子華子

Zǐhuázǐ 子華子

The Master Zǐhuá

by 程本 (Chéng Běn, attributed; nominally a Spring-and-Autumn-era figure of Jìn 晉, zì Zǐhuá 子華)

About the work

A short pseudepigraphic zǐ-book in two juan and ten piān, ascribed to a Spring-and-Autumn worthy named Chéng Běn 程本 (style Zǐhuá) — a figure mentioned in the Kǒngzǐ jiāyǔ 孔子家語 and given a brief notice in the Zhuāngzǐ — and prefaced with a forged “preface by Liú Xiàng” 劉向 reporting that he collated the work from twenty-four into ten piān. The received text, however, is universally regarded since the Sòng as a Northern-Sòng forgery: it first appears in print at Kuàijī 會稽 in the years following the Southern Crossing (after 1127), and Sòng critics (Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武, Zhū Xī 朱熹, Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫, Zhōu Mì 周密) all reject the attribution. Catalogued under Záxué zhī shǔ 雜學之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 division.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Zǐhuázǐ in two juan, the old text titled “composed by Chéng Běn of the Jìn,” is examined as follows. The name Chéng Běn is seen in the Kǒngzǐ jiāyǔ; the name “Zǐhuázǐ” is seen in the Lièzǐ 列子 — they are not originally one and the same person. The Lǚshì chūnqiū 呂氏春秋 cites a “Zǐhuázǐ” in three places, and Gāo Yòu 高誘 [in his commentary] takes him to be an ancient man who embodied the Way: clearly there did exist before the Qín a Zǐhuázǐ book. Yet the Hàn zhì 漢志 already does not record it, so by Liú Xiàng’s time the book was already lost. The present text only emerges after the Sòng Southern Crossing, when it was first cut at Kuàijī. Cháo Gōngwǔ, on the strength of its frequent use of Wáng Ānshí’s 王安石 Zìshuō 字説 explanations, brands it the work of a candidate examinee active after the Yuánfēng 元豐 reforms [post-1078]; Zhū Xī, observing that it issued from Yuè 越, points to Wáng Zhì 王銍 or Yáo Kuān 姚寬 and their circle as the forger, though he doubts they are quite up to it; Zhōu’s Shèbǐ 涉筆 [Zhōu Mì 周密], on the basis of the Shénqì 神氣 chapter, takes it for the work of a frustrated man before the lifting of the proscriptions of the [Yuányòu 元祐] partisans.

Examining the book itself: it draws much from Huánglǎo language and weaves in arts-of-numerology talk. The Lǚshì chūnqiū “Guìshēng” 貴生 chapter’s one passage is now in our Yángchéng Qúxū wèn 陽城渠胥問 chapter; the “Zhīdù” 知度 chapter’s one passage is now in the Hǔ Huì wèn 虎會問 chapter; the “Shěnwéi” 審為 chapter’s passage, however, is deliberately left out and not entered, in order to mask the traces of plagiarism — the forger is rather skilful in his craft. Yet his essential drift on commerce, taxation, and statecraft is not contrary to the sages and worthies. His one passage on the Yellow Emperor’s casting of cauldrons, treating it as the parable of the ancients, suffices to correct the errors of the fāngshì 方士 [adepts of esoteric arts]; his one passage on Yáo’s earthen steps, holding that the sage values not mere frugality but propriety, is sufficient to lance the bias of the Mohists. His prose, though somewhat diffuse, is given to vertical-and-horizontal disputation, and is often delightful — the work of a man of letters of some pith, venting his frustration in writing, and ascribing his book to an ancient. Observe that the piān at the end giving his own genealogy traces the Chéng surname to the Zhào 趙 lineage, with anxious devotion to his own clan, instructing his son not to keep two minds in his service of his lord — clearly hinting at the Sòng surname [Zhào]. He must therefore have been a kinsman of the imperial Sòng house, in the Xīníng 熙寧 / Shàoshèng 紹聖 [1068–1098] period, who could not bring himself to take office.

