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明本釋

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Text ID
KR3a0050
Date
1163–1190
Dynasty
宋

Míng běn shì 明本釋

Clarifying the Foundation, with Glosses by 劉荀 (Liú Xún, 宋)

About the work

A three-juan biji of Liú Xún’s jiǎngxué (lecture-discussions), grouped into 33 thematic sections (biāomù 標目) with a discursive lùn (essay) for each plus self-supplied zhù (notes) where the lùn did not cover the matter. Substantively the work is grounded in the Yuán-yòu-faction tradition through Liú’s grandfather Liú Zhì 劉摯, supplemented by extensive citation of the Chéng-school (Chéng Yí, Yáng Shí, Hú Hóng, Zhāng Jiǔchéng) and Zhū Xī. The work was little circulated in the Sòng (not in Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì, Cháo Gōngwǔ, Chén Zhènsūn, Mǎ Duānlín) and only emerged into broader circulation in the YuánMíng. The original title may have been Míng běn (without 釋); the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn-preserved Sòng base reads Míng běn shì, which the YuánMíng book-catalogues (Yáng Shìqí, Jiāo Hóng) tend to abbreviate to Míng běn.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Míng běn shì in three juan was composed by Liú Xún of the Sòng. Xún was a man of Dōngpíng, grandson of Shàngshū zuǒ púshè Liú Zhì. The book’s reference to Xiān Wénsù gōng 先文肅公 indicates Zhì. Under Xiàozōng he served as Zhī Xūyí jūn; his career is otherwise unrecoverable.

This is his lecture-discussion. The main bearing: in applying effort one must seek the foundation. He accordingly raises 33 essentials, gives each its own biāomù, composes a discursive lùn to expand it, and where the lùn does not exhaust supplies a zhù of his own. The work cites widely from the Yuányòu Confucians, the Chéngmén disciples, and the contemporaries Hú Hóng, Zhāng Jiǔchéng, and Zhūzǐ. His positions are pure and orthodox; his prose is generally clear and earnest, conveying meaning to its limit and stopping. Of the Northern Sòng míngchén’s words and deeds, he attaches fùzhù; this is a son of the dǎngjí (proscribed party) lineage honouring the old hearings of his predecessors.

The Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì and Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì both fail to record it. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí and Mǎ Duānlín’s Jīngjí kǎo only record Xún’s Jiànyán Déān shǒuyù lù 建炎德安守禦錄, and pass over this work. Only the Míng Wényuāngé shūmù and the Guóshǐ jīngjí zhì have it. So the work was not prominent in the Sòng, only emerging in the YuánMíng.

Yáng Shìqí 楊士奇 and Jiāo Hóng 焦竑 both write Míng běn in two juan, composed by Liú Xún. But the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recordings consistently title it Míng běn shì — possibly the original title was Míng běn, and later hands, on account of the zhù attached to the lùn, supplied the character shì in the title.

Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng [1778].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅.

Abstract

The Míng běn shì is a comparatively obscure mid-Southern-Sòng biji, restored to full circulation only by the SKQS editors via the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. Composition window: bracketed by Liú Xún’s term as Zhī Xūyí jūn under Xiàozōng (r. 1163–1189) — the only datable element of his career. The frontmatter brackets to ca. 1163–1190.

The work’s modest reputation is partly because Liú Xún belonged to a Yuán-yòu-faction lineage proscribed under the late Northern Sòng (the Yuányòu dǎngjí 元祐黨籍 of 1102) and partly because his teaching, while broadly daoxué-aligned, did not enter into the major doctrinal disputes of his generation (the Mǐn / Hu-Xiāng split). His role as a textual witness — citing his grandfather Liú Zhì alongside the contemporary Hú Hóng and Zhāng Jiǔchéng — gives the work some prosopographical interest as a synthesis-document.

The original title issue (Míng běn vs. Míng běn shì) is one of the cleaner small textual cases in the SKQS-period book-recovery process: the YuánMíng book catalogues abbreviate, but the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserves the longer Sòng title.

The bibliographic record: Wényuāngé shūmù (Míng); Guóshǐ jīngjí zhì (Míng); Yǒnglè dàdiǎn; SKQS Zǐbù — Rújiā lèi.

Translations and research

  • No substantial English-language secondary literature located.
  • The work is treated within studies of the Yuán-yòu-faction transmission and the Liú Zhì lineage.

Other points of interest

The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn’s preservation of the work in essentially complete form — running to 33 biāomù across 3 juan — is one of the cleaner cases of Yǒnglè dàdiǎn-mediated rescue of a Sòng Rújiā text.

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