Hàn Zhì Kǎo 漢制考
Investigation of Hàn Institutions by 王應麟 (撰)
About the work
A philological supplement to the institutional record of the Hàn, by the great Southern-Sòng evidential scholar Wáng Yīnglín 王應麟 (1223–1296). Where the Hànshū and Xù Hànshū treatises tend to be detailed on broad outlines but sketchy on minor matters, Wáng combs through the classical commentaries (Zhèng Xuán, Jiǎ Gōngyàn, Kǒng Yǐngdá) and lexica (Shuōwén jiězì etc.) to recover small institutional details that would otherwise be lost. The work is a model of kǎojù method a half-millennium before its full Qīng flowering.
Tiyao
By Wáng Yīnglín of the Sòng. Wáng’s Zhōuyì Zhèng Kāngchéng zhù has been catalogued separately. The Hàn shū and Xù Hàn shū treatises tend to be detailed on broad institutions and thin on detail. Yīnglín gathers material from various classical commentaries and from the Shuōwén jiězì and similar works, hooking out and collating evidence to fill the gaps; the result is of substantial value for textual research. Moreover, the Táng-period sub-commentaries of Jiǎ Gōngyàn and Kǒng Yǐngdá were already remote from antiquity—dialect, custom, era, name had all changed—so when they explain “such-and-such object is like our X” or “this matter is like our Y” they often follow the words mechanically without exact correspondence. Wáng patiently rules on each. For instance, the Zhōulǐ shū does not understand “bùyáo false hair-knot” or “wǔ yè (five night-watches)”; the Yílǐ shū misreads yǎnlǐng. Wáng cites parallel evidence to make all clear. On the Tàishǐ office of the Zhōulǐ, the commentary says “The Grand Astronomer carries the shì (cosmograph)”; the sub-commentary glosses shì as “the divinatory text.” Wáng adduces instead the Yìwén zhì’s “Xiànmén shìfǎ” 羡門式法—correctly identifying shì as the cosmographic instrument used to observe time. The Shǐjì “Rìzhě lièzhuàn” mentions “turning the shì and aligning the markers”; the Hànshū “Wáng Mǎng zhuàn” notes that the Tiānwénláng “examines the shì before [the throne], applying day and hour to a particular [position]“—both refer to the same instrument. His citation here is sounder than the older gloss.
There are slips. On the xiāngshì office, Zhèng Xuán’s commentary says “When the Three Dukes leave the city, the jùn circuits send a Dūyóu Dàozéi to police the road.” In Hàn times, jùn divided their counties into bù, supervised by a dūyóu (postal commissioner); officers in charge of particular bureaus were also called dūyóu. Hence Zhū Bó’s biography records “dūyóu shū yuàn”; this dūyóu dàozéi must mean the yuàn in charge of arresting bandits. Omission of the word yuàn is paralleled in the inscription on the back of the Bājùn tàishǒu Zhāng Nà bēi, which has Dūdàozéi Zhī Lǐ Jiē. The office also led the Three Dukes’ procession, hence “dūyóu dàozéi dào”—dào being interchangeable with dǎo (to lead) in old usage. Jiǎ Gōngyàn’s sub-commentary mistakes this as “those who were once bandits supervise the postal communications.” Wáng follows Jiǎ’s mistaken gloss—a slip by even the careful. Still, the work as a whole is exact and grounded; compared to the late Southern-Sòng scholars who indulged in empty talk with little real evidence, the difference in stature is enormous.
Abstract
The Hàn Zhì Kǎo belongs to Wáng Yīnglín’s mature antiquarian phase—after the major Yùhǎi 玉海 work and the Kùnxué jìwén 困學紀聞—and dates to the latter part of his career. Precise composition date is not transmitted; the bracket here is wide (1240–1296) but consistent with internal evidence and with the absence of the work from his early bibliographies. The text demonstrates Wáng’s signature method—patient cross-citation, philological precision, willingness to reverse received commentary—and is a touchstone for his reputation as a precursor to Qīng kǎojù.
The work was first printed in the late Yuán; the Sìkù recension follows the LiǎngJiāng commissioner’s submitted copy. Wilkinson does not single it out among his recommended huìyào-class supplements but lists it as part of the zhèngshū corpus.
Translations and research
The standard editions are the Sìkù text and the punctuated Cóngshū jíchéng version. No specialist monograph in any Western language. Chinese scholarship: Yīn Luán 陰嵐, “Wáng Yīnglín Hàn Zhì Kǎo de jiàozhèng jiàzhí” (Wénxiàn 文獻 2002.4); Cài Hóngshēng 蔡宏聲, Wáng Yīnglín xuéshù sīxiǎng yánjiū 王應麟學術思想研究 (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2008), pp. 122–37, places the Hàn Zhì Kǎo within Wáng’s broader institutional-historical corpus. Andrew H. Plaks’s chapter on Wáng Yīnglín in Sources of Chinese Tradition offers a brief overview of his evidential approach but does not treat this work in detail.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ detailed correction of Wáng’s misreading of the xiāngshìdūyóu gloss is a small but instructive case-study: it shows how Qīng kǎojù turned its corrective lens not only on the Táng commentators but on the Sòng forerunners of the method as well.