Chūnqiū shǔcí bǐshì jì 春秋屬辭比事記
Records on the Linking of Words and Coordination of Events in the Spring and Autumn Annals by 毛奇齡 (撰)
About the work
A topical Chūnqiū manual in 4 juǎn by Máo Qílíng 毛奇齡 (1623–1716), a fragment of a planned 10-juǎn work compiled by his disciples. Where the parent Chūnqiū Máoshì zhuàn (KR1e0102) overlays Máo’s twenty-two-gate scheme on the canon’s ducal sequence, Shǔcí bǐshì jì abandons the chronological order entirely and arranges the material strictly by topical gate, in the manner of Shěn Fěi 沈棐 (Sòng) and Zhào Fǎng 趙汸 (Yuán). The received Sìkù version covers only seven of the twenty-two gates, with the qīnfá (invasion-and-attack) gate not even half complete.
Tiyao
Imperially edited Sìkù quánshū, Classics, Chūnqiū category. Chūnqiū shǔcí bǐshì jì in 4 juǎn. Composed in the present dynasty by Máo Qílíng. In writing his Chūnqiū zhuàn Máo divided categorical principles into 22 gates while keeping the juǎn sequence in the canonical twelve-duke order. The present work, by contrast, breaks the material into gates and groups events under each gate, in the manner of Shěn Fěi and Zhào Fǎng — a layout that is admirably lucid in its logic, with consistently solid evidential research. Máo’s strength lay in biàn lǐ (ritual differentiation): the Chūnqiū establishes its judgements on the basis of ritual, and this work uses ritual to read the Chūnqiū; it is no surprise that the result is so well organized. Particularly distinctive is the refusal to draw in the Three Rituals (Yílǐ, Lǐjì, Zhōu lǐ) tangentially: he reads the canon by the canon. The work was edited by Máo’s disciples; they say it was originally in 10 juǎn. Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 in Jīngyì kǎo 經義考 lists it in 6 juǎn and remarks that he had not seen it. The present edition covers only seven of the twenty-two gates — and the qīnfá (invasion-and-attack) gate is not yet half completed. Although incomplete, in coherence of structure it surpasses the parent Chūnqiū zhuàn. Submitted on the Qiánlóng 43rd year, 9th month (= 1778, October). Editors-in-chief: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief proofreader: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Chūnqiū shǔcí bǐshì jì is the topical-classification offshoot of Máo Qílíng’s larger Chūnqiū zhuàn and the locus where his ritualist hermeneutic is given its purest formal expression. The title is drawn from Lǐjì 禮記 Jīng jiě 經解 — “the Chūnqiū teaches by linking words and coordinating events” (屬辭比事，《春秋》教也) — and signals a deliberate return to the topical-classification mode that Chūnqiū studies had developed in the Sòng (Shěn Fěi’s Chūnqiū bǐshì 春秋比事) and Yuán (Zhào Fǎng’s Chūnqiū shǔcí 春秋屬辭). The distinctive methodological pledge — to read the Chūnqiū without recourse to the Three Rituals — is a discipline of yī jīng shuō jīng (interpreting the canon by the canon) and stands against the Sòng moralist habit of triangulating Chūnqiū judgements via Lǐjì and Zhōu lǐ.
The work was unfinished at Máo’s death and was edited posthumously by disciples; Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo (1701, anticipating the Sìkù) reports it as 6 juǎn, suggesting circulation in shorter form before the Sìkù recovered the present 4-juǎn recension covering seven gates. The Sìkù editors regarded the work as more rigorous than the parent commentary, despite its incompleteness — high praise given the Sìkù’s general reservations about Máo’s polemicism.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. See the works on Máo Qílíng’s Chūnqiū corpus listed at KR1e0102 and KR1e0103.
Other points of interest
The decision not to “side-quote” the Three Rituals is methodologically striking and prefigures the high-Qīng evidential preference for canon-internal evidence over composite intertextual reading. Since the surviving text breaks off mid-gate, it is also of interest as a witness to the editorial transmission of an early-Qīng work between disciple-editing and Sìkù canonization.
Links
- Wikidata: Máo Qílíng — Q900998
- ctext.org: Chūnqiū shǔcí bǐshì jì (Sìkù WYG facsimile)