聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

經咫

4 min read

Text ID
KR1g0029
Date
1720–1753
Dynasty
清

Jīng zhǐ 經咫

Eight-Inches of the Classics by 陳祖范 (撰)

About the work

A 1-juàn compendium of classical exegesis by Chén Zǔfàn (Yìhán / Jiànfù) of Chángshú. Title from the Guóyǔ Jìn yǔ: “Wéngōng’s eight-inch hearing” (Wén gōng zhǐ wén 文公咫聞) — a self-deprecating figure for a small or partial knowledge. The work covers cruxes across nine classical books — Yì (7 items), Shū (12), Shī (7), Chūnqiū (13), Lǐ (6), Lúnyǔ (13), Zhōngyōng (2), Mèngzǐ (10) — plus 8 miscellaneous zá wén on ritual and ethics appended after the Lǐ portion. The work is short but its readings are characteristically temperate and well-grounded; the Sìkù compilers’ verdict places it among the more reliable Yōngzhèng/early-Qiánlóng classical compendia.

Tiyao

Your servants having respectfully examined: the Jīng zhǐ in 1 juàn was composed by Chén Zǔfàn of our reigning dynasty. Zǔfàn’s style names were Yìhán and Jiànfù; he was a man of Chángshú. Jǔrén of Yōngzhèng guǐmǎo (1723), he died before reaching the diàn shì. In Qiánlóng xīnwèi (1751), nominated for Bóxué hóngcí, he was specially granted the honorary title of Director of Imperial Academy Studies.

This book is his classical-explication writings, named Jīng zhǐ using the Guóyǔ’s Wén gōng zhǐ wén (Wéngōng’s eight-inch hearing) phrase. When Zǔfàn was nominated, he had already submitted excerpts for yù lǎn (imperial inspection); this is what his disciple Guī Xuānguāng and others have cut. Total: Yì 7 entries, Shū 12, Shī 7, Chūnqiū 13, Lǐ 6, Lúnyǔ 13, Zhōngyōng 2, Mèngzǐ 10, plus 8 zá wén (miscellaneous essays) bearing on ritual and ethics, appended after the Lǐ portion.

His readings: on the Shū, he rejects Méi Zé’s gǔwén Shàngshū; on the Shī, he does not abandon the Xiǎo xù; on the Chūnqiū, he does not adopt the yì lì (canonical-rule) reading; on the Lǐ, he does not let ancient institutional rigidity violate human feeling — all temperate views, and what may be called the upright and sound classical exegesis of recent times. Respectfully collated and submitted in the eleventh 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 Jīng zhǐ is a short but useful compendium of mid-Yōngzhèng/early-Qiánlóng moderate classical exegesis. Three points of distinction:

(1) The four position-statements. The Sìkù tíyào identifies Chén’s defining doctrinal positions: (i) on Shū, rejecting Méi Zé’s gǔwén (the same anti-forgery position as Yán Ruòqú’s Shūyí, but more cautiously expressed); (ii) on Shī, retaining the Xiǎo xù (a moderate position between the Sòng-school deletion of the Xiǎo xù and the Hàn-school veneration); (iii) on Chūnqiū, declining to systematize via the yì lì; (iv) on Lǐ, declining to let ancient institutional rigidity override human feeling. All four are temperate scholarly positions characteristic of the early-eighteenth-century mainstream.

(2) The Sìkù verdict. The Sìkù compilers’ assessment — jìn shí shuō jīng zhī chún shí zhě yě 近時說經之醇實者也 (“the upright and sound classical exegesis of recent times”) — places Chén among the most respected scholarly voices of his generation. The work’s brevity (1 juàn) is in the Sìkù compilers’ eyes a mark of restraint, not of inadequacy.

(3) The dating. The compositional bracket runs from Chén’s mature scholarly career (post-1720) through his death (1753). The work was excerpted for imperial inspection during his 1751 Bóxué hóngcí nomination; it was cut posthumously by his disciples.

Translations and research

  • Cháng-shú xiàn zhì 常熟縣志 — local gazetteer with a substantial biographical entry on Chén Zǔfàn.
  • Hummel, Arthur W., ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period. Library of Congress, 1943; repr. SMC, 1991. Entry on Chén Zǔfàn.
  • Elman, Benjamin A. From Philosophy to Philology. HUP, 1984; rev. UCLA 2001. Pages on the early-eighteenth-century moderate classical scholarship.

Other points of interest

Chén’s writing voice — temperate, well-grounded, reluctant to overreach — is exemplary for the early-eighteenth-century classical scholarly mainstream. The work is short enough to read end-to-end in an afternoon and provides a useful index of the doctrinal positions a respected Sūzhōu-area scholar of his generation could comfortably hold.

Graph View

Backlinks