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太極圖說述解

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Text ID
KR3a0023
Date
1410–1428
Dynasty
明

Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě 太極圖說述解

Annotated Exegesis of the Tàijí tú shuō by 曹端 (Cáo Duān, hào Yuèchuān 月川, 1376–1434, 明)

About the work

A one-juan exegetical commentary by Cáo Duān on Zhōu Dūnyí’s 周敦頤 Tàijí tú shuō 太極圖說 — the foundational Northern Sòng daoxué text on the metaphysical genesis of the cosmos — together with Cáo’s own commentary on Zhū Xī 朱熹’s gloss. The work is part of a triad of Cáo’s commentaries on the three core texts of Northern Sòng daoxué: this Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě, the Tōngshū shùjiě (KR3a0025) on Zhōu Dūnyí’s Tōngshū, and the Xīmíng shùjiě (KR3a0024) on Zhāng Zǎi 張載’s Xīmíng. The work’s distinctive feature, flagged by the SKQS tíyào, is its closing biàn lì 辨戾 — “distinguishing the discrepancies” between Zhū Xī’s authoritative gloss on the Tàijí tú shuō and the looser Zhūzǐ yǔlèi discussions, with Cáo arguing that the yǔlèi is the disciples’ record (not from Zhū’s hand) and may not be reliable on technical metaphysical points. This is one of the earliest examples of intra-Zhūzǐxué textual stratification.

Tiyao

(Note: this tíyào is a single one covering the three works KR3a0023 Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě, KR3a0024 Xīmíng shùjiě, and KR3a0025 Tōngshū shùjiě. The same translation is given in each of the three Kanripo entries; the SKQS-base printing carries the tíyào once at the head of KR3a0023.)

We respectfully submit that the Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě in one juan, Tōngshū shùjiě in two juan, and Xīmíng shùjiě in one juan were composed by Cáo Duān of the Míng. Duān, zì Zhèngfū, hào Yuèchuān, was a man of Miǎnchí. Jǔrén of Yǒnglè wùzǐ (1408); held office as Xuézhèng of Huòzhōu, later transferred to Pǔzhōu. His career is in the Míng shǐ Rúlín zhuàn. The history says: his learning made its business gōngxíng shíjiàn 躬行實踐, with jìng cún 靜存 as its essential. Reading the Tàijí tú shuō, Tōngshū and Xīmíng he said, “The Way is in these”; in his earnest study, the place where he sat to set his feet wore through two bricks. The Míng-period upright Confucians were best taken as Duān, Hú Jūrén and Xuē Xuān, with Duān again opening the way for the other two.

This compilation provides exegesis of the three texts, all expressing what he had grasped in his own heart, with the main bearing returning to Zhūzǐ. At the close of the Tàijí tú the biàn lì 辨戾 1 篇 is appended: comparing the discussions of tàijí and yīnyáng in the Zhūzǐ yǔlèi against those in the zhùjiě (Zhū Xī’s gloss), which differ. He argues that the zhùjiě came from Zhūzǐ’s hand whereas the yǔlèi is the disciples’ record and cannot be entirely free of error. Duān’s grasp of Zhūzǐ being deep, he can distinguish hairline differences and refuses to repeat as an echo. So he is not as those who depend on grass and lean on trees [trafficking in fashion].

There is at the head of the work a self-preface by Duān, dated Xuāndé wùshēn (1428), discussing only the Tàijí tú shuō and adding a poem-encomium on the biàn lì, but not extending to the Xīmíng. At the close of the Xīmíng there is a postface by Lí Yáoqīng 黎堯卿 of Zhèngdé xīnwèi (1511), which begins to mention the Xīmíng as well. Before and after the Tōngshū there are Sūn Qíféng’s 孫奇逢 preface and postface; the postface speaks only of the Tōngshū, but the preface mentions Zhāng Jìng 張燝, then Magistrate of Miǎnchí, who issued the three works under one printing. Apparently Lí Yáoqīng began by combining the Tàijí tú shuō with the Xīmíng, and Zhāng Jìng then added the Tōngshū.

