjiàn 國子監 from 1313. Wú composed substantial commentaries on the Yì, Shū, Shī, Lǐjì, and Chūnqiū; this is his Chūnqiū contribution. The book has two parts: (1) a zǒnglì in seven juan organising the Chūnqiū’s events under seven heads — tiāndào 天道 (heavenly cycle), rénjì 人紀 (human regulation), and the five lǐ 禮 of jiā 嘉, bīn 賓, jūn 軍, xiōng 凶, jí 吉 ritual; (2) the verse-by-verse commentary in twelve juan. The zǒnglì method explicitly emulates Lù Chún’s 陸淳 (Tang) Chūnqiū zuǎnlì 春秋纂例 — Wú says so in his self-preface (“fǎng zuǎnlì wéi zǒnglì qī piān” 倣纂例為總例七篇). The first two heads (tiāndào, rénjì) are Wú’s own innovation; the latter five (jiā / bīn / jūn / xiōng / jí) are five-lǐ groupings that overlap considerably with Zhāng Dàhēng’s 張大亨 Chūnqiū wǔlǐ lìzōng 春秋五禮例宗 — the SKQS editors note this overlap and explicitly excuse Wú of plagiarism: Wú’s xuépài 學派 (Jīnxī 金溪 + Xīnān 新安) is different from Zhāng’s (Méishān Sū 眉山蘇), the two never met, the convergence is genuine. The book had bad transmission luck — printed in the Míng Jiājìng era by Jiǎng Ruòyú 蔣若愚 of Jiāxīng, but lost again; Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禎 (1634–1711) reports in Jūyì lù 居易録 not having seen it; Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 reports having “glimpsed it once” at the Sūzhōu physician Lùshì 陸氏’es. The SKQS edition is from a copy submitted by the LiǎngHuái 兩淮 collectors, “probably copied from the Lù version” — a precarious recovery.

Tiyao

The Sìkù tíyào (translated):

We your servants respectfully report. The Chūnqiū zuǎnyán zǒnglì in seven juan and Chūnqiū zuǎnyán in twelve juan are by Wú Chéng of Yuán. Chéng has the Yì zuǎnyán (already catalogued). This work gathers the explanations of various traditions and commentators and intersperses Wú’s own evaluative judgements. The opening zǒnglì divides the Chūnqiū’s matter into seven gāng (cardinal heads) and eighty-one mù (sub-categories): tiāndào and rénjì are Wú’s own creations; the five lǐ — jí 吉, xiōng 凶, jūn 軍, bīn 賓, jiā 嘉 — overlap considerably with Sòng Zhāng Dàhēng’s Chūnqiū wǔlǐ lìzōng, almost as if borrowed.

But Wú’s is not a copy of others’ books. Zhāng Dàhēng’s lineage came from the Méishān Sūshì school; Wú’s lineage came from the Jīnxī (Lùshì) and Xīnān (Zhūshì) intersection — different schools, different transmissions; Wú had not seen Zhāng’s book and the convergence is unconscious. Yet in lǚxī tiáofēn 縷析條分 (fineness of distinction and arrangement), Wú is more rigorous than Zhāng.

As for the body: the line-spacing of the jīngwén is much disturbed by Wú’s editorial hand, and where the jīng has lacunae he supplies fāngkòng 方空 (square blanks) — these are formal departures from canonical etiquette, but Wú’s habit of editorially intervening on every classic is well known and not specific to the Chūnqiū. Take Wú’s strengths and lay aside his weaknesses, and one will read the book well.

In the Jiājìng era of Míng (1522–1566), Jiǎng Ruòyú 蔣若愚, prefect of Jiāxīngfǔ 嘉興府, printed it; over the years it scattered and was lost, the world rarely held a copy. Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禎 in his Jūyì lù 居易録 says he never saw the book, and that the librarian Zhū had “once glimpsed it at Wújùn Lùshìqíqīng’s 陸醫其清 home” — Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo note “cún 存” likewise refers to that one glimpse. The present copy is from the LiǎngHuái submitted books, probably itself a transcription of Lù’s copy. After long obscurity it has come back to light — a treasure of the bookcase indeed!

Reverentially examined and submitted, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), sixth 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

Wú Chéng’s Chūnqiū method differs strikingly from the case-by-case forensic-moralism of Hú Ānguó KR1e0036 and the bāobiǎn school, and from the radical fèizhuàn school of Sūn Fù KR1e0026 / Zhào Péngfēi KR1e0052. Wú’s method is typological: he parses the Chūnqiū under seven exhaustive ritual-and-cosmic heads, with eighty-one sub-types beneath them; the resulting zǒnglì is more an analytic table of ritual occasions than a moral commentary. This continues the Tang Lù Chún tradition (Chūnqiū zuǎnlì) explicitly — Wú names Lù as his model — but innovates by adding tiāndào and rénjì as the first two heads, integrating cosmic-cycle and human-institutional events with the standard five-lǐ ritual frame. As Wú’s preface puts it, the Chūnqiū is “lǐ shīzhě shū chū yú lǐ zé rù yú fǎ 禮失者書出于禮則入于法” — the entries record the failures of ritual, where they pass beyond ritual into law (the law-book, xíngshū 刑書, that the Chūnqiū is on a familiar Mèngzǐ formulation). The events and language of moral evaluation are self-evident; the sage merely registers; “shèngrén hé róng xīn zāi” 聖人何容心哉 — the sage holds no view in his heart.

The dating window is bounded by Wú’s appointment to the Guózǐjiàn (1313) at the latest end and by his early scholarly career at the early end; for the Chūnqiū zuǎnyán specifically there is no preface-date in the WYG copy. A bracket of c. 1290–1331 is conservative; possible compositional date in the 1310s when Wú was teaching at the Guózǐjiàn.

Translations and research

• Yáo Cóng-wú 姚從吾, “Yuán Wú Chéng zhī jīng-xué” 元吳澄之經學, Yān-jīng xué bào 燕京學報 30 (1946).
• Sūn Wěimíng 孫衛明, Sòng-Yuán Chūnqiū xué yán-jiū (Bēijīng: Zhōnghuá shū-jú) — discusses Wú’s typological method.
• David Gedalecia, The Philosophy of Wu Ch’eng: A Neo-Confucian of the Yuan Dynasty (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1999) — comprehensive English-language monograph on Wú Chéng’s thought; a chapter on his classical scholarship.
• Lǐ Wěitài 李偉泰, Sòng-rén Chūnqiū xué dōu lùn 宋人春秋學論衡 (Tāiběi: Wénjīn 1995), with comparison of Wú Chéng’s approach to its Sòng predecessors.

Other points of interest

Wú’s editorial habit of fāngkòng — leaving square blanks where he believed the jīng had lacunae — is the single strongest piece of evidence for the SKQS editors’ general ambivalence about him: they admire his rigour and creativity, but they regard his willingness to physically alter the jīng’s layout as a violation of canonical boundaries. The same habit is responsible for the Yì zuǎnyán’s controversies as well.

Links

• Catalog meta: data/catalogs/meta/KR1e.yaml
• CBDB person, see person note 吳澄
• Yuán shǐ 元史 j. 171 (Wú Chéng biography)