Chūnqiū jí zhuàn 春秋輯傳
Collected Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals
by 王樵 (撰)
About the work
The Chūnqiū jí zhuàn 春秋輯傳 in thirteen juǎn (with two appended juǎn of fán lì 凡例, “general principles”) is the late-life Chūnqiū commentary of the senior Jiājìng-era judicial-and-censorate official Wáng Qiáo 王樵 (1521–1599) of Jīntán 金壇. The work takes Zhū Xī as its master, broadly draws upon earlier commentators, and appends judgments of its own; the fán lì is praised by the Sìkù editors as comparatively concise and free of forced reading. Wáng’s Chūnqiū studies are bracketed, in the second SKQS preface (the so-called Chūnqiū zōng zhǐ 春秋宗旨, included as front matter to this edition), with the chains of authorities he privileges: Mèngzǐ, Zhuāngzǐ, the Tàishǐ gōng zì xù of Sīmǎ Qiān, Wáng Tōng, the four Sòng masters Zhōu, Chéng, Shào, Zhāng, Hú Ānguó, Zhū Xī, and the late-Yuán / Yúgàn 餘干 figure Hú Jūrén 胡居仁 (“Hú Shūxīn 胡叔心”).
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào (translated):
By Wáng Qiáo of the Míng. Qiáo, the author of the Zhōu Yì sī lù 周易私錄 already catalogued, here presents the Chūnqiū jí zhuàn in thirteen juǎn together with a Chūnqiū fán lì 春秋凡例 in two juǎn. Zhū Yízūn’s 朱彝尊 Jīngyì kǎo records it as fifteen juǎn, separately listing the fán lì as two juǎn with the note “not seen.” But the Jí zhuàn in thirteen juǎn — prefaced by the three pieces of Zōng zhǐ 宗旨 plus one piece of fù lùn 附論 making one further juǎn — does not match the count of fifteen; clearly Zhū Yízūn was mistaken. Moreover the fán lì in two juǎn is in fact appended to the printed book; Zhū Yízūn had not himself examined it.
The Jí zhuàn takes Zhū Xī as master, broadly gathers from various schools, and appends critical judgments — sometimes prolix, but its central thesis remains pure and correct. The fán lì draws comparisons by category and pursues them rationally, untainted by forced exegesis; comparatively succinct and clear.
Míng-period discussions of the Chūnqiū are mostly hemmed in by the Hú [Ānguó] KR1e0036 commentary. Those who pursue it for examination purposes are mediocre and not worth discussing; those who like to indulge in disquisitions cleave to harsh readings, push their pursuit ever further, contend for severity, and miss most of all the subtle intent of the editorial brush. Wáng Qiáo’s work is comparatively solid; in its own day it could be called a man not swept along by vulgar learning. Respectfully presented for collation in the ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editors-in-chief Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; supervising collator Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The work belongs to the senior Jiājìng / Wànlì era; its precise date of completion is not given in the tíyào but must lie in Wáng’s mature decades — after his retirement from the Nánjīng yòu dū yùshǐ 南京右都御史 post and before his death in 1599. The bracket 1560–1599 is the conservative window. The lengthy Chūnqiū zōng zhǐ 春秋宗旨 in the front matter is a doxographic compilation of the major canonical opinions on what the Chūnqiū is — it preserves long quotations from Mèngzǐ, Sīmǎ Qiān, Wáng Tōng, Hú Ānguó (extensively), Zhū Xī (extensively, including the well-known passages on bāobiǎn 褒貶), Hú Jūrén of Yúgàn (“Hú Shūxīn”), and Wáng’s own contemporary Táng Yìngdé 唐應德 (Táng Shùnzhī 唐順之, 1507–1560) — and is in itself a useful guide to what a leading mid-Míng Chūnqiū scholar took to be the live tradition. The fán lì appended to the book is what the SKQS editors find most valuable: a relatively spare set of editorial principles that avoids the harsh, hyper-categorial readings that the Hú zhuàn tradition had encouraged in late-Míng examination culture. The tíyào’s overall verdict — “in its own day a man not swept along by vulgar learning” — places Wáng with the better, more philologically honest mid-Míng Chūnqiū scholars (alongside the Jīntán scholar Zhào Fǎng’s KR1e0070 Chūnqiū shǔ cí and Jì Běn’s Chūnqiū sī kǎo, both of which Jiāng Bǎo 姜寶 explicitly praises in his contemporaneous Chūnqiū shì yì quán kǎo KR1e0083).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The lengthy Chūnqiū zōng zhǐ compendium attached to this work is itself a useful resource: it is one of the most thorough mid-Míng anthologies of the major Chūnqiū statements down to Hú Jūrén, and its inclusion of long passages from Zhū Xī’s Yǔlèi on the Chūnqiū (which is otherwise scattered) makes it a convenient one-volume reference for the SòngYuán doxographic tradition.
Links
- Sìkù tíyào in the source file
KR1e0081_000.txt.