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潛虛

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Text ID
KR3g0004
Date
1080–1086
Dynasty
宋

Qiánxū 潛虛

The Latent Void (Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tàixuán-paralleling cosmological treatise) by 司馬光 (Sīmǎ Guāng, 1019–1086, 宋, zhuàn 撰); with appended Qiánxū fāwēi lùn 潛虛發微論 in 1 juàn by 張敦實 (Zhāng Dūnshí, 12th cent., 宋)

About the work

Sīmǎ Guāng’s late-life cosmological treatise modeled on Yáng Xióng’s KR3g0001 Tàixuán jīng but using a 5-fold (rather than 9-fold) numerical-cosmological scheme based on the Five Phases (wǔxíng). The work centers on a 55-line/state numerical-cosmological structure (5 × 11 = 55 — though the original recension Sīmǎ Guāng left at his death may have used 50 = 5² × 2) corresponding to the Hétú numerical scheme. The work consists of (in the surviving recension): seven explanatory tú 圖 (diagrams) — Qì 氣 (Pneuma), Tǐ 體 (Body), Xìng 性 (Nature), Míng 名 (Names), Xíng 行 (Conduct), Biàn 變 (Variations), Jiě 解 (Explanations). The accompanying numerological-cosmological apparatus draws explicitly on the Yìjīng’s HétúLuòshū tradition.

The work has a complex transmission-history. Sīmǎ Guāng died (1086) before completing the work; his nephew Zǐjiàn 子建 preserved his draft. The Sòng bibliographer Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武 in his Dúshū zhì and Zhū Xī 朱熹 in his Tàixuán-related postface both record that the work as Sīmǎ Guāng left it had substantial lacunae (quē 闕), and that subsequent printed editions (notably the Quánzhōu printing) had filled in these lacunae spuriously. Zhū Xī, on examining the Quánzhōu edition, judged it a forgery (yànběn 贗本).

The Sìkù 提要 painstakingly works through the text-critical evidence:

(a) Cháo Gōngwǔ records 7 tú but indicates the original was unfinished. (b) Zhū Xī found the Quánzhōu printing complete but immediately recognized it as not Sīmǎ Guāng’s original. (c) Xióng Pénglái 熊朋來 records 6 tú (Qì, Tǐ, Xìng, Míng, Xíng, Mìng), suggesting the Mìng 命 (Mandate) section in the present edition was added later. (d) Cháo Gōngwǔ says “5 phases × 5 phases doubled = 50” but the present edition has 55 — suggesting the additional 5 lines were also later. (e) Wú Shīdào’s Tǐbù jí post-face documents Wú Shīdào’s collation of three different recensions (one full, two partial) using Zhū Xī’s method to mark spurious-from-genuine. (f) Lín Xīyì’s Qiánxū jīngyǔ (preserved in Juànzhāi shíyī gǎo) preserves only the partial-recension content.

The 提要’s verdict: “The world has long lacked the original book; [we] tentatively because it issues from [Sīmǎ] Guāng preserve [it]“. The work is preserved as the closest available approximation to Sīmǎ Guāng’s intended composition, with full acknowledgement that the present recension contains substantial later additions.

The 提要 also records two substantive philosophical assessments: Chén Chún 陳淳 (Zhū Xī’s disciple) “ridiculed [the work’s] so-called Xū (Void) — does not avoid Lǎozǐ’s [Daoist] return-to-emptiness” — i.e. the work’s central metaphysical category is too Daoist for Neo-Confucian taste. The 提要 itself takes a more sympathetic position: “its lucky-good-balanced-bad divinatory determinations using Qì ‘s exceeding-or-not-reaching as the standard, also do not lose the meaning of the Sage-and-Worthy”.

