鬻子

Yùzǐ 鬻子

The Master Yù

by 鬻熊 (Yù Xióng, attributed; Zhōu, traditional minister to King Wén); annotated by 逢行珪 (Féng Xíngguī, Táng, jìnshū biǎo dated Yǒnghuī 4 = 653)

About the work

A short pseudepigraphic zǐ-book in one juan (fourteen piān in the received SòngYuán recension), traditionally ascribed to the Zhōu sage Yù Xióng — counselor to King Wén of Zhōu and ancestor of the Chǔ ruling lineage — and surviving today only with the Táng commentary of Féng Xíngguī (presented to the throne in 653). The Hàn shū · Yìwén zhì knew of two distinct works under Yù Xióng’s name (a Daoist Yùzǐ in 22 piān and a xiǎoshuō Yùzǐ shuō in 19 piān); neither corresponds line-for-line with the present text, and the Sìkù editors treat the surviving recension as a Six-Dynasties or Táng fabrication built around the Yùzǐ citations preserved in Jiǎ Yì’s 賈誼 Xīnshū 新書 and the Lièzǐ 列子. Catalogued under Záxué zhī shǔ 雜學之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 division.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Yùzǐ in one juan, the old text titled “composed by Yù Xióng of the Zhōu,” is recorded in the Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目 as fourteen piān; Gāo Sìsūn 高似孫’s Zǐlüè 子畧 makes it twelve, and Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s Shūlù jiětí 書錄解題 reports Lù Diàn 陸佃’s collation in fifteen. The present recension, titled as annotated by Féng Xíngguī of the Táng, has fourteen piān — evidently the very text catalogued by the Chóngwén zǒngmù. Examining the Hàn shū · Yìwén zhì, the Daoists list a Yùzǐ in 22 piān, and the xiǎoshuō class lists a Yùzǐ shuō in 19 piān: there were originally two books. The three Yùzǐ citations in the Lièzǐ are all in the huánglǎo qīngjìng 黃老清靜 register and bear no resemblance to the present text — these probably belong to the Daoist 22-piān version. Our text, however, agrees in style with the six citations in Jiǎ Yì’s Xīnshū, suggesting a connection with the xiǎoshuō Yùzǐ shuō. Dù Yù 杜預’s commentary on the Zuǒ zhuàn calls Yù Xióng the twelfth-generation descendant of Zhùróng 祝融, but Kǒng Yǐngdá 孔穎達’s subcommentary admits not knowing the source. The Shǐjì records that Yù Xióng served King Wén but died early, his son Xiónglí 熊麗 begetting Xióngkuáng 熊狂, who begat Xióngyì 熊繹; the latter received a fief in Chǔ in the time of King Chéng for inheriting the meritorious labour of Wén and Wǔ. The Hàn shū records Wèi Xiàng’s 魏相 memorial to Huò Guāng 霍光, which says that King Wén met Yù Xióng when the latter was in his nineties — slight variation aside, all roughly agree he was a Wén/Wǔ contemporary.

But the present text contains formulas like “in former times the Duke of Zhōu of Lǔ said …” and “in former times the Duke of Zhōu of Lǔ caused Kāng Shū 康叔 to govern in Yīn …” — and Jiǎ Yì’s Xīnshū also cites five passages of Yù Xióng’s exchanges with King Chéng. The chronology will not fit. Liú Xié’s 劉勰 Wénxīn diāolóng 文心雕龍 says: “Yù Xióng knew the Way; King Wén consulted him; the surviving texts and remnants were collected and recorded as the Yùzǐ” — so the compilation does not come from Xióng’s own hand, and what passed down in transmission was supplemented or even fabricated, which may explain why the Hàn zhì set it apart in the xiǎoshuō class.

