聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

近思錄

6 min read

Text ID
KR3a0042
Date
1175–1257
Dynasty
宋

Jìnsī lù 近思錄

Reflections on Things at Hand edited by 朱熹 (Zhū Xī, 1130–1200, 宋, 編) and 呂祖謙 (Lǚ Zǔqiān, 1137–1181, 宋, 編); collected commentary by 葉采 (Yè Cǎi, 宋, 集解)

About the work

The foundational anthology of Northern Sòng daoxué, compiled jointly by Zhū Xī and Lǚ Zǔqiān at their famous five-day conference at Hánquán Jīngshè 寒泉精舍 in summer Chúnxī 2 (1175 — the same conference that immediately preceded the Éhú 鵝湖 meeting with the Lù brothers). Selecting from the Tàijí tú shuō and Tōng shū of Zhōu Dūnyí, the Xī míng and Zhèng méng of Zhāng Zǎi, the Jīngxué lǐkū of Zhāng Zǎi, the ÈrChéng yíshū, and the Yì zhuàn of Chéng Yí, they assembled 622 selected passages organised into fourteen thematic juan: Dào tǐ 道體, Wéi xué 為學, Zhì zhī 致知, Cún yǎng 存養, Kè jǐ 克己, Jiā dào 家道, Chū chǔ 出處, Zhì tǐ 治體, Zhì fǎ 治法, Zhèng shì 政事, Jiào xué 教學, Jǐng jiè 警戒, Biàn yì duān 辨異端, Shèng xián 聖賢. The work explicitly excludes Shào Yōng 邵雍’s writings, on Zhū Xī’s editorial caution. The title jìnsī comes from the Lúnyǔ — “qiè wèn ér jìn sī 切問而近思” (“press the question and reflect on what is at hand”). The standard premodern commentary is Yè Cǎi’s jíjiě of 1257.

The Jìnsī lù is the single most important canonical anthology in the SòngMíng Lǐxué tradition: with the Sìshū it constitutes the core Lǐxué curriculum. Hé Jī 何基 (SòngYuán), Xuē Xuān 薛瑄 (Míng), Luó Qīnshùn 羅欽順 (Míng) all studied it as foundational; Korean Sǒngnihak and Japanese Shushigaku take it as central. Its description by traditional commentators as “the staircase to the Five Classics” (wǔ jīng zhī jiētī 五經之階梯) is well-deserved.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Jìnsī lù in fourteen juan was jointly compiled by Zhūzǐ and Lǚ Zǔqiān of the Sòng. The works of the Two Chéngzǐ, of Zhōu and Zhāng, are vast in conception and recondite in expression; chéngxué students cannot find their footing. Zhūzǐ, fearing they would not know how to choose, with Zǔqiān categorised and gathered to compose this book. He took only the Tàijí tú shuō, Yì tōng 易通 [= Tōng shū], Xī míng, Zhèng méng, Jīngxué lǐkū, ÈrChéng yíshū, and Yì zhuàn; from Shàozǐ’s writings he abstained — taking the cautious course.

The book is named jìnsī — the meaning of “qiè wèn ér jìnsī” — to make students apply effort to the realities of daily use, and not to drift into far-off heights. Discussants take it as the staircase to the Five Classics — truly not unjustly. The SòngMíng Confucians — Héshì Jī, Xuēshì Xuān, Luóshì Qīnshùn — all hold this book in highest regard. Subsequently there have been continuations and expansions, also worth supplementing it; but the precision of the original recension is unmatched.

Respectfully revised and submitted, eleventh 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 Jìnsī lù is the most important canonical anthology of Northern Sòng daoxué. Its composition is precisely datable to summer Chúnxī 2 (1175): Zhū Xī and Lǚ Zǔqiān worked at Hánquán Jīngshè (Zhū’s residence at Wǔfū 武夫 mountain) for several days of intensive editing, completing the work just before Lǚ Zǔqiān continued north to Xìnzhōu 信州 for the Éhú meeting with Lù Jiǔyuān 陸九淵 and Lù Jiǔlíng 陸九齡 (June 1175). The jíjiě commentary by Yè Cǎi was completed in 1257.

The frontmatter brackets the work to 1175 (the original anthology) – 1257 (the jíjiě completion). The substantive position the work codifies — Northern Sòng daoxué as the central canonical resource, with the Sìshū — became the Lǐxué mainstream for the next seven hundred years. The deliberate exclusion of Shào Yōng on the editorial caution — Shào’s Yì-cosmological numerology being too close to xiàngshù divination — is itself a methodologically significant boundary-drawing.

Each of the 622 selected passages is keyed to its source by source-text and zhāng number, making the Jìnsī lù simultaneously an anthology and a topical concordance into the broader Northern-Sòng daoxué corpus. Zhū Xī’s editorial practice — explicit source-citation and topical organisation — became the SòngYuánMíng standard for jīngyán anthology preparation.

The bibliographic record: Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì; Wénxiàn tōngkǎo; Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí; SKQS Zǐbù — Rújiā lèi. Major modern critical text: Chen Rongjie 陳榮捷 (Wing-tsit Chan), Jìnsī lù xiáng zhù jí píng 近思錄詳註集評 (Tabei: Xuéshēng Shūjú, 1992).

Translations and research

  • Wing-tsit Chan, Reflections on Things at Hand: The Neo-Confucian Anthology Compiled by Chu Hsi and Lü Tsu-Ch’ien, Columbia University Press, 1967. The standard complete English translation, with extensive critical apparatus.
  • Wing-tsit Chan, Jìn-sī lù xiáng zhù jí píng 近思錄詳註集評, Tabei: Xué-shēng Shū-jú, 1992. The companion Chinese-language critical edition.
  • Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy, University of Hawai’i Press, 1992 — extensive use of the Jìn-sī lù in reconstructing the consolidation of daoxué.
  • A. C. Graham, Two Chinese Philosophers (1958, rev. 1992) — context.
  • Brian E. McKnight (and others), comparative studies of the Jìn-sī lù with Korean Sǒngnihak anthologies.
  • Yú Yīngshí, Zhū Xī de lìshǐ shìjiè (2003).

Other points of interest

The Jìnsī lù’s thematic ordering — beginning with Dào tǐ (the structure of the Way), proceeding through self-cultivation, family life, governance, education, vigilance, the rejection of heterodoxy, and ending with the lives of the sages and worthies — provides a complete Lǐxué curriculum in compressed form. The fourteen juan are typically read in order over a year of intensive Lǐxué study and remain a major component of contemporary Confucian-tradition pedagogical practice.

Korean scholarship in particular has developed a substantial Geunsa rok (近思錄) commentary tradition (Yi Hwang 李退溪 and others) that runs in parallel to the Chinese tradition; the work is one of the few classical Chinese books to have been more systematically commented on in Korea than in China itself.

Graph View

Backlinks