榕村四書說

Róngcūn Sìshū shuō 榕村四書說

Banyan-Village Studies on the Four Books

by 李光地 (Lǐ Guāngdì, 1642–1718, zì Jìnqīng, hào Hòuān / Róngcūn, 撰)

About the work

A 7-juàn compound Sìshū work by Lǐ Guāngdì, the leading Kāngxī-era Zhūzǐxué official-classicist and Grand Secretary. It is in fact a zǒngmíng (umbrella title) for five separate pieces — Dàxué gǔběn shuō 大學古本說 (1 juàn), Zhōngyōng zhāngduàn 中庸章段 (1 juàn), Zhōngyōng yúlùn 中庸餘論 (1 juàn), Dú Lúnyǔ zhájì 讀論語劄記 (2 juàn), and Dú Mèngzǐ zhájì 讀孟子劄記 (2 juàn) — gathered under one heading. The title Róngcūn is one of Lǐ’s hào (cf. the Róngcūn yǔlù 榕村語錄, KR3a0114). Doctrinally Lǐ is by reputation the principal Kāngxī-era Cheng-Zhu loyalist at court; the present work is therefore striking on two counts: he uses the Lǐjì gǔběn (and not Zhū Xī’s chapter-divided recension) for the Dàxué, and he uses neither Zhū Xī’s chapter-division nor Zhèng Xuán’s for the Zhōngyōng.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Dàxué gǔběn shuō 1 juàn, Zhōngyōng zhāngduàn 1 juàn, Zhōngyōng yúlùn 1 juàn, Dú Lúnyǔ zhájì 2 juàn, Dú Mèngzǐ zhájì 2 juàn — all by Lǐ Guāngdì of the present dynasty. Guāngdì has the Zhōuyì guāntuàn already separately catalogued. This compilation: the Dàxué uses the gǔběn (ancient text). After it Lǐ has a self-note saying: “I have read Zhūzǐ’s books for fifty years. Such matters as the Yì’s being a bǔshì (divination) text, the Shī’s Yǎ and Zhèng contrast, Zhōuzǐ’s wújí point, and Shàozǐ’s xiāntiān transmission — I am able firmly to grasp without doubt; in old age my hold becomes ever firmer. Only on this book [the Dàxué] I likewise drag-along and effort-out concurrence — but it is not what one calls xīn tōng ér mò qì (heart-penetrated and silently aligned). Examining now and then the Zhèngshì old recension and following the jīng’s sense, I privately suspect the old usage’s continuance is wén cóng lǐ dé (linguistically natural and rationally satisfactory) — and besides, zhīběn and chéngshēn are particularly the Dàxué’s pivot-essentials; it does not seem proper that they be jumbled into the multitude-of-eyes such that the LùWáng faction can bare its arms, grip the wrist, and place its claim under cover of evidence-from-the-classic-confounding-the-tradition.” So: where his sense does not align with Zhūzǐ, he does not wish to fùhè (parrot in agreement) and so deceive himself; he is not making gùyǔ Zhūzǐ wèinán (deliberately picking a quarrel with Zhūzǐ). His Zhōngyōng uses neither Zhūzǐ’s recension nor Zhèng’s annotation. The gǔběn he splits naturally into twelve chapters; he does no more than connect-and-link the prose to make the section-divisions clear, but the great purport is in fact undifferent. The Yúlùn in 1 juàn unfolds particularly many jīngyì (kernel meanings). For Lúnyǔ and Mèngzǐ, where there is anything to remark he simply records it as zhájì: each section has only the opening phrase of the relevant jīng passage as a heading, with the chapter-marker mǒuzhāng 某章; where there is no comment the chapter-heading is itself omitted. Throughout, the great purport rests on seeking out yìlǐ and unfolding it suppliantly — not like the recent-age jiǎngzhāng writers, who only miáomó yǔqì (impressionistically trace tone-and-air) for the sake of shíwén (eight-legged-essay) padding. — Respectfully revised, eighth month of the 44th year of Qiánlóng [1779].

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

Abstract

The Róngcūn Sìshū shuō is the principal Sìshū compilation of Lǐ Guāngdì (1642–1718), the leading Kāngxī-era Hànlín Lǐxué official and Grand Secretary, who under imperial commission directed the production of the Yùzuǎn Zhūzǐ quánshū and Yùzuǎn Xìnglǐ jīngyì. The work bundles five separate pieces composed at different times in Lǐ’s long classical-learning labour — three on Dàxué / Zhōngyōng and two collections of running Lúnyǔ / Mèngzǐ notes. No single overall preface; the dating bracket is the late Kāngxī period of Lǐ’s mature career, plausibly 1690s through to his death in 1718.