The single anomaly is the Wěi Sìbā mù 偽四八目 — seen in the preface of Yáng Xiūzhī 陽休之 of the Northern Qí — which lists every catalogued ancient sovereign and assistant minister of any account, yet does not include the specific list this book gives (the seven great officers of Yǔ — Gāoyáo 臯陶, Dù Zǐyè 杜子業, Jì Zǐ 既子, Shī Zǐ 施子, Àn Jì Zǐ 黯季子, Níng Rán 甯然, Zǐ Kān 子堪, Qīngzǐ Yù 輕子玉; and the seven great officers of Tāng — Qìngfǔ 慶輔, Yī Yǐn 伊尹, Huánglǐ 湟里, Dōngmén Ruǎn 東門蝡, Nánmén Lì 南門蜧, Xīmén Pí 西門疪, Běimén Cè 北門側 — all listed by name and surname). It seems the late Six Dynasties did not yet have this text; perhaps a Táng-era hàoshì 好事 — a literary dilettante — fabricated the present recension following Jiǎ Yì’s citations. Note its labelling of sections by jiǎyǐ 甲乙 and its deliberate display of yìtuó cuòluàn 佚脱錯亂 (broken and disordered) condition, while none of the passages Jiǎ Yì cites is reproduced word-for-word — surely the forger took pains to avoid them, hiding his text cleverly so that the reader would be tricked into checking each against the other and growing in trust. The chapter titles are verbose, an old-style work would not have such — and each chapter has only a few sparse lines of shallow purport, certainly no Three-Dynasties old text. We preserve it only because of its long transmission, a single example of its school. The opening juan carries Féng Xíngguī’s preface and his memorial of presentation dated Yǒnghuī 4 [653], where he gives his title as Magistrate of Zhèngxiàn in Huázhōu 華州鄭縣尉; his native place is unknown.

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

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀 (note: 均 in the original is a typographical slip for 昀), Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Yù Xióng 鬻熊 is a legendary figure of high antiquity — eponymous founding ancestor of the Chǔ 楚 royal house and counselor to the Zhōu kings Wén and Wǔ. The Hàn shū · Yìwén zhì lists two early works under his name, a Daoist Yùzǐ (22 piān) and a xiǎoshuō-class Yùzǐ shuō (19 piān); both are lost. The text catalogued here is a much later compilation, typically dated to the late Six Dynasties or early Táng, that survives only with the commentary of Féng Xíngguī 逢行珪, whose memorial of presentation (進鬻子表) is dated Yǒnghuī 4 (11th month of 653). The Sìkù editors argue persuasively that the received recension is a deliberate forgery — chronologically incoherent (Yù Xióng converses with the Duke of Zhōu, who lived a generation later; King Chéng questions him, despite the Shǐjì’s testimony that Yù Xióng died young), shallow in language, and pointedly avoiding the passages that Jiǎ Yì’s Xīnshū and the Lièzǐ cite by name.

The dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 600, notAfter 653) reflects the received recension, not the legendary attributed authorship: the present text was certainly extant by the time of Féng Xíngguī’s memorial, and the Sìkù editors are persuasive in placing the act of fabrication some time in the late Six Dynasties or earliest Táng. The compositional date of any genuinely Pre-Qín Yùzǐ lies far earlier, but this is not the text we possess.

The work is included in the Chóngwén zǒngmù (14 piān), Gāo Sìsūn’s Zǐlüè (12 piān), Chén Zhènsūn’s Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí (Lù Diàn’s recension in 15 piān), and the Shuōfú 說郛. The Daozang preserves a parallel recension also attributed to Yù Xióng (KR5f0005 = DZ 1171). Modern textual scholarship treats it as one of the more transparent examples of Táng pseudo-Daoist zǐshū fabrication.

Translations and research

No complete European-language translation exists. The text is treated incidentally in:

• A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (Open Court, 1989), passing remarks on the Yùzǐ tradition and its citations.
• Liào Míngchūn 廖名春 et al., discussions of pseudepigraphic Daoist works in studies of Hàn zhì zǐshū transmission.
• Sūn Měichǎo 孫梅朝 and other modern Chinese scholarship on Sìkù záxué texts contains philological treatments; no monograph in any European language is devoted to it.

The standard Chinese punctuated edition is in the Zhū Zǐ jíchéng 諸子集成 supplements and in Hú Wéixiào 胡維校 (ed.), Yùzǐ jiàoshì 鬻子校釋 (modern collations), drawing on both the Sìkù recension and the Dàozàng version.

Other points of interest

The text is the most prominent example in the Sìkù of a zǐshū whose tiyao is itself a small monograph in pseudepigraphy criticism: the Sìkù editors lay out the chronological impossibilities, the absence of cross-citation overlap, and the late stylistic markers as a model exercise in sceptical bibliography.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Yùzǐ entry.
• Wikidata: Q1818345 (Yuzi).
• Parallel recension: KR5f0005 (Dàozàng DZ 1171).