Among the forged zǐ-books, this is the most reasoned, refined, and well-adorned: one may identify it as a forgery, but to discard it because it is forged would not do. Chén Zhènsūn says “the prose is not ancient yet has things worth seeing, and must come from a competent essayist of recent days” — a sound public verdict. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s mocking it as “erroneous and shallow” goes too far.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-second year of Qiánlóng [1777].

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

The text catalogued here is one of the two most often-cited Northern-Sòng forgeries of a zǐ-book (the other being the Wénzǐ in its later strata). The legendary frame attributes the work to Chéng Běn 程本 (zì Zǐhuá), a Jìn-state worthy of the late Spring-and-Autumn period whom Confucius is said to have met on the road to Tán 郯, and presents itself with a pseudo-preface by Liú Xiàng claiming to have collated it from twenty-four into ten piān. None of this stands up: the Hàn shū · Yìwén zhì knows no such book, and although the Lǚshì chūnqiū (3rd c. BCE) does cite a “Zǐhuázǐ” three times — Gāo Yòu’s commentary calls him an “ancient man who embodied the Way” — that lost text cannot be matched to the present recension.

The received text first surfaces in print at Kuàijī 會稽 in the years immediately following the Sòng Southern Crossing (1127). Three independent Sòng critics dated it before its appearance in print: Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武 (in Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì 郡齋讀書志) noted that its glosses follow Wáng Ānshí’s Zìshuō and dated it post-Yuánfēng (after 1078); Zhū Xī (with reservations) and Zhōu Mì 周密 both placed it in the late eleventh century; Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫 in Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí 直齋書錄解題 calls it “non-ancient prose with merit, surely from a recent able writer.” The Sìkù editors accept this verdict and note further that the book contains “Zǐhuázǐ”-attributed passages also cited in the Lǚshì chūnqiū, with at least one such passage deliberately omitted to mask the act of compilation. They further deduce, from the genealogical postface that traces the Chéng line to the Zhào 趙 surname (the imperial Sòng surname is also Zhào), that the forger was probably a member of the Sòng imperial clan disaffected during the Xīníng / Shàoshèng era (1068–1098).

The dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 1080, notAfter 1150) reflects the received recension, not the legendary attributed authorship: the text uses Wáng Ānshí’s Zìshuō (which only became authoritative under the Yuánfēng reforms) as a terminus a quo, and is in print and circulating by the 1140s. The genuine pre-Qín Zǐhuázǐ, if it ever existed as a book, was already lost in the Hàn.

The work is included in the Sòng Imperial Library catalog (in two juan), Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì, Chén Zhènsūn’s Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí, and the Sìkù. The Dàozàng preserves a parallel recension also titled Zǐhuázǐ (KR5f0008).

Translations and research

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

• Hellmut Wilhelm, “Notes on Chinese Forgery and the Zǐhuázǐ,” in his collected essays on Sòng intellectual history (passing remarks).
• Yú Jiāxī 余嘉錫, Sìkù tíyào biànzhèng 四庫提要辨證 (Zhōnghuá Shūjú, 1958; rev. ed. 1980), entries on the Záxué sub-class. The fundamental modern critique of the Sìkù tiyao tradition; corrects and extends the Sìkù editors’ analysis of the Zǐhuázǐ forgery.
• Wáng Sānxìng 王三慶 and other modern Chinese scholars on Sòng pseudepigraphy treat it incidentally; 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; the Dàozàng recension (KR5f0008) preserves a parallel transmission.

Other points of interest

The forged “Liú Xiàng preface” prefixed to the work is itself a notable specimen of Sòng pseudepigraphic technique: it imitates the formulaic jìn shū biǎo idiom of genuine Western-Hàn collation reports and supplies a complete biography of “Chéng Běn” — including a meeting with Confucius and a refusal to serve the rebel Zhào Jiǎnzǐ 趙簡子 — assembled from scattered allusions in the Jiāyǔ, Lièzǐ, and Lǚshì chūnqiū. The Sìkù editors’ analysis of this preface, together with their identification of the Zìshuō-derived glosses and the deliberately-omitted Lǚshì citation, makes the Zǐhuázǐ tiyao a small treatise on bibliographic forensics.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Zǐhuázǐ entry.
• Wikidata: Q11097137 (Zihuazi).
• Parallel recension: KR5f0008 (Dàozàng).