Sìshū tōng 四書通
Penetrating Discussions of the Four Books
胡炳文 (Hú Bǐngwén, zì Zhònghǔ, hào Yúnfēng, 1250–1333)
About the work
A 28-juàn sub-commentary on Zhū Xī’s Sìshū jízhù: Dàxué tōng 1 juàn, Zhōngyōng tōng 3 juàn, Lúnyǔ tōng 10 juàn, Mèngzǐ tōng 14 juàn. Hú Bǐngwén’s project is to scrutinise Zhào Shùnsūn’s Sìshū zuǎnshū (KR1h0028) and Wú Zhēnzǐ’s 吳真子 Sìshū jíchéng (no longer extant) — both of which had drawn on ZhūXī school discussions but, in Hú Bǐngwén’s view, also preserved arguments that conflict with Zhū Xī himself. He cuts these out, retaining only those that support orthodox Cheng-Zhu doctrine, and adds his own remarks to fill the gaps.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Dàxué tōng 1 juàn, Zhōngyōng tōng 3 juàn, Lúnyǔ tōng 10 juàn, Mèngzǐ tōng 14 juàn — by Hú Bǐngwén of the Yuán. Bǐngwén has the Zhōuyì běnyì tōngshì (KR1a0…) already catalogued. This work, on the ground that Zhào Shùnsūn’s Sìshū zuǎnshū and Wú Zhēnzǐ’s Sìshū jíchéng both expound Zhūzǐ’s surviving lineage but still contain arguments contrary to Zhūzǐ, again pares them down and supplements them with his own argument to make the present book.
Pre-Zhū-zǐ arguments — for Bǐngwén suspect of supplementing Zhū’s gaps — he rejects without recording. Hence what he takes from the zuǎnshū and jíchéng is only 14 schools; outside these two books, he adds 45 more. All of these strictly observe Kǎotíng [Zhū Xī’s] learning. Generally on the jīng text of the Sìshū he has nothing to say; only by whether or not it agrees with the gloss-meaning does he settle right and wrong. Even though he holds his factional ground and cannot avoid being one-house-supporting, his fánlì (general regulations): on the Yán Yuān hàoxué chapter, the one-character slip āilè 哀樂 → āijù 哀懼 — he carefully examines and clarifies; on the Wéi zhèng yǐ dé chapter, the early text reads “xíngdào ér yǒu dé yú shēn” (practising the Way and obtaining it in the body); the Zhù Zhū 祝洙 text reads “xíngdào ér yǒu dé yú xīn” (in the heart); the revised text reads “dé yú xīn ér bù shī” (obtained in the heart and not lost). The cutting-block sequence too he carefully verifies.
The diligence and care expended on his single house’s learning is real. The Zhāngjù jízhù cites 54 schools; today many cannot be confidently traced; Cài Mó’s jíshū (KR1h0025) sometimes notes them but not always in detail; this book records each name down — a real aid to verification. Yet, e.g., the Yǒu fùrén yān (10.20) reading as Yì Jiāng 邑姜, citing “Liú Shìdú”, is from Liú Chàng’s 劉敞 Qījīng xiǎozhuàn 七經小傳; Bǐngwén alone misses this attribution. Liú Chàng was a Northern Sòng man who closed his door and pressed the Classics — he did not enter the YīLuò lineage, so the Lǐxué houses no longer mention him. Hence even though Zhūzǐ cites him, Bǐngwén did not know who he was. This is also one indication of “gè zūn suǒ wén 各尊所聞” — each respects what they themselves have heard. — Respectfully revised, tenth month of the 46th year of Qiánlóng [1781].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Sìshū tōng is the most rigid and orthodox of the early-Yuán Sìshū sub-commentaries. Hú Bǐngwén — the leading representative of the Yún-fēng-school of Cheng-Zhu Lǐxué — explicitly trims out non-Zhū-Xī material from his predecessors (Zhào Shùnsūn’s Zuǎnshū and Wú Zhēnzǐ’s Jíchéng) and adds 45 strictly orthodox ZhūXī school voices to fill the gaps. The Sìkù verdict is sharply two-sided: yes, Hú Bǐngwén’s philological labour on ZhūXī text-state and citation is a real aid to verification; but his factional rigidity blinds him to important pre-Zhū-Xī source material (Liú Chàng of Northern Sòng — author of Qījīng xiǎozhuàn — being the diagnostic case).
The Sìkù editors’ critique is methodologically sharper than usual: they single out Hú Bǐngwén’s cízhù 詞主-style approach — judging right and wrong solely by agreement with Zhū Xī — as the wrong way to read the jīng. This is part of the Qiánlóng Hànxué’s critique of YuánMíng Lǐxué rigid-orthodoxy, applied directly to the foundational document of that orthodoxy.
The work was widely cited and used through the Yuán and early Míng; Hú Bǐngwén’s name is inscribed in the Sìshū dàquán (KR1h0043) and most subsequent orthodox compendia.
Translations and research
No English translation. Modern Chinese: 點校本 in Yuán-rén Sì-shū wén-xiàn jí-chéng (Hé-nán-rén-mín 2005). Studies: Cài Fāng-lù 蔡方鹿, Sòng-Yuán Sì-shū xué shǐ; Hoyt Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (UHP, 1992). 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 careful documentation of Zhù Zhū’s 祝洙 textual-state revisions of Zhū Xī’s commentary — and Hú Bǐngwén’s recording of the cutting-block transmission sequence — make it a significant primary source for the textual history of Zhū Xī’s Sìshū jízhù itself. Even where the Sìkù editors find him too rigid in his orthodoxy, they acknowledge his philological care.
Links
- Yuánshǐ 189 (Hú Bǐngwén biography).
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.7.3.
- 全國漢籍データベース 四庫提要