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蒙齋中庸講義

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Text ID
KR1h0023
Date
1214–1240
Dynasty
宋

Méngzhāi Zhōngyōng jiǎngyì 蒙齋中庸講義

Méngzhāi’s Lectures on the Doctrine of the Mean

袁甫 (Yuán Fǔ, zì Guǎngwēi, hào Méngzhāi, 1174–1240)

About the work

A 4-juàn lecture-style commentary on the Zhōngyōng by Yuán Fǔ — a senior Southern Sòng official-scholar in the LùWángYáng 陸王楊 Xīnxué 心學 lineage. Yuán Fǔ’s father Yuán Xiè 袁爕 was a disciple of Yáng Jiǎn 楊簡, who was in turn the chief disciple of Lù Jiǔyuān 陸九淵 (1139–93); the work therefore transmits, through Yuán Fǔ’s hand, the Zhōngyōng as read in the Lù-school of Sòng Lǐxué — sharply distinct from the orthodox Cheng-Zhu reading. Recovered from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 by the Sìkù editors. The Sìkù tíyào identifies several entries that align verbatim with the parallel discussions in Lù Jiǔyuān’s Yǔlù 語錄 (Xiàngshān yǔlù 象山語錄).

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Méngzhāi Zhōngyōng jiǎngyì in 4 juàn — by Yuán Fǔ 袁甫 of the Sòng. Fǔ, zì Guǎngwēi 廣微, native of Yín 鄞 county; son of Yuán Xiè 袁爕, Bǎowéngé zhíxuéshì. Took the jìnshì 7th year of Jiādìng (1214); rose to Lìbù shìláng 兼 Guózǐ jìjiǔ and Quán bīngbù shàngshū; posthumous title Zhèngsù 正肅. Biography in Sòngshǐ. The history records that he composed a Mèngzǐ jiě 孟子解, which is no longer extant — it must have been lost. The present book is dispersed among the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn; the standard Sòngshǐzhì makes no mention of it. Only Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo records a Zhōngyōng xiángshuō 中庸詳說 in 2 juàn by Fǔ, marked “lost”; perhaps it is another title for this same book.

The book sets out the jīng text and gives a section-by-section xùnjiě 訓解, plainly transcribed from Fǔ’s lectures to his disciples. The exposition is sometimes drawn out — what cannot be said in one statement is repeated again to make it clearer. His learning came from Yáng Jiǎn 楊簡; Yáng Jiǎn’s came from Lù Jiǔyuān 陸九淵. So his arguments are largely consonant with Jiǔyuān’s. As on “yǔ dà yǔ xiǎo 語大語小” — “encompassing Heaven-and-Earth, including all things, what nothing in the world can contain — only the gentleman can contain it; and yet what does the world contain? Penetrating into the yōu 幽 of ghosts and spirits, entering into the háofā 毫髮 small, what nothing in the world can break — only the gentleman can break it; and yet what does the world break?” This is exactly Xiàngshān’s yǔlù — “Tiānxià mò néng zài, dào dà wú wài: if it could be contained, it would be limited. Tiānxià mò néng pò: a single matter, a single thing, however small, never separate from the Way.” Likewise on “zìchéng míng 自誠明” — “chéng 誠 cannot be transmitted; what can be transmitted is míng 明; míng is xìng 性; it is not outside chéng” — exactly Xiàngshān’s “chéng zé míng, míng zé chéng — there is no sequence, the principle is just so.”

The other principal arguments do not depart from this. Although he sometimes presses his point too far, drifting toward the fǎngfú wúguī 惝怳無歸 (a vague trance of nowhere-to-arrive), in the points where he speaks from his own xīndé 心得 he yet has the makings of a school. We have respectfully arranged him by Classic-passage and divided into 4 juàn — to preserve the lineage of Jīnxī 金谿 [Lù Jiǔyuān’s home town] learning. As to the points genuinely contrary to lǐ, we have inserted ànyǔ 案語 [editorial notes] in the book to correct the error, so as to forestall any drift toward “wild Chán” libertinism. — Respectfully revised, ninth month of the 46th year of Qiánlóng [1781].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

Yuán Fǔ’s Zhōngyōng jiǎngyì is the principal surviving Lù-school commentary on the Zhōngyōng. The Lù school — Lù Jiǔyuān (1139–93), Yáng Jiǎn (1141–1226), Yuán Xiè (1144–1224), and Yuán Fǔ (1174–1240) — read the Confucian Sìshū in deliberate counterpoint to Zhū Xī’s orthodox commentaries: where Zhū Xī insists on the dialectic of xìnglǐ 性理 with the world’s actual things, Lù and his lineage insist on the radical primacy of xīn 心 (mind) and the unity of chéng 誠 (sincerity) and míng 明 (illumination). The Sìkù editors quote two diagnostic Lù-school lines: the gloss on “yǔ dà yǔ xiǎo” reading the gentleman’s mind as the only thing that can contain the world (a non-subject-object reading), and the gloss on “zì chéng míng” reading chéng as inexpressible-and-only-illustrable (a non-discursive reading). Both readings are characteristic of the Lù-school’s Xīnxué programme.

The textual history is precarious: the work was lost in transmission until the Sìkùguǎn recovered it from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. The Sìkù editors took an unusual stance toward it: they preserved it (against the Cheng-Zhu orthodoxy of their own moment) “to keep alive the Jīnxī line of learning” — but they also inserted ànyǔ corrective notes wherever they thought the Lù-school reading slipped into “kuáng Chán 狂禪” (wild Chán) libertinism. The 1313 imperial elevation of Cheng-Zhu had effectively ended the institutional life of Xīnxué; the Sìkù’s rescue of this work is therefore a piece of conservative-ecumenical preservation rather than a real restoration of the Lù line.

The Sìkù editors propose — plausibly — that this work is the Zhōngyōng xiángshuō 中庸詳說 in 2 juàn listed in Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo as “lost”. The Jiǎngyì and Xiángshuō labels are interchangeable in the Lù-school commentary tradition.

Translations and research

No English translation. Modern Chinese: 點校本 in 朱漢民 ed. Sòng-dài Lǐ-xué Sì-shū wén-xiàn jí-chéng (Hú-nán-rén-mín 2011). Studies: Cài Fāng-lù 蔡方鹿, Sòng-dài Sì-shū xué yánjiū, ch. 7 on the Lù-school; Wing-tsit Chan, “Lu Hsiang-shan’s Doctrine of the Mind”, in his Chu Hsi: New Studies, app. 2; Yú Yīng-shí 余英時, Zhū Xī de lì-shǐ shì-jiè, vol. 2.

Other points of interest

This is the only complete Lù-school Zhōngyōng commentary that the Sìkù editors permitted into the jīngbù; almost all other surviving Lù-school commentaries on the Four Books were placed in the zǐbù Rújiā lèi (sub-class of the masters’ branch). The Sìkù editorial ànyǔ notes that punctuate the WYG copy are a primary illustration of how the Cheng-Zhu orthodoxy of the late-Qián-lóng court managed and contained the surviving LùWángYáng tradition.

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