According to Duān’s biography, his book was originally titled Shì wén 釋文 (the zhù on the Xiào jīng by him is named Shù jiě). The present book is also titled shùjiě; by whose hand it was changed is unclear. The printing-quality is rather poor and the layout has no editorial consistency: each line of the body-text and the commentary is run together, with characters of the same size, only a square-bracket frame on the head and tail of each body-text line for distinction — extremely confusing to read. We have now separated them, putting the commentary on a different line from the body-text, for the reader’s convenience.

Respectfully revised and submitted, [date not preserved in source].

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 Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě is the principal early-Míng commentary on Zhōu Dūnyí’s Tàijí tú shuō (the source text is Zhōu’s brief programmatic essay on the Tàijí — the Supreme Polarity — generating the yīnyáng, the wǔ xíng, and ultimately the myriad things, with Zhū Xī’s foundational mid-Southern Sòng commentary as the standard pre-Cáo gloss). Cáo Duān’s contribution is on three levels: (i) a fresh exegesis adding his own grasp to Zhū’s authoritative gloss; (ii) the biàn lì — the diagnostic separation of Zhū’s authentic written gloss from the disciples’ looser yǔlèi discussions; (iii) a programmatic statement of the jìng cún methodology that Cáo identifies with Northern Sòng daoxué.

The composition window is bracketed by Cáo Duān’s mature working life and the date of his self-preface to the Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě (Xuāndé 3, 1428). The frontmatter brackets to ca. 1410–1428.

The textual transmission is partly a printing-history rather than a textual one: the Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě was first printed paired with the Xīmíng shùjiě by Lí Yáoqīng in Zhèngdé 6 (1511); the Tōngshū shùjiě was added by the Magistrate Zhāng Jìng in a unified printing under the editorial supervision of Sūn Qíféng (1585–1675) — the late-Míng / early-Qīng Lǐxué scholar; the SKQS-base text is the consolidated three-work edition. The biàn lì is preserved at the close of the Tàijí tú portion and is the work’s most-cited section.

The bibliographic record: Míng shǐ yìwén zhì; Wényuāngé shūmù; SKQS Zǐbù — Rújiā lèi. The work’s circulation in late Míng / early Qīng was via Sūn Qíféng’s Yǐ Ān 鴈 / Xiàfēng 夏峯 academy publishing.

The parent text Tàijí tú shuō is in Kanripo as KR5f0001 within the Daoist division (the work is canonically Rújiā but Kanripo follows the secondary Dàoshū placement); the parent text linkage in the frontmatter commentedTextid follows that placement.

Translations and research

  • No substantial English-language secondary literature located specifically on Cáo Duān’s Tài-jí tú shuō shù-jiě. The parent text and Zhū Xī’s gloss are extensively treated in:
    • Joseph A. Adler, Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi’s Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi, SUNY Press, 2014.
    • Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Princeton, 1963 (chs. 28–29).
    • Joseph A. Adler, “Zhu Xi’s Spiritual Practice as the Basis of His Central Philosophical Concepts”, Dao 7 (2008): 57–79.
  • Cáo Duān studies in Chinese-language scholarship include Liú Měng 劉蒙, Cáo Yuèchuān píng-zhuàn 曹月川評傳 (Hé-nán Rénmín Chūbǎnshè, 1990s), and the chapter on Cáo in Bù Yǒngfēi 步永飛, Míng-chū Lǐxué yánjiū 明初理學研究.

Other points of interest

The biàn lì is a methodologically interesting case in pre-modern Chinese intra-tradition philology: an early-Míng Zhūzǐxué loyalist diagnosing the Zhūzǐ yǔlèi as less authoritative than the formal commentary on a key technical question (the relation between tàijí and yīnyáng). The argument is taken up in the late-Qīng / early-Republican textual treatments of the Zhūzǐ yǔlèi, e.g. by Qián Mù 錢穆 in Zhūzǐ xīn xué àn 朱子新學案.

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