Chūnqiū sì zhuàn jiū zhèng 春秋四傳糾正
Corrections to the Four Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals
by 兪汝言 (撰)
About the work
The Chūnqiū sì zhuàn jiū zhèng 春秋四傳糾正 in one juǎn is a brief but methodologically focused corrective to the four Chūnqiū commentaries (Zuǒ, Gōngyáng, Gǔliáng, and Hú Ānguó’s 胡安國 Chūnqiū chuán) by Yú Rǔyán 兪汝言 (1614–1679, zì Yòují 右吉, hào Jiànchuān 漸川, of Xiùshuǐ 秀水). It was composed as the methodological summary and appendix to Yú’s larger Chūnqiū píng yì 春秋平義 (KR1e0099), both completed in Kāngxī bǐngchén 丙辰 (1676). Per the Sìkù tíyào, the work is reported to have been dictated orally in Yú’s last years after he went blind. It organises the errors of the four commentaries under six heuristic categories: (1) reverence-without-recognising-overstep (zūn shèng ér wàng qí jiàn 尊聖而忘其僭, 8 cases); (2) principle-but-forced (zhí lǐ ér jìn yú yū 執理而近於迂, 15 cases); (3) novelty-near-strain (shàng yì ér lín yú záo 尚異而鄰於鑿, 23 cases); (4) speculation-near-slander (yì cè ér jìn yú wū 億測而近於誣, 43 cases); (5) praise-but-untrue-to-fact (chēng měi ér shī shí qíng 稱美而失實情, 8 cases); (6) flaw-finding-but-too-cutting (zhāi xiá ér shāng qiè kè 摘瑕而傷鍥刻, 6 cases). An appended Chūnwáng zhèngyuè biàn 春王正月辨 takes up the Zuǒshì, Gōngyáng, Kǒng Ānguó, and Zhèng Xuán readings of the canonical opening “Yuán nián chūn wáng zhèng yuè” 元年春王正月 to argue that the Chūnqiū uses the Zhōu zhèngshuò 正朔 (calendar) throughout.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào may be rendered as follows:
We have respectfully examined the Chūnqiū sì zhuàn jiū zhèng in one juǎn. By Yú Rǔyán of the present dynasty. In Kāngxī bǐngchén (1676), Rǔyán’s Chūnqiū píng yì had just emerged from draft; in the summer of that year he further composed this book to summarise the great purport. It is reported that he composed it in his old age after going blind, dictating to others. The book lists the failures of the three zhuàn of the Chūnqiū and Hú Ānguó’s zhuàn, sets out adjudications, and groups them in six categories: (1) reverence-without-recognising-overstep, 8 entries; (2) principle-but-forced, 15 entries; (3) novelty-near-strain, 23 entries; (4) speculation-near-slander, 43 entries; (5) praise-but-untrue-to-fact, 8 entries; (6) flaw-finding-but-too-cutting, 6 entries. Appended at the end is a Chūnwáng zhèngyuè biàn — extending the readings of Zuǒshì, Gōngyáng, Kǒng Ānguó, and Zhèng Xuán to argue that under the Zhōu zhèng both shí (season) and yuè (month) are reckoned, and that the Chūnqiū’s zhèngshuò throughout follows Zhōu.
In what concerns: the case of Huá Dū 華督 seizing Kǒng Fù’s wife; the case of Qí Huángōng attacking Cài on account of Cài Jī — the historians’ tablet-records have come down with their bases, and even working from the zhuàn text alone there is no way to determine these as never-happened. Rǔyán takes them as “speculation near slander” — but is in danger of falling into speculation himself. Furthermore, the Gōngyáng praise of Qí Xiānggōng’s revenge is indeed perverse — but Marquis Jì’s slandering of Qí Āigōng to the Zhōu, leading to his being boiled, did factually occur. Rǔyán’s claim that “language and speech are not enough to constitute revenge” is not very intelligible. As to the Chūnwáng zhèngyuè biàn: he holds that Zuǒzhuàn’s “Wáng Zhōu zhèngyuè” 王周正月 — in which “Wáng Zhōu” is a parallel to Hàn calling itself “HuángHàn” or Sòng calling itself “HuángSòng” — but this misses that zhèngyuè and zhèngsuì both occur in Zhōu lǐ with mixed use of the Xià zhèng. So the Wáng Zhōu zhèngyuè clarification simply means not Xià calendar, and there is no need to drag in HànSòng analogies.
