Dù Shǐ yōuqiú xīnshū 杜氏幽求新書
Master Dù’s New Book of Searching the Recondite by 杜夷 (Dù Yí, 258–323, 晉)
About the work
A lost Eastern Jìn 東晉 zǐbù compilation by Dù Yí 杜夷, the noted ritualist and recluse-classicist. Reconstructed from quotations in 《太平御覽》, 《文選注》 (Lǐ Shàn on Liú Xiàobiāo’s Guǎngjué jiāo lùn and Wáng Yuánzhǎng’s Sānyuè sānrì qūshuǐ shī xù), the Zuǒ shì zhuàn sub-commentary, and other Táng leishu. Some early citations give the title simply as Yōuqiú zǐ 幽求子. Not in the Sìkù quánshū; sourced from CHANT (CH2a1454).
Abstract
Dù Yí 杜夷 (zì Xíngzhī 行齊) was a Lújiāng 廬江 native of austere reputation who refused repeated invitations to office under both Western and Eastern Jìn. His biography is in Jìn shū 晉書 j. 91 (Rúlín lièzhuàn); the dates 258–323 follow the Jìn shū notice. The Yōuqiú xīnshū — also referred to as Yōuqiú zǐ — is a Daoist-inflected zǐ-house treatise: surviving fragments speak of the cultivation of inner stillness, the conduct of the yǐnjūn 隱君 (recluse-gentleman), and metaphysical reflection on the Yì. A small number of fragments touch on classical exegesis, but the dominant register is that of xuánxué 玄學 inflected ethics, closer to Wáng Bì 王弼 and Guō Xiàng 郭象 than to the WèiJìn statecraft tradition of Wáng Sù or Dù Shù. The composition window is bracketed by Dù Yí’s life; the received recension is a 19th-century jíyì.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated secondary literature located in Western languages. Standard fragment-compilation: 嚴可均 Quán Jìn wén 全晉文 j. 132.
Links
- Jìn shū 晉書 j. 91 (儒林傳·杜夷傳).
- Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書經籍志.