Dàxué yìzhēn 大學翼眞
Wings to the True Reading of the Great Learning
by 胡渭 (Hú Wèi, 1633–1714, zì Fěimíng, hào Dōngqiáo, 撰)
About the work
A 7-juàn historical-philological treatise on the Dàxué by Hú Wèi — the early-Qīng kǎozhèng historical-geographer of the Yǔgòng zhuīzhǐ and the demolisher of the Sòng Yì-charts in the Yìtú míngbiàn (KR1a0138) — bringing his characteristic kǎozhèng method to bear on the most contested of the Sìshū. The first three juàn are a sustained historical-institutional inquiry into ancient education (Dàxué and xiǎoxué curricula, age of entry, village schools, examination systems) and the textual history of the Dàxué itself (its authorship, the gǔběn recension preserved in the Lǐjì, and the long sequence of post-Sòng gǎiběn recensions). Only from juàn 4 onward does Hú offer his own constituted text-and-commentary. The work’s title — yì zhēn, “wings to the true reading” — is the controlling claim: that the gǔběn / gǎiběn dispute can be settled by historical-textual kǎozhèng, and that once settled, the text need not be supplemented (against Zhū Xī’s famous bǔzhuàn 補傳 for the gézhī chapter), but it remains substantively Cheng-Zhu in doctrine.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Dàxué yìzhēn in seven juàn — by Hú Wèi of the present dynasty. Wèi has the Yǔgòng zhuīzhǐ already separately catalogued. Juàn 1 is divided into four mù: “Dàxué — pronunciation and meaning of the two characters”; “the institutions of the early kings’ schools”; “the age at which sons-and-younger-brothers entered school”; “the teaching of the village schools”. Juàn 2 is divided into three mù: “the teaching of the xiǎoxué”; “the teaching of the Dàxué”; “the methods of school-and-examination selection”. Juàn 3 is divided into three mù: “the authors of the Dàxué jīng and zhuàn”; “the gǔběn (ancient text) of the Dàxué”; “the gǎiběn (revised text) of the Dàxué”. All these are based on close evidence and detailed verification — not to be compared with empty discursive rambling. From juàn 4 onward is the recension that Wèi has himself constituted. The great purport still takes Zhūzǐ as governing standard; he forcefully refutes the wrongness of the Wángxué 王學 gǎiběn. He takes the jīng as one chapter and the zhuàn as eight chapters; from the chéngyì chapter onwards he is at one with the standard recensions. His departure is to take the section from Kānggào yuē through to shìgù jūnzǐ wú suǒ bù yòng qí jí as a single first chapter giving an integrated explication of the three gānglǐng, and the section from Shī yún: bāngjī qiānlǐ through to cǐ yǐ mòshì bù wàng yě as a second chapter — holding that the first three sections gloss the jīng’s sequence of zhīzhǐ → néngdé, while the latter two sections gloss the cause of zhīzhǐ and the sequence of néngdé. He takes the section “tīngsòng wú yóu rén yě” (in lawsuits I am like other men) as the third chapter — holding that it glosses the meaning of běnmò (root-and-branch). He moves the two clauses cǐ wèi zhī běn 此謂知本 to a position immediately under zhǐ yú xìn 止於信 in the prior chapter, holding that zhī běn 知本 is a copyist’s slip for zhī zhǐ 知止. These are differences from the standard recensions. Although it is a small departure from Zhūzǐ’s chapter-division, it amounts only to saying that the gézhì chapter need not be reconstructed by bǔzhuàn — his discussion of géwù itself remains entirely on Zhūzǐ’s purport. The closing item of the last juàn says: “What the ancient Dàxué used to teach men: as for wén (cultural texts) — the Shī, Shū, Lǐ, Yuè; as for dào (the way) — fùzǐ, jūnchén, fūfù, zhǎngyòu, péngyǒu; as for fǎ (method) — bóxué shěnwèn shènsī míngbiàn dǔxíng. Hence Mèngzǐ says: xiáng, xù, xué, xiào are all means by which to clarify human relations.” This view is solid-and-actual; compared with the merely abstract talk of xìngmìng lǐqì — as if outside the five constants and hundred conducts there were a separate thing called the dào and a separate matter called xué — it is far ahead. — Respectfully revised, fifth month of the 43rd year of Qiánlóng [1778].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Dàxué yìzhēn is the principal Dàxué commentary by Hú Wèi (1633–1714) and one of the highest accomplishments of early-Qīng Sìshū kǎozhèng. Where most of the late-Míng / early-Qīng Dàxué literature had been doctrinal — taking sides in the long Cheng-Zhu vs. gǔběn dispute, with Wáng Yángmíng’s celebrated 1518 reinstatement of the Lǐjì gǔběn on one side and the ZhūXī Sìshū jízhù recension (with its gézhì bǔzhuàn) on the other — Hú Wèi shifts the dispute onto a kǎozhèng footing. He devotes the first three juàn to historical-institutional reconstruction of the educational system the Dàxué presupposes and to a textual-history survey of the Dàxué recensions. Only after that ground-clearing does he constitute his own text in juàn 4–7.
