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御定孝經注

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Text ID
KR1f0011
Date
1656–1656
Dynasty
清

Yùdìng Xiàojīng zhù 御定孝經注

Imperially Determined Commentary on the Classic of Filial Piety

by 世祖 (御定, 1638–1661) and 蔣赫德 (纂, 1615–1670)

About the work

The Shùnzhì 順治 emperor’s imperial commentary on the Xiàojīng, in 1 juàn, presented in 1656 (Shùnzhì 13, bǐngshēn 丙申). The work was compiled (zuǎn 纂) by the Grand Secretary Jiǎng Hèdé 蔣赫德 (1615–1670) on the emperor’s commission. It uses the Shítái 石臺 (Táng Xuánzōng jīnwén) base text — explicitly avoiding both the Kǒng Ānguó-attributed gǔwén tradition and Zhū Xī’s restructured Kānwù recension — in order, the Tíyào says, “to extinguish the jīnwén / gǔwén schools’ dispute” and “to head off the inclination toward editing canonical texts.” It is the first of the two Qīng-dynasty imperial Xiàojīng commentaries (the other is the Yōngzhèng-period Yùzuǎn Xiàojīng jízhù in KR1f0012) and was the standard Qīng imperial recension until the 1727 revision.

Tiyao

We have respectfully examined the Xiàojīng zhù in one juàn. In Shùnzhì 13 (1656), the Grand Secretary Jiǎng Hèdé respectfully compiled this work, with the imperial preface placed at the head. The Xiàojīng’s diction is plain and its meaning far-reaching; from “the Son of Heaven” downward to “the commoner,” it is extended; from “the inner chamber” outward, it can be released to the four seas; concentrated and applied, even foolish men and foolish women may communicate with the spiritual; therefore, when discussing its plain side, it can be known and acted on by anyone, and when discussing its subtle side, even sages have to ponder its exposition. The yùdìng zhù runs to over ten thousand characters. It uses the Shítái base [Táng Xuánzōng jīnwén] — not the Kǒng Ānguó base — to put an end to the jīnwén / gǔwén school dispute. It also does not use Master Zhū’s Kānwù recension — to head off the inclination toward editing the canon. The meaning is bound to be refined and pure, and the diction has no recondite hiding-places: the goal is that “every household may understand it.” Surveying the imperial commentaries on this canon historically: Jìn Yuándì 晉元帝 had a Xiàojīng zhuàn, Jìn Xiàowǔdì 晉孝武帝 had a Zǒngmíngguǎn Xiàojīng jiǎngyì, Liáng Wǔdì had a Xiàojīng yìshū — none of these survives. Only Táng Xuánzōng’s imperial commentary, included in the Shísān jīng zhùshū, has been transmitted in the world. From Sīmǎ Guāng and Fàn Zǔyǔ on, none has been able to escape its frame. Now, with this present imperial composition publishing the Xiàojīng in glory, no point of the legacy of Confucius and Zēngzǐ remains unilluminated, no man fails to understand it: looking back at Xuánzōng’s commentary and gauging this against it, the latter exceeds the former not just by some degree but ten-thousand-fold. Submitted respectfully on the imperial command, eighth 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 Shùnzhì emperor’s imperial preface (Yùzhì Xiàojīng xù 御製孝經序), dated zhòngchūn wàngrì 仲春朢日 (full moon of the second month, i.e. roughly mid-March) 1656, is the principal document. The emperor frames the work as a deliberate response to the failures of post-Sòng Xiàojīng commentary. He acknowledges the achievement of the Táng Kāiyuán commentary by Xuánzōng but criticizes its incompleteness; he singles out Xíng Bǐng (see KR1f0004) and Wú Chéng (see KR1f0008) for praise of their innovations but blames them for incomplete success; he is harshest on the late-Míng Xiàojīng literature, which “either gleans the dregs of earlier worthies and perfumes their poverty” or “picks at the inadvertences of older scholars and falls into reckless censure.” His own method is “to gather the commentaries of past and present, weigh and decide among them; whatever hits the mark and reaches the joints, take in; whatever indulges willful invention or arbitrary opinion, cut out.”

The Tíyào praises the work effusively — even claiming it surpasses Xuánzōng’s commentary “ten-thousand-fold” — and notes its political function in mediating sectarian disputes: it deliberately avoids both the jīnwén / gǔwén dispute (by adopting the established Táng Shítái text) and the post-Zhū editing tradition (by refusing to delete characters from the canon). The work is therefore a product of high Qīng synthesizing imperial Confucianism in the years before the kǎozhèng revival. Jiǎng Hèdé, who actually drafted the commentary on the emperor’s instructions, was a Han-banner Grand Secretary of the early Qīng who had served as a key cultural broker between the Manchu court and Han literati during the dynastic transition.

This is the first of the two great Qīng imperial Xiàojīng commentaries; it was effectively superseded for ceremonial purposes by Yōngzhèng’s Yùzuǎn Xiàojīng jízhù of 1727 (KR1f0012), but Shùnzhì’s recension remained the more widely circulated text in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Translations and research

  • See KR1f0001 for general Xiàojīng translations and research.
  • 陳鐵凡 Xiàojīng xuéshǐ 孝經學史. Taipei: Guólì biānyìguǎn, 1986. Treats the early-Qīng imperial commentary tradition.
  • Pamela Kyle Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology. Berkeley: UCP, 1999. Contextualizes early-Qīng imperial uses of the Confucian classics in the dynastic-legitimation project.
  • 黃進興 (Huáng Jìnxīng), Yōurù shèng yù: Quánlì, xìnyǎng yǔ zhèngdàng xìng 優入聖域：權力、信仰與正當性. Taipei: Yùnchén, 1994. Treats Qīng imperial Confucian patronage in detail.

Other points of interest

The Shùnzhì Xiàojīng zhù is unusual in the Sìkù in that the Tíyào explicitly hails it as superior to the Táng imperial commentary — language that, given the Sìkù’s general restraint, signals the Qīng court’s deliberate placement of its own dynasty within a continuous imperial annotation tradition (Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §65451 notes that “the first and third Qīng emperors continued a long tradition of emperors annotating the Xiàojīng”). Wilkinson observes that Shùnzhì also annotated the Dàodé jīng, joining Táng Xuánzōng, Sòng Huīzōng, and Míng Tàizǔ as the only emperors to do so.

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