Liùyì gāngmù 六藝綱目
An Outline of the Six Arts by 舒天民 (Shū Tiānmín, hào Yìfēng 蓺風, of Yínxiàn, 撰) and 舒恭 (Shū Gōng, zì Zìqiān 自謙, hào Shuōzhāi 說齋, his son, 注), with further fùzhù by Zhào Yízhōng 趙宜中 of the same prefecture; printed Zhìzhèng 24 / jiǎchén (1364)
About the work
A short Yuán-period educational handbook (2 juàn) on the Six Arts of the Zhōulǐ Bǎoshì office: lǐ (rites), yuè (music), shè (archery), yù (charioteering), shū (script), shù (mathematics). Cataloged in xiǎoxué by the Sìkù as a fùlù (appendix) — the only Yuán-period educational handbook in the xiǎoxué division. Format: the headings are versified into 4-character rhyming lines (sìzì yùnyǔ) — i.e., a memorable mnemonic for students — drawn from Zhèng Xuán’s 鄭玄 Zhōulǐ commentary. The author Shū Tiānmín supplied the verse-headings (the gāng — outline); his son Shū Gōng provided the principal commentary (the mù — itemisation); the Yínxiàn fellow-townsman Zhào Yízhōng provided supplementary annotations (the fùzhù). The book is methodologically sound on the xiǎoxué essentials but flawed on liùshū doctrine: the section on zhuǎnzhù takes 反 (倒首為反, 亾 之乏 [should read 𢎟 = 𠂉], 尸 as side-人, 匚 as side-凵) as zhuǎnzhù — the Sìkù tíyào points out these are huìyì and xiàngxíng respectively, not zhuǎnzhù. The jiǔshù section, however, supplies useful supplements to Zhèng Xuán’s commentary and Jiǎ Gōngyàn’s shū. Front-matter prefaces by Zhāng Zhù 張翥, Hú Shìzuǒ 胡世佐, Jiē Hóng 揭汯, Liú Rénběn 劉仁本; postface by 舒睿 dated wùshēn (1368, Hóngwǔ 1).
Tiyao
The Liùyì gāngmù in 2 juàn. Composed by Shū Tiānmín of the Yuán. Tiānmín, hào Yìfēng, of Yínxiàn. The book takes the Zhōulǐ Bǎoshì Six Arts text and, following Zhèng Kāngchéng’s commentary, sets out the topics — each summarised in 4-character rhyming lines. His son [Shū] Gōng supplied the zhù; his fellow-townsman Zhào Yízhōng supplied the fùzhù. Both verify their material with care; for xiǎoxué there is much that is well-developed. — But on the liùshū zhuǎnzhù topic — Shū holds zhuǎnzhù to be “rotation-of-form mutual-use, with inversions, sides, reversals, and back-formations” — saying e.g. “倒首 (head-down) becomes 反; 亾 之 becomes 乏” — these are at best from older traditions but in fact huìyì graphs. Saying “尸 is cèrén (sideways 人)” or “匚 is cè-凵” — not only mistaking xiàngxíng for zhuǎnzhù, but also unprecedented in the dictionary tradition (no character-book has 尸 = “sideways 人” or 匚 = “sideways 凵”) — pure invention. — On the jiǔshù (nine-mathematics) topic, however, the mìshù (close-method) reasoning extends Zhèng’s commentary in detail; supplements Jiǎ Gōngyàn’s shū — useful for ritual-mathematics scholarship. — [Shū] Gōng’s zì is Zìqiān, hào Shuōzhāi; Zhào Yízhōng’s zì is Yànfū. The book was issued at Zhìzhèng jiǎchén (1364), with prefaces by Zhāng Zhù, Hú Shìzuǒ, Jiē Hóng, Liú Rénběn — none mentioning Zhào Yízhōng’s fùzhù; the postface by Shū Ruì is dated wùshēn — already Hóngwǔ 1 (1368) — also not mentioning Zhào — Zhào is presumably a Míng person. Presented Qiánlóng 46 / 2 (1781). General Editors Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Liùyì gāngmù is a short Yuán-period educational handbook on the Zhōulǐ Bǎoshì Six Arts. The work has only marginal Old-phonology content (its xiǎoxué category is justified by its treatment of liùshū and jiǔshù) — placed in the Sìkù as a fùlù (appendix) to the xiǎoxué division. The text is by three hands: the gāng (4-char rhymed outlines) by Shū Tiānmín 舒天民; the principal zhù by his son Shū Gōng 舒恭; the fùzhù by Zhào Yízhōng — who, the Sìkù tíyào deduces from the absence of mention in the 1364 prefaces and the 1368 postface, is a Míng-period addition to the work. The Sìkù tíyào finds the liùshū zhuǎnzhù discussion methodologically erroneous (mis-identifying huìyì and xiàngxíng graphs as zhuǎnzhù) but credits the jiǔshù work as a useful supplement to Zhèng Xuán’s 鄭玄 Zhōulǐ commentary. notBefore = c. 1340 (mid-Yuán, the author’s fl.); notAfter = 1364 (the jiǎchén printing).
Translations and research
- Tāng Yǒng-tóng 湯用彤 / 湯一介 et al. ed. Sì-kù xiǎo-xué cóng-shū. — Standard collated edition.
- No substantial dedicated secondary literature located. The work is a minor educational text in the Zhōu-lǐ commentarial tradition; mentioned but not specifically studied in standard Zhōu-lǐ scholarship.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào’s philological deduction that Zhào Yízhōng must be a Míng addition to the work — based on absence-of-mention in the 1364 prefaces and the 1368 postface — is a small but instructive piece of dating-by-omission. The Yuán original was a father-son project; the Míng received a third-party annotated layer.