論語集說

Lúnyǔ jíshuō 論語集說

Collected Discussions on the Analects

蔡節 (Cài Jié, fl. 1245)

About the work

A 10-juàn anthology-commentary on the Lúnyǔ, presented to the throne in Chúnyòu 5 (1245). Methodologically distinguished by an unusually clear citation protocol (see 蔡節): each cited gloss is tagged by source, and the editor’s own remarks are clearly separated from the cited material. The Lúnyǔ jíshuō both transmits the orthodox Cheng-Zhu reading (broadly following Zhū Xī’s Jízhù) and preserves a number of independent — sometimes stranger — readings drawn from Zhèng Rǔxié 鄭汝諧 (KR1h0020), Xú Jī 徐積, Qián Shí 錢時, Zhèng Xuán 鄭玄, and others.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Lúnyǔ jíshuō in 10 juàn — by Cài Jié 蔡節, native of Yǒngjiā. Beginning and end of his career not detailed; only the jìnbiǎo 進表 of the 5th year of Chúnyòu (1245) at the head of the book gives his title-line: Cháosànláng dàfǔqīng jiān Shūmì yòu chéngzhǐ 朝散郎大府卿兼樞密右承旨. At the close there is a postface by Wénxué yuán 文學椽 Jiāng Wénlóng 姜文龍, dated Chúnyòu bǐngwǔ 丙午 (1246) — one year after the presentation.

His protocol: where one school’s gloss is used throughout, only the surname is given; where one or two schools are blended, each is named below the citation; where many schools are mixed, the surnames are listed at the close; where the editor has polished by his own intent, “běn Mǒu shì 本某氏” is the marker — all such are collectively called jí 集. Where the editor’s own remark is appended, the marker is Jié wèi 節謂. Where Jié himself glosses, the marker is shì 釋. Where mutually-illuminating arguments are added, they are interlinear notes. Where lateral expansions are added, they are written one character lower.

By this time Zhūzǐ’s argument was already in circulation, so the broad sense follows the Jízhù. Where there are occasional divergences:

• “xiánxián yì sè 賢賢易色” (1.7) — read as: “for a wise man, one changes one’s countenance and demeanour”;
• “gōng hū yìduān 攻乎異端” (2.16) — gōng read as “attack”, hài read as “again injuring my own Way” (note: this is Zhèng Rǔxié’s reading, KR1h0020);
• “zhī qí shuō zhě zhī yú tiānxià yě 知其説者之於天下也” (3.11) — read as “knowing that Lǔ usurped the Dì sacrifice, then names are rectified; names rectified, the world is not hard to govern”;
• “wú suǒ qǔ cái 無所取材” (5.7) — read as “no place to obtain raft-wood” (note: this is Zhèng Xuán’s reading);
• “bù yǒu Zhù Tuó zhī nìng 不有祝鮀之佞” three lines (6.16) — read as: “even beauty cannot avoid disaster; only the gift of speech can avoid it”;
• “bù tú wéi yuè zhī zhì yú sī yě 不圖為樂之至於斯也” (7.14) — read as: “the Sháo music was originally a court-cession piece, now it has reached the state of Qí” (note: this also Zhèng Rǔxié’s reading);
• “wǔshí yǐ xué Yì 五十以學易” (7.17) — read as “the Master at this time had not yet reached fifty, hence ‘add a few years’”;
• the Hùxiāng tóngzǐ 互鄉童子 chapter (7.29) — does not treat as cuòjiǎn 錯簡 (textual disorder);
• “bù zhì yú gǔ 不志於穀” (8.12) — read as “if after three years one cannot reach the good, what one has learned is hard to come by”;
• “méi jiē qū jìn 沒階趨進” (10.4) — jìn should be tuì (retreat);
• “suī shūshí càigēng guā jì 雖疏食菜羮瓜祭” (10.11) — guā read as the simple character, jì attached to the next phrase;
• “sān xiù ér zuò 三嗅而作” (10.27) — xiù should be tàn (sigh) — Xú Jī’s reading;
• “Rǎn Yǒu tuì cháo 冉有退朝” (13.14) — cháo read as the court of the Jìshì, not the Lǔ ducal court;
• “bù héng qí dé 不恒其德” (13.22) — separately treated as one zhāng, with “what now is called a complete man, why must it be so?” as Zǐlù’s words;
• “yǒu mǎ zhě jiè rén chéng zhī 有馬者借人乘之” (15.26) — read as “this is the historian’s quēwén 闕文” [missing-character note, not a separate doctrine];
• the Qí Jǐnggōng yǒu mǎ qiānsì 齊景公有馬千駟 chapter (16.12) — joined to the previous as one zhāng (Zhèng Rǔxié and Qián Shí 錢時 reading);
• the Tàishī Zhì shì Qí 太師摯適齊 chapter (18.9) — read as “the Lǔ ruler was steeped in female-musicians, so the music-officials scattered” — only Tàishī Zhì offers a possible reading; the rest is forced strain.

Indeed, on the Yì zhuàn and Shī zhuàn Zhūzǐ has not avoided some uneven points; but in the Lúnyǔ jízhù his life-energy is fully committed — its readings are surer than other schools’. Insistence on diverging too often lands one in unsound argument. But Cài’s divergences are no more than these listed; the rest is detailed clear-and-economical, words sparse and sense thick — beyond the reach of Hú Bǐngwén (KR1h0034) and his peers. — Respectfully revised, fourth month of the 42nd year of Qiánlóng [1777].

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

Abstract

The Lúnyǔ jíshuō is a fine specimen of the late-Southern-Sòng jíshuō-style Lúnyǔ commentary: methodical citation, careful distinction of sources, and disciplined separation of the editor’s own remarks. Its place in Lǐxué taxonomy is conservative-Cheng-Zhu, but the work transmits a strikingly large set of pre-Zhū-Xī readings — Zhèng Xuán’s, Xú Jī’s, Zhèng Rǔxié’s, Qián Shí’s — that are otherwise hard to recover. The Sìkù editors give a useful diagnostic list of the work’s most adventurous departures from Zhū Xī (some 17 passages), most of them tracking back to Zhèng Rǔxié’s Lúnyǔ yìyuán.

The dating: composition began in the early 1240s under Lǐzōng; the work was presented to the throne in 1245; published in 1246. The Sìkù WYG transmits the original cutting through YuánMíng manuscript transmission. The closing comparison with Hú Bǐngwén’s Sìshū tōng (KR1h0034) — a Yuán-period systematiser — gives the Sìkù editors’ verdict: Cài Jié’s late-Sòng work is superior in concision and substance to the later Yuán zōngzhǐtōngshì-style compilations.

Translations and research

No English translation. Modern Chinese: included in 朱漢民 ed., Sòng-dài Lǐ-xué Lúnyǔ-xué wén-xiàn jí-chéng (Hú-nán-rén-mín 2011). Studies: Cài Fāng-lù 蔡方鹿, Sòng-dài Sì-shū xué yánjiū. Western: brief notice in Daniel K. Gardner, Zhu Xi’s Reading of the Analects (Columbia, 2003).

Other points of interest

The work’s citation protocol — surname-only for single source, surname-and-name for multiple sources, jí / Jié wèi / shì for editorial register — is one of the more disciplined examples of pre-modern Chinese commentary apparatus. It was widely imitated by the Yuán Sìshū commentaries that follow it.

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.7.3.
• 全國漢籍データベース 四庫提要