Sìshū guǎnkuī 四書管窺
Tube-Glimpse Discussions of the Four Books
史伯璿 (Shǐ Bóxuán, zì Wénjī, fl. 1340s–1370s)
About the work
An 8-juàn second-order Sìshū sub-commentary that surveys and adjudicates the existing Yuán Sìshū commentary tradition — primarily Zhào Shùnsūn’s Sìshū zuǎnshū (KR1h0028), Wú Zhēnzǐ’s Sìshū jíchéng, Hú Bǐngwén’s Sìshū tōng (KR1h0034), Xǔ Qiān’s Sìshū cóngshuō (KR1h0033), and Chén Lì’s 陳櫟 Sìshū fāmíng — drawing out where each diverges from Zhū Xī’s Jízhù and adjudicating among the commentators. Composed over thirty years to the year of the Yuán’s fall (1368). The WYG copy survives complete except for the Lúnyǔ portion from Xiānjìn 11 onwards (lost in transmission).
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Sìshū guǎnkuī in 8 juàn — by Shǐ Bóxuán of the Yuán. Bóxuán, zì Wénjī, native of Píngyáng 平陽 in Wēnzhōu. Per his own Guǎnkuī wàipiān — completed in Zhìyuán dīngwèi 至元丁未 (1367, the year of the Yuán’s fall) — the man would have lived into the Míng, but his beginning-and-end is not traceable. The book is listed in the Mìgé shūmù 祕閣書目 in 5 volumes. Yáng Shìqí’s 楊士奇 Dōnglǐ jí 東里集 says it had 4 volumes, with cutting-blocks at the Yǒngjiā prefectural school; the Yǒngjiā magistrate Yè Cóng 葉琮 then served as governor of Huángzhōu and again had it cut at the prefectural school. So in the early Míng there were two cuttings in print. But the cutting-blocks were both scattered and not transmitted; hence Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo says “wèi jiàn” (unseen). The present text is from Máo Jìn’s 毛晉 Jígǔgé 汲古閣 old copy. Dàxué, Zhōngyōng, Mèngzǐ are still complete; only Lúnyǔ lacks from Xiānjìn (11) onwards — apparently from copy-loss in transmission. Estimating the surviving portion, divided-and-arranged, it makes 8 juàn; the Jīngyì kǎo has it in 5 juàn — perhaps confusing 5 volumes for 5 juàn.
The book cites Zhào Shùnsūn’s Sìshū zuǎnshū, Wú Zhēnzǐ’s Sìshū jíchéng, Hú Bǐngwén’s Sìshū tōng, Xǔ Qiān’s Sìshū cóngshuō, Chén Lì’s Sìshū fāmíng, and Ráoshì 饒氏, Zhāngshì 張氏 etc.; takes their points where they differ from the jízhù and adds discussion below; and where the various explanations contradict each other, he sets them out and arranges judgement. Thirty years of work before its completion. On Zhūzǐ’s learning he has much to fāmíng (bring out).
Zhūzǐ’s writings are most numerous, his biànshuō (discussions) most multitudinous: there are matters in passing-question-answer not yet examined; matters later corrected but not retroactively revised; matters where disciples each transcribed and polished or added-or-cut, sometimes losing the běnzhēn (true original). Hence in his collected works and yǔlù the yìtóng máodùn (similarities-and-differences, contradictions) are not few; even the Sìshū zhāngjù jízhù and the Huòwèn sometimes contradict each other — the original works being in hand, one can verify each in turn.
In those days, his disciples in compiling could not bring themselves to make any selection; and once factional houses formed, they upheld the master with all the more strength — and so readers of Zhūzǐ’s books take every word and phrase as a jīngdiǎn (canonical text), without enquiring into the genuineness of the transmission or the dating-sequence — and immediately use one passage to attack other arguments. The disorder is great, and Zhūzǐ’s běnzhǐ (governing intent) is muddled by his own venerators.
He who carried treasure to court and was discussed at the South Palace had to leave the country to escape; in pity for Zhào Dùn 趙盾, an original false attribution survives. Even those who transmit Confucius’s words cannot escape divergence — how much more the Zhū-school disciples, certainly not on a level with the seventy-two worthies! How can one rely on what they transmit without re-arrangement?
This book’s broad sense is the same as Liú Yīn’s Sìshū jíyì jīngyào (KR1h0031); but where Yīn only slightly trims, Bóxuán adds further discriminatory marking. Of old Zhūzǐ regretted that the Kǒng-school disciples had left the jiāyǔ 家語 (Family Sayings) to make a sickness; one might say that Bóxuán, like Liú Yīn, has deeply got the Master’s mind. — Respectfully revised, fifth month of the 46th year of Qiánlóng [1781].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Sìshū guǎnkuī is the most analytically sustained of the late-Yuán Sìshū second-order sub-commentaries: it surveys the existing field of Cheng-Zhu Sìshū commentary, adjudicates between the leading positions, and clarifies where the disciples’ transcripts have introduced apparent contradictions in Zhū Xī’s positions. Methodologically it is the closest counterpart, in the Yuán Sìshū tradition, to Liú Yīn’s Jīngyào (KR1h0031): both works distinguish Zhū Xī’s settled-and-mature thought from his one-time, unsettled remarks.
The Sìkù editors’ assessment is unusually warm and methodologically self-aware. They take Shǐ Bóxuán’s project as a model of how Cheng-Zhu commentary should be done — with proper attention to dating-sequence, to settled-versus-unsettled status, and to the multiplicity of disciple-transcriptions. The closing remark on Liú Yīn and Shǐ Bóxuán together “deeply having got the Master’s mind” places these two works at the apex of the Yuán Lǐxué tradition.
The textual history is precise: original cutting at Yǒngjiā in the early Míng (5 juàn / 5 volumes); second cutting at Huángzhōu under Yè Cóng’s auspices; both lost; Sìkù recovery through Máo Jìn’s Jígǔgé manuscript; reorganised by the Sìkù editors into 8 juàn. The Lúnyǔ portion from Xiānjìn (11) onwards is irrecoverable.
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; Hè Lì-jūn 賀立軍, Shǐ Bóxuán Sì-shū guǎn-kuī yánjiū (Tái-běi 2010). Western: brief notice in Wm. Theodore de Bary, Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart (Columbia, 1981).
Other points of interest
The work’s combination of careful commentary-survey with methodological self-consciousness about Zhū Xī’s transmission-history — distinguishing settled doctrine from one-time-only remarks, distinguishing reliable disciple-transcripts from unreliable — is a remarkable late-Yuán anticipation of Qing kǎozhèng method, applied within the orthodox Cheng-Zhu framework rather than against 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