Huìshì Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn bǔ zhù 惠氏春秋左傳補註
Mr. Huì’s Supplementary Notes to the Spring and Autumn Zuǒ Tradition by 惠棟 (撰)
About the work
A philological supplement to Dù Yù 杜預’s Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn jí jiě 春秋左傳集解 in 6 juǎn, by Huì Dòng 惠棟 (1697–1758), the founder of the Wú pài 吳派 kǎozhèng school. The book is one component of Huì’s larger Jiǔ jīng gǔ yì 九經古義 program of canonical Hàn-philological recovery; it was issued separately and circulated independently. The first version was 4 juǎn (so listed as a placeholder in the Jiǔ jīng gǔ yì table-of-contents); the Sìkù recension is enlarged to 6 juǎn. The method throughout is to adduce older glosses — Hàn-period commentaries, zhū zǐ literature (Lǚ shì chūnqiū, Mò zǐ, Hán fēi zǐ), early lexicographical works (Shuō wén, Ěr yǎ), and zhù shū citations — against any locus where Dù Yù’s jí jiě leaves a gap or appears mistaken.
Tiyao
Imperially edited Sìkù quánshū, Classics, Chūnqiū category. Zuǒzhuàn bǔ zhù in 6 juǎn. Composed in the present dynasty by Huì Dòng. Huì Dòng is the author of Zhōu yì shù 周易述, already entered (cf. KR1a0105). This book draws on old glosses to supplement the gaps in Dù Yù’s Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn jí jiě. It originally formed one part of the author’s Jiǔ jīng gǔ yì; because it appeared separately first, the Jiǔ jīng gǔ yì printed text gives only the title in 4 juǎn but no actual contents under it. The present edition is in 6 juǎn — evidently he added more material later.
The most solid notes are e.g.: at Lord Yǐn 5 “the lord did not shoot,” he cites the Zhōu lǐ “Officer of Archery” (in sacrifice he assists at the shooting of the victim) and the Sī gōng shǐ (supplying the arrows for the shooting of the victim) and Yǐ Xiāng’s words in the Guó yǔ to refute the zhuàn-side error of “shooting the dragon” (note: this is Zhū Xī’s gloss, not Dù’s; he handles it because it falls in the same category in supplementing Dù). At Lord Zhuāng 14 “binding Xī Guī” he cites Lǚ shì chūnqiū (the Duke of Zhōu wrote a poem to bind King Wén’s virtue) and the Lǐ jì Biǎo jì gloss of Zhèng Xuán (yù 譽 = shéng 繩) to verify the source of Dù’s gloss. At Lord Zhuāng 28 “Zàng Sūnchén petitioned for grain from Qí, this is ritual,” he cites the Zhōu shū Dí kuāng piān (in years of dearth, when grain is short, the prince makes inspection-tours to the regional lords, and the qīng petitions for grain) to demonstrate this as ancient ritual. At Lord Xī 5 “Yú is not at the là sacrifice” he cites the old commentary in Tàipíng yù lǎn and Yīng Shào’s Fēng sú tōng yuèlìng zhāngjù to show that the là sacrifice is not a Qín innovation. At Lord Xī 10 “Seven Chariot-Officers” he cites Wáng Sù’s Shī zhuàn to demonstrate that “qī” should read “wáng”. At Lord Xī 22 “Grand Marshal Gù protested” he cites the Jìn yǔ (Prince fleeing to Sòng was on good terms with Marshal Gōngsūn Gù) to demonstrate that Gù is a personal name. At Lord Xī 27 “the Xià shū says” he cites Mò zǐ Míng guǐ piān to demonstrate that the Shàng shū originally had only Xià shū, Shāng shū, and Zhōu shū — no Yú shū. At Lord Wén 18 “in the Nine Punishments, do not forget” he cites the Zhōu shū Cháng mài jiě to demonstrate that the punishment-book was in nine sections.