The work is doctrinally interesting precisely because Lǐ is not, as one might expect of a Kāngxī Grand Secretary co-responsible for the Yùzuǎn Zhūzǐ programme, an unconditional Zhūzǐ loyalist on every textual question. On the Dàxué he reverts to the Lǐjì gǔběn — the same recension Wáng Yángmíng had championed — but, as his self-note insists at length, not for the Wáng Yángmíng reasons. He claims fifty years’ steady reading of Zhū Xī, claims firm doctrinal alignment with Zhū on every other major position (including the Yì as divination text, the Shī’s Yǎ-vs-Zhèng contrast, Zhōu Dūnyí’s wújí, Shào Yōng’s xiāntiān), and explicitly declares that on the Dàxué alone his agreement was always laboured, never xīn tōng ér mò qì. He arrives at the gǔběn via philological-textual reasoning (the original word-order is wén cóng lǐ dé, “naturally-flowing and rationally-satisfactory”), and he marks an explicit boundary against the LùWáng school — the editors’ explicit characterisation of Lǐ’s anxiety: that yielding the Dàxué recension to the gǔběn must not be allowed to give LùWáng readers polemical traction by way of jùjīng jiézhuàn (using the jīng against the zhuàn). The Sìkù verdict is exactly: yì suǒ wèi hé, bù yù fùhè yǐ zìqī, fēi gùyǔ Zhūzǐ wèinán — “where his sense did not align, he would not parrot agreement and so deceive himself; he is not deliberately picking a quarrel with Zhūzǐ.”

The Zhōngyōng treatment is parallel: Lǐ rejects Zhū Xī’s recension and also Zhèng Xuán’s old annotation, and re-divides the gǔběn into twelve chapters of his own — but, as the editors note, “the great purport is in fact undifferent”. The accompanying Zhōngyōng yúlùn the editors single out as the most fertile of the five pieces in genuine jīngyì unfolding. The Lúnyǔ and Mèngzǐ zhájì are deliberately occasional and selective.

The Sìkù editors’ closing sting is a high-Qing in-house warning: Lǐ’s exegetical mode — substantive yìlǐ reasoning, miǎnzhuǎn fāmíng (suppliant unfolding) — is contrasted favourably with the jiǎngzhāng writers of the immediate post-Kāngxī decades who miáomó yǔqì, “impressionistically trace tone and air” merely as padding for examination shíwén.

The catalog meta gives 1642–1718 for Lǐ; CBDB id 59056 confirms. (CLAUDE.md flags a 1720 alternative but the standard Qīngshǐgǎo and CBDB consistently read 1718; followed here.)

Translations and research

No English translation of the bundled work. Modern Chinese: 點校本 in Lǐ Guāng-dì wén-jí 李光地文集 / Róng-cūn quán-jí 榕村全集 (Zhōng-zhōu-gǔ-jí, ed. Chén Zǔ-wǔ 陳祖武 et al., 2013), drawing on the Róng-cūn quán-shū edition. Studies: Hùng-lám Chu (Zhū Hóng-lín), Lǐ Guāng-dì hé Sòng-Míng Lǐ-xué (Bā-Shǔ-shū-shè, 2004), is the principal Chinese-language monograph; in English see On-cho Ng’s chapters in Cheng-Zhu Confucianism in the Early Qing (SUNY, 2001) and his article “Text in Question: Reflections on the Mid-Late Imperial Confucian Discourse on the Classics” (in History and Theory, 2003); for the Dà-xué gǔ-běn / gǎi-běn dispute generally see Daniel K. Gardner, Chu Hsi and the Ta-hsueh (Harvard, 1986).

Other points of interest

The work is the rare case of a Kāngxī Grand Secretary departing on a textually-significant point from the Zhūzǐ recension while remaining doctrinally Zhūzǐ-loyal — and the Sìkù editors carefully separate Lǐ’s gǔběn commitment from the late-Míng Wángxué one, judging the difference doctrinally non-substantive. The work is also a useful case of how a high-Kāngxī court classicist organised his Sìshū labour: large pieces only on the contested Dàxué / Zhōngyōng recension questions, zhájì-style occasional notes on the Lúnyǔ and Mèngzǐ. For the broader Lǐ Guāngdì corpus see also the Róngcūn yǔlù (KR3a0114).

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §28.4.4.
• Daniel K. Gardner, Chu Hsi and the Ta-hsueh (Harvard, 1986).
• Qīngshǐgǎo 262 (Lǐ Guāngdì biography).