YīLuò yuányuán lù 伊洛淵源錄
Record of the Source-Springs of the Yī-Luò [School] by 朱熹 (撰)
About the work
A fourteen-juàn collective biography of the principal figures of the Northern-Sòng Dàoxué 道學 movement and their associates, by Zhū Xī 朱熹 (1130–1200), prepared in Qiándào 9 (1173). The title invokes the school’s geographical centres — Yī 伊水 (the Yī river of Hénán, where the Chéng brothers were active) and Luò 洛水 (Luòyáng) — to designate the broad post-Zhōu Dūnyí 周敦頤 / Chéng Hào 程顥 / Chéng Yí 程頤 lineage. The work begins with Zhōu Dūnyí, then moves through the Chéng brothers and on to the larger network of friends, acquaintances, and disciples of the Èr Chéng, including critics within the school and figures whose words and acts are not otherwise on record (such as Xíng Shù 邢恕, who in fact later turned against the brothers — Zhū Xī includes him “to make the record complete”). The compilation is the foundation document of the southern Sòng Dàoxué school’s genealogical self-conception and is the working source from which the Sòngshǐ Dàoxué zhuàn and Rúlín zhuàn were later compiled. The Sìkù editors note pointedly that the Sòng discourse on Dàoxué lineage and the Sòng schism into Dàoxué factions both begin with this work.
Tiyao
YīLuò yuányuán lù in fourteen juàn, by Zhūzǐ of the Sòng. Records the words and acts of the disciples and friends of Zhōuzǐ and the Chéng brothers. Even those who stood within the Chéng school but whose words and acts are not visible to record, and even those who turned against and harmed others (such as Xíng Shù 邢恕), have their names entered, “to make the record complete.” Subsequently the Sòngshǐ’s Dàoxué and Rúlín biographies were largely based on this. Sòng discourse on Dàoxué lineage begins with this book; Sòng partition into Dàoxué factions also begins with this book. Subsequent acquaintances and connections, mutual support and dependence — among the jūnzǐ it sometimes hardened into water-and-fire factions; among the xiǎorén of the school it was hijacked for any purpose — Yè Shàowēng 葉紹翁’s Sìcháo wénjiàn lù 四朝聞見錄 reports: “Chéng Yuán 程源 was Yīchuān’s direct grandson; he was utterly destitute and once sold rice at the Cǎoqiáo of Línān’s new gate; later, with someone advising him to seek out the powerful, he produced a Xuédào zhèngtǒng tú (Diagram of the Right Lineage of the Way), entering names from Kǎotíng 考亭 [Zhū Xī] downwards into the work and submitting it to the relevant officials, whereupon he was specially appointed to a chūpǐn office, then promoted to two magistracies, then by lúnduì assigned to a hérùguān, then to Sìjiānchéng” — that is, he simply made a market of YīLuò. Zhōu Mì’s 周密 Qídōng yěyǔ and Guǐxīn záshí record further degenerate uses of the school by epigones. But Zhūzǐ’s purpose in writing — that the words and deeds of the past be a model for later men — surely did not foresee this. The teacher who instructs by the Shī and Lǐ is not at fault when Shī and Lǐ are abused. To use this latter abuse to throw the work itself into question is to refuse food because of choking. Reverently presented in the twelfth month of Qiánlóng 45 (1780). Chief Editors: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The YīLuò yuányuán lù is the foundational document of the southern Sòng Dàoxué school’s lineage construction. Its composition date is firmly fixed by Zhū Xī’s letters to Qiándào 9 (1173), when Zhū Xī was 44 (the work was prepared during Zhū’s tenure at home in Wǔyí). It complements the Sòngshǐ by preserving fragments of family-archive and pupil-transmitted material on minor figures of the Dàoxué network (some 67 men in all) that are not otherwise on record. The text was substantially expanded after Zhū Xī’s death by Chén Mì 陳宓 and others (the YīLuò yuányuán xùlù and YīLuò yuányuán xīnlù are post-Zhū continuations, lost or partly preserved in the Sòngyuán xuéàn tradition). The document underlies all subsequent reconstruction of Dàoxué network history and was the principal working source for Wàng Yìnglín’s Yùhǎi, the Sòngshǐ Dàoxué zhuàn, and ultimately Huáng Zōngxī’s 黃宗羲 SòngYuán xuéàn 宋元學案. The Sìkù editors’ defence — that Zhū Xī’s good intentions cannot be impugned by later abuse of the work — is itself the standard Qīng line on Dàoxué historiography.
Translations and research
- Wing-tsit Chan, Chu Hsi: Life and Thought (Chinese University Press, 1987), and Wing-tsit Chan, Chu Hsi: New Studies (HUP, 1989), survey the work’s place in Zhū Xī’s career.
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (HUP, 1992), discusses the work’s role in shaping the Dào-xué lineage discourse.
- The work is the foundational source for Huáng Zōng-xī, Sòng-Yuán xué-àn (1846).
- The standard catalog notice is in Sì-kù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 史部·傳記類三·總錄之屬.
Other points of interest
The work is the canonical case-study in the Sìkù editors’ apologetic stance toward Dàoxué historiography — defending Zhū Xī’s intentions while pointing to the SòngMíng abuses of the lineage genre. The 14-juàn count includes Zhōu Dūnyí (juàn 1), the Chéng brothers (juàn 2–3), then the network of pupils and associates (juàn 4–14).
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.
- CBDB person id (Zhū Xī 朱熹).