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九經三傳沿革例

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Text ID
KR1g0008
Date
1219–1242
Dynasty
宋

Jiǔ jīng sān zhuàn yán’gé lì 九經三傳沿革例

General Editorial Principles for the Nine Classics and Three Commentaries [Cut at Xiāng-tāi] by 岳珂 (撰)

About the work

A 1-juàn programmatic statement of the editorial principles by which Yuè Kē 岳珂 cut the so-called Xiāngtāi 相臺 edition of the Nine Classics and Three Commentaries at his Hángzhōu villa. The substantive cuts of the canonical books themselves — once a major scholarly resource — survive only in the Wáng Bì Yìzhù re-cut, the Chūnqiū nián biǎo, and the Chūnqiū mínghào guī yī tú (the latter two prefixed to the Chūnqiū in the cut), and even those in damaged transmission. But the editorial zǒng lì 總例 of one juàn — the Yán’gé lì — survives intact and is one of the most precise and important Sòng-period statements of editorial method ever to be preserved.

Tiyao

Your servants having respectfully examined: the Kān zhèng jiǔ jīng sān zhuàn yán’gé lì in 1 juàn was composed by Yuè Kē of the Sòng. Kē’s style name was Sùzhī, sobriquet Juànwēng. He was a man of Tāngyīn, who lived at Jiāxīng. Grandson of Yuè Fēi (the Loyal-and-Martial Prince of È) and son of Yuè Lín, the Hanlin Dàizhì of the Fūwéngé. He rose to Hùbù shìláng, Huáidōng zǒnglǐng, and zhìzhì shǐ. In Sòng times the cut blocks of the Nine Classics by the Yú family of Jiàn’ān and the Yú family of Xīngguó had been considered the best; Liào Gāng 廖剛 had likewise re-edited and re-cut, and his work was considered precise. Kē in turn took Liào’s Nine Classics, added the Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng commentaries plus the Chūnqiū nián biǎo and the Chūnqiū mínghào guī yī tú, collated them at his Xiāngtāi book-school, and composed this 1-juàn general principles to record the meaning of the project.

Yú Rénzhòng’s 余仁仲 Zuǒ zhuàn zì biàn once discussed Kē’s mistakes — in citing Dù Yù’s annotation as “all in agreement with what those who today discuss the Shī say”, an inverted transcription of “all not in agreement with what those who today discuss the Shī say” — preserved in the original cut. At the present day the printed copies of the various Classics have nearly all become rare; only Wáng Bì’s Yìzhù has a recut version, but its truth has been lost; the Chūnqiū nián biǎo and Chūnqiū mínghào guī yī tú have recuts but not in their original form. Only this 1-juàn of zǒng lì is still in circulation.

Its categories are: (1) shū běn 書本 (the source exemplars); (2) zì huà 字畫 (graphic structure of characters); (3) zhù wén 註文 (the commentary text); (4) yīn shì 音釋 (sound-glosses); (5) jù dòu 句讀 (phrasing); (6) tuō jiǎn 脫簡 (lacunae in the bamboo strips); (7) kǎo yì 考異 (variant collation). All of these participate in the comparison of variant readings, with thorough textual investigation, fixing the errors and adjudicating the doubts, and giving readers a reliable basis. It is genuinely meritorious for classical learning. The discussion of zì huà in particular weighs ancient against modern usage with judicious care, and is the discussion of a learned man. Respectfully collated and submitted in the first month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng (1781). — Editors-in-chief: your servants Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. — Chief proof-reader: your servant Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The Yán’gé lì is the most lucid surviving statement of high Southern-Sòng editorial protocol. The seven lì (principles) it records — shū běn, zì huà, zhù wén, yīn shì, jù dòu, tuō jiǎn, kǎo yì — are organized as a working philologist’s checklist for the production of a jīng edition: which exemplars to use, how to handle graphic variants, how to integrate Hàn–Six Dynasties commentaries, how to record sound-glosses, how to mark phrasing, how to flag lacunae, and how to record variant collation. The categories anticipate the methodological vocabulary of Qing-period evidential scholarship and are the foundation of all subsequent informed Chinese editorial work; the Sìkù compilers themselves drew freely on the Yán’gé lì in setting the editorial protocols of the Sìkù quánshū.

The Xiāngtāi cut itself was financed from the Yuè family’s hereditary income (granted in reparations after Yuè Fēi’s 1162 posthumous rehabilitation). Yuè Kē’s editorial principles were distinctive in two respects: (1) explicit acknowledgement that the editor must declare the source-exemplars and their relations; (2) explicit handling of yīn shì — the Jīngdiǎn shìwén layer (KR1g0003) — as a distinct register from the canonical text and its annotation. The catalog meta gives Yuè Kē’s date range as “1173?–ca. 1240”; the standard scholarly bracket (followed in the 岳珂 person note) is 1183–1242, derived from the Sòng shǐ and other authorities; the date bracket here covers Yuè’s adult editorial career.

Translations and research

  • Cherniack, Susan. “Book Culture and Textual Transmission in Sung China.” HJAS 54 (1994): 5–125. The most extensive English treatment; the Yán’gé lì is a primary text for her argument.
  • Chia, Lucille. Printing for Profit: The Commercial Publishers of Jianyang, Fujian (11th–17th Centuries). HUP, 2002. Discusses Sòng editorial protocol and the Xiāng-tāi cut.
  • Liú Yùcái 劉玉才. Sòngdài jīngshū kèběn yǔ wénběn xíngtài yánjiū 宋代經書刻本與文本形態研究. Beijing UP, 2014.
  • Li Zhihong 李致忠. Sòng bǎn shū kǎo lùn 宋版書考錄. Shūmù wénxiàn, 1997.

Other points of interest

The Xiāngtāi cut’s Wáng Bì Yìzhù is one of the two surviving witnesses to the Wáng Bì 王弼 Yì in pre-shùshū arrangement; cf. KR1a0011. Yuè Kē’s editorial protocols of yīn shì and zhù wén — with their explicit recognition of register-distinct typesetting — anticipate by half a millennium the modern scholarly convention of typesetting yīnyì in a separate register from the main commentary.

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