Sìshū zuǎnshū 四書纂疏
Compiled Sub-commentary on the Four Books
趙順孫 (Zhào Shùnsūn, zì Géān, 1215–1277)
About the work
A 28-juàn sub-commentary on Zhū Xī’s Sìshū jízhù, gathering the supplementary discussions of thirteen named ZhūXī disciples and second-generation transmitters and arranging them by Sìshū passage. The work is the late-Sòng counterpart to Yuán-period jíshì 集釋 / zuǎnshū 纂疏 compilations, and one of the principal Sìshū sub-commentaries of the post-Sòng era.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Sìshū zuǎnshū in 28 juàn — by Zhào Shùnsūn 趙順孫 of the Sòng. Shùnsūn, zì Géān 格菴, native of Kuòcāng 括蒼. His father [Zhào] Léi had served as a disciple of Téng Lín 滕璘, a disciple of Zhūzǐ; hence Shùnsūn’s learning is rooted in Zhūzǐ.
The book amply cites Zhūzǐ’s words to bring out the import of the zhāngjù jízhù. The cited supplementary names: Huáng Gàn 黃榦, Fǔ Guǎng 輔廣, Chén Chún 陳淳, Chén Kǒngshuò 陳孔碩, Cài Yuān 蔡淵, Cài Shěn 蔡沈, Yè Wèidào 葉味道, Hú Yǒng 胡泳, Chén Zhí 陳埴, Pān Bǐng 潘柄, Huáng Shìyì 黃士毅, Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀, Cài Mó 蔡模 — thirteen schools in all, all ZhūXī disciples or transmitters. One may say it is a faithful keeping of the master’s argument.
In old criticism it has been faulted as rǒnglàn 冗濫 (over-bulky, excessive). Yet jīngshī zhùshù 經師著述 (classical-master writings) follow different rules of style: zhù preferring concise economy, shū preferring extensive supporting citation. Shùnsūn’s book is named shū, and his own preface says “to keep up alongside the deceased masters Yǐngdá 穎達 [Kǒng Yǐngdá] and Gōngyàn 公彦 [Jiǎ Gōngyàn]” — that is, the work is consciously in shū-style. Fán (full) but not shā (cut down) is appropriate to the form. Set aside its tangled overlap and take its core zōngzhǐ of orthodoxy — that should suffice. — Respectfully revised, ninth month of the 43rd year of Qiánlóng [1778].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Sìshū zuǎnshū is the most thorough surviving compilation of post-Zhū-Xī Sìshū sub-commentary. The thirteen named contributors include all the major early-13th-century ZhūXī transmitters: Huáng Gàn (Zhū Xī’s son-in-law and chief intellectual heir); Chén Chún (the systematiser of Lǐxué terms in the Běixī zìyì 北溪字義); Cài Yuān, Cài Shěn (the Shū-jiā 蔡 family, KR1b0019 etc., here through Cài Mó’s Mèngzǐ jíshū KR1h0025); Yè Wèidào, Hú Yǒng, Chén Zhí, Pān Bǐng, Huáng Shìyì (compiler of the most authoritative version of the Yǔlèi); Zhēn Déxiù (KR1h0024); plus Fǔ Guǎng, Chén Kǒngshuò.
Through these thirteen, Zhào Shùnsūn provides a comprehensive survey of orthodox Cheng-Zhu Sìshū commentary as it stood by the mid-13th century — a useful “encyclopedia” of ZhūXī school readings before the disruptions of the SòngYuán transition. As the Sìkù tíyào notes, the absence of Zhēn Déxiù’s Sìshū jíbiān (KR1h0024) from the citation-list — though Zhēn Déxiù’s other works are cited extensively — is explained by the fact that the Jíbiān was first cut for print at the very end of the Sòng (as the Sìkù tíyào at KR1h0024 confirms), too late for Zhào Shùnsūn to have seen it.
The Sìkù editors’ defence against the charge of rǒnglàn (verbosity) is methodologically interesting: they invoke the standard pre-Sòng distinction between zhù-style brevity and shū-style fullness, and argue that zuǎnshū is a self-conscious imitation of Kǒng Yǐngdá and Jiǎ Gōngyàn — i.e. of Táng-period zhèngyì practice. By this standard, the work is doing exactly what it sets out to do.
The textual history is well-recorded; the work was first cut for print in the final years of the Sòng (per the Sìkù tíyào’s reference to Zhēn Déxiù’s Jíbiān); the WYG transmits a Yuán-period reprint.
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; Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (UHP, 1992) — broader context.
Other points of interest
The thirteen named ZhūXī school contributors in the Sìshū zuǎnshū citation list constitute the principal roll-call of the Cheng-Zhu second generation; the work is therefore an essential reference for anyone studying that generation’s individual Sìshū readings (most of which survive only fragmentarily as cited material here and in the Yǔlèi).
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.7.3.
- 全國漢籍データベース 四庫提要