Zuǒzhuàn fùzhù 左傳附注
Supplementary Notes on the Zuǒzhuàn
by 陸粲 (撰)
About the work
The Zuǒzhuàn fùzhù 左傳附注 in five juan (the tíyào says ten juan, but the WYG copy is in five) is the Zuǒzhuàn philological commentary of Lù Càn 陸粲 (1494–1551). The work is one of a closely paired programme together with the KR1e0078 Chūnqiū Húshì zhuàn biànyí 春秋胡氏傳辨疑 — Lù Càn’s two surviving WYG-preserved Chūnqiū monographs taken together cover both the principal canonical commentary apparatus (Dù YùKǒng YǐngdáLù Démíng for the Zuǒzhuàn) and the principal examination commentary (Hú Ānguó’s Zhuàn). Both works were composed during Lù Càn’s later years following his demotion in Jiājìng yǐyǒu (1525) for impeaching Zhāng Cōng and Guì È over the Great Rites Controversy.
The work’s structure: the first three juan refute Dù Yù’s 杜預 Jíjiě notes; the fourth juan refutes Kǒng Yǐngdá’s 孔頴達 Zhèngyì sub-commentary; the fifth juan refutes Lù Démíng’s 陸德明 Jīngdiǎn shìwén 經典釋文 readings of the Zuǒzhuàn. The method is comparative-philological: each entry sets out the disputed gloss, surveys alternative readings from earlier and contemporary commentators, and offers Lù Càn’s own resolution.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào: The Zuǒzhuàn fùzhù in ten juan was composed by Lù Càn of the Míng. Càn, zì Zǐyú, of Chángzhōu, jìnshì of Jiājìng bǐngxū (1526), reached Gōngkē jǐshìzhōng; for impeaching Zhāng Cōng and Guì È, he was demoted to Dūzhènyì yìchéng; ended as magistrate of Yǒngxīn. His career-record is in the Míng shǐ basic biography. This work in its first three juan refutes Dù Yù’s notes; the fourth juan refutes Kǒng Yǐngdá’s sub-commentary text; the fifth juan refutes Lù Démíng’s Zuǒzhuàn shìwén sound-and-meaning glosses; it widely draws on the various schools’ arguments, sometimes deciding by his own opinion. For exegetes (xùngǔjiā 訓詁家) it is rather useful.
Gù Yánwǔ’s Rìzhī lù, after refuting Mr Zuǒ[‘s commentaries], appends in writing: “Wherever the three gentlemen Shào, Lù, Fù have already discussed, [we] do not record” — Shào is Shào Bǎo’s Zuǒzhuàn xī; Fù is Fù Xùn’s Zuǒzhuàn shǔshì; Lù is Càn. So Yánwǔ greatly esteemed this book.
Càn also composed a Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn juān in two juan, of which the principal thesis is that the Zuǒzhuàn was written by men of the Warring States, and that Liú Xīn 劉歆 then added to it as he saw fit; therefore it often falls into low and undignified [readings] not aligned with the dào, or into outlandish-and-strange sayings, with eddies in the lower stream. Examining: Càn’s claim that the Zuǒzhuàn came out of the Warring States rests on Master Chéng’s saying that là 臘 was a Qín ritual and shùzhǎng 庶長 a Qín official — he is taking it for established. His attribution of the textual interpolation to Liú Xīn rests on Lín Lì’s 林栗 saying that wherever the Zuǒzhuàn says “jūnzǐ yuē” 君子曰 these are Liú Xīn’s words — particularly without independent evidence. He cannot help being a man of high opinion, falling back into the Míng habit of speculative surmise — like the proverb’s drawing legs on a snake. Hence we record only this Fùzhù [in the catalog], while keeping the Zuǒzhuàn juān on the secondary catalog list. Submitted at Qiánlóng 42 (1777), 5th month.
Abstract
The Zuǒzhuàn fùzhù belongs to the small but consequential body of mid-Míng kǎozhèng-style philological scholarship that Gù Yánwǔ’s Rìzhī lù later extended into the foundational text of the Qīng evidential school. The Sìkù editors’ explicit preservation note — that Gù Yánwǔ relied on it — establishes its place in the seventeenth-century Qīng Chūnqiū tradition.
The work is paired with KR1e0078 Chūnqiū Húshì zhuàn biànyí 春秋胡氏傳辨疑 (treated by the Sìkù as a separate but coordinate work). Together the pair constitutes Lù Càn’s full Chūnqiū critical programme, taking on, on the one hand, the canonical commentary apparatus (DùKǒngLù), and on the other, the orthodox examination commentary (Hú Ānguó); the two works should be read together. Lù Càn himself in the preface to the Húshì zhuàn biànyí explicitly identifies it as the companion piece to the Fùzhù, both written during his demotion (謫居多暇).
The Sìkù editors’ decision to enter only the Fùzhù and the Húshì zhuàn biànyí, while keeping Lù Càn’s third Chūnqiū monograph (the Zuǒzhuàn juān) on the secondary catalog list, is informative: the editors approve the substantive philological work but reject Lù Càn’s hypothesis-driven investigations into the Zuǒzhuàn’s authorship and Liú Xīn’s editorial intervention as “speculative” (臆揣 — which the tíyào explicitly identifies as a Míng-period habit). The judgment is characteristic of Sìkù methodological preferences for kǎozhèng and against speculative philology; modern readers may find Lù Càn’s hypotheses (which anticipate Kāng Yǒuwéi’s 康有為 century-later argument that the Zuǒzhuàn contains substantial Liú Xīn interpolation) more interesting than the editors did.
Translations and research
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.5 (Spring and Autumn) and §28.5.1 (Zuo zhuan) for general orientation, including a substantial entry on the Zuǒ-zhuàn commentarial tradition.
- Gù Yánwǔ 顧炎武, Rì-zhī lù 日知錄 (multiple editions; modern edition with Huáng Rǔchéng’s jí-shì: Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi gǔjí 1985), juan on the Zuǒ-zhuàn, explicitly relies on Lù Càn’s work.
- Pǔ Wěizhōng 浦衛忠 et al., Míng dài jīng-xué yánjiū lùnjí 明代經學研究論集.
- Yǐng-yìn Wén-yuān-gé Sì-kù quán-shū vol. 167 (Tāiběi: Tāiwān shāng-wù 1986).
Other points of interest
Lù Càn’s two paired Chūnqiū works — the Fùzhù refuting the canonical commentary apparatus, the Húshì zhuàn biànyí refuting the orthodox examination commentary — together represent the most considerable systematic mid-Míng philological engagement with the principal Chūnqiū commentary tradition outside of the Yǒnglè dàquán compilation system. The pairing is one of the salient features of mid-Míng scholarly self-organisation: a critical philologist would typically address both the canonical apparatus and the examination apparatus, and Lù Càn’s pair is among the clearest examples.
The catalog meta entry of “5 卷” matches the WYG manuscript division (the tíyào says “10 juan” but this is a discrepancy with the actual surviving copy — the editors may have referred to an earlier manuscript stage).
Links
- Míng shǐ j. 206 for Lù Càn’s biography.
- KR1e0078 Chūnqiū Húshì zhuàn biànyí (paired companion).