Jīng wèn 經問

Questions on the Classics by 毛奇齡 (撰)

About the work

A 21-juàn compendium (18 juàn of Jīng wèn plus 3 juàn of Jīng wèn bǔ 經問補) of Máo Qílíng 毛奇齡 (Xīhé 西河)‘s recorded yǔlù (lecture-and-discussion) on classical interpretation, taken down by his disciples and supplemented after his death by his son Máo Yuǎnzōng 毛遠宗. Each entry is one question and one answer, modelled formally on Zhū Xī’s Huò wèn but used here for radically anti-Sòng polemical purposes. Máo’s distinctive scholarly position — a willingness to attack HànWèiSòng commentators (especially Zhèng Xuán, Dù Yù, Kǒng Yǐngdá, Jiǎ Gōngyàn) on individual readings and to defend the Hàn-school against Zhū Xī orthodoxy — is on full display.

Tiyao

Your servants having respectfully examined: the Jīng wèn in 18 juàn and the Jīng wèn bǔ in 3 juàn — the words spoken by Máo Qílíng of our reigning dynasty in expounding the Classics, recorded by his disciples in compilation. Each entry is one question and one answer, hence the title “Jīng wèn”. The latter 3 juàn are supplements compiled by his son Yuǎnzōng.

[The tíyào enumerates a long list of Máo’s distinctive readings — examples:]

That Chǔshī Shēngzǐ 褚師聲子 bù jiě wà 不解韈 (did not unfasten his stocking — an enumeration of which Lèo Xī had been guilty according to certain glosses).
That sù róng, sù yī, sù bài 肅容,肅揖,肅拜 are three distinct ritual postures (against Zhū Xī’s collapsing of them into one).
That women do not say liǎn rèn 歛袵 (against the Sòng convention).
That qǐ shǒu 稽首 and dùn shǒu 頓首 are mistakenly used as synonyms.
That Dù Yù’s annotation of qiū jiǎ 邱甲 is wrong.
That the Yílǐ derives from the two Dài’s Lǐjì, but the Lǐjì does not derive from them.
That Gān Pán 甘盤 did not “hide in the wilderness”.
That xìng 姓 is divided into shì 氏, and shì is divided into zú 族.
That taking the zì 字 (style name) for shì 氏 need not require the use of the grandfather’s name.
That brothers cannot be each other’s heirs (refuting Wāng Wǎn’s 汪琬 reading that a younger brother can succeed the elder).
That the Shǐ jì zhū hóu nián biǎo corrects errors in the Zhào shìjiā’s record of Túàn Jiǎ 屠岸賈.
That Wèi Xuāngōng 衛宣公 did not commit incest with Yíjiāng 夷姜.
That when Mèngzǐ recorded the Qí and Chǔ attack on Sòng, Sòng had not yet annihilated Téng.
That the Chūnqiū Huán gōng (chronicle) has many lacunae.
That on Gōng xíng zǐ yǒu zǐ zhī sàng 公行子有子之喪.
That on wēi zǐ wēi zhòng 微子微仲.
That Zhèng Kāngchéng wrongly annotated jiǎo shuō 剿說 as léi tóng 雷同.
That Confucius did not “hold in regency the prime minister’s office” (shè xiàng 攝相).
That Confucius’s visit to Zhōu was not in Zhāo gōng 24.
On wèi yàn nì 畏厭溺 (the canonical remarks on awe, suffocation, and drowning).
That the Lǔ gǔ and Xuē gǔ drumming traditions are not without text.
On the Méi shì’s prohibition of moving graves to be married to one who died young (qiān zàng jià shāng 遷葬嫁殤).
On Zǐwén’s three appointments and three dismissals.
On shù shēng zǎi shū 束牲載書 — all the proofs and warrants are clearly distinguished and can be called minute and exact.

The persons against whom he polemicizes elsewhere — Qián Bǐng, Càishì, etc. — are mostly suppressed by name. Those he names and attacks: Gù Yánwǔ (顧炎武), Yán Ruòqú 閻若璩 (閻若璩), Hú Wèi 胡渭 (胡渭) — all three of whom were broad and respected enough to be worth attacking — while the rest are not worth tooth-marking. His haughty disdain — it can be said is excessive.

