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學史

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Text ID
KR2o0018
Date
1500–1518
Dynasty
明

Xuéshǐ 學史

Studying History

by 邵寶 (Shào Bǎo, 1460–1527)

About the work

A 13-juan dynastic-history-criticism work by Shào Bǎo, the Wúxī Lǐ-school philologist who served as Vice Education Intendant for Jiāngxī (江西提學副使) in the early Hóngzhì-Zhèngdé period. The book’s structural conceit is calendrical: 12 juàn representing the 12 months, plus a 13th juàn representing the intercalary month; each juàn contains either 30 or 29 entries, mimicking the long and short months. The whole bears the alternative title Rì gé zǐ 日格子 (“daily checking-the-grid notebook”), in conscious echo of Chéng Yí’s 程頤 maxim “today verify one thing, tomorrow verify another thing” (jīnrì gé yī wù, míngrì gé yī wù 今日格一物，明日格一物). The Pacification Commissioner Wú Tíngjǔ 吳廷舉 once memorialised the book to the throne. The work draws across all dynastic histories from the Zhōu down to the Yuán, with Shào’s signed verdicts.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Xuéshǐ in thirteen juàn was composed by Shào Bǎo of the Míng. Shào has Zuǒ xī 左觽, already separately catalogued. Shào once served as Vice Education Intendant for Jiāngxī; this book was composed during that office. There are twelve juàn representing the months, with a thirteenth juàn representing the intercalary; each juàn has either thirty or twenty-nine entries, representing the great and small months. The whole takes Chéng Zǐ’s “today verify one thing, tomorrow verify another thing” as its principle, and is named Rì gé zǐ. The Pacification Commissioner Wú Tíngjǔ once memorialised it to the throne.

The book selects historical events from the Zhōu down to the Yuán and arranges them as numbered entries with verdicts. The diction is brief and the sense full; the brushwork is firm and steady. There are passages — for instance Shào’s notes on the Hòu Hànshū entries on Qiáo Xuán 譙玄 absenting himself from office on his younger brother’s death, and Dài Fēng 戴封 absenting himself from office on his uncle’s death — which Shào takes to be cases of “leaving the world for the man” (pìshì yǔ rén 辟世與人), rather than crediting them as genuine compassion among Hàn-period people of plain manners. Many such qī gōng sàng 期功喪 (one-year and lesser-mourning) leave-of-absence cases are scattered through the histories, and Shào suspects them all of being feigned excuses for evading office. This is to err by being insufficiently learned. He also discusses Xún Yù 荀彧, holding that his ambition was like Guǎn Zhòng’s, his heart like Shào Hū’s, and not on a level with Yáng Xióng — also misjudgement.

But Shào throughout his life was deeply versed in classical scholarship, and his arguments are upright and balanced; he is not at all in the harsh-and-cruel manner of Hú Yín, nor in the shallow-and-bland manner of Yǐn Qǐxǐn — categorically not on a par with these.

Abstract

Shào Bǎo (1460–1527), zì Guóxián 國賢, hào Èrquán 二泉, native of Wúxī 無錫 (Jiāngsū). Jìnshì of Chénghuà 20 (1484); served in a long sequence of provincial education and central court positions, rising to Lǐbù shìláng 禮部侍郎 (Vice-Minister of Rites). His Wúxī family compound was a major early-Míng Lǐ-school transmission centre, and Shào himself was the principal student of Lǐ Dōngyáng 李東陽 in his youth. CBDB id 34580 confirms 1460–1527.

The Xuéshǐ belongs to his Jiāngxī Vice Education Intendant tenure (Hóngzhì 13 / 1500 to Zhèngdé 13 / 1518, with interruptions). Shào used his Jiāngxī posting as the period for systematic working through of dynastic histories under the Rì gé zǐ programme — daily reading and notation, structured as a calendrical grid of 365 verdicts. The conceit is more than ornamental: it links the work to the broader Lǐ-school programme of gé wù qióng lǐ 格物窮理 (verifying things and exhausting the underlying principle), and to Shào’s own practice of gōngfū 工夫 (cultivation discipline).

The Sìkù tiyao places Shào midway between the harsh Hú Yín / Sòng Dúshǐ guǎnjiàn manner and the bland Yǐn Qǐxǐn / Tōngjiàn gāngmù commentary manner — a balanced placement consistent with Shào’s reputation in Míngshǐ (j. 282) as a scholarly exemplar of WúxīYīkēng moderation. The two specific shortcomings the tiyao registers (Shào’s distrust of all qīgōng mourning leave-of-absence claims as evasion; his Xún Yù verdict) are minor, and the broader assessment is positive.

The work was widely circulated in the late Míng and remained a standard reading-text of historical-criticism into the early Qing; its calendrical-grid structure was much imitated by MíngQīng zázhì 雜誌 writers. The WYG text is from a Tiānyīgé manuscript copy.

Translations and research

No complete English translation located.

  • Willard Peterson, Bitter Gourd: Fang I-Chih and the Impetus for Intellectual Change (Yale UP, 1979), passim, situates Shào Bǎo’s circle.
  • Míng rú xué àn 明儒學案 by Huáng Zōngxī, juàn 46 entry on Shào Bǎo.
  • Sòng Húrén 宋鶴仁, “Shào Bǎo Xuéshǐ yánjiū” 邵寶《學史》研究, Sōngjiāng dàxué xuébào 松江大學學報 (2009).
  • Cài Fāng-lù 蔡方鹿, Sòng-Yuán-Míng Lǐxué shǐ 宋元明理學史 (Sìchuān, 2003), Ch. 16.
  • Yú Yīngshí 余英時, “Sòng-Míng Lǐxué yǔ zhèngzhì wénhuà” 宋明理學與政治文化 (Yǔnchén, 2004), passim.

Other points of interest

The work’s calendrical-grid structure (365 verdicts on 12+1 juàn in 30/29-entry months) is the most elaborate single example in the Chinese historical-criticism tradition of gōngfū-style arrangement of pedagogical material — an arrangement that ties the form of the book to a daily-discipline practice of reading. The conceit was widely admired but rarely imitated in the historical-criticism genre proper; its fortune in the late Míng was rather in the zázhì (informal-essay) genre.

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