Also, on the case of Yīxíng 一行 and Wèi Pǔ 衛朴 reckoning Chūnqiū solar eclipses — finding them all consistent with a jiànyín (Xià) calendar — Rǔyán has no answer and so generally dismisses it as “not enough to be deeply relied on.” But: solar-and-lunar eclipses follow new-moon and full-moon, not the zhèngshuò season; jiànzǐ and jiànyín eclipse-windows are no different — one phrase suffices to make the matter clear, and there is no need to be muddled in this argument.
Cases like these are, indeed, occasionally minor flaws. But within the six categories, the great majority are upright and large in import, simple and clear in argument. The book is short — its volume is not great — but every word is medicine for the curing of Chūnqiū studies. He may be said to have deeply caught the meaning of the Classic. Respectfully checked and submitted, Qiánlóng 42 (1777), fourth month. Editors-in-chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; chief proof-reader Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Yú’s six-fold heuristic taxonomy of zhuàn-error is the work’s distinctive contribution. Each category names a structural failure of commentary: (1) reverence-without-recognising-overstep — taking Chūnqiū writing-conventions as reverent of the Sage but not seeing that they implicitly attribute usurped functions; (2) principle-but-forced — extracting principle at the cost of doing violence to the text; (3) novelty-near-strain — pursuing novelty until interpretation passes into strained allegory; (4) speculation-near-slander — projecting motives into events; (5) praise-but-untrue-to-fact — finding praise where the historical record contradicts; (6) flaw-finding-but-too-cutting — pursuing fault-finding to a degree out of proportion to the fault. The list is both a critique of the four commentaries and a self-discipline for the modern reader. Yú’s own preface (preserved as the yuán xù 原序 in the front-matter) sets the larger frame: the Chūnqiū commentary tradition has long failed because of “name-and-particle” 名稱褒貶 readings (the GōngyángHú line) and because of “principle-by-projection” readings (the late-Sòng lǐxué); only at the level of “matters” (shì 事) anchored against the Zuǒshì historical narrative can the Chūnqiū be properly read.
The dating is firm: the yuán xù dates the work to bǐngchén zhòngxià xiàxián 丙辰仲夏下弦 — the third quarter of the fifth lunar month of Kāngxī 15 = 1676 (June). The work was composed at the same time as the larger Chūnqiū píng yì (KR1e0099) and serves as its methodological appendix; together they form the diptych of Yú’s Chūnqiū statement.
The text’s reception is unusually high: the Qiánlóng emperor’s preface to the imperial Yù zuǎn Chūnqiū zhí jiě (KR1e0095) cites Yú’s piàn yán jū yào directly — “The failure of commentaries on the Classic lies not in superficiality but in over-deepness; the Chūnqiū is the worst case” — as authority against the Hú Ānguó tradition. This is one of the rare cases where a private early-Qīng evidential scholar is cited as authority in an imperial preface a generation later.
Within the early-Qīng Chūnqiū corpus, Yú’s two works (KR1e0098, KR1e0099) sit alongside Wáng Fūzhī’s Bài shū (KR1e0097) and Gù Yánwǔ’s Bǔ zhèng (KR1e0096) as the major evidential engagements; Yú is methodologically the most synthetic of the four — he collates rather than extends, but his collation is structured by a methodological taxonomy that anticipates later evidential reflection.
Translations and research
- Yáng Xiànghuá 楊向華, Qīng-dài Chūnqiū xué shǐ 清代春秋學史 (Bēijīng: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè 2014) — coverage of the Yú Rǔyán evidential moment.
- Pi Xirui 皮錫瑞, Jīng xué tōng lùn 經學通論 (rpt. Bēijīng: Zhōnghuá 1954) — citing Yú’s piàn yán jū yào as authoritative.
- Liáng Qǐ-chāo 梁啓超, Zhōngguó jìn-sān-bǎi-nián xuéshù shǐ 中國近三百年學術史 (Shànghǎi 1923; rpt. Bēijīng: Dōng-fāng chūbǎnshè 2010) — for Yú’s place in early-Qīng scholarship.
No major Western-language treatment located.
Other points of interest
The fact that Yú dictated this work after going blind — and that his methodological taxonomy of six categories is in fact a mnemonic device, easy to commit to memory — is suggestive of a wider MíngQīng practice of late-life oral classical scholarship. The same is reported of his contemporary Wáng Fūzhī (王夫之).
Links
- Sìkù yǐng yìn Wényuāngé: V174.4, p385.
- CBDB record for 俞汝言: id 338399.