Lǐ Gōng 李塨’s 序 (preface) cites Wāng Wǎn 汪琬, the Hangzhou jìjiǔ, as having said in a letter: “Xīhé’s discussions of the Classics are never seen to admit a defective argument. It looks as if Zhèng Kāngchéng, Dù Yù, Kǒng Yǐngdá, Jiǎ Gōngyàn — these all have their wins and their losses; but Xīhé answers each question instantly, and there is none.” Lǐ Gōng’s tribute is high indeed, but his own observation — that Máo’s argumentative talent seeks victory for the moment, refusing to weigh principle with a calm mind — can also be discerned here. We may call this pí lǐ Yángqiū 皮裏陽秋 (the inner Chūnqiū — judgement that hides under the skin).

Yet with Mǎ Róng’s and Zhèng Xuán’s broad mastery, paired with the rhetorical of Sū Qín and Zhāng Yí, Máo has indeed been able to make the senior masters and old Confucians lose colour and miss their step. He is not to be denied the title of háo jié zhī shì 豪傑之士 (a hero of the field). Respectfully collated and submitted in the seventh month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng (1780). — Editors-in-chief: your servants Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. — Chief proof-reader: your servant Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The Jīng wèn + Jīng wèn bǔ together constitute one of the most aggressively polemical Wǔ jīng compilations of the early-Qing period, and a primary source for Máo Qílíng’s distinctive scholarly persona. Three points of distinction:

(1) The polemical sweep. The work attacks essentially every major commentator (HànWèi: Zhèng Xuán, Dù Yù, Kǒng Yǐngdá, Jiǎ Gōngyàn; Sòng: Zhū Xī, Cài Shěn, the Chéng brothers; Yuán: Hú Bǐngwén; Míng: Zhū Mùzhì) on individual readings — not from a global theoretical position but from a systematic case-by-case philological challenge. The closest contemporary comparison is the kǎozhèng of Yán Ruòqú, but Máo’s polemical voice is louder and his factual basis less consistent.

(2) The named contemporary attacks. Of his contemporaries, Máo names and attacks three: Gù Yánwǔ, Yán Ruòqú, and Hú Wèi — exactly the leading lights of the early-Qing kǎozhèng movement. The Sìkù compilers’ shrewd reading is that Máo attacks only the prominent because attacking the prominent is the raison d’être — the rest are not worth bothering about.

(3) The Sìkù verdict. The Sìkù tíyào’s mixed verdict — Máo as a “hero of the field” but also as motivated by “seeking victory for the moment” — is the standard scholarly assessment, and remains so. The Jīng wèn is read for its individual sharp readings, not as a coherent classical position.

The dating bracket runs from Máo’s Bóxué hóngcí nomination (1679) through his death (1716); the Jīng wèn bǔ extends a few years past that.

Translations and research

Qing shǐ gǎo 清史稿 Rúlín zhuàn — biographical entry on Máo Qílíng.
Elman, Benjamin A. From Philosophy to Philology. HUP, 1984. Pages on Máo Qílíng as the polemical wing of early-Qing kǎo-zhèng.
Yamada Keiji 山田慶兒. Mō Kirei no shisōteki tachiba 毛奇齢の思想的立場. Tokyo, 1970s.
Hummel, Arthur W., ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period. Library of Congress, 1943; repr. SMC, 1991. Entry on Máo Qílíng.
Henderson, John B. Scripture, Canon, and Commentary: A Comparison of Confucian and Western Exegesis. Princeton UP, 1991. Pages on Máo’s anti-orthodox classical method.

Other points of interest

Máo’s son Máo Yuǎnzōng’s bǔ (3 juàn) preserves a different generation’s transcription of the master’s lectures — together they cover Máo’s classical yǔlù spanning roughly 1680–1716, four decades. The work’s preservation in Sìkù form has guaranteed its enduring availability despite the political-doctrinal hazards of Máo’s anti-Sòng position in a Qing administration that broadly upheld ChéngZhū orthodoxy.

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