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續孟子

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Text ID
KR3a0017
Date
870–880
Dynasty
唐

Xù Mèngzǐ 續孟子

Continuation of the Mèngzǐ by 林愼思 (Lín Shènsī, zì Qiánzhōng 虔中, 844–880, 唐)

About the work

A two-juan, fourteen-篇 Late-Táng zǐ-style work explicitly modelled on the Mèngzǐ: Lín Shènsī’s premise, recorded in the Chóngwén zǒngmù, is that the seven 篇 of the received Mèngzǐ were not Mencius’s own writing but the disciples’ record, “unable to exhaust Mencius’s intent” — and that he, Lín, would supplement and continue. The fourteen 篇 elaborate Mencian arguments using made-up speakers (a feature the SKQS tíyào compares to Zhuāngzǐ / Lièzǐ yùyán 寓言), and occasionally reassign well-known Mèngzǐ passages to other speakers (e.g. the famous yǔ mín tóng lè 與民同樂 passage to Yuèzhèngzǐ 樂正子 and the Lord of Lǔ, where the Mèngzǐ gives it as Zhuāng Bào 莊暴 / King Xuān of Qí). Within the SKQS Rújiā it stands as one of the most problematic items: a Late-Táng jīng-imitation generally seen — like Yáng Xióng’s Tài xuán mimicking the Yìjīng, Wáng Tōng’s Zhōng shuō mimicking the Lúnyǔ, Cài Chén’s Hóng fàn jiǔ chóu shù — as inviting the standard jiànjīng 僭經 (usurping the canon) charge. The SKQS tíyào notes that this charge is anachronistic: in the Táng the Mèngzǐ was not yet a jīng (canonised within the Sìshū only by Zhū Xī’s standardisation in the Southern Sòng), and Mǎ Zǒng’s Yìlín and Hán Yù treat the Mèngzǐ as just one zǐ alongside Xún and Yáng.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Xù Mèngzǐ in two juan was composed by Lín Shènsī of the Táng. Shènsī, zì Qiánzhōng, was a man of Chánglè. He took the jìnshì in Xiántōng 10 (869) and ranked first in the hóngcí bácuì the following year. He was appointed Mìshūshěng jiàoshūláng and Wèi of Xīngpíng, soon promoted to Shàngshū Shuǐbù lángzhōng holding Magistrate of Wànnián. In the Huáng Cháo disturbance he stood firm and refused to submit, dying for it. The Chóngwén zǒngmù and Zhèng Qiáo’s 鄭樵 Tōngzhì yìwén lüè both record the work in two juan, matching the present text.

The Chóngwén zǒngmù records Shènsī’s words: “Mèngzǐ in seven 篇 was not Kē’s own composition; the disciples together recorded his sayings, but they could not exhaust Kē’s intent. So I have followed his arguments and elaborated them in continuation.” Inspecting the present text, the fourteen 篇 broadly extend Mencian arguments to draw out the meaning. He alone does not state his own view, but always mounts the argument under made-up names — much like the yùyán of Zhuāng and Liè. Furthermore, like the yǔ mín tóng lè passage, originally in the Mèngzǐ’s exchange between Zhuāng Bào and the King of Qí, displaced by him into a chapter on Yuèzhèngzǐ and the Lord of Lǔ — in justice this is hardly defensible. But where he opens up and makes manifest the principle, he often hits an essential truth; the work is not to be dismissed.

In old times Yáng Xióng made the Tài xuán in imitation of the Yìjīng; Wáng Tōng made the Zhōng shuō in imitation of the Lúnyǔ; later Confucians in both cases raised the charge of “usurping the canon”. Cài Shěn 蔡沈 made the Hóng fàn jiǔchóu shù 洪範九疇數, and the imperially-compiled Xìnglǐ jīngyì (KR3a0107) likewise dismissed it as canon-usurpation and excluded it. Shènsī’s work to some extent walks the same path. But in the Táng the Mèngzǐ was not styled a jīng. So Mǎ Zǒng’s Yìlín lists it alongside the various zǐ-house works, and Hán Yù speaks of it together with Xún and Yáng — we cannot retrospectively impose a later judgment on Shènsī.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

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 Xù Mèngzǐ is the principal Late-Táng Confucian zǐ-style work in the Mèngzǐ tradition, and one of the cleanest test cases for the developing canonical status of the Mèngzǐ. Lín Shènsī’s strategy — supplying the “lost” Mencian arguments through invented or relocated dialogue — is methodologically akin to the slightly later Mèngzǐ recovery efforts of Lú Cōng 廬從 (Late Táng) and Hán Yù’s defense of the Mèngzǐ. The yǔ mín tóng lè relocation flagged by the SKQS tíyào is the most obvious case of free reassignment.

Composition is bracketed by Lín’s career: the Xù Mèngzǐ must postdate his jìnshì of 869, and the Shēnméngzǐ (KR3a0018) preface implies the Xù Mèngzǐ was preceded by an earlier seven-篇 Rúfàn 儒範 that did not circulate. Composition therefore falls roughly in the 870s, with the terminus ad quem his execution by Huáng Cháo’s forces in 880. The frontmatter brackets the work to ca. 870–880.

The transmitted text matches the Chóngwén zǒngmù and Zhèng Qiáo Tōngzhì yìwén lüè records (both 2 juan), suggesting reasonably stable transmission since the early Northern Sòng. The fourteen 篇 are Liáng Huìwáng shàng / xià, Gōngsūn Chǒu shàng / xià, Téng Wéngōng shàng / xià, Lí Lóu shàng / xià, Wànzhāng shàng / xià, Gàozǐ shàng / xià, Jǐnxīn shàng / xià — a deliberate seven-篇-with-shàng-xià doubling of the Mèngzǐ’s own seven 篇.

The bibliographic record: Chóngwén zǒngmù (2 juan, Rújiā); Tōngzhì yìwén lüè (likewise); Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì; SKQS Zǐbù — Rújiā lèi.

Translations and research

  • No substantial secondary literature located in Western languages.
  • Yáng Bóxiàng 楊伯翔, Lín Shènsī yánjiū 林慎思研究, Fúzhōu: Fújiàn Rénmín Chūbǎnshè, 2010s. Modern Chinese monograph.
  • The work is occasionally cited in studies of the late-Táng Mèngzǐ canonisation process (e.g. work by Wú Zhèn-hàn 吳震漢) but is not the subject of any sustained Western-language study.

Other points of interest

The Xù Mèngzǐ is one of a small number of pre-Sòng works that explicitly position themselves as continuations of a classical text rather than commentaries on it; the WénZhōngzǐ Zhōng shuō (KR3a0014) is the closest analogue. The eventual canonisation of the Mèngzǐ in the Sìshū under Southern Sòng Lǐxué dramatically reframed the reception of works like Lín’s: what had been continuation of a zǐ text now read as forgery of a jīng. The SKQS tíyào’s defence on this point is one of the more historically aware moments in the eighteenth-century Sìkù enterprise.

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