Chūnqiū sì zhuàn zhì 春秋四傳質
Critical Weighing of the Four Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals
by 王介之 (撰)
About the work
The Chūnqiū sì zhuàn zhì 春秋四傳質 in two juǎn is the Chūnqiū commentary of Wáng Jièzhī 王介之 (1606–1686), zì Shíyá 石崖 of Héngyáng 衡陽, elder brother of the Míng-loyalist philosopher Wáng Fūzhī 王夫之. The work compares and adjudicates among the Zuǒ 左, Gōngyáng 公羊, Gǔliáng 穀梁, and Hú Ānguó 胡安國 胡安國 commentaries — the “four commentaries” of the title — adjudicating their differences from Wáng’s own position. He is, in effect, a Húnán evidential-leaning loyalist whose methodological commitments closely parallel those of his more famous brother.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào may be rendered as follows:
We have respectfully examined the Chūnqiū sì zhuàn zhì in two juǎn. By Wáng Jièzhī of the Míng. Jièzhī, zì Shíyá, was a man of Héngyáng. The book takes the three zhuàn and Hú Ānguó’s zhuàn and adjudicates their differences and agreements with his own judgment. His remark on the entry “Wú Hài, zú (death notice without name)” 無駭卒 says: “In the 242 years of the Chūnqiū, events repeatedly changed and the wording also repeatedly varied. The four zhuàn each established their own reading. To adjudicate by ethical principle, then Húshì is the most refined, while Gōng and Gǔ are particularly correct; to adjudicate by the events themselves, then Zuǒshì has substantiation and is reliable.” This roughly is his book’s grand thesis.
There are cases where he relies on prior interpretations: as at Yǐngōng year 1 he refutes Húzhuàn’s reading “yuán equals rén” — this argument originally from Yáng Shí 楊時 in his reply to Hú Ānguó; refuting Húzhuàn’s reading “jiànzǐ is not spring” — originally from Xióng Pénglái 熊朋來. There are cases where he selects from one zhuàn but takes opposite positions: as on “Wáng zhèng yuè (the king’s first month)” being the marker of the great unification — following Gōngyáng but refuting its further claim that “the king” means King Wén. There are cases where he weighs all four against each other: as on Wéngōng’s bringing back the bride Jiāng from Qí, where the four readings differ — he abandons Zuǒ, Gōngyáng, and Húzhuàn, and follows Gǔliáng. There are cases where he relies primarily on Húzhuàn but does not follow it entirely: as on Dìnggōng’s “cóng sì xiāngōng (offering rites with the former dukes)” — taking Húzhuàn’s reading that this is Zhāogōng’s first sacrifice in the temple, but rejecting Hú’s view that the underlying matter (originating in Yáng Hǔ 陽虎) cannot be made out. All these are points of independent insight, not lazy repetition.
As to Huángōng’s accession, where Gōngyáng says it accorded with his own intention — Jièzhī mistakenly attributes this to Húzhuàn and attacks it as artful and slanderous. As to Wéngōng’s “four times not viewing the new moon” 文公四不視朔: Zuǒ and Gōngyáng take this as illness, Gǔliáng as weariness with governance; Húzhuàn follows Gǔliáng — Jièzhī mistakenly says “the three zhuàn all take it as illness” and that Húshì then refutes the illness reading. Such errors do occur. But considering that, in the late Míng, classical learning had collapsed entirely and the Classics with their zhuàn lay in ruin, that Jièzhī can still mobilise ancient evidence to correct Hú Ānguó’s errors must be reckoned a thousand-fathom rising-above-the-vulgar (bá sú qiān xún 拔俗千尋). Respectfully checked and submitted, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), tenth month. Editors-in-chief Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; chief proof-reader Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The work belongs squarely to the lineage of late-Míng / early-Qīng anti-Hú Ānguó Chūnqiū criticism. Wáng Jièzhī follows the methodological line of his brother Wáng Fūzhī (王夫之 / Chūnqiū bài shū, KR1e0097) in privileging concrete evidence (zhì yǐ shì zé Zuǒshì yǒu zhēng 質以事則左氏有徵) over the speculative-moralising readings of the GōngyángGǔliángHú Ānguó tradition; but unlike his brother, who concentrates on geography and institutional realia, Wáng Jièzhī works at the level of comparative zhuàn-reading, weighing each commentary’s exegesis of each entry against the others and against the available evidence.
The dating of the work is uncertain — the catalog meta gives no date, and the work bears no datable preface. Wáng Jièzhī died in 1686, so the terminus ante quem is firm; the terminus post quem of 1644 reflects the MíngQīng transition under which his loyalist scholarship was conducted. The Sìkù compilers’ surprising warmth (the closing image of bá sú qiān xún is unusually generous for a SKQS tíyào) reflects the high-Qián-lóng evidential-school approval for serious philological Chūnqiū scholarship that breaks with the Hú Ānguó tradition.
Translations and research
- Yáng Xiàng-kuí 楊向奎, Qīng-rú xué àn xīn biān 清儒學案新編 (Jǐnán: Qí-Lǔ shūshè 1985), vol. 1 (on the Wáng Fūzhī school).
- Hou Wai-lu 侯外廬 et al., Sòng-Míng lǐ-xué shǐ 宋明理學史 (Bēijīng: Rénmín 1984–1987), vol. 2.
- Liú Shàng-cí 劉尚慈, Chūnqiū gōng-yáng zhuàn yì shì 春秋公羊傳譯釋 (Bēijīng: Zhōnghuá 2010) — useful for context but not specifically on this work.
No Western-language study of this specific work located.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù compilers’ praise notwithstanding, this is a relatively short and methodologically modest work; its principal historical interest is as the Chūnqiū-side counterpart to Wáng Fūzhī’s Chūnqiū bài shū (KR1e0097) — i.e., the elder brother working on zhuàn-comparison while the younger worked on geographic-philological kǎozhèng, both within the same Héngyáng loyalist intellectual circle.
Links
- Sìkù tíyào (Yǐngyìn Wényuāngé Sìkù): V171.2, p227.
- CBDB record for 王介之: id 69080.