Chūnqiū Zuǒ zhuàn xiǎo shū 春秋左傳小疏
Lesser Notes on the Spring and Autumn Zuǒ Tradition by 沈彤 (撰)
About the work
A short philological monograph in 1 juǎn by Shěn Tóng 沈彤 (1688–1752), of the Sūzhōu Wú pài circle. The book takes the Zuǒshì supplements made by Zhào Fǎng 趙汸 (Yuán) and Gù Yánwǔ 顧炎武 (early Qing) as already partial and offers further corrections to Dù Yù’s jí jiě and the zhèng yì — treating each problem entry as a discrete philological note. The book is unfinished but was admitted to the Sìkù on the strength of its individual demonstrations.
Tiyao
Imperially edited Sìkù quánshū, Classics, Chūnqiū category. Chūnqiū Zuǒshì zhuàn xiǎo shū in 1 juǎn. Composed in the present dynasty by Shěn Tóng. Shěn Tóng is the author of Shàngshū xiǎo shū 尚書小疏, already entered. This volume holds that the Zuǒzhuàn supplements to Dù Yù made by Zhào Fǎng and Gù Yánwǔ are not exhaustive, and offers further correction. Within, gains and losses are equally on view.
For example, at Lord Wén 26 zhuàn “feasted ZǐZhǎn, gave him the precessor-chariot and the three-grade ceremonial robe and xiān eight cities; gave ZǐChǎn the second-grade chariot, second-grade ceremonial robe, and xiān six cities” — Shěn says that “eight cities” and “six cities” are too small a number to be reward-grants of cǎi yì (allotted estates) but are the Sī xūn “reward-lands” — fù tián (additional fields) — and the zhèng yì gloss is therefore mistaken. Now, the Sī xūn says “all reward-lands have one part in three taken; only with additional fields is there no domestic share”; the gloss says “‘additional fields’ means: after rewarding, additional gift of fields, to deepen favour.” On this, the rule is that the reward-fields fell short and were therefore further supplemented; never that the reward-fields are reduced and the additional fields enlarged. Now Shěn says the eight and six cities, being a small number, must therefore be fù tián — but on his theory the additional fields must be more, not less. That does not square with the Zhōu lǐ. The slip arises because Shěn, in his Zhōu guān lù tián kǎo 周官祿田考, mistook the Dà sī tú gloss “small dū, large dū, sideways-additional units” as identical with the Sī xūn’s additional fields, and so reasons here that since ZǐZhǎn and ZǐChǎn were both state ministers, on the small-dū sideways-additional rule they ought to receive 4 lǐ; eight cities at the gloss’s reading is at most 32 jǐng; six cities at most 24 jǐng; he therefore suspects the number is too small for a cǎi yì. The whole argument is misplaced.
Likewise at Lord Wén 1 zhuàn “redirect the surplus to the end” — Shěn says the doctrine is to accumulate the qìshuò surplus days and intercalate at the fourth-season end, hence “redirect the surplus to the end”; the canon and zhuàn never get the intercalation right, save Lord Zhāo 20 where the eighth-month intercalation in the Zhōu calendar happens to coincide with a sixth-month intercalation in the Xià — pure coincidence. Now, examining Lord Zhāo 20: the canon says “spring, royal first month”; the zhuàn says “in the 20th year, spring, second month, jǐchǒu, the sun reaches its southernmost point.” Dù glosses: “the canon ought to read ‘first month jǐchǒu the sun reaches its southernmost point’; the chronicler missed the intercalation, so the intercalation came after the second month; the canon kept the chronicler’s wording — first month — and the zhuàn records the actual position in the second month.” The zhèng yì says the proper rule is to intercalate at the end of the previous year’s twelfth month: i.e. the present first month should have been an intercalary month and the present second month should have been the first; the chronicler in the previous year mistakenly did not intercalate, and the intercalation came after the second month; the zhuàn under the eighth month says “intercalary month, the wùchén day, [Wèi people] killed Xuān Jiāng” — so the actual intercalation fell in the eighth month. The gloss does not say “after the eighth month” but “after the second month” because before the first month an intercalation should have been placed but after the second month it could not be. So the eighth-month intercalation is precisely the chronicler’s error, not coincidence; Shěn’s claim of coincidence is wrong.
