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揚子法言

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Text ID
KR3a0009
Date
1–18
Dynasty
漢

Yángzǐ Fǎ yán 揚子法言

Master Yáng’s Model Sayings — with Collected Commentaries by 揚雄 (Yáng Xióng, 53 BCE – 18 CE, 漢, 撰); commentaries by 李軌 (Lǐ Guǐ, 晉, 注), 柳宗元 (Liǔ Zōngyuán, 773–819, 唐, 注), 宋咸 (Sòng Xián, 宋, 重添注), 吳秘 (Wú Mì, 宋, 重添注), 司馬光 (Sīmǎ Guāng, 1019–1086, 宋, 重添注)

About the work

The Fǎ yán 法言 in thirteen 篇 — Yáng Xióng’s Lúnyǔ-modelled compilation of his answers to questioners on the matter of shèngrén zhī fǎ 聖人之法 — transmitted in ten juan with the integrated commentary (jízhù 集注) of Sīmǎ Guāng (1019–1086), who absorbed the earlier strata of Lǐ Guǐ (Eastern Jìn), Liǔ Zōngyuán (Mid-Táng) and the two Northern Sòng glossators Sòng Xián 宋咸 and Wú Mì 吳秘 and added his own remarks on top. Yáng Xióng’s Fǎ yán is, with the Tàixuán 太玄 (KR5f0017), the great Western Hàn philosophical-classical project of imitating the canon, and was treated by the SKQS editors and by the Sòng Confucian tradition through the Northern Sòng as second only to the Mèngzǐ among Hàn-period zǐ works. From Chéng Yí 程頤’s strictures on its “diffuseness without judgment” (mànyǎn ér wú duàn 蔓衍而無斷), Sū Shì 蘇軾’s verdict that it “uses obscure language to dress up shallow argument”, and Zhū Xī’s Tōngjiàn gāngmù notation of Yáng’s death as “the death of Mǎng’s dàfū”, Yáng’s reputation collapsed in the post-Northern-Sòng tradition — a position the SKQS tíyào records but does not endorse. The Qiánlóng emperor’s own colophon, prefixed to the WYG text (KR3a0009_000.txt), gives the same critique: that Yáng could speak (yán) of yòng zhì 用智 but could not act (xíng) on it, and that the lesson of his collaboration with Wáng Mǎng is the difficulty of having word and action match.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Yángzǐ Fǎ yán in ten juan was composed by Yáng Xióng of the Hàn, with collected commentary by Sīmǎ Guāng of the Sòng. Examining the Hàn shū yìwén zhì, under Rújiā it lists Yáng Xióng’s compositions in thirty-eight 篇, with the note “Fǎ yán thirteen 篇”. His Hàn shū biography sets out the chapter sequence in full: Xué xíng 學行 (1), Wúzǐ 吾子 (2), Xiū shēn 修身 (3), Wèn dào 問道 (4), Wèn shén 問神 (5), Wèn míng 問明 (6), Guǎ jiàn 寡見 (7), Wǔ bǎi 五百 (8), Xiān zhī 先知 (9), Zhòng lí 重離 (10), YuānQiān 淵騫 (11), Jūnzǐ 君子 (12), Xiào zhì 孝至 (13). Of Hàn-period writings none is so fully catalogued — the work was much esteemed in the period.

It is from Chéngzǐ that we first hear that “it is diffuse and without judgment, mild and without decision”; it is from Sū Shì that we first hear that “Yáng wraps up shallow ideas in obscure language”; from Zhū Xī’s Tōngjiàn gāngmù that Yáng’s death is recorded as “Mǎng’s dàfū Yáng Xióng dies”. Thereafter Yáng’s reputation as man and as author was held in low regard among Confucians. In the period before the Northern Sòng, by contrast, he had been ranked with Mencius and Xún Qīng. Hence Sīmǎ Guāng composed his Qián xū 潛虛 in imitation of the Tài xuán and gathered the various Confucian remarks to compose this commentary.

The earlier commentaries listed are: Hóu Bā 侯芭 in six juan; Sòng Zhōng 宋衷 in thirteen juan; Lǐ Guǐ’s jiě in one juan; Xīn Déyuán 辛德源 in twenty-three juan; and further the commentaries of Liǔ Zōngyuán, Sòng Xián’s Guǎng zhù 廣注, and Wú Mì’s zhù. By Sīmǎ Guāng’s time only Lǐ Guǐ, Liǔ Zōngyuán, Sòng Xián and Wú Mì remained extant; Sīmǎ collated the four and added his own opinion, his original preface saying he distinguished them by surname. The present text, however, leaves Lǐ Guǐ’s name unmarked and uses Zōngyuányuē, Xiányuē, Mìyuē, Guāngyuē — clearly altered by later printers.

The old recension placed the序 of the thirteen 篇 at the end of the book, in accord with the established practice from the Shūxù 書序 and Shīxù 詩序 onward. Sòng Xián, not knowing that the Shūxù had been moved by the spurious Kǒng tradition and the Shīxù moved by the Máo school, took the序 to be Yángzǐyún’s intent and held its closing position perverse. He raised the序 to head each chapter, claiming this matched the classical norm. This is mistaken, but Sīmǎ Guāng followed the change and we leave it as it stands.

