大學中庸集說啟蒙

Dàxué Zhōngyōng jíshuō qǐméng 大學中庸集說啟蒙

Beginners’ Manual on the Greater Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean

景星 (Jǐng Xīng, hào Nèān, fl. mid-14th century)

About the work

A 2-juàn “beginner’s manual” (qǐméng 啟蒙) on the Dàxué and Zhōngyōng, surviving as the only complete portion of Jǐng Xīng’s larger Sìshū jíshuō qǐméng 四書集說啟蒙 (originally 8 juàn; the LúnyǔMèngzǐ portions are wholly lost). Its commentary apparatus has occasional independent readings of substantive interest — e.g. on the Dàxué text “yī yú shàn ér wú zìqī 一於善而無自欺”, the jíshuō reading is “bì zì qiè 必自慊” (a sharper Confucian reading), differing from Zhū Xī’s Zhāngjù. Re-cut in 1434 by Qián Shí from a Jiǎng Jì manuscript copy.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Dàxué Zhōngyōng jíshuō qǐméng in 2 juàn — by Jǐng Xīng of the Yuán. Xīng, hào Nèān, native of Yúyáo. Per the colophon at the close of the juàn by Qián Shí 錢時 dated Xuāndé 9 (1434): “I obtained the copyist’s manuscript of lǐbù shìláng Jiǎng Jì 蒋驥. Jiǎng’s colophon is dated gēngchén — i.e. Jiànwén 1 (1399). Jiǎng was Jǐng Xīng’s disciple.” Then Jǐng Xīng was a man of the late Yuán.

The author’s own preface heads the work with the title “XuéYōng jíshuō qǐméng” 學庸集說啟蒙, but the preface itself reads “Sìshū jíshuō qǐméng” 四書集說啟蒙; the fánlì (general regulations) inside likewise mention “Mèngzǐ zhāng zhǐ” — both treat all four books. Jiǎng’s colophon says: “Nèān my master worked on the Sìshū for ten years; took-and-rejected various explanations to make this book; the Dàxué has been cut, but the Lúnyǔ, Mèngzǐ, Zhōngyōng have not been cut.” The colophon then says that Jiǎng got the Zhōngyōng manuscript and copied-and-cut. So Jǐng Xīng originally annotated all Sìshū; Jiǎng first cut the Dàxué, later supplied the Zhōngyōng; the Lúnyǔ and Mèngzǐ had already been lost. The Tōngzhìtáng Jīngjiě (Qing-period reprint) saw it as incomplete and combined-edited the prefaces and titles to reflect this.

The book’s fāhuī (development) is extremely concise-and-pertinent. On the Dàxué Shèngjīng (canonical chapter) gloss “yī yú shàn ér wú zìqī 一於善而無自欺”, the note reads “yī yú shàn” — Zhù Zhū’s text [the corrected later cutting] reads “bì zì qiè 必自慊”; on the wording, this is also not slipshod. Again zhuàn zhī èrzhāng (Chapter 2 of the zhuàn) note “pán” — Shàoshì 邵氏 says “perhaps it is the guànhuì (washing-and-rinsing) pán”; zhuàn zhī sìzhāng note “Wāng (汪) abundantly cites Chéngzǐ, Ráo Lǔ, Wú Chéng’s arguments”; Zhōngyōng zh.32 note cites “Póyáng Lǐshī’s argument” — all diverging from the Zhāngjù. Not like Hú Bǐngwén (KR1h0034) and his ilk, who held factional ground. He could still bring out his own xīndé (heart-felt insight).

The upper-margin annotations carry small-character notes: on Dàxué zhuàn zhī wǔzhāng note “Jǔtáng Dǒngshì” 矩堂董氏’s argument; Zhōngyōng dìyīzhāng note “Ráo Lǔ” 饒魯’s argument — all also diverging from the Zhāngjù. Per Qián Shí’s colophon: “the additions of Lǔzhāi pīdiǎn 批點 (collation marks) and Wùxuān 勿軒 chapter-headings — those in the words of Xǔ Héng 許衡 and Xióng Hé 熊禾, two persons — are not Xīng’s original book.” Which marks are Xǔ Héng’s and which are Xióng Hé’s, the cutting-block agrees-and-blends — today they cannot be distinguished. — Respectfully revised, fourth month of the 45th year of Qiánlóng [1780].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The Dàxué Zhōngyōng jíshuō qǐméng is the surviving fragment of Jǐng Xīng’s complete Sìshū commentary, of which the Lúnyǔ and Mèngzǐ portions are wholly lost. As a qǐméng (beginners’ manual) it is methodologically lighter than the major scholarly compendia of its day, but it has a useful set of independent readings — most notably the Dàxué “yī yú shàn / bì zì qiè” emendation — and it transmits, at the upper margin and in places where its main commentary diverges from Zhū Xī’s Zhāngjù, a set of secondary readings drawn from Wāngshì 汪氏, Ráo Lǔ 饒魯, Wú Chéng 吳澄, and Póyáng Lǐshī. The Sìkù editors single it out for praise as drawing on the editor’s own xīndé — a sharp contrast with the rigid factional orthodoxy of Hú Bǐngwén (KR1h0034).

The textual history is well-attested: original 8-juàn manuscript by Jǐng Xīng covering all four books; Dàxué portion cut for print before 1399; Zhōngyōng portion cut by Jiǎng Jì in 1434 (under Qián Shí’s auspices); Lúnyǔ and Mèngzǐ portions already lost by Jiǎng Jì’s day. The 1434 cutting carried subsequent YuánMíng additions of pīdiǎn (collation-marks) and chapter-headings credited to Xǔ Héng and Xióng Hé — though, by the Sìkù-era, no longer separable.

Translations and research

No English translation. Modern Chinese: 點校本 included 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. Western: peripheral 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 transmission of secondary Lǐxué commentaries through marginal annotations (shànglán upper-margin notes) is methodologically interesting: this is one of the earlier Chinese commentaries to use the upper-margin to layer secondary commentary on top of a primary commentary, a layout-feature that became standard in late-Yuán and Míng jíshuō-style works.

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.4.4 and §28.7.3.
• 全國漢籍データベース 四庫提要