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省心雜言

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Text ID
KR3a0038
Date
1100–1170
Dynasty
宋

Shěngxīn záyán 省心雜言

Miscellaneous Words for Examining the Heart-Mind by 李邦獻 (Lǐ Bāngxiàn, 宋)

About the work

A one-juan biji of moral aphorisms — over two hundred items in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn full text — composed by Lǐ Bāngxiàn (younger brother of Tàizǎi Lǐ Bāngyàn). The work circulated under multiple incorrect attributions in pre-SKQS tradition: most commonly to Lín Bū 林逋 (Héjìng xiānsheng 和靖先生 — the famous Hangzhou recluse-poet of the early eleventh century), occasionally to Yǐn Tūn 尹焞 (whose hào Héjìng also matches Lín’s), or to Shěn Dàoyuán 沈道原. The SKQS editors, drawing on the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn full text with its prefaces and colophons (including those by Lǐ Bāngxiàn’s own grandson and great-great-grandson, who explicitly testify to seeing the manuscript draft), restored the correct attribution. Substantively the work is in the late-Northern / early-Southern Sòng xiūshēn tradition — short aphorisms on moral self-cultivation, daily comportment, and political ethics, in the broader Shěngxīn lù / Shěngxīn xùn genre.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Shěngxīn záyán in one juan was composed by Lǐ Bāngxiàn of the Sòng. Bāngxiàn was a man of Huáizhōu, younger brother of Tàizǎi Bāngyàn; he held office to Zhí Fūwéngé. The book in the Sòng has a Línān printed edition titling it as composed by Lín Bū, or also some claiming it as Yǐn Tūn’s composition. Sòng Lián’s colophon to the work says: “Bū actually composed nothing; Tūn likewise was confused with [Lín Bū’s] hào Héjìng — neither attribution is correct.”

But the Zhūzǐ yǔlù supplementary categories edited by Wáng Bì 王佖 contains a Shěngxīn lù — that is by Shěn Dàoyuán 沈道原; the wording must have a basis. So one might fix the attribution as Shěn’s. Táo Zōngyí 陶宗儀’s Shuō fú records several items from the work, still labelling them Lín Bū’s — no settled position.

We have now examined the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn: it has the entire book in over two hundred items, gathered in following the Sòng-printed full version. Before are five prefaces by Qí Kuān, Zhèng Wàngzhī, Shěn Jùn, Wāng Yīngchén, Wáng Dàshí; after are three postfaces by Mǎ Zǎo, Xiàng Ānshì, Lè Zhāng; further three postfaces by Bāngxiàn’s grandson Qígāng and fourth-generation descendant Jǐngchū. All of these attribute the work to Bāngxiàn; Qígāng further says he had seen the manuscript draft and explicitly distinguishes the false attribution to Lín Bū. Coming from the Lǐ family descendants’ own testimony, the attribution is not made up.

Further checking: Wáng Ānlǐ 王安禮’s tomb inscription for Shěn Dàoyuán lists Shěn’s compositions — Shī chuán 詩傳, Lúnyǔ jiě 論語解 etc. — and there is no Shěngxīn záyán among them. This is sufficient proof against Shěnzǐ’s authorship. Sòng Lián, hastily fixing the attribution as Shěn’s on the basis of the Zhūzǐ yǔlù, did not investigate carefully.

The book is close-fitting and concise, plain yet comprehensive; on fàn shì lì sú 範世勵俗 it has substantial bearing. We have respectfully corrected the errors and fixed the attribution as the Lǐ-family book; the textual investigation of the variants is as above.

Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth 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.

Abstract

The Shěngxīn záyán is a useful mid-Sòng aphoristic biji, primarily of interest because of the SKQS-restored attribution to Lǐ Bāngxiàn. The compositional window is the period of Lǐ’s working life, undatable more precisely than the broader range bracketed by his brother’s Tàizǎi office (Lǐ Bāngyàn was Chancellor 1125–1126) and the work’s evident transmission by mid-Southern-Sòng (the prefaces by Qí Kuān, Zhèng Wàngzhī, Wāng Yīngchén are early Southern Sòng). The frontmatter brackets to ca. 1100–1170.

The four pre-SKQS attributions — Lín Bū / Yǐn Tūn / Shěn Dàoyuán / Lǐ Bāngxiàn — represent one of the more involved late-Sòng / Yuán / Míng transmission histories among minor biji; the SKQS tíyào’s use of the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn-preserved family colophons is methodologically the cleanest way to settle the matter, and the resolution has been accepted by post-SKQS scholarship.

The substantive content — over two hundred short moral aphorisms in the xiūshēn tradition — is in line with the biji tradition that runs from Lín Bū’s actual writings through to the late-Sòng géyán corpus.

The bibliographic record: Wénxiàn tōngkǎo (variously attributed); Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí; SKQS Zǐbù — Rújiā lèi (with attribution corrected); Shuō fú and Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preservation.

Translations and research

  • No substantial English-language secondary literature located.
  • The work is briefly noted in studies of the Sòng gé-yán / jiā-xùn tradition.

Other points of interest

The work’s unstable attribution history — running through Lín Bū, Yǐn Tūn, Shěn Dàoyuán to the SKQS-restored Lǐ Bāngxiàn — is a fairly clean case study in pre-SKQS / post-SKQS philological correction of a Sòng biji attribution.

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