But, e.g., at Lord Xiāng 28 zhuàn “now doubled the levy” — Kǒng’s shū says the reward-land tax is in three parts, the king takes one, the second goes to the king’s officers; this is the figure for cǎi yì tribute to the king; therefore a feudal lord’s officer who receives a cǎidì should likewise turn in one-third to the duke; “doubled the levy” thus means two-thirds going to the duke. — Now, on cǎi yì tribute the Dà sī tú gloss says “the cǎidì eaters all give one-quarter”: for a hundred-lǐ state with four dū, one dū’s tax goes to the king; for fifty-lǐ state with four xiàn, one xiàn’s tax to the king; for twenty-five-lǐ state with four diàn, one diàn’s tax to the king. The reward-land tribute is what Kǒng’s shū cites from the Sī xūn gloss — calculation in three parts, the king takes one. So cǎidì tribute and reward-land tribute are at very different rates. Kǒng’s shū on the marquis-state cǎi yì tax did not compute one-quarter and computed instead one-third — thus mistaking reward-land for cǎi yì. Shěn’s correction here legitimately breaks a long-perpetuated misreading.
Likewise at Lord Wén 25 zhuàn “levied chariot-troops and foot-troops” — Dù glosses chēbīng as armed men. Kǒng’s shū says: that this is not weaponry (one knows because) the preceding line says “counted armour and weapons” and the next line says “the count of armour and shields” — so this entry must mean men. Gù Yánwǔ holds that “weapon-bearer” usage of the term bīng begins only in QínHàn — that Three Dynasties and earlier had no such usage; so all of Dù’s “soldier” glosses on bīng are wrong. Shěn cites Lord Yǐn 5 zhuàn “the lords’ army defeated Zhèng’s túbīng” and Lord Xiāng 1 zhuàn “defeated his túbīng on the Wěi River” — túbīng unquestionably means soldiers, not the weapon. This corrects Gù’s slip.
Although unfinished, it is recorded and preserved here, of real use to readers of the Zuǒ zhuàn. Submitted on the Qiánlóng 46th year, 10th month (= 1781, November). Editors-in-chief: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief proofreader: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Chūnqiū Zuǒ zhuàn xiǎo shū is a short specialist philological monograph by Shěn Tóng of the Wú pài circle, and a methodological complement to Huì Dòng’s Zuǒzhuàn bǔ zhù (KR1e0116). Where Huì supplements Dù Yù’s gloss with Hàn-Confucian and zhū zǐ citation, Shěn corrects both Dù and Gù Yánwǔ on individual loci through close institutional-historical reasoning, particularly on the Zhōu lǐ land-and-tax apparatus which had been the focus of Shěn’s own Zhōu guān lù tián kǎo 周官祿田考 (KR1d0023).
The Sìkù tiyao gives a balanced verdict: Shěn errs where his Zhōu guān lù tián kǎo commitments mislead him into reading cǎi yì and fù tián identically, and his calendar-coincidence argument is also wrong. But where he corrects Kǒng Yǐngdá’s zhèng yì on cǎidì tribute rates and corrects Gù Yánwǔ on bīng-as-soldier, the demonstration is decisive. The work is one of the finest single specimens of Qing kǎozhèng in the Chūnqiū division. Composition is bracketed by Shěn’s mature scholarly years (post-1730) and his death in 1752.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. For Shěn Tóng’s place in Wú pài scholarship see the chapter in Wáng Zǎn / Huáng Àipíng, Qīng dài xué shù wén huà shǐ lùn 清代學術文化史論 (Wénjīn, 1999), and Yáng Zhàoguì, Qīng dài Chūnqiū xué yán jiū (Wǔnán, 2010).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tiyao is unusually frank about cross-work methodological interference: Shěn’s misreading of Zuǒzhuàn eight-cities-and-six-cities is traced explicitly to a misstep in his earlier Zhōu guān lù tián kǎo. This documentation of a scholar’s intra-corpus confusion is a rare and valuable piece of evidential criticism by the Sìkù board.
Links
- ctext.org: Chūnqiū Zuǒ zhuàn xiǎo shū (Sìkù WYG facsimile)