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十三經注疏正字

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Text ID
KR1g0026
Date
1750–1772
Dynasty
清

Shí sān jīng zhùshū zhèng zì 十三經注疏正字

Corrected Characters of the Thirteen Classics’ Notes and Subcommentaries by 沈廷芳 (撰)

About the work

An 81-juàn mid-Qing critical-textual work by Shěn Tíngfāng (Jiāoyuán) systematically correcting the zhùshū layer of the Thirteen Classics against multiple cuts: the Míng Imperial Academy cut, the recut Imperial Academy cut, the Lù-family Min cut, and the Mao-family Jígǔgé cut, with the yīn yì / shìwén layer collated against Xú Qiánxué’s Tōngzhìtáng cut. The work covers all thirteen classical books with detailed juàn allocation: Yì (3), Shū (5), Shī (14), Zhōulǐ (10), Yílǐ (11), Lǐjì (15), Zuǒ zhuàn (10), Gōngyáng (4), Gǔliáng (2), Xiàojīng (1), Lúnyǔ (2), Mèngzǐ (1), Ěryǎ (3) — a total of 81 juàn. The work is one of the great mid-Qing achievements in classical-text criticism and the proximate ancestor of Ruǎn Yuán’s monumental Shísān jīng zhùshū jiào kān jì (1815).

Tiyao

Your servants having respectfully examined: the Shí sān jīng zhùshū zhèng zì in 81 juàn was composed by Shěn Tíngfāng of our reigning dynasty. Tíngfāng’s style name was Jiāoyuán; he was a man of Rénhé. Bóxué hóngcí nominee in bǐngchén of Qiánlóng (1736), he was appointed Hanlin Compiler and rose to Shāndōng Surveillance Commissioner.

This work collates the zhùshū of the Thirteen Classics, using the Imperial Academy cut, the recut Imperial Academy cut, the Lù-family Min cut, and the Mao-family Jígǔgé cut as cross-references; for the yīnyì / shìwén layer, it uses Xú-shi Tōngzhìtáng cut as the standard. Yì in 3 juàn, Shū in 5, Shī in 14, Zhōulǐ in 10, Yílǐ in 11, Lǐjì in 15, Zuǒ zhuàn in 10, Gōngyáng in 4, Gǔliáng in 2, Xiàojīng in 1, Lúnyǔ in 2, Mèngzǐ in 1, Ěryǎ in 3.

We examine: the zhèngyì of the various Classics — the Sòng Duāngōng, Xiánpíng, Jǐngdé eras successively re-edited and re-cut, but the cut blocks have long been buried, and scholars have no way to put things right. The Míng Wànlì and after — public and private cuts — though some are corrected against Sòng cuts, their collations differ.

Tíngfāng’s book takes each zhù and shū line and notes its errata below it, indicating which cut he is changing it against. Where the reading is undecided, he marks “疑” (doubt). Sometimes he cites another scholar’s reading and appends it. He is particularly thorough in xíngshēng (graphic-and-phonetic) liù tǐ analysis. But the zhòu 籀 (great seal) was changed to seal-script, seal-script to bāfēn, bāfēn to clerical (lì) — and in the radicals and strokes some have been retained and some altered: one cannot fix matters by Xǔ Shèn’s Shuōwén alone. Furthermore the canonical masters’ oral instruction was each according to their specialism: in the Chūnqiū, the three commentaries have different glyphs; in the Shī, the four schools have distinct characters — and jiǎ jiè (graphic loan) further disorders the picture. So “若 ruò and 书 shū” are different in different Classics; “sāng shèn 桑葚” and “sāng shèn 桑椹” — even in the Shī alone — are written in different ways from book to book; even within one Classic these are not consistent. The Zhōulǐ’s shì 簭 cannot be passed through to the Zhōu Yì’s shì 筮; the Yílǐ’s miào 庿 cannot be passed through to the Lǐjì’s miào 廟 — these are points where the various Classics do not negotiate. Zhèng Kāngchéng’s frequent invocation of “the old book”, Lù Démíng’s constant citation of “another cut” — these need no comment.

So this book’s enumerations are sometimes incomplete or sometimes too rigid; one cannot say it is faultless to the last hair. But its multi-source collation, its testing against the liù shū, its correction of the cut blocks’ miswritings, its dispelling of the canonical scholar’s doubts — the zhùshū is meritorious to the canonical text, and *this book is more meritorious still to the zhùshū. Compared with those who, with no clear xùngǔ, claim to be able to exhaust the doctrinal sense — the difference between empty talk and substantive achievement is plain. Respectfully collated and submitted in the twelfth 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 Shí sān jīng zhùshū zhèng zì is the most ambitious mid-Qing project of critical text-collation on the Thirteen Classics, the methodological ancestor of Ruǎn Yuán’s Shí sān jīng zhùshū jiào kān jì (1815) but a generation earlier and on a more compact scale. Three points of distinction:

(1) The four-source collation. Shěn’s principal innovation is the systematic four-source collation: Míng Imperial Academy original cut + Imperial Academy recut + Lù Min-cut + Mao Jígǔgé cut, with the Tōngzhìtáng Jīngdiǎn shìwén providing the yīnyì control. The 81-juàn product is structured as line-by-line zhèng wù (corrections) rather than continuous text — a working philologist’s apparatus, not a continuous reading.

(2) The methodological transparency. The fán lì (preserved in the source text) is one of the most precise statements of mid-Qing textual-critical method: he distinguishes (a) “one cut wrong” (某本誤) from “all cuts wrong” (某字誤) from “wrong, no warrant” (當某字誤) from “wrong, debatable” (疑某字誤) from “unknown” (某字疑) — five graded categories of editorial certainty. This is the methodological framework that the Qing kǎozhèng movement adopted as standard.

(3) The dating bracket and the catalog discrepancy. The catalog meta gives Shěn Tíngfāng’s birth as 1702; CBDB and the Qing prosopographies give 1711. CBDB is followed here. The work was completed during Shěn’s late career (after his Shāndōng Surveillance Commissioner tenure) — the bracket here (1750–1772) reflects the most defensible compositional window.

Translations and research

  • Qing shǐ liè zhuàn 清史列傳 — biographical entry on Shěn Tíngfāng.
  • Hummel, Arthur W., ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period. Library of Congress, 1943; repr. SMC, 1991. Entry on Shěn Tíngfāng.
  • Elman, Benjamin A. From Philosophy to Philology. HUP, 1984. Pages on the mid-Qing critical-textual project.
  • Lú Wénzhāo 盧文弨. Various critical notes that explicitly cite Shěn’s Zhèng zì.
  • Ruǎn Yuán 阮元. Shí sān jīng zhùshū jiào kān jì 十三經注疏校勘記. 1815. Cites Shěn Tíngfāng’s Zhèng zì extensively.

Other points of interest

The five-category editorial-certainty scheme Shěn articulates in the fán lì — 某本誤, 某字誤, 當某字誤, 疑某字誤, 某字疑 — is the most lucid statement of mid-Qing critical editorial protocol prior to Ruǎn Yuán. It is distinctly more precise than what Yamai Kanae had used in the Japanese Qī jīng Mèngzǐ kǎo wén (KR1g0020), and it is the framework that the later high-Qing kǎozhèng generation (Wáng Niànsūn, Duàn Yùcái, Lú Wénzhāo) standardized.

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