春秋本義

Chūnqiū běnyì 春秋本義

The Original Meaning of the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 程端學 (撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū běnyì in thirty juan is the principal Chūnqiū commentary of Chéng Duānxué 程端學 (1278–1334), zì Shíshū 時叔, hào Jīzhāi 積齋, of Qìngyuán 慶元 (Níngbō). Chéng was 1321 bǎngyǎn (second-place finisher) and held a teaching post at the Guózǐjiàn before transferring to the Hànlín compilation bureau. His self-preface is dated Tàidìng dīngmǎo (1327, fourth month jìwàng 既望). The běnyì opens with a míngshì 名氏 (registry of names) — a list of the 176 prior commentators whose work Chéng drew on, from Zuǒ, Gōng, Gǔ down through the late Sòng and his own contemporaries. This name-list is itself a major piece of bibliographical evidence for the Sòng Chūnqiū tradition: of the 176 named works, perhaps nineteen-twentieths are now lost, and Chéng’s preserved excerpts are the principal trace of many. (The Níngbō fǔzhì and Qiānqǐngtáng shūmù 千頃堂書目 wrongly give the figure as 130; the SKQS editors flag this as a transcription error.)

After the míngshì come Tōnglùn 通論, Wèndá 問答, and Gānglǐng 綱領 — three programmatic essays — followed by the verse-by-verse commentary, in which Chéng arranges the gathered opinions of his 176 sources under each jīng lemma and intersperses his own àn 案 (editorial judgement). The Zuǒzhuàn’s historical-narrative material is interlocated within the multi-source mass; the SKQS editors find this róuzá 糅雜 — mixed-and-tangled — but the format makes the book a kind of late-Yuán Chūnqiū miscellany rolled into a single text.

The doctrinal thrust is chángshì bù shū 常事不書 — i.e. ordinary events do not enter the Chūnqiū; the jīng is selective; everything that is recorded must be (under)reading-as-criticism (yǒu biǎn wú bāo 有貶無褒, “blame but no praise”). This is the radical extrapolation of the late-Sòng anti-bāo-biǎn-as-praise line. The result, the SKQS editors say, is jiǎorào zhīlí 繳繞支離 — cluttered and over-fine — every entry is forced into a biǎn (blame) reading, which forces increasingly speculative inferences. They give specific examples (Lǚ Lǚ 履緰 incoming as the marriage-emissary; the Jì 紀 wedding; Jì Shūjī 紀叔姬 going to Xí 酅).

Tiyao

The Sìkù tíyào (translated):

We your servants respectfully report. The Chūnqiū běnyì in thirty juan is by Chéng Duānxué of Yuán. Duānxué, zì Shíshū, hào Jīzhāi, was a man of Qìngyuán. He took the jìnshì in the second place at Zhìzhì 1 (1321), and served as Guózǐ zhùjiào; was promoted to Hànlín guóshǐyuàn biānxiūguān. His record is appended to the Hán Xìng 韓性 biography in the Yuán shǐ Rúxué zhuàn.

This book was composed during his Guóxué tenure. The sources adduced — from the three commentaries downward — total 176 schools; the opening juan lists their names. The Níngbō fǔzhì and Qiānqǐngtáng shūmù both give 130 — we do not know why. The opening matter is Tōnglùn 通論 in one essay, Wèndá 問答 in one essay, Gānglǐng 綱領 in one essay; below the jīng the gathered opinions are arranged in classified order, with editorial àn 案 occasionally added. The Zuǒzhuàn material on events is mixed in among the many opinions; the format is rather róuzá.

The book’s main thrust nevertheless preserves the chángshì bù shū doctrine, yǒu biǎn wú bāo 有貶無褒 — therefore the citations are mostly post-Sūn-Fù KR1e0026 writings — and the writing tends to jiǎorào zhīlí, going-around-in-circles in pursuit of “every entry must reduce to blame”. As for instance: the jīng “Jì Lǚrú láinì nǚ Bójī guī yú Jì” 紀履緰來逆女伯姬歸于紀 — this is straightforward direct narrative, no bāo and no biǎn originally. Duānxué insists that Lǚrú was not a mìngqīng (commissioned high minister), and so Jì should not have sent him to fetch the bride; Lǔ also should not have allowed the fetching. But Lǚrú’s status as mìngqīng is undocumented either way; on what basis is he not a mìngqīng? The jīng “Jì Shūjī guī yú Xí” 紀叔姬歸于酅 — others have praised her for not changing her loyalties as Jì rose and fell, returning to the fū 夫 family. Duānxué insists she should have returned to Lǔ, not to Xí — already harsh — and then he goes further to wū 誣 (falsely accuse) her of “loss of moral integrity with Jìjì 紀季” — on what evidence?

