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孝經刋誤

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Text ID
KR1f0006
Date
1186–1186
Dynasty
宋

Xiàojīng kānwù 孝經刋誤

Errors Corrected in the Classic of Filial Piety

by 朱熹 (撰, 1130–1200)

About the work

This is Zhū Xī’s 朱熹 most famous and controversial intervention in the Xiàojīng canon. Begun in Chúnxī 13 (1186), when Zhū Xī was 57 suì and serving as nominal supervisor of the Yúntái Daoist abbey in Huázhōu (主管華州雲臺觀), it takes the gǔwén recension as base, restructures it into “1 jīng chapter and 14 zhuàn chapters,” and excises 223 characters that Zhū Xī judged to be later interpolations from other classical texts. The work circulated rapidly within the Lǐxué 理學 school, and from the late Sòng onward most school-of-Zhū commentators followed Zhū’s restructured recension rather than either the jīnwén or the gǔwén base.

Tiyao

We have respectfully examined the Xiàojīng kānwù in one juàn. It was composed by Master Zhū of the Sòng. The work was completed in Chúnxī 13 (1186), when Master Zhū was 57 suì and held a sinecure at the Yúntái Abbey of Huázhōu. He took the gǔwén Xiàojīng and divided it into “1 jīng chapter and 14 zhuàn chapters,” excising 223 characters of the old text. He appended an autograph note: “I, Xī, formerly read in the Lúnyǔ shuō of Hú [Hóng] of Héngyáng, shìláng of the Ministry of Rites” (note: Hú Hóng 胡宏 was shìláng of the Ministry of Rites under Gāozōng and lived in Héngzhōu, hence “Héngshān”; he is the author of the Wǔfēng Lúnyǔ zhǐnán in 1 juàn) “his suspicion that the Xiàojīng’s citation of the Shī was not part of the original text. At first I was startled, but having reflected slowly upon it I came to perceive Master Hú’s words to be reliable, and to see that the Xiàojīng’s suspicious points are not confined to this. I therefore put the question to my elder Mr. Chéng Kějiǔ of Shāsuí” (note: Kějiǔ is the zì of Chéng Jiǒng 程迥), “and Chéng wrote back: ‘Lately I saw Wāng Duānmíng of Wāngshān’” (note: Wāng Yīngchén 汪應辰, Duānmíng diàn xuéshì under Xiàozōng) “‘who likewise believed this work to be largely the appendings of later hands.’ I thus knew that the keen-eyed reading of our forebears had already grasped this matter, and was lucky to have something on which to base my discussion, escaping the charge of arbitrary, baseless invention.”

Cross-checking with Zhū’s Yǔlù 語錄: Huáng Yī 黄㽦’s record gives “When the additions of later hands are removed from the Xiàojīng, the front-end zǐ yuē and the back-end citation of the Shī are seen to be a unit”; and again, “The phrase shùn zé yì mín wú zé yān 順則逆民無則焉 is the language of Jì Wénzǐ 季文子; the passage yán sī kě dào, xíng sī kě lè 言斯可道行斯可樂 is from Běigōng Wénzǐ’s 北宫文子 discussion of the dignified bearing of the [Chǔ] Lìngyǐn 令尹 — both have their independent context in the Zuǒzhuàn; importing them into the Xiàojīng makes them entirely disconnected.” Yè Hèsūn 葉賀孫’s record: “The gǔwén Xiàojīng has passages where the order is less natural than the jīnwén; for example, fùmǔ shēng zhī, xù mò dà yān 父母生之，續莫大焉 should be followed without break by bù ài qí qīn ér ài tā rén zhě, wèi zhī bèi dé 不愛其親而愛他人者，謂之悖德 — to insert another zǐ yuē and break this into two passages may not be right.” Fǔ Guǎng’s 輔廣 record: “Xiào mò dà yú yán fù, yán fù mò dà yú pèi tiān 孝莫大于嚴父，嚴父莫大于配天 — does this not violate principle? On this view, only a King Wǔ or a Duke of Zhōu could fulfil filial piety, while ordinary people would have no part in it; would this not give rise to thoughts of usurpation and disorder?”

