Wǔjīng ránfǒu lùn 五經然否論
Discourse on the Yeas and Nays of the Five Classics by 譙周 (撰), reconstructed by 馬國翰 (輯)
About the work
A jíyì reconstruction of the lost ritual-debate treatise of the ShǔHàn 蜀漢 classicist Qiáo Zhōu 譙周 (201–270). The Wǔjīng ránfǒu lùn — literally “Discourse on the so and the not so of the Five Classics” — was a ritual-juristic compendium adjudicating disputed points on capping, marriage, mourning, sacrificial-altar geography, and other ritual conundrums, drawing on both jīnwén and gǔwén glosses and frequently coming down on the gǔwén side. The Suíshū jīngjízhì (j. 32, 經部·五經總義類) records the work as 5 juàn; the Jiùtángshū jīngjízhì and Xīn Tángshū yìwénzhì retain entries; the work is wholly lost by the Sòng. The surviving fragments are drawn principally from 杜佑’s Tōngdiǎn 通典 (juan 48, 49, 52, 56, 67, 81, 83–101 passim) plus Hòu Hànshū lǐyí zhì 後漢書·禮儀志 Liú Zhāo 劉昭’s commentary, Fàn Níng’s Gǔliáng jíjiě, and Kǒng Yǐngdá’s Máo shī zhèngyì and Zuǒ zhuàn zhèngyì. The compilation as transmitted in this KR1g volume includes both fragments explicitly labelled 《五經然否論》 in their citations and further Qiáo-Zhōu ritual fragments cited from associated works — 《禮祭集志》, 《禮志》, 《縗服圖》, and 《集圖》 — that Mǎ Guóhàn appended at the end. The compiler’s own 案 note at the mid-point of the file (“此上諸所引並明標《五經然否論》”) marks the boundary explicitly: the passages above are 然否論; those below are other Qiáo-Zhōu ritual fragments grouped with them.
Tiyao
No tiyao in source (post-WYG fragment collection).
Abstract
The Wǔjīng ránfǒu lùn was Qiáo Zhōu’s principal exegetical work on the Five Classics, written during his career under the late Shǔ regime (probably ca. 240s–263). The Suíshū jīngjízhì records it as 五卷, attributed to “蜀 譙周” (the Suí compilers explicitly mark the dynasty as Shǔ, not Wèi or Jìn); the Jiùtángzhì and Xīn Tángzhì preserve the entry; thereafter the work disappears. Three thematic clusters emerge from the surviving fragments:
(1) Coming-of-age and marriage. Qiáo argues, against the standard Lǐjì reading, that guàn 冠 (capping) and jià-qǔ 嫁娶 (marriage) follow a flexible “open-ended bracket” rather than a fixed age — men aged 20–30, women 15–20 — rejecting both the fixed-spring interpretation (王肅) and the rigid age-12-and-15 reading. His evidence is the case of Chéng-wáng 成王, whom Zhōu Gōng capped at fifteen (Jīn téng 金縢 chapter), and the case of Shùn married at thirty (Shū “Yáo diǎn”). The Tōngdiǎn j. 56 and Fàn Níng’s Gǔliáng jíjiě preserve these arguments.
(2) Imperial ritual. Qiáo argues that the Three Old Men (sānlǎo 三老) do not return the imperial bow (against an earlier Hàn proposal), preserving the principle “the Son of Heaven does not return a son’s bow”. Tōngdiǎn j. 67 preserves this.
(3) Mourning-grade casuistry. The largest block: scores of fine-grained rulings on garment grades for various ritual relationships — for the lord, for one’s father’s elder brother, for the wife’s parents, for the remarried mother, for the shù-son’s son, for the deceased’s shī (corpse-impersonator), etc. The compiler organizes these by Tōngdiǎn juan number (88–101), reflecting the order in which Dù Yòu cited Qiáo.
The associated works — 《禮祭集志》 (Compendium of Sacrificial Records), 《禮志》 (Ritual Records), 《縗服圖》 (Chart of Mourning Garments), 《集圖》 (Compendium of Charts) — are otherwise lost; only one or two fragments each are preserved in Tōngdiǎn. Their inclusion here reflects Mǎ Guóhàn’s editorial decision to gather Qiáo’s ritual oeuvre as a single textual body. The Wǔjīng ránfǒu lùn anchors the volume because it is the only Qiáo title securely retained in the Suí–Táng bibliographic record.
On Qiáo Zhōu’s dates: the project standard (following Wilkinson and Farmer 2007) is 201–270 CE; some Chinese reference works give 199–270, but the Sānguó zhì notice supports 201. See 譙周.
The Kanripo corpus also contains Qiáo Zhōu’s pseudonymous Qiáozǐ fǎxùn 譙子法訓 (KR3a0123) and his historical Gǔshǐ kǎo 古史考, surviving only in jíyì form (not in Kanripo as a separate work).
Translations and research
- Farmer, Michael J. The Talent of Shu: Qiao Zhou and the Intellectual World of Early Medieval Sichuan. SUNY Press, 2007. The standard English-language monograph; treats the Wǔjīng ránfǒu lùn together with Qiáo’s other works as evidence for the intellectual life of mid-3rd-century Sìchuān.
- 嚴可均 《全上古三代秦漢三國六朝文·全三國文》卷七十一 collects Qiáo Zhōu’s prose, including parallel passages to those in Mǎ Guóhàn’s compilation.
- 馬國翰 《玉函山房輯佚書》, 經編·五經總義類, “五經然否論” 一卷.