At Lord Xuān 2 “displayed at court” he cites the Máo Shī Lùmíng gloss and the Yílǐ Shì hūn lǐ gloss to demonstrate that shì 視 is the proper graph; Guō Zhōngshù wrote it as shì 示, which is wrong. At Lord Xuān 3 “ungovernable, beasts not subdued,” he cites Guō Pú’s Ěr yǎ gloss “jīn yù” to demonstrate, with the zhuàn-side gloss “féng” appearing later, that the present text has been miswritten. At Lord Xuān 6 “filling up his guàn” he cites Hán fēi zǐ “filling our guàn” to authenticate the graph. At Lord Chéng 16 “penetrating seven plates of armour” he cites the Lǚ shì chūnqiū Ài shì piān to verify Zhèng Kāngchéng’s “one armour, seven plates” interpretation. At Lord Xiāng 23 “married into the Zhù family” he cites the Lǐ jì Yuè jì Zhèng gloss to demonstrate that 鑄 is the same as the state of Zhù 祝. “Sitting on a chariot bow he played the qín” — he cites Xǔ Shèn’s Huái nán zǐ gloss to demonstrate that 轉 here means zhěn 軫 (chariot bow). At Lord Xiāng 25 “be careful at beginning and respectful at end so as not to be in trouble” he cites the Zhōu shū Cháng xùn jiě to demonstrate that this is not from the (forged) Cài Zhòng zhī mìng. At Lord Xiāng 27 “Cuī Zhù bore [a son] Chéng, and when he reached strength was widowed” he cites Mò zǐ Cí guò piān to demonstrate that “to be without a wife” was called guǎ. At Lord Zhāo 1 “five offerings of biāndòu set out beneath the awning” he cites the Lǐ jì zhèng yì to verify the error of Dù’s gloss on “five offerings.” At Lord Zhāo 15 “in one year there are two three-years-of-mourning” he cites the Mò zǐ Gōng mèng and Fēi rú chapters to demonstrate that the three-year wife-mourning was a late-Chūnqiū-period ritual. At Lord Zhāo 16 “fastened a sword and mounted another carriage” he cites the Shuō wén to show that &KR1698; was misread as 鑋. At Lord Zhāo 25 “stocking-footed, mounting the mat” he cites the Lǐ jì Shǎo yí to show that at a banquet one must take off one’s stockings. All these are based on solid evidence and are not arbitrary speculation.
But: at Lord Wén 2 “abolished the six passes” he cites the Gōngyáng zhuàn gloss to verify that fèi 廢 means “to set up” (this is true); but he then cites Wéi Zhāo’s Guó yǔ gloss to verify that “to set up” means “to abandon” (this is wrong). For zhì 置 has two senses: one is “to establish,” as in the Gōngyáng gloss; one is “to abandon,” as in the Guó yǔ gloss. This is like luàn 亂 in some contexts means “to rule” but in “luàn lí mò yǐ” cannot mean “to rule”; or how chòu 臭 can mean “fragrance” but in “zhú chòu zhī fū” cannot mean “fragrance.” In antiquity the function of passes was to inspect, not to tax; Zàng Wénzhòng abolished the six passes to harvest a reputation for liberality, leaving rogues unchecked and so secretly oppressing the people; for that secret motive he was condemned as inhumane. Huì simply harps on his cross-referencing principle; this is partial and confused.
At Lord Wén 14 “those who remained were the Liú clan” — Kǒng Yǐngdá’s zhèng yì explicitly says this clause was added by Hàn Confucians (since the Hàn imperial house was Liú), so the Liú there is undoubted; Huì insists the original character was liú 留 and that the Hàn editors changed it to the conventional Hàn-imperial Liú 劉 (the mǎojīndāo graph). At Lord Xuān 2 “a hundred chariots of decorated horses” — Qiū Guāngtíng’s Jiān míng shū settled this, but Huì stubbornly cites the Shuō wén gloss “decorated horses.” At Lord Chéng 17 “the fair man at the marsh-gate” — gāo 臯 and zé 澤 are anciently interchangeable, and feudal lords have a gāomén 臯門, true; but the marsh-gate of a city and the gāomén are not the same place. At Lord Chéng 21 “the duke’s eldest sister” — he says the gloss and apparatus are wrong and rules that this is a same-clan female; this resolves gū 姑 but does not resolve zǐ 姊. At Lord Xiāng 25 “took the slip and went” — he cites Fú Qián’s gloss “one slip is eight characters” to show that the Grand Scribe’s record of Cuī Zhù was likewise eight characters; this is forced. At Lord Xiāng 30 “hài has two heads and six bodies” — he reads this as Mèng zǐ Tang; this is even more far-fetched. At Lord Zhāo 7 “I dare not forget Gāo Yǔ and Yà Yǔ” he cites the Bamboo Annals (Zhú shū jì nián) to supplement Dù’s gloss — but Dù personally saw the Jí-county gǔ wén and did not cite this passage; we may infer that the original simply did not have it; one cannot use a later forged recension to argue Dù’s negligence (note: in this book Huì repeatedly cites the Bamboo Annals — apparently without examining the present recension’s forgery in detail). At Lord Zhāo 25 “Zhèng Piān wished to be a guàn” he cites Lù Diàn’s Pí yǎ miscellany (note: the guàn jǐng tale comes from Yǒu yáng zá zǔ, not from Lù Diàn). At Lord Āi 6 “died without illness” he cites the Jí zhǒng suǒ yǔ tale-literature. At Lord Āi 12 “imitated barbarian speech” he holds that emphasis on the Wú pronunciation began in the Spring-and-Autumn period, not Jìn — this is no longer the proper register of canonical commentary.
