聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

二程粹言

5 min read

Text ID
KR3a0032
Date
1107–1135
Dynasty
宋

ÈrChéng cuìyán 二程粹言

Distilled Sayings of the Two Chéng edited by 楊時 (Yáng Shí, zì Zhōnglì 中立, hào Guīshān xiānsheng 龜山先生, 1053–1135, 宋)

About the work

A two-juan thematic distillation of the ÈrChéng sayings into ten 篇 — Lùn dào 論道, Lùn xué 論學, Lùn shū 論書, Lùn zhèng 論政, Lùn shì 論事, Tiāndì 天地, Shèngxián 聖賢, Jūnchén 君臣, Xīnxìng 心性, Rénwù 人物 — composed by Yáng Shí after his return south from Luòyáng to Fújiàn around 1108. Yáng Shí had served first Chéng Hào at Yǐngchāng 潁昌 in his youth, and after Chéng Hào’s death (1085) returned to study under Chéng Yí at Luòdōng 洛東; he is taken in the southward Sòng tradition as the Chéngshì zhèngzōng 程氏正宗 (the orthodox transmission of the Chéng school), the proximate ancestor of Zhū Xī (via Lǐ Tóng) and Zhāng Shì 張栻. The Cuìyán is the editorial counterpart to Zhū Xī’s later Yíshū / Wàishū recension: where Zhū gathered comprehensively, Yáng selected by theme.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the ÈrChéng cuìyán in two juan was edited by Yáng Shí of the Sòng. Shí, zì Zhōnglì, was a man of Jiānglè in Nánjiàn 南劔. Jìnshì of Xīníng 9 (1076); rose in office to Guózǐ jìjiǔ 國子祭酒. On Gāozōng’s accession he was appointed Gōngbù shìláng with concurrent shìjiǎng, then took Lóngtúgé zhíxuéshì and supervised the Dòngxiāogōng at Hángzhōu; he died with the posthumous title Wénjìng 文靖. His career is in the Sòng shǐ. Shí first paid the master’s-rite call on Míngdào at Yǐngchāng and was much in accord with him; on Míngdào’s death he again called on Yīchuān at Luòdōng. The students of the Southeast take him as the zhèngzōng of the Chéng school. After the southern crossing, when shìdàfū came to know of and revere upright learning, Zhūzǐ and Zhāng Shì and others who obtained the Chéng transmission — its source and lineage all came from Shí.

This book was edited on his return from Luò back to the Mǐn region: he took what the disciples of the Two Chéngzǐ had recorded, gathered and ordered it, and divided it into ten 篇. Zhūzǐ once said that Míngdào’s words “explicate to the utmost and well open the reader’s mind”; Yīchuān’s words “approach the matter to make the principle clear, especially repaying chewing” — both fit to be read into mutual elucidation with the Six Classics and LúnyǔMèng. But the records of the time were many and diffuse — the Yíshū, Wàishū, Yǎ yán 雅言, Shī shuō 師說, Záshuō 雜說 and the like, vast in juan-count, the reader unable suddenly to grasp the essential, with much loose and dispersed matter. Zhūzǐ once wished to abridge these into a select edition, but did not finish. Zhāng Shì has the Yīchuān cuìyán but not extending to Míngdào, and so cannot avoid being incomplete.

Shí, having served the Two Chéngzǐ as master and personally received their teaching, made this book to consolidate the threads of their argument, so that the learning of nèishèng wàiwáng 內聖外王 should be set out with order and clarity. Truly his selection is refined and his discussion full; if the reader plays with the wording and bearing, even the subtle words and recondite meanings of the Two Chéngzǐ may be said to be more than half thought-through.

Respectfully revised and submitted, second month of the forty-fourth year of Qiánlóng [1779].

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 ÈrChéng cuìyán is the earlier and more selective companion to Zhū Xī’s later Yíshū / Wàishū compilations of the Chéng-school yǔlù. Its compilation predates Zhū Xī’s by about half a century. Composition window: bracketed by Yáng Shí’s southern return ca. 1108 and his death in 1135. The frontmatter brackets to ca. 1107–1135.

The thematic ten-篇 organisation — articulating the Chéng doctrine into the standard Lǐxué domains of dào / xué / shū / zhèng / shì / tiāndì / shèngxián / jūnchén / xīnxìng / rénwù — anticipates the Jìnsī lù (KR3a0042) editorial method by some sixty years; Zhū Xī and Lǚ Zǔqiān explicitly drew on Yáng Shí’s Cuìyán in compiling the Jìnsī lù. The work is therefore foundational to the Sòng-tradition canon-formation of Northern Sòng daoxué.

The bibliographic record: Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì; Wénxiàn tōngkǎo; SKQS Zǐbù — Rújiā lèi. Modern critical text in Wáng Xiàoyú’s Èr Chéng jí (1981, rev. 2004).

Translations and research

  • Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 1963 — selections from the Cuì-yán under the Èr Chéng entries.
  • Hou Wai-lu et al., Sòng-Míng lǐxué shǐ, vol. 1 — section on Yáng Shí.
  • Wāng Xìnglì 汪行禮, Yáng Shí píng zhuàn 楊時評傳, Nánjīng: Nánjīng Dàxué Chūbǎnshè (Zhōngguó sī-xiǎng-jiā píng-zhuàn cóng-shū), 1990s.
  • Jeffrey L. Richey, “Yang Shi”, in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  • Substantive context as for KR3a0030 (Graham, Chan).

Other points of interest

Yáng Shí’s role as the principal channel of the Chéng-school transmission southward — through Lǐ Tóng to Zhū Xī, and parallel through Hú Hóng to Hú Ānguó’s Hú-school and through to Zhāng Shì — makes the Cuìyán the foundational text of Mǐnxué 閩學 and the proximate canonical source for Zhū Xī’s Lǐxué synthesis.

The Cuìyán’s thematic organisation makes it more usable as a doctrinal manual than the chronologically-ordered Yíshū, and it remained the more popular access-point to the Chéng-school doctrine through the southern Sòng and Yuán.

Graph View

Backlinks