Respectfully revised and submitted, twelfth month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng [1780].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The Fǎ yán in its original form is Yáng Xióng’s signature philosophical work — a Lúnyǔ-modelled set of dialogues in thirteen 篇, framed as Yáng’s responses to questioners and arranged thematically. Its composition postdates the Tài xuán (KR5f0017) and is the work of Yáng’s last decades, completed before his death in 18 CE. The composition window is conventionally placed in the Yuánshǐ 元始 (1–5 CE) to Tiānfèng 天鳳 (14–19 CE) range, with the closing chapters bearing on policy under Wáng Mǎng’s Xīn 新 dynasty (9–23 CE). The frontmatter brackets the work to roughly 1–18 CE.

The textual transmission falls into three clear strata: (i) the original Yáng Xióng text, with a series of pre-Táng commentaries (Hóu Bā, Sòng Zhōng, Lǐ Guǐ, Xīn Déyuán) of which only Lǐ Guǐ’s survived in any continuity into the Sòng; (ii) Liǔ Zōngyuán’s mid-Táng partial supplementation; (iii) the Northern Sòng project of comprehensive re-annotation, undertaken by Sòng Xián (preface 1036, presented 1037), Wú Mì in the 1050s–1060s, and finally consolidated by Sīmǎ Guāng in his jízhù (preface preserved in the WYG, KR3a0009_000.txt). Sīmǎ Guāng’s preface states that Yáng was “the deepest” (qí suǒ qián zuì shēn yǐ 其所潛最深矣) of the post-Confucian masters, ranking him explicitly above Hán Yù’s “great in main with small flaws” verdict. This preface and Sòng Xián’s preface and presentation memorial (KR3a0009_000.txt) are essential paratext for the Northern Sòng reception.

The structural intervention recorded in the SKQS tíyào — Sòng Xián’s elevation of the序 from the close of each chapter to the head of each chapter, on a misreading of pre-canonical practice — is preserved in the SKQS-base but explicitly flagged as a Sòng Xián error.

The bibliographic record: Hàn shū yìwén zhì (Yáng Xióng suǒxù 38 篇, Rújiā, with note “Fǎ yán 13 篇”); Suí shū jīngjí zhì; Jiù Táng zhì, Xīn Táng zhì; Chóngwén zǒngmù; Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì; Jīngyì kǎo (in the Sìxù 私序); SKQS Zǐbù — Rújiā lèi.

Translations and research

  • Erwin von Zach, “Yang Hsiung’s Fa Yen: Worte strenger Ermahnung”, Sinologische Beiträge IV.1, 1939. The first complete European translation (German).
  • Jeffrey S. Bullock, Yang Xiong: Philosophy of the Fa Yan — A Confucian Hermit in the Han Imperial Court, Mountain View, CA: Mountain Mind Press, 2011. Standard English translation and study.
  • Michael Nylan, Exemplary Figures / Fa Yan, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013. The current standard English translation, with extensive critical apparatus and an authoritative introduction on the textual problem.
  • Wāng Róngbǎo 汪榮寳, Fǎ yán yìshū 法言義疏, Běijīng: Zhōnghuá Shūjú, 1987. Comprehensive late-Qīng / early-Republican commentary, the standard Chinese scholarly edition.
  • Hán Jǐng 韓敬, Fǎ yán zhù 法言注, Běijīng: Zhōnghuá Shūjú, 1992. Modern critical edition.
  • Hán Jǐng, Fǎ yán quán yì 法言全譯, Guìyáng: Guìzhōu Rénmín Chūbǎnshè, 1992. Modern Chinese translation.
  • Michael Nylan, “Han classicists writing in dialogue about their own tradition”, Philosophy East and West 47.2 (1997): 133–188.
  • David R. Knechtges, The Han Rhapsody: A Study of the Fu of Yang Hsiung, Cambridge University Press, 1976 — context for Yáng Xióng’s pre-Fǎyán career.
  • Michael Loewe (ed.), Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, Berkeley, 1993, s.v. “Fa yen”, 100–104 (entry by D. R. Knechtges).

Other points of interest

The Qiánlóng emperor’s own colophon (御製書揚雄法言), preserved at the head of the WYG text (KR3a0009_000.txt), is one of the more pointed pieces of imperial book-criticism in the SKQS: it argues that Yáng’s own historical case (his service under Wáng Mǎng, his attempted suicide by leaping from the Tiānlùgé 天祿閣 tower in the Liú Fēn 劉棻 affair, and his posthumous designation as “Mǎng’s dàfū”) is the standing rebuttal to his own most famous yòng zhì 用智 passage in the Fǎ yán, and that the case shows “how hard it is to have word and action match”.

The chapter YuānQiān 淵騫 (chapter 11) — its title taken from Yán Yuān 顏淵 and Mǐn Sǔn 閔損 (ZǐQiān 子騫) — is a comparative biography of pre-Hàn worthies, and is the principal Lúnyǔ-style component of the work; the closing chapter Xiào zhì 孝至 incorporates Yáng’s positions on Wáng Mǎng’s Xīn government.

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