Other minor mannerisms: insisting that the canonical zhī wèi “ascended his throne” must be read as lì (古經 form); insisting that lǚ 屢 (“repeatedly”) in lǚ fēng nián must be the Shuō wén form □ — all merely showy, not usable. His strength is breadth; his weakness is also fondness for breadth. His strength is antiquity; his weakness is also slavishness to antiquity. Submitted on the Qiánlóng 46th year, 11th month (= 1781, December). Editors-in-chief: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief proofreader: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn bǔ zhù is the Zuǒshì component of Huì Dòng’s Jiǔ jīng gǔ yì program — the systematic recovery of Hàn-period and earlier glosses across the Nine Classics — and one of the methodological foundation-documents of the Wú pài school. The interpretive premise is the Wú pài axiom: where Dù Yù’s jí jiě (the dominant Zuǒshì commentary since the Jìn) leaves a passage glossed only by inference or not glossed at all, the proper recourse is to Hàn-period commentary and earlier zhū zǐ / lexicographical literature — not to Sòng moralizing extension. Huì’s range of citation is unprecedented: Mò zǐ, Hán fēi zǐ, Lǚ shì chūnqiū, Huái nán zǐ, the Shuō wén, the Ěr yǎ, and the early Zhōu shū / Yì zhōu shū tradition.
The Sìkù tiyao registers two pointed reservations that have been borne out by later scholarship: (1) Huì cites the present recension of the Bamboo Annals (Zhú shū jì nián) as if authentic — but the editors note (with explicit annotation) that the present recension is a MíngQīng forgery, and Huì had not realized this in time; (2) Huì routinely lets cross-tradition citation devolve into a generalized assumption of polyvalence — most obviously over fèi 廢 / zhì 置, which the editors single out as a logical error.
Despite these limits, the book canonized for the eighteenth century the principle of Hàn-Confucian primary citation in Zuǒshì studies and was the immediate source for the work of Jiāo Xún 焦循, Liú Wéndǐ 劉文淇, and the Yangzhou Zuǒshì school of the high Qing. Composition is bracketed by Huì’s mature scholarly years (post-1740) and his death in 1758. The Sìkù edition’s expansion to 6 juǎn documents the work’s continued growth in his last years. Wilkinson (Chinese History: A New Manual, p. 685) cites Huì Dòng as the founding figure of the eighteenth-century Hàn xué movement, with Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn bǔ zhù one of his core works.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation located. Discussions of Huì Dòng’s Zuǒ-shì work appear in Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China, 2nd ed. (UCLA, 2001) — the standard English account of the Wú pài — and in Hamaguchi Fujio 浜口富士雄, Shindai gakujutsu shi: Eki Chu Sōshōha no kenkyū 清代學術史 (Kyūko shoin, 1993).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ explicit annotation that Huì’s Bamboo Annals citations rely on the forged MíngQīng recension is one of the most important pieces of Sìkù-board evidential reasoning preserved in a tiyao — they catch a leading evidential scholar in a methodological lapse and document it on the page. This single annotation is often cited in modern Chinese scholarship as a marker of the Sìkù’s evidential standards.
Links
- Wikidata: Huì Dòng — Q11142822
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (2018), §§ 28, 51, p. 685
- ctext.org: Zuǒzhuàn bǔ zhù (Sìkù WYG facsimile)