As for the Sòng Confucians’ attacks on Zuǒshì: they only flag where Zuǒzhuàn contradicts the jīng (e.g. jīng: “Chǔzǐ Lí 麋 zú”, zhuàn: “yù shì”). Duānxué takes every entry and writes “we don’t know if it’s reliable”; if so, then the world has no gǔshū (ancient book) you can trust at all.

Because the work nevertheless can correct Húzhuàn in places, and because of the 176 cited sources nine-tenths are now lost — making this book the principal trace of their main outlines — we record it for reference.

Reverentially examined and submitted, Qiánlóng 42 (1777), second 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 Chūnqiū běnyì is the central document of the late-Yuán radical-sceptical Chūnqiū tradition: chángshì bù shū (ordinary events do not enter), yǒu biǎn wú bāo (only blame, never praise), every jīng entry forced into a critical reading. The same author’s Sānzhuàn biànyí KR1e0061 is the companion volume devoted explicitly to refuting the three commentaries; Chūnqiū huòwèn (lost or possibly absorbed into běnyì) was the third companion. Chéng’s preface acknowledges his philosophical lineage to Dàn Zhù 啖助, Zhào Kuāng 趙匡, Lù Chún 陸淳 (Tang radicals), Sūn Fù KR1e0026, Liú Chǎng (Yuánfǔ), Yè Mèngdé 葉夢得 (Shílín), and Chén Yuè 陳岳 (Sòng radicals); and to the recent Lǚ Běnzhōng 呂本中 (Jūrén), Zhèng Qiáo 鄭樵 (Jiājì), Lǚ Pǔxiāng 呂朴鄉, Lǐ Xìnfǔ 李秀巖, Dài Mínyǐn 戴岷隱, Zhào Péngfēi KR1e0052 (Mùnè), Huáng Zhòngyán KR1e0050 (Dōngfā), and Zhào Jùnnán 趙浚南 (recent generation). The list maps the entire late-Sòng anti-Hú-Ān-guó / anti-bāo-biǎn line.

The 176-name míngshì register of Chūnqiū sources is — independently of the commentary itself — among the most important pieces of bibliographical evidence for Sòng Chūnqiū scholarship. Many of the 176 are extant only via Chéng’s citations.

The work is contained by the SKQS editors with cool admiration: they find the doctrinal extreme tiresome but recognise the bibliographic preservation function as decisive. Composition: bracket conservatively from c. 1307 (Chéng’s mature scholarly years before the Guózǐ appointment) to the self-preface date of 1327. He continued to work on its companion volumes after 1327 — the Sānzhuàn biànyí KR1e0061 is dated to about 1329 — but the běnyì itself is essentially complete in 1327.

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 extended discussion of Chéng’s cháng-shì bù shū and yǒu biǎn wú bāo doctrine.
• Sūn Wěimíng 孫衛明, Sòng-Yuán Chūnqiū xué yán-jiū (Bēijīng: Zhōnghuá shū-jú) — sustained treatment of the Chéng Duān-xué trilogy.
• Zhāng Gāo-píng 張高評, Chūnqiū shū-fǎ yǔ Zuǒ-zhuàn xué shǐ 春秋書法與左傳學史 (Tāiběi: Wǔ-nán 2002).
• Wáng Mào-yuán 汪茂元, “Chéng Duān-xué Chūnqiū běn-yì sī-xiǎng yán-jiū” 程端學春秋本義思想研究 (M.A. thesis, Zhèjiāng Dà-xué, 2008).

Other points of interest

The míngshì (names list) at the head of the work is a 176-entry bibliography of Chūnqiū literature from Zuǒ Qiūmíng down through Zhào Jùnnán, Huáng Zhòngyán, and the immediate predecessors. Roughly 90% of the listed works are now lost; Chūnqiū běnyì is therefore one of the principal repositories of late-Sòng Chūnqiū exegesis in fragmentary citation form.

Chéng’s brother Chéng Duānlǐ 程端禮 (1271–1345) wrote the influential Dúshū fēnnián rìchéng 讀書分年日程 — the standard pedagogical schedule for YuánMíng Confucian education. The two brothers together represent the Sìmíng Chéngshì branch of late-Yuán Confucian scholarship.

Links

• Catalog meta: data/catalogs/meta/KR1e.yaml
• CBDB person 28476 (Chéng Duānxué)
• Yuán shǐ 元史 j. 190 (Hán Xìng biography, with Chéng appended)