Jū yè lù 居業錄
Record of Diligent Practice by 胡居仁 (Hú Jūrén, hào Jìngzhāi 敬齋, 1434–1484, 明)
About the work
An eight-juan yǔlù-style notebook by Hú Jūrén — one of the foundational early-Míng Zhūzǐxué loyalists — recording his jiǎngxué discussions across his lecturing career. Substantively, the work is staunchly Zhū-Xī-orthodox and is in places explicitly polemical against the xīnxué turn of Hú’s fellow Wú Yǔbì 吳與弼 disciple Chén Xiànzhāng 陳獻章 (the Báishā school founder) — accusing Chén of crossing into Chán (Buddhist) territory in his jìng zhōng yǎng chū duānní (cultivating the seedling-thread in stillness) doctrine. Hú’s own position is that proper jìng (mindfulness) requires holding to the master (yǒu zhǔ) rather than passively attending to whatever arises. The Hóngzhì jiǎzǐ (1504) Yú Yòu 余祐-edited recension is the SKQS-base; Zhāng Jí 張吉 in Zhèngdé period made a Yào yǔ abridgment, and Wú Tíngjǔ 吳廷舉 made a Cuì yán abridgment, but the SKQS preserves the original. Huáng Zōngxī’s Míngrú xué àn takes Hú and Chén as “tóngmén míngqì” (concord between fellow-disciples) — a position the SKQS tíyào rejects as a “forced harmonisation”.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that the Jū yè lù in 8 juan was composed by Hú Jūrén of the Míng. Jūrén, zì Shūxīn, hào Jìngzhāi, was a man of Yúgàn. The book is throughout his jiǎngxué sayings.
Jūrén and Chén Xiànzhāng both came out of Wú Yǔbì’s gate, but the central bearing was sharply different. Xiànzhāng’s learning above continues Jīnxī [Lù Jiǔyuān]; below opens up Yáojiāng [Wáng Yángmíng]; Jūrén holds firmly to Zhūzǐ without departing a foot. Hence he names his hall Jìng (Reverence). And in this book, distinguishing Xiànzhāng’s near-Chán — repeatedly. His person was upright and his learning solid, similar in kind to Héjīn Xuē Xuān; and this book is also, with Xuē’s Dú shū lù, esteemed by students.
Huáng Zōngxī’s Míngrú xué àn says: he “with yǒu zhǔ speaks of jìng zhōng zhī hányǎng; this is the same as Xiànzhāng’s jìng zhōng yǎng chū duānní; same-gate harmony in the dark” — but this is forced linkage, not a substantive argument.
In the Zhèngdé period one Zhāng Jí trimmed his book into Yào yǔ; further one Wú Tíngjǔ trimmed it into Cuì yán. The present text is the Hóngzhì jiǎzǐ (1504) edition by Yú Yòu — still the original. Yòu, zì Zǐjī, was a man of Póyáng.
[Tíyào continues; abbreviated.]
Respectfully revised and submitted, [date].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅.
Abstract
The Jū yè lù is one of three foundational early-Míng Zhūzǐxué loyalist notebooks, alongside Cáo Duān’s Tàijí tú shuō shùjiě (KR3a0023) and Xuē Xuān’s Dú shū lù (KR3a0079). Composition window: bracketed by Hú Jūrén’s working life. The frontmatter brackets to ca. 1460–1484.
The substantive position has two layers: positive Zhūzǐxué exposition (with jìng / yǒu zhǔ methodology), and direct polemic against Chén Xiànzhāng’s Báishā line. The work is methodologically the most explicit early-Míng anti-xīnxué statement, predating Luó Qīnshùn’s mature Kùnzhī jì polemics by half a century.
The textual transmission is well-documented: the Hóngzhì 1504 Yú Yòu edition (preserved as the SKQS-base), with Zhèng-dé-period abridgments by Zhāng Jí and Wú Tíngjǔ.
The bibliographic record: Míng shǐ yìwén zhì; Wényuāngé shūmù; Míngrú xué àn (Huáng Zōngxī); SKQS Zǐbù — Rújiā lèi.
Translations and research
- No substantial English-language secondary literature located specific to this work.
- For the broader Mid-Míng anti-xīn-xué polemics: M. Theresa Kelleher, “Personal Reflections on the Pursuit of Sagehood: The Life and Journal of Wu Yübi” (1982); Sun Yu-pei (Sūn Yǔpèi), Wú Yǔbì yánjiū.
Other points of interest
The Hú Jūrén / Chén Xiànzhāng pair — both Wú Yǔbì disciples but doctrinally divergent — represents one of the cleanest cases of intra-school Lǐxué / xīnxué divergence in late-fifteenth-century Míng. Hú’s anti-Chén polemic is the inaugural Mid-Míng Lǐxué-loyalist statement against the rising xīnxué current that would culminate in Wáng Yángmíng a generation later.
Links
- Míng shǐ j. 282 (Rúlín zhuàn / Hú Jūrén).
- Chén Xiànzhāng’s Báishā jí (the polemical target — separately catalogued).
- Kyoto Zinbun, Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào
- Wikipedia
- Wikidata