Sìshū yīnwèn 四書因問
Glosses Drawn From Inquiry on the Four Books
呂柟 (Lǚ Nán, zì Zhòngmù, hào Jīngyě, 1479–1542)
About the work
A 6-juàn commentary on the Four Books in lecture-record format: Dàxué 1 + Zhōngyōng 1 + Lúnyǔ 2 + Mèngzǐ 2. The text records Lǚ Nán’s lecture-discussions with his disciples — questions posed by the disciples (yīnwèn 因問 = “drawing forth inquiry”) and his answers. The disciples — chief among them Wèi Tíngxuān 魏廷萱 — are the actual transcribers. Lǚ Nán was the leading orthodox-Cheng-Zhu Lǐxué scholar of his generation, a follower of Xuē Xuān 薛瑄 (1389–1464) — sharply distinguished from the rising Wáng Yángmíng Xīnxué. Methodologically distinctive for using the Lǐjì old-text Dàxué (rather than Zhū Xī’s rearrangement) and the Lǐjì old-chapter division of the Zhōngyōng.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Sìshū yīnwèn in 6 juàn — by Lǚ Nán of the Míng. Nán, zì Zhòngmù 仲木, hào Jīngyě 涇野, native of Gāolíng 高陵; first place in the jìnshì of Zhèngdé wùchén (1508); rose to Nánjīng Lǐbù yòu shìláng 南京禮部右侍郎; posthumous title Wénjiǎn 文簡; biography in Míngshǐ Rúlínzhuàn.
This book records his disciples’ questions on the Sìshū; Dàxué and Zhōngyōng each one juàn, Lúnyǔ and Mèngzǐ each two. Yet in it Nán is called “xiānshēng 先生”, and the original text-line for “xiānshēng” sometimes new-paragraphs — it is apparently not a self-composition. At the head of the juàn there is “ménrén Wèi Tíngxuān et al. jiàokān” 校刋 (collated and cut for print) — the recording is therefore by Tíngxuān et al.
The book’s Dàxué uses the old-text sequence; the Zhōngyōng also uses the old chapter-division. It reads many of the Sìshū statements through to practical conduct and concrete affairs: e.g. when Lǚ was lecturing on the Bāyì wǔ yú tíng 八佾舞於庭 chapter (3.1), he pointed at the disciples in the assembly whose dress was overly-magnificent and said: “This is what is meant by usurping” — and so forth. All such teachings open-up-and-instruct in an intimate-and-direct way; they are not idle xùngǔ talk.
Lǚ Nán’s wénjí (literary collected works) is jíqū áoyá 佶屈聱牙 (twisted, harsh-on-the-ear) — wholly an artificial style. His glosses on the Sìshū, by contrast, are even-and-substantial — like this. His prose was dyed by the school of Lǐ Mèngyáng 李夢陽 (the late-Míng gǔwén movement); his learning takes its standard from Xuē Xuān 薛瑄 — two distinct lineages, hence one man whose work seems to issue from two different hands. — Respectfully revised, sixth month of the 43rd year of Qiánlóng [1778].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Sìshū yīnwèn is the principal Sìshū commentary by Lǚ Nán, the foremost orthodox Cheng-Zhu scholar of the early-mid Míng — a counter-current to the rising Wáng Yángmíng Xīnxué. Methodologically distinguished by:
(1) The lecture-record format: not Lǚ Nán’s own composition, but his disciples’ transcription of classroom discussions, with the xiānshēng address-form preserved as a textual marker. This places the work in the same genre as Zhū Xī’s Yǔlèi, the Wáng Yángmíng Chuánxí lù, and other Confucian yǔlù anthologies — but here in service to orthodox Lǐxué rather than Xīnxué.
(2) The use of the Lǐjì old-text Dàxué: where Zhū Xī’s Sìshū jízhù rearranges the Lǐjì “Dàxué” chapter and supplies a missing chapter, Lǚ Nán returns to the unrearranged Lǐjì gǔběn. This brings him closer to the parallel anti-Zhū-Xī movement of Wáng Yángmíng (which also used the gǔběn Dàxué), but with a different motivation — Lǚ Nán is conservatively orthodox, not Xīnxué dissident. (Compare the parallel handling of the gǔběn Dàxué in KR1h0027.)
(3) The practical-instructional cast: lessons are repeatedly linked to concrete moral conduct, sometimes pointed-at-the-disciple (the celebrated Bāyì anecdote — Lǚ pointing at over-dressed disciples and saying “this is jiàn (usurping)”). This is in line with Xuē Xuān’s emphasis on actual moral practice.
The Sìkù verdict on Lǚ Nán’s two-handed character — orthodox-substantial in scholarship, artificial-archaic in prose — is precise: he was simultaneously a Cheng-Zhu loyalist (in the line of Xuē Xuān) and a gǔwén prose stylist (in the line of Lǐ Mèngyáng), with the two dispositions occupying separate parts of his intellectual life.
Translations and research
No English translation. Modern Chinese: 點校本 in Míng-rén Sì-shū wén-xiàn jí-chéng (Hé-nán-rén-mín 2007); Lǚ Nán’s collected works in Jīng-yě xiān-shēng quán-shū (Wén-shǐ-zhé 2010, ed. 王嘉鈺). Studies: Cài Fāng-lù 蔡方鹿, Míng-dài Sì-shū xué shǐ; Steven J. Sangren, Chinese Sociologics (Athlone, 2000) — peripheral. Western: Wm. Theodore de Bary, Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart (Columbia, 1981).
Other points of interest
Lǚ Nán’s preservation of the old-text Dàxué within an orthodox-Cheng-Zhu framework is methodologically rare: it shows that not all gǔběn Dàxué readers were WángYángmíng dissidents. The work is therefore an important witness to the breadth of orthodox Cheng-Zhu Confucianism’s textual options.
Links
- Míngshǐ 282 (Lǚ Nán biography in Rúlínzhuàn).
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.7.3.
- 全國漢籍データベース 四庫提要