Jízhǒng Zhōushū 汲冢周書
The Zhōushū from the Jí Tomb (= Yì Zhōushū 逸周書, Documents Left Out of the Shū) by 孔晁 (注)
About the work
The Jízhǒng Zhōushū in ten juǎn is a Sòng/Yuán-format printing of the work better known as the Yì Zhōushū 逸周書, with the Jìn-period annotation of Kǒng Cháo 孔晁. Its seventy chapters (one short of the seventy-one listed in the Hànshū yìwén zhì 漢書藝文志) gather speeches, edicts, military and ritual ordinances, posthumous-name rules (the famous Shìfǎ 諡法), the Yuèlìng 月令-style Shíxùn jiě 時訓解, the Kèyīn 克殷 and Dùyì 度邑 chapters used by Sīmǎ Qiān, and other documents purporting to belong to the Western Zhōu. Traditional bibliography classed it among the bié shǐ 別史 / zá shǐ 雜史, and Wilkinson notes the same; the Kanripo placement here under KR2c (jìshì běnmò class) reflects only the Sìbù cóngkān curators’ decision, not a Sìkù determination. The text in this witness is the Sìbù cóngkān photo-facsimile of a Yuán Zhìzhèng-era Jiājìng-edition lineage descending from a Sòng print, with prefaces by Huáng Bīn 黄玢 (1354), Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武 (Sòng), Lǐ Tāo 李燾 (Sòng), and Dīng Fǔ 丁黼 (Jiādìng 15 = 1222).
Tiyao
Abstract
Despite the Jízhǒng in its title, the work is not the find from the 281 CE opening of the Wèi tomb at Jíjùn 汲郡 (which produced the Zhúshū jìnián and Mù tiānzǐ zhuàn). It is the Yì Zhōushū 逸周書 already known to Liú Xiàng and the Hànshū yìwén zhì, traditionally described as “what Confucius left out” of the Shàngshū 尚書 in his redaction. Modern philology (Shaughnessy, ECT 229–33; Luó Jiāxiāng 2006; Zhāng Huáitōng 2013) treats the present text as a late Warring States compilation with strata of older Western Zhōu material, given a unifying redaction in the late pre-imperial or early Hàn period; the conflation with the Jí tomb find arose only in late Six Dynasties bibliography, mediated by Kǒng Cháo’s commentary, which is the dating anchor for the received recension. Hence the date bracket here (c. 270–290 CE for the recension; the underlying chapters being older). Several chapters — notably Shìfǎ 諡法 (still the locus classicus for posthumous-name selection through the Qīng), Shíxùn jiě 時訓解 (the earliest extant ordering of the seventy-two phenologies hòu 候 to the twenty-four solar terms), and Kèyīn 克殷 / Dùyì 度邑 (used by Sīmǎ Qiān for the conquest narrative) — have independent importance for institutional and ritual history. The Sìbù cóngkān impression here preserves Kǒng Cháo’s commentary in interlinear form. (Kǒng Cháo’s name is written 孔眺 in several of the Sòng prefaces; this is a graphic variant, not a different person.)
Translations and research
- Shaughnessy, Edward L. 1993. “I Chou shu (Chou shu).” In Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, ed. Michael Loewe, 229–33. Berkeley: SSEC and IEAS.
- Shaughnessy, Edward L. 2006. Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. Albany: SUNY Press, esp. ch. 3 (“The Discovery and Editing of the Jizhong Texts”), 131–84.
- Luó Jiāxiāng 罗家湘. 2006. Yì Zhōushū yánjiū 逸周书研究. Shanghai: Shànghǎi gǔjí.
- Zhāng Huáitōng 张怀通. 2013. Yì Zhōushū xīnyán 逸周书新研. Beijing: Zhōnghuá shūjú.
- McNeal, Robin. 2012. Conquer and Govern: Early Chinese Military Texts from the Yi Zhou shu. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. (Translates and studies the military chapters.)
- Grebnev, Yegor. 2022. Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China: A Study of the Neglected Zhou Scriptures and the Grand Duke Traditions. New York: Columbia University Press.
Other points of interest
The Yì Zhōushū preserves the earliest formal shìfǎ 諡法 list in Chinese tradition (chap. 54); successive imperial codifications of posthumous-name rules through the Qīng Huìdiǎn descend from this chapter. The Shíxùn jiě 時訓解 (chap. 52) is the oldest text to attach the seventy-two phenologies to the twenty-four solar terms in their canonical order.
Links
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Zhou_Shu
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q708541