The appended Qiánxū fāwēi lùn 潛虛發微論 in 10 sections (shí piān 十篇) by Zhāng Dūnshí 張敦實 (Sòng, late 12th century, Zuǒ Cháofèng láng Jiānchá yùshǐ) was integrated with the main text by the Yuán period per Wú Shīdào’s account. The 提要 retains it. Zhāng Dūnshí’s biographical details are obscure; the 提要 speculates he may be the same person as the Zhāng Shí 張實 whose name appears as collator on a Tàixuán jīng edition (with Dūn 敦 character dropped to avoid the Sòng Níngzōng 寧宗 era taboo), but cannot confirm this.

For Sīmǎ Guāng’s biography, see 司馬光. For the parallel Tàixuán tradition, see KR3g0001.

Tiyao

[Full text of the 提要 is given in the description above. The text is in Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù j. 108 (子部·術數類一).]

Abstract

Composition window: c. 1080 (the late phase of Sīmǎ Guāng’s career, after his retirement to Luòyáng to write the Zīzhì tōngjiàn; he was actively working on this and other cosmological projects in the 1080s) – 1086 (Sīmǎ Guāng’s death; the work was left unfinished). The transmitted recension represents both Sīmǎ Guāng’s original draft and (substantial) subsequent additions by various Sòng-and-Yuán hands.

The work’s significance:

(a) Companion to Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tàixuán jízhù: Sīmǎ Guāng was the most important Sòng-period commentator on Yáng Xióng’s Tàixuán jīng (his Tàixuán jízhù 太玄集注 is one of the principal Tàixuán commentaries). The Qiánxū is his own original composition in the Tàixuán style, attempting to provide a 5-fold (rather than the Tàixuán’s 9-fold) cosmological alternative to the Yìjīng’s 8-fold scheme. Together the two works mark Sīmǎ Guāng as the leading Sòng cosmologist of the Yìjīng-paralleling tradition.

(b) Demonstration of late-Sòng / Yuán pseudepigraphic completion: the work’s transmission-history exemplifies the late-Sòng / Yuán practice of completing unfinished classical works through pseudepigraphic supplementation. The Sìkù editors’ careful parsing of genuine-vs-spurious sections (drawing on Zhū Xī, Cháo Gōngwǔ, Xióng Pénglái, Wú Shīdào, and Lín Xīyì) is a model of late-Qīng kǎojù methodology.

(c) The 5-fold cosmological scheme: the Qiánxū’s use of the wǔxíng 5-fold structure (vs. the Tàixuán’s 9-fold and the Yìjīng’s 8-fold) is one of the few systematic alternatives to the standard cosmological numbers. Through Sīmǎ Guāng’s authority the 5-fold scheme retained currency in subsequent Sòng-and-Míng cosmological speculation.

For the Daoist-influenced cosmological context, see the various Tàijí tú tradition works in KR5. For the Yìjīng-tradition itself, see KR1a.

Translations and research

  • Limited substantial secondary literature in European languages. Treated in:
  • Bol, Peter K. “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992 (background on Sī-mǎ Guāng’s intellectual project).
  • Smith, Kidder Jr., Peter K. Bol, Joseph A. Adler, and Don J. Wyatt. Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.

Other points of interest

The 提要’s careful documentation of Zhū Xī’s role as text-critic — distinguishing genuine-from-forged sections of the Qiánxū — exemplifies the long-standing late-imperial Chinese acknowledgement of Zhū Xī’s text-critical authority. The Sìkù editors implicitly accept Zhū Xī’s methodology even while preserving the incomplete-and-partly-forged recension on grounds of long transmission.

Sīmǎ Guāng’s death-while-incomplete is one of several famous Sòng cases of unfinished cosmological-classical works (compare also Zhāng Zǎi’s 張載 Zhèngméng 正蒙 left incomplete at his 1077 death; the Zhōu Dūnyí Tàijí túshuō 周敦頤太極圖說 brevity attributed to incompleteness; etc.). The pattern reflects the Sòng-period intellectual ambition that frequently outran the lifespan of the projected works.

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