Xīmíng shùjiě 西銘述解
Annotated Exegesis of the Xīmíng by 曹端 (Cáo Duān, hào Yuèchuān 月川, 1376–1434, 明)
About the work
A one-juan exegetical commentary by Cáo Duān on Zhāng Zǎi 張載’s Xī míng 西銘 (originally a short zhāng in Zhèng méng 正蒙 — the Qián chēng 乾稱 chapter — but circulated independently from the Northern Sòng under Yáng Shí 楊時’s transmission, with Zhū Xī’s Xīmíng jiě as the standard gloss). The work is one of the three commentaries Cáo Duān composed on the foundational Northern-Sòng daoxué texts (see KR3a0023 Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě and KR3a0025 Tōngshū shùjiě); it was first printed paired with the Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě by Lí Yáoqīng 黎堯卿 in Zhèngdé 6 (1511), with the Tōngshū added later under Sūn Qíféng’s editorship and the Miǎnchí magistrate Zhāng Jìng’s printing.
The parent text Xīmíng — opening “Qián I call father, Kūn I call mother; I in my smallness mingle obscurely in their midst…” — is the foundational Sòng statement of the cosmological-ethical yī tǐ 一體 doctrine: that filial relation to one’s parents is continuous with humane relation to all human beings, with all things, and with Heaven and Earth as the ultimate parents. Zhū Xī’s gloss is the standard layer; Cáo Duān’s commentary supplements it with his own jìng cún 靜存 emphasis.
Tiyao
(See the joint SKQS tíyào under KR3a0023, which covers this work together with KR3a0023 Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě and KR3a0025 Tōngshū shùjiě.)
The relevant points specific to the Xīmíng shùjiě recorded in the joint tíyào: this work was not mentioned in Cáo Duān’s own preface (Xuāndé 3, 1428), but appears already in Lí Yáoqīng’s Zhèngdé 6 (1511) postface, which “begins to mention the Xīmíng as well.” The Xīmíng shùjiě was therefore probably composed by Cáo Duān after the dated Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě preface of 1428 but before his death in 1434.
Abstract
The Xīmíng shùjiě is the briefest of Cáo Duān’s three Northern-Sòng daoxué commentaries. Its position within Cáo’s project is to provide the jìng cún / gōngxíng shíjiàn reading of Zhāng Zǎi’s yī tǐ doctrine, supplementing Zhū Xī’s foundational gloss in the Xīmíng jiě.
The composition window is bracketed by Cáo Duān’s working life and the absence of any reference to the Xīmíng in the 1428 self-preface to the Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě. The frontmatter brackets to ca. 1410–1434, with the more likely range 1428–1434.
The transmitted text is the SKQS-reedited consolidation of Lí Yáoqīng’s 1511 paired printing with the Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě, integrated with the Sūn Qíféng / Zhāng Jìng three-work edition. The textual situation is identical to that of the Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě.
The parent text Xīmíng is preserved in Kanripo within Zhāng Zǎi’s Zhāngzǐ quánshū (KR3a0026) — the Xīmíng originally being a zhāng of the Zhèng méng — and the commentedTextid in the frontmatter accordingly points to KR3a0026.
The bibliographic record: as for KR3a0023, with this work appearing in the SKQS triad with two-juan totals.
Translations and research
- For the parent text Xī-míng: Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Princeton, 1963, 497–500 (translation of Xī-míng).
- Tu Wei-ming, Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness, SUNY Press, 1989 — extended treatment of the Xī-míng doctrine.
- For Zhū Xī’s Xī-míng jiě: Joseph Adler, The Original Meaning of the Yijing, Columbia University Press, 2020 — extensive treatment of Zhū’s metaphysical commentaries.
- Cáo Duān-specific Chinese-language studies as for KR3a0023.
Other points of interest
The Xīmíng is one of the very few short daoxué texts that achieved fully independent transmission outside its parent (the Zhèng méng) — a status it acquired under Yáng Shí’s Northern Sòng transmission and consolidated under Zhū Xī’s gloss. Cáo Duān’s commentary is one element in the Míng tradition that continued to read it as an independent work.
Links
- Xīmíng 西銘 — embedded in Zhèng méng 正蒙, Qián chēng 乾稱 chapter; parent corpus KR3a0026.
- Zhū Xī, Xīmíng jiě 西銘解 (the foundational commentary).
- Kyoto Zinbun, Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào (joint tíyào)
- Wikipedia (parent text)
- Wikidata