Chūnqiū shì yì quán kǎo 春秋事義全考
A Comprehensive Investigation of the Events and Meanings in the Spring and Autumn Annals
by 姜寶 (撰)
About the work
The Chūnqiū shì yì quán kǎo 春秋事義全考 in sixteen juǎn is the Chūnqiū commentary of Jiāng Bǎo 姜寶 (1514–1593, jìnshì 1553, ultimately Nánjīng Lǐbù shàngshū 南京禮部尚書) of Dānyáng 丹陽. Jiāng was a pupil of the senior Jiājìng Chūnqiū scholar Táng Shùnzhī 唐順之 and a marriage-relative and intellectual associate of Wáng Qiáo 王樵, whose contemporaneous Chūnqiū jí zhuàn KR1e0081 he praises by name in the preface. The work takes Hú Ānguó’s KR1e0036 Chūnqiū zhuàn KR1e0036 as its base — as required by the Míng examination system — but supplements Hú substantively (Hú’s commentary on the Xiāng 襄 and Zhāo 昭 dukes is fragmentary, and Jiāng provides full coverage), and corrects Hú on the central methodological question of the bāobiǎn 褒貶 style. The book was finished in Wànlì yǐyǒu 萬曆乙酉 (1585) and printed shortly after.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào (translated):
By Jiāng Bǎo of the Míng. Bǎo, zì Tíngshàn, hào Fèngā, of Dānyáng. Jìnshì of Jiājìng guǐchǒu (1553); rose to Nánjīng Lǐbù shàngshū. The Míng shǐ yì wén zhì and Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo both record this book at twenty juǎn; the present copy is short by four juǎn, but inspection of the chapter-divisions does not reveal any actual lacunae — perhaps the table-of-contents differs through a scribal error in transmission.
The book’s main thesis takes Hú [Ānguó]‘s zhuàn as its basis, with the author’s own intent occasionally added; Hú’s commentary on the dukes from Xiāng and Zhāo onward is mostly missing, and Jiāng supplements it. The geographical names are checked by present-day toponyms; though there are some innovations, they do not differ greatly from those of other schools.
What is distinctive is this: standing Chūnqiū commentators take “bǐxuē bāobiǎn” (the editing brush as praise-and-blame) as their ruling principle, so that “Wáng not tiān”, “gōng not writing jí wèi”, and the like are all said to be Confucius’ deliberate condemnations — a method of praise-and-reproach that further extends upward to the ruler and father. Measured against the sage’s fundamental intent of clarifying human bonds and bequeathing teaching, this surely cannot be so. Jiāng alone holds that on the affairs of the Zhōu kings and the Lǔ princes, where there is wrong, Confucius simply records the wrong directly; later commentators’ use of words such as è 惡 (evil), zuì 罪 (crime), and jībiǎn 譏貶 (mockery-and-reproach) are not the sage’s intent. His statement is plain, large, and upright; it goes beyond what Dàn 啖 [Zhù] and Zhào [Kuāng] reached. It can be said to bring out the subtle thesis of the editorial brush and to set up a great barrier for the doctrine of names; this single excellence is worth recording, not to be cast aside in the general abandonment, and so it is specially noted.
According to the Yì wén zhì, Jiāng also has a Chūnqiū dú zhuàn jiě lüè 春秋讀傳解略 in twelve juǎn; this has not been seen. Respectfully presented for collation in the first month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). 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 was composed over a long period: Jiāng’s preface dates the start to Lóngqìng chū 隆慶初 (i.e. 1567 onward, immediately after his retirement from office), and the printing to Wànlì yǐyǒu 萬曆乙酉 (1585). The bracket 1567–1585 is firm. Jiāng’s own preface is unusually instructive on Míng examination Chūnqiū studies: it explains his decision to keep Hú Ānguó as the base text (Hú is the Míng prescribed curriculum) while substantively rejecting Hú’s signature bāobiǎn methodology — a position Jiāng frames as restoring Mèngzǐ’s reading of the Chūnqiū against Hú’s elaborations. Jiāng explicitly aligns himself with Zhào Fǎng’s KR1e0070 Chūnqiū shǔ cí 春秋屬辭, Jì Běn’s Chūnqiū sī kǎo 春秋私考, the Zhōu princely Chūnqiū biàn yí 春秋辨疑 of Zhū Mùxiān 朱睦㮮 (Xītíng 西亭, of the Imperial Clan), and Wáng Qiáo’s Chūnqiū jí zhuàn KR1e0081. The Sìkù editors’ praise — “going beyond what Dàn Zhù and Zhào Kuāng reached” — is exceptionally strong, though they note the work’s overall conformity to Hú prevents it from being a fully independent contribution.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located in Western languages.
- For the late-Míng Chūnqiū tradition generally: Sòng Dǐng-zōng 宋鼎宗, Chūnqiū Hú-shì xué 春秋胡氏學 (Tāiběi: Wén shǐ zhé, 1980).
Other points of interest
The two prefaces preserved in the SKQS — Jiāng’s own and the disciple-prefect Lǐ Yīyáng’s 李一陽 — are among the most informative documents on mid-Wàn-lì Chūnqiū studies as a community of practice: they identify the principal contemporary authorities (Zhào Fǎng, Jì Běn, Zhū Mùxiān, Wáng Qiáo) by name and locate them in a network of teachers, marriage-relations, and intellectual exchange centred on the lower-Yangzi prefectures.
Links
- Sìkù tíyào, Jiāng Bǎo’s preface, and Lǐ Yīyáng’s preface in the source file
KR1e0083_000.txt.