Mèngzǐ zájì 孟子雜記
Miscellaneous Records on the Mencius
陳士元 (Chén Shìyuán, zì Xīnshū, 1516–?)
About the work
A 4-juàn companion piece to the Lúnyǔ lèikǎo (KR1h0047): biographical-historical materials on Mencius and his interlocutors, gathered from a wide range of pre-Sòng and Sòng sources. Juàn 1 narrates Mencius’s life; juàn 2–4 develop themes from the Mèngzǐ text. Methodologically a precursor of the Qing kǎozhèng tradition, with an unusually wide source-base for a Míng work — Hán Shī wàizhuàn, Kǒngcóngzǐ, Tōngjiàn gāngmù, Hànjì, Lièzǐ, Yángzǐ, Shuōyuàn, Xīnshū, Yántiě lùn, Tōngzhì, Yùhǎi, etc. Dated 1544, paired with KR1h0047.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Mèngzǐ zájì in 4 juàn — by Chén Shìyuán of the Míng. Shìyuán has the Yìxiàng gōujiě already catalogued. From the Sòng Xīníng era and earlier, the Mèngzǐ was listed only in the Rújiā (Confucian masters) section. The Shǐjì combined the lives of Mencius and Xún Qīng: only ten-odd characters in all; on the matter of his travels through Zōu, Téng, Rén, Xuē, Lǔ, Sòng — not a word is recorded.
Zhūzǐ’s Gāngmù first wrote, with major emphasis, of his journey to Wèi via Qí — making plain that the sage-and-worthies’ going-and-staying is no light matter; the genre being annalistic, the shǐmò (beginning-and-end) of one man cannot be detailed.
The Míng’s Xuē Yīngqí 薛應旂 composed the Sìshū rénwù kǎo 四書人物考 — first taking other books to make supplementary biography. But Yīngqí is not strong on kǎozhèng; the slips and omissions are many.
Shìyuán then arranged this book. The first juàn gives Mencius’s affairs; the latter three juàn develop the Mèngzǐ book — named “zhuànjì” (recorded life) but in fact mostly jīngjiě (Classic-explanation). His citations: from the Classic-class — HánShī wàizhuàn, Kǒngcóngzǐ and the like; from the standard histories outside — Tōngjiàn Gāngmù, Xún Yuè 荀悦, Yuán Hóng 袁宏 Hànjì, etc.; from the various masters — Lièzǐ, Yángzǐ, Shuōyuàn, Xīnshū, Yántiě lùn; from the zhùshù category — Tōngzhì, Yùhǎi etc. As to Zhào Qí’s note “yǐ Wěi Shēng jiě bùyú zhī yù; yǐ Chén Bùzhān shì qiúquán zhī huǐ” — and all such yōumiù (vague-and-erroneous) chatter — he sweeps it all out.
Shìyuán is also careful in scrutiny — together with his Lúnyǔ lèikǎo (KR1h0047), this contributes to the jīngyì (Classic-meaning). Hence we specially attach it to the Sìshū class. — Respectfully revised, tenth month of the 43rd year of Qiánlóng [1778].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Mèngzǐ zájì is, with its companion KR1h0047 Lúnyǔ lèikǎo, the most thorough mid-Míng kǎozhèng-style work on the Sìshū. Where the Lúnyǔ lèikǎo is topical-philological, the Mèngzǐ zájì is biographical-historical: juàn 1 reconstructs Mencius’s life from scattered early sources, and juàn 2–4 develop selected themes (Mencius’s interlocutors, contested historical events, etc.). The Sìkù editors place Chén Shìyuán’s careful kǎozhèng sharply above Xuē Yīngqí’s earlier Sìshū rénwù kǎo — which they regard as flashy but careless.
The Sìkù editors’ opening observation — that pre-Sòng tradition listed the Mèngzǐ only in the Rújiā (masters’ branch) and gave Mencius’s life only ten-odd characters in the Shǐjì — is methodologically important: it explains why so much of the SòngMíng commentarial tradition is yìlǐ-oriented (because there is little biographical material on Mencius to work with) and why Chén Shìyuán’s project of reconstructing the biography from cross-canonical sources is unusual and valuable.
The closing point — that Chén sweeps out Zhào Qí’s various far-fetched glosses (the Wěi Shēng and Chén Bùzhān episodes that the Sìkù tíyào at KR1h0003 also criticises) — places him in alignment with the Qiánlóng kǎozhèng sensibility.
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). Studies: Cài Fāng-lù 蔡方鹿, Míng-dài Sì-shū xué shǐ; Wáng Bīng-yú 王炳煜, Chén Shìyuán Mèngzǐ-xué yánjiū. Western: brief notice in Bryan W. Van Norden, Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Hackett, 2008).
Other points of interest
The work is one of the earliest serious Chinese efforts to historicise Mencius — to recover his actual political-biographical situation as the basis for reading the Mèngzǐ. This historicising-impulse is a thread that runs through the late-Míng / early-Qing Hànxué movement and culminates in the great Qing biographical reconstructions.
Links
- Míngshǐ 287 (Chén Shìyuán biography).
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.7.4.
- 全國漢籍データベース 四庫提要