Dú Sìshū cóngshuō 讀四書叢說
Cluster-Discussions on Reading the Four Books
許謙 (Xǔ Qiān, zì Yìzhī, hào Báiyún, 1270–1337)
About the work
Originally a 20-juàn Cheng-Zhu Sìshū sub-commentary by Xǔ Qiān — fourth in the Bei-shān 北山 / Wūzhōu ZhūXī orthodox lineage of Hé Jī 何基 → Wáng Bǎi 王栢 → Jīn Lǚxiáng (KR1h0029) → Xǔ Qiān. The WYG copy survives in only 4 juàn: Dàxué 1 juàn, Zhōngyōng 1 juàn (incomplete, lacking about half), Mèngzǐ 2 juàn (incomplete); the Lúnyǔ portion is wholly lost.
Tiyao
(From the Kyoto Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào.*)
We respectfully submit: Dú Sìshū cóngshuō in 4 juàn — by Xǔ Qiān 許謙 of the Yuán. Qiān has the Shījízhuàn míngwù chāo (KR1c0030?), already catalogued. The Yuánshǐ biography says: Qiān read Zhū Xī’s Sìshū zhāngjù jízhù and made cóngshuō in 20 juàn. He said to his disciples: “Learning takes the sage as its target. But one must obtain the sage’s mind, and afterwards one can study the sage’s deeds. The sage-and-worthies’ mind is laid out in the Sìshū, and the sense of the Sìshū is fully present in Zhūzǐ. But its language is concise and its sense expansive — readers, how can they easily relax in seeking it?” Huáng Jìn’s 黃溍 tomb-inscription for Qiān likewise praises this book for its restoration of yìlǐ, in service only of píngshí 平實 (plain-and-real); the juàn-count given is the same as in the biography.
The Míng Bìgé shūmù of Qián Pǔ 錢溥 still lists Sìshū cóngshuō in 4 cè. Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo takes only the listing from the Yīzhāi shūmù, and notes “wèi jiàn” (unseen) — the work has long been in the half-existing-half-vanished state. The present text contains: 1 juàn of Dàxué; 1 juàn of Zhōngyōng; 2 juàn of Mèngzǐ. The Zhōngyōng lacks half; the Lúnyǔ is wholly missing. It is not a complete book. Yet on rough estimate the surviving portion is half-or-more of the original; even with the missing parts added, the total cannot reach the original 20-juàn count — perhaps later editors had already amalgamated the contents.
The book brings out yìlǐ with words sparse and sense full; where the matter is hard to make plain, it draws diagrams. Its labour is so to leave nothing in suspension. On xùngǔ and míngwù it has done some collation, sufficient to supplement the points the Zhāngjù did not detail. Of Zhūzǐ’s school’s learning, one may say it has made some advance.
Abstract
Xǔ Qiān is the youngest of the three principal Yuán-period transmitters of the Bei-shān / Wūzhōu ZhūXī orthodox lineage — the line that is conventionally identified, in the Yuánshǐ Rúlín zhuàn, with the most disciplined preservation of Zhū Xī’s South-China teachings through the Mongol-conquest period. His Sìshū cóngshuō is, alongside Jīn Lǚxiáng’s LùnMèng jízhù kǎozhèng (KR1h0030), one of the lineage’s two principal Sìshū contributions. Where Jīn Lǚxiáng’s strength is kǎozhèng (philological-historical), Xǔ Qiān’s strength is yìlǐ (philosophical-doctrinal): the work expounds the substance of Zhū Xī’s reading with diagram-supported clarity.
The textual loss is unfortunate but typical of the post-Yuán transmission of Lǐxué sub-commentaries: the rise of new Míng-period Sìshū dàquán compendia (cf. KR1h0043) made earlier sub-commentaries less valuable as teaching tools, and many disappeared. The 4-juàn surviving WYG copy preserves enough to give a clear sense of the lineage’s method; the lost Lúnyǔ portion (about half the original work) is the most regretted absence.
The Bei-shān lineage’s place in Yuán Lǐxué: alongside Liú Yīn (KR1h0031) and Xǔ Héng (the Northern transmitter), Xǔ Qiān represents the Southern arm of the orthodox transmission. After his death the Bei-shān line continued through his pupil Jīn Yītī 金一蹄 and others, but its institutional importance declined as the Míng Sìshū dàquán came to dominate.
Translations and research
No English translation. Modern Chinese: included in 朱漢民 ed., Yuán-rén Sì-shū wén-xiàn jí-chéng (Hé-nán-rén-mín 2005). Studies: 何俊 Sòng-Yuán Lǐ-xué guǎn-kuī (Bā-Shǔ 2003); Cài Fāng-lù 蔡方鹿, Sòng-Yuán Sì-shū xué shǐ. Western: Wm. Theodore de Bary, Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart (Columbia, 1981).
Other points of interest
The work’s use of diagrams (tú 圖) to clarify the conceptual structure of Lǐxué readings is an early-Yuán innovation that would later be extensively developed in the Míng Xìnglǐ dàquán 性理大全 and Sìshū dàquán; Xǔ Qiān is one of the principal early sources of this method.
Links
- Yuánshǐ 189 (Xǔ Qiān biography in Rúlín zhuàn).
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.7.3.
- 全國漢籍データベース 四庫提要