Thus Master Zhū’s criticism of this work was no sudden matter — but, not wishing to take upon himself the office of correcting a classic, he placed the responsibility on Hú Hóng and Wāng Yīngchén. Ōuyáng Xiū’s Shī běnyì notes: “By ‘editing the Shī’ (shān shī 刪詩) is meant not only the wholesale removal of poems; it may also mean the removal of zhāng 章 from a poem, of jù 句 from a zhāng, or of zì 字 from a jù — citing the Tángdì 唐棣, the Jūnzǐ xiélǎo 君子偕老, and the Jiénánshān 節南山 as evidence.” Master Zhū appears to follow this precedent silently. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records this work and notes: “To take up an inherited classic across a thousand years and possess the firm clear-sightedness to perceive what is doubtful and resolve confusion — what but the heroic and self-reliant scholar could equal this? Later students dare not imitate it, nor even dare discuss it.” This judgment is fitting. From the Southern Sòng onward, most commentators have followed this base; we have therefore specifically recorded it here, that the sources from which the various Confucians draw and the lines along which the schools divide might be made clear. Submitted respectfully on the imperial command, tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). General editor: (your servant) Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The Xiàojīng kānwù is the most consequential single intervention in the Xiàojīng tradition after the Táng imperial commentary. Zhū Xī takes the 22-chapter gǔwén recension as base, identifies what he regards as evidently spurious passages — including the citations of the Shī 詩 (which he thought were drawn into the Xiàojīng from elsewhere), the passages from the Zuǒzhuàn (Jì Wénzǐ, Běigōng Wénzǐ), and the chapter on Heaven-and-king ritual continuity (pèi tiān 配天) which he condemned as raising the spectre of usurpation — and excises them. He restructures the remaining text as a single canonical jīng chapter (the dialogue of Confucius and Zēngzǐ on filial piety as the root of moral order) and 14 zhuàn chapters (subsidiary expositions). 223 characters of the gǔwén base are removed.

The polemical force of the work was profound. As Dazai Shundai (see KR1f0003) complained in 1731, after Zhū’s Kānwù the orthodox Daoxue tradition increasingly stopped reading the Xiàojīng at all, holding that with Zhū’s emendations exposed, the surviving text could not be safely read as scripture. Most southern Sòng and Yuán commentators followed Zhū’s restructured recension; Dǒng Dǐng’s Xiàojīng dàyì (see KR1f0007) and Wú Chéng’s Xiàojīng dìngběn (see KR1f0008) are both efforts to give Zhū’s Kānwù the dignity of a fully-worked-out commentary. Huáng Dàozhōu’s Xiàojīng jízhuàn (see KR1f0010) at the end of the Míng restored the unedited recension; Máo Qílíng’s Xiàojīng wèn (see KR1f0013) in the Qīng made open polemic against the Zhū tradition.

The work’s autograph note presents Zhū Xī as merely confirming an earlier diagnosis by Hú Hóng 胡宏, Chéng Jiǒng 程迥, and Wāng Yīngchén 汪應辰; the Sìkù editors (Jì Yún) deftly observe that the Yǔlù shows Zhū had been criticizing the Xiàojīng on his own initiative for some years and was using these earlier authorities for cover. The Sìkù editors are also careful to note that, while the work originated and remained controversial, “from the Southern Sòng onward most commentators have followed this base” — i.e. the Kānwù effectively became the de facto recension of the post-Sòng Xiàojīng tradition.

Translations and research

  • See KR1f0001 for general Xiàojīng translations and research.
  • 陳鐵凡 Xiàojīng xuéshǐ 孝經學史. Taipei: Guólì biānyìguǎn, 1986. The standard treatment of Zhū Xī’s reception of the Xiàojīng.
  • Wm. Theodore de Bary, Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. Contextualizes Zhū’s editorial freedom with the canon.
  • Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1992.
  • 林秀一 (Hayashi Hideichi), Kōkyō 孝經. Tokyo: Meitoku, 1976. Discusses Zhū Xī’s emendations in relation to the gǔwén tradition.
  • 束景南 Zhū Zǐ dà zhuàn 朱子大傳. Hángzhōu: Fújiàn jiàoyù, 1992. The standard biography; treats the Kānwù in chronological context.

Other points of interest

The Kānwù is the only major case in which Zhū Xī directly excised characters from a jīng — comparable to his rearrangement of the Dàxué 大學 but going further in actual textual deletion. The Sìkù editors’ carefully balanced judgment — “later students dare not imitate it, nor even dare discuss it” (quoting Chén Zhènsūn) — registers both the work’s authority and the discomfort it created within evidential scholarship. The Kānwù recension of the Xiàojīng is also the form in which Korean and Japanese Confucian scholars largely received the work in the YuánMíng period.

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