Táng Lǜ Shūyì 唐律疏義
The Tang Code with Commentary by 長孫無忌 (奉敕撰)
About the work
The single most important surviving Chinese law code of the pre-modern period — the Yǒnghuī lǜ shū 永徽律疏, in 30 juǎn, presenting the 502 articles of the Táng penal code together with the official sub-commentary (shūyì 疏議) compiled by the imperial commission headed by Zhǎngsūn Wújì 長孫無忌 (d. 659), brother-in-law of Tàizōng and chief minister to Gāozōng. Promulgated in 653. The work is the foundational document of Táng law, the model for the legal codes of the Sòng (Sòng xíngtǒng 宋刑統), the Liáo, the Korean Goryeo and Joseon, the Japanese Yōrō ritsuryō 養老律令, and the Vietnamese Lê code, and (with successive revisions) the prototype of every later imperial Chinese code through the Dà Qīng lǜlì 大清律例. It is, as Wilkinson observes, “the first code to survive in its entirety.”
Tiyao
The local WYG source contains only the imglist manifest — the text body was not OCR-processed in the present Kanripo distribution, so the in-tree tíyào file is unavailable. The Kyoto Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào (Kanseki number 0173502) preserves the WYG tíyào, here translated:
By Zhǎngsūn Wújì 長孫無忌, Grand Commandant of Yángzhōu and Duke of Zhào of the Tang, by imperial command, et al. The Fēngsú tōng tells how Gāo Yáo deliberated the mó and Yú made the laws; the Shàngshū dàzhuàn states that the Xià penal code had three thousand statutes and the Zhōu’s two thousand five hundred — these are the beginnings of speaking of “law.” Afterwards Lǐ Kuī of Wèi composed the Fǎjīng in six chapters: Dàofǎ, Zéifǎ, Qiúfǎ, Bǔfǎ, Záfǎ, Jùfǎ. Shāng Yāng received them and used them to assist Qín. Hàn’s Xiāo Hé added three chapters — Hù, Xīng, and Jiù — making nine. Shūsūn Tōng added eighteen chapters of Pángzhāng. Zhāng Tāng’s Yuègōng lǜ in twenty-seven chapters. Zhào Yǔ’s Cháolǜ in six. Combined: sixty chapters. Mǎ Róng and Zhèng Kāngchéng both wrote zhāngjù commentaries on them. The Wèi pruned the Hàn law and decreed an addition of nineteen chapters; combining them with the old five they made eighteen. The Jìn further added or reduced to twenty. North and South Dynasties variously revised, gradually drawing toward elaboration and density.
In Suí Wéndì Kāihuáng 3 (583), the imperial command to Sū Wēi 蘇威 and Niú Hóng 牛宏 et al. produced a new code: those crimes below capital they reduced by more than a thousand articles, settling on five hundred articles in twelve juǎn: 1. Mínglì; 2. Wèijīn; 3. Zhízhì; 4. Hùhūn; 5. Jiùkù; 6. Shànxīng; 7. Dàozéi; 8. Dòusòng; 9. Zhàwěi; 10. Zálǜ; 11. Bǔwáng; 12. Duànyù. Histories praise its penal scheme as “concise and essential, sparse but not faulty.”
Tang Tàizōng commanded Fáng Xuánlíng et al. to revise the Suí code: ninety-two capital crimes were demoted to exile, seventy-one exile crimes to penal servitude, but the general design largely remained the old one. When Gāozōng came to the throne, he again commanded Zhǎngsūn Wújì et al. — together with experts of legal learning — to compose a yìshū (sub-commentary) and put it into force; this is the present book.
