樂菴語錄

Lèān yǔlù 樂菴語錄

Recorded Sayings of [Lǐ Héng of] Lè-ān

by 李衡 (Lǐ Héng, 1100–1178, zì Yànpíng 彦平, hào Lèān 樂庵; Southern-Sòng Mìgé xiūzhuàn); compiled by 龔昱 (Gōng Yù, zì Lìdào 立道, of Kūnshān 崑山, his disciple)

About the work

A Southern-Sòng yǔlù 語錄 (“recorded sayings”) collection in five juan, recording the daily lectures and conversations of Lǐ Héng during the years his pupil Gōng Yù 龔昱 studied with him in retirement at Kūnshān 崑山. Lǐ Héng’s hào Lèān 樂庵 — “Hut of Joy” — gives the book its title. The work is appended in the SKQS recension with Lǐ Héng’s biography from the Sòng shǐ 宋史 (the Sòngshǐ Lǐ Héng zhuàn 宋史李衡傳, in 1 juan, listed as appendix in the catalog meta) together with anecdotal yíshì 遺事 (“surviving anecdotes”) and prefaces / postfaces by Wú Rénjié 吳仁傑, Wáng Lìn 王藺, Sūn Qiáo 孫僑, Yóu Jiàng 游洚 [or 涊], Zhōu Bìdà 周必大, Fàn Chéngdà 范成大, Wáng Suì 王遂, and Liú Wěi 劉煒. Catalogued under Záxué zhī shǔ 雜學之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 division — though as the Sìkù editors note, the contents are essentially Daoxue-school yǔlù with admixtures from Buddhism