Sìshū jīngyí guàntōng 四書經疑貫通
A Penetrating Synthesis of the Four-Book Examination-Doubts
王充耘 (Wáng Chōngyún, zì Gēngyě / Yǔgēng, b. 1304)
About the work
An 8-juàn exam-preparation companion to the Yán-yòu-reform Sìshū jīngyí 經疑 examination format — the parallel work to Yuán Jùnwēng’s Sìshū yíjié (KR1h0036) but more methodically organised. The work cross-references Sìshū passages with apparent or substantive relationships and supplies model analytical answers. Composed in 1333 (the year Wáng Chōngyún took the jìnshì third place — “tànhuā”). The WYG copy descends through Fàn Qīn’s 范欽 Tiānyī gé 天一閣 manuscript line; complete in head and tail except for a missing folio each in juan 2 and juan 8.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Sìshū jīngyí guàntōng in 8 juàn — by Wáng Chōngyún 王充耘 of the Yuán. Chōngyún has the Dúshū guǎnjiàn 讀書管見, already catalogued. Huáng Yújì 黃虞稷 says the book has perished. The present text is from Fàn Qīn 范欽’s Tiānyī gé old transcription — head and tail still complete, missing only one folio in juàn 2 and one folio in juàn 8, with no source from which to verify-and-supplement; it is again a jǐncún preserve.
The book uses the Sìshū divergences-and-similarities, mutually paired, with each setting up a question-and-answer to make plain. After the Yányòu period (1313+), in addition to the regular jīngyì (examination Classic-meaning) section, there was the jīngyí (examination Classic-doubt) section. Together with Yuán Fùwēng [Jùnwēng]‘s book (KR1h0036), these are exam-format texts.
The questions discriminate seeming-similars and seeming-differents, and have substantial fāmíng (illumination); they are not — like jīngyì (essay-on-meaning) — tracing-out from the topic statement, suitable for surface-level performance. Hence throughout the Yuán scholars did serious yánjīng (research-of-the-Classic) work.
In the early Míng, year 3 of Hóngwǔ (1370), the examination system was first instituted; the Sìshū yíwèn 四書疑問 set “Dàxué: gǔ zhī yù míng míngdé yú tiānxiàzhě 古之欲明明德於天下者” (the opening of the Dàxué) two phrases together with Mèngzǐ: dào zài ěr ér qiú zhū yuǎn 道在邇而求諸遠 (4A.11) one phrase, combined as one question on whether the two books’ “píng tiānxià” doctrines align (note: this question is in Gù Yánwǔ 顧炎武’s Rìzhīlù 日知錄). This still followed the Yuán format. By Hóngwǔ 17 (1384) the format was revised, and the jīngyí method was thereafter abolished. The recording of these two books (this and Yuán Jùnwēng’s) lets us still see the Sòng-Yuán-down Míngjīng (Classic-mastery) examination’s old institutional form. — Respectfully revised, third month of the 43rd year of Qiánlóng [1778].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Sìshū jīngyí guàntōng is the second of the two principal surviving witnesses (with KR1h0036) to the Yán-yòu-reform Sìshū jīngyí examination genre. Its dating is unusually firm: the yuánshǐ / family-record date is 1333, the year Wáng Chōngyún took the jìnshì third place. The work was clearly cut for print in 1333 or shortly after.
The Sìkù editors’ assessment is highly favourable: they value the work as evidence of substantive yánjīng (Classic-research) work in the Yuán, in contrast to the Míng-period bāgǔ wén that they regard as decadent. Their preservation of this work, and the parallel KR1h0036, is therefore part of their broader project of recovering pre-Míng Lǐxué substance.
The historical-critical detail — that the Hóngwǔ 1370 first examination still used the Yuán jīngyí format, but the 1384 revision abolished it — is corroborated by Gù Yánwǔ’s Rìzhīlù. The two surviving Sìshū jīngyí model-answer collections are therefore historically precious.
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: Benjamin Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (UCalP, 2000), pp. 30–50 on the jīng-yí format; Cài Fāng-lù 蔡方鹿, Sòng-Yuán Sì-shū xué shǐ; Gù Yán-wǔ, Rì-zhī-lù on the Hóngwǔ examination format.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the very few texts whose dating to the year of the author’s jìnshì is securely attested by external biographical record — making it a precious chronological anchor for the late-Yuán Lǐxué commentary tradition.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.4.4.
- Benjamin Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations (UCalP, 2000).
- 全國漢籍データベース 四庫提要