His doctrinal verdict is that Zhū Xī is correct on the substance (the géwù purport, the Cheng-Zhu programme), but minimally over-reached on the form (the supplementary bǔzhuàn was unnecessary). The text is sufficient as it stands: the chapter divisions need only minor adjustment, and the famous “cǐ wèi zhī běn” 此謂知本 is read as a copyist’s corruption of “cǐ wèi zhī zhǐ” 此謂知止 — placed immediately under zhǐ yú xìn 止於信, restoring the lost connection. Hú credits this last conjecture to the work of Xià Yǔcāng 夏雨蒼 and notes that Gù Yánwǔ 顧炎武 had already opened the line of inquiry; the appeal to Gù Yánwǔ explicitly aligns the work with the Héshuò / WúYuè kǎozhèng network that Hú Wèi was central to.
The Sìkù editors single out the closing juàn’s reading of ancient education — that dàxué training combined wén (the canonical texts), dào (the five social relations), and fǎ (the bóxué shěnwèn shènsī míngbiàn dǔxíng of the Zhōngyōng) — as the Sì-kù-orthodox antidote to kōngtán xìngmìng lǐqì (empty discourse on nature, decree, principle, vital force) of the late-Míng Wángxué. Their verdict is unusually warm.
The dating is somewhat indeterminate; no preface-year is preserved in the WYG front matter. The terminus post quem is plausibly the late 1680s / early 1690s (Hú had finished the Yǔgòng zhuīzhǐ by Kāngxī 36 / 1697 and turned to the Sìshū during the same general period); the terminus ante quem is fixed by Hú’s death in 1714. The Yìtú míngbiàn (1706) and the Yìzhēn are sister projects in Hú’s late-life Sìshū / Wǔjīng kǎozhèng programme.
Translations and research
No English translation. Modern Chinese: 點校本 in Hú Wèi xué-shù lùn-zhe xuǎn 胡渭學術論著選 (Zhè-jiāng-gǔ-jí, 2004); also reprinted in the Sì-kù-quán-shū photo-reprint and the Xù xiū Sì-kù-quán-shū selections. Studies: Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology (Harvard, 1984; revised 2001), provides the best English-language placement of Hú Wèi in the early-Qīng kǎozhèng movement; for the Dà-xué recension dispute specifically, see Daniel Gardner, Chu Hsi and the Ta-hsueh: Neo-Confucian Reflection on the Confucian Canon (Harvard, 1986). Specialised: Wáng Pèi-huá 王培華, Hú Wèi yánjiū (Zhōng-huá-shū-jú, 2007).
Other points of interest
The work is one of the earliest Sìshū commentaries to apply kǎozhèng method systematically rather than doctrinally — devoting nearly half its bulk to the historical-institutional and textual-historical preliminaries before offering exegesis at all. In this respect it complements Hú Wèi’s Yìtú míngbiàn (KR1a0138) on the Yì-chart side: both are characteristic products of the early-Qīng turn to historical-philological evidence, both broker a settlement that retains Cheng-Zhu doctrinal commitments while clearing away post-Sòng accretions. Together they exemplify the kǎozhèng-orthodox synthesis that the Sìkù editors prefer above all alternative early-Qīng Lǐxué options.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.4.4 (the Sìshū) and §27 (Qing classical kǎozhèng).
- Daniel K. Gardner, Chu Hsi and the Ta-hsueh (Harvard, 1986).
- Qīngshǐgǎo 481 (Hú Wèi biography).