Chūnqiū zhì yí 春秋質疑
Putting Questions to the Spring and Autumn Annals
by 楊于庭 (撰)
About the work
The Chūnqiū zhì yí 春秋質疑 in twelve juǎn is the Chūnqiū commentary of the late-Wàn-lì Quánjiāo 全椒 scholar Yáng Yútíng 楊于庭 (jìnshì 1580). The book is item-by-item rather than continuous — selected difficult or contested entries are taken up one at a time and the various commentaries are weighed. Yáng’s overall thesis: of Hú Ānguó’s KR1e0036 readings, “seven in ten agree, three in ten do not”; on the matters where they disagree, he sets out his query. The work is the most measured, least polemical of the late-Wàn-lì anti-Hú books.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào (translated):
By Yáng Yútíng of the Míng. Yútíng, zì Dàoxíng, of Quánjiāo. Jìnshì of Wànlì gēngchén (1580). The thesis of this book: Hú Ānguó’s Chūnqiū zhuàn aims at nà yǒu 納牖 (drawing in by the window — i.e. introducing the ruler to virtue obliquely), at bāohuì 褒諱 (praising-by-circumlocution) and yìsǔn 抑損 (restraint-and-diminishment); inevitably it forces accommodations to the great meanings of the Chūnqiū. Of his readings, those that agree are seven in ten, those that disagree are three in ten. As to Zuǒshì, Gōngyáng, and Gǔliáng — he selects from one, refutes another, and the result is again not entirely satisfactory. Hence he treats them item by item.
For example: Hú says that “chūn wáng zhèng yuè” 春王正月 is the use of Xià-time crowning Zhōu-month; Yáng cites the Lǐ jì statement of Mèng Xiànzǐ 孟獻子 — “the first month rì zhì 日至 (solstice), one may make offering to Shàngdì 上帝; the seventh month rì zhì, one may make offering to one’s ancestor” — to demonstrate that rì zhì refers to the winter solstice, hence Zhōu indeed used the zǐ-month as its first month.
Again, Hú says that the jīng’s non-recording of the duke’s jí wèi 即位 is because no command was sought from the king; Yáng cites the Wéngōng 1 entry “chūn wáng zhèng yuè, gōng jí wèi” 春王正月公即位, four months before “in summer the Heavenly King sent Máobó 毛伯 to confer the ducal command”, and the Chénggōng 8 entry “in autumn the Heavenly Son sent Shàobó 召伯 to confer the ducal command” — both several months or years after the duke’s accession — to show that imperial confirmation came after, not before, accession; hence Hú’s reading is unsustainable.
Again, Hú interprets cóng sì xiān gōng 從祀先公 as the Zhāogōng’s belated admission to ancestral sacrifice in the Tài miào 太廟; Yáng holds that the Jìshì 季氏’s prevention of the Zhāogōng’s admission is not in the three commentaries — it was first proposed by Féng Shān 馮山 (a Sòng commentator), and Hú is too credulous of him.
Cases of this kind: the discussions are mostly precise and well-founded, worth taking — by no means a wild attack on the elders to indulge in eccentric readings. Respectfully presented for collation in the seventh month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778). 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’s actual completion date is closer to 1599 than to the Kanripo catalog’s “1580”: Yáng’s own preface is dated Wànlì jǐhài 萬曆己亥 (1599), and the second preface by Qiū Yīnghé 邱應和 is dated Wànlì gēngzǐ 萬曆庚子 (1600). The catalog’s “1580” reflects Yáng’s jìnshì year. The proper bracket is 1590–1600 (allowing some years for composition before the 1599 preface). Yáng’s preface is a substantial intellectual document: it surveys the history of Chūnqiū studies from the sān zhuàn 三傳 to Wáng Ānshí’s 王安石 famous remark that “the Chūnqiū is duàn làn cháo bào 斷爛朝報 (a torn-up court gazette)” through Hú Ānguó, and locates Yáng’s own work as a continuation of the Sòng yí jīng 疑經 (“questioning the classic”) tradition rather than as anti-Hú polemic.
The work belongs with Yuán Rén’s Chūnqiū Húzhuàn kǎo wù KR1e0085, Xú Xuémó’s Chūnqiū yì KR1e0082, and Jiāng Bǎo’s Chūnqiū shì yì quán kǎo KR1e0083 in the late-Wàn-lì critical-of-Hú lineage; among them it is the most measured and least polemical, and the SKQS editors’ verdict is correspondingly the warmest of the four.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
- For the broader Míng anti-Hú-zhuàn current: Sòng Dǐng-zōng 宋鼎宗, Chūnqiū Hú-shì xué 春秋胡氏學 (Tāiběi: Wén shǐ zhé, 1980).
Other points of interest
Qiū Yīnghé’s 邱應和 second preface (1600) preserves an unusually thoughtful late-Míng overview of the relative authority of the sān zhuàn and Hú Ānguó: it describes Hú as having been “a loyal minister of [the Chūnqiū]” but argues that “since Hú was placed in the academy and the mouths of Zuǒ-, Gōngyáng-, and Gǔliáng-school readers were silenced, this is to silence the market with one hand”. The image of Wáng Ānshí silencing the Chūnqiū commentaries is then cleverly extended to Hú himself.
Links
- Sìkù tíyào, Yáng Yútíng’s own preface (1599), and Qiū Yīnghé’s preface (1600) in the source file
KR1e0087_000.txt.