Critics say the Táng law took the lǐ (rites) as its single standard, and was thereby “balanced between the past and the present.” Hence the Sòng repeatedly drew on it; even the Yuán, in legal proceedings, often cited it as authority. In the early Hóngwǔ era, the Míng commanded scholar-officials to lecture in the company of the legal officials on the Táng code; later Liú Wéiqiān 劉惟謙 et al. were ordered to redact the Míng code, whose chapter divisions follow strictly the Táng. By Hóngwǔ 22 (1389), the Ministry of Punishments memorialized for compilation and promulgation, dividing for the first time into six laws after the Lì, Hù, Lǐ, Bīng, Xíng, Gōng boards, with Mínglì heading the work. Our present dynasty, weighing past institutions, has bequeathed the imperial Qīndìng Dà Qīng lǜlì 欽定大清律例, “clear, concise, and impartial” — truly an enduring rule that perpetuates the principle of harmonizing right with instructive teaching.
We have ourselves read and analysed it thoroughly. Of Táng-code chapter-titles still in use today, there are Mínglì, Zhízhì, Zéidào, Zhàwěi, Záfàn, Bǔwáng, Duànyù and so on. Some Táng-code chapters our code has split: Hùhūn into Hùyì and Hūnyīn; Jiùkù into Cāngkù and Jiùmù; Dòusòng into Dòuōu and Sùsòng. Some are renamed but substantively identical: Wèijīn into Gōngwèi; Shànxīng into Jūnzhèng. Articles of the Táng on detentions at guānjīn passes the Táng put under Wèijīn; we put them under Guānjīn. The articles concerning carriage-and-horse vestments, items required-but-not-memorialized, post-station carriers’ tardiness, and bribery — all under Zhízhì in the Táng — we have split into Lǐlǜ Yízhì, Lìlǜ Gōngshì, Bīnglǜ Yóuyì, and Xínglǜ Shòuzàng. The articles on plotted murder, formerly under Zéidào, we have split off as Rénmìng. The articles on striking and abusing one’s grandparents and parents the Táng put together under Dòusòng; we have split them, putting them under Dòuōu and Màlì respectively. Articles on illicit sex; on market-officers’ price-equalisation; on cutting open levees; on damaging great-sacrifice altars and grain-mounds; on stealing and eating field-and-orchard fruits — all under Zálǜ in the Táng — we have respectively split into Xínglǜ Fànjiān, Hùlǜ Shìzhái, Gōnglǜ Héfáng, Lǐlǜ Jìsì. So we weigh and harmonize the dispositions, fitting them to the present, completing the great achievement.
But to investigate the institutions of past ages, where the jiémù (hierarchical articulation) is fully provided so that one may follow the wave back to the source, none surpasses the Táng code. Hence we record it, that the model from which our present law-making descends may be visible.
This book was edited and printed in the Tàidìng era (1324–1328) of the Yuán, by Liǔ Yún 柳贇, Educational Inspector of Confucian Learning in Jiāngxī. To the end of each juǎn is appended the Shìwén 釋文 and the Zuǎnlì 纂例 of Wáng Yuánliàng 王元亮, Examination Commissioner of the Jiāngxī Branch Secretariat — also useful for cross-checking the text.
Abstract
The Táng lǜ shūyì is the first complete surviving Chinese imperial law code, and one of the most influential single legal texts in world history. Its compilation and circulation history is well attested. The original lǜ (statutes) were issued in 624 (the Wǔdé code), revised in 627, again in 637 (the Zhēnguān code, in 12 juǎn, 500 articles), and the present Yǒnghuī recension was prepared by an imperial commission of nineteen members under Zhǎngsūn Wújì on Gāozōng’s command in 651–652 and promulgated in 653. The 502-article structure of the surviving text reflects the 737 (Kāiyuán 25) revision; the shūyì (sub-commentary) is, however, that of 653, supplying the line-by-line legal interpretation that is the work’s distinctive contribution. The first three juǎn on Mínglì 名例 (general principles, combining xíngmíng 刑名 — names of punishments — and fǎlì 法例 — standards for the laws) cover only 57 of the 502 articles but occupy roughly one third of the entire text, an indication of their conceptual centrality. The remainder treats specific offences — palace security, court official conduct, household and marriage, granaries and stables, military mobilisation, theft and brigandage, fighting and litigation, fraud, miscellaneous laws, arrest of fugitives, and judicial procedure.
The work’s position in East Asian legal history is paramount. Wilkinson (citing Wallace Johnson) records that “thirty to forty percent of the statutes in the Qīng code of 1740 are identical to those in the Tang code of 653” — i.e., the Táng lǜ survives, line by line, embedded within the legal architecture of every subsequent Chinese dynasty. Beyond China the Táng lǜ is the parent of the Japanese Yōrō ritsuryō (757), the Korean Goryeo and Chosŏn codes, and over two hundred articles of the Vietnamese Lê code (15th c.). The Sìkù tíyào itself records the Yuan and Míng practice of citing the Táng law as authority and the Hóngwǔ instruction that scholar-officials should “lecture together with legal officials on the Táng code.”
The Sìkù version is the Tàidìng (Yuan, 1324–1328) recension printed by Liǔ Yún 柳贇 of the Jiāngxī Confucian-Education Office, with the Shìwén and Zuǎnlì appendices of Wáng Yuánliàng 王元亮; it was submitted from the LiǎngHuái Salt Administration. The dating bracket here (651–653) reflects the imperial composition of the shūyì under the Yǒnghuī commission.
The Kanripo distribution presently contains only the imglist manifest and not OCR text for this work; readers consulting the body must use a separate edition (the standard punctuated edition is Liú Jùnwén 劉俊文, Táng lǜ shūyì jiānjiě 唐律疏議箋解, 2 vols., Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1996, which collates half a dozen extant editions and fragments).
Translations and research
The standard complete English translation is Wallace Johnson (tr.), The T’ang Code, Vol. 1: General Principles (Princeton UP, 1979; arts. 1–57); Vol. 2: Specific Articles (Princeton UP, 1997; arts. 58–502). Johnson’s PhD dissertation underlies vol. 1. The standard Japanese annotated translation is Shiga Shūzō 滋賀秀三 et al., Tōritsu sogi 唐律疏議, vols. 5–7 of Yakuchū Nihon ritsuryō 譯注日本律令 (Tōkyōdō, 1975), with comparisons to Japanese law. The standard Chinese critical edition is Liú Jùnwén 劉俊文 (ed.), Táng lǜ shū-yì jiānjiě 唐律疏議箋解, 2 vols., Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1996. Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §25.3.1 / §25.4.1 surveys the secondary literature; further: Niida Noboru 仁井田陞, Keihō 刑法 (vol. 1 of Chūgoku hōseishi kenkyū 中国法制史研究, 1959–64); Wallace Johnson and Denis Twitchett, “Criminal Procedure in T’ang China,” Asia Major 6.2 (1993), 113–146; Geoffrey MacCormack, The Spirit of Traditional Chinese Law (Georgia UP, 1996); Bettine Birge, Marriage and the Law in the Age of Khubilai Khan (Harvard UP, 2017), for the Yuán reception. For Vietnamese: Nguyễn Ngọc Huy et al., The Le Code: Law in Traditional Vietnam (Ohio UP, 1987), 3 vols. The 1983 Zhōnghuá punctuated edition (Liú Jùnwén) is the basis of the Scripta Sinica digitised text.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào takes pains to demonstrate the seamless pedigree linking the Táng code to the Qīndìng Dà Qīng lǜlì 欽定大清律例 (KR2m0055 Dà Qīng lǜlì) — the working code of the Qīng compilers’ own day — by mapping each Táng-code chapter onto its Qīng-code equivalent. The aim is rhetorical (the present dynasty has perfected the heritage of 653) but the technical mapping is of real value to legal historians; it is in essence a synoptic index of how the eight-section + six-board reorganisation of the Hóngwǔ Míng code reshuffled but did not abolish Táng material. The Kanripo source distribution lacks OCR text — only an imglist manifest is present — so this entry is built from the catalog meta, the Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào, and Wilkinson; researchers wanting the body should use the standard Zhōnghuá editions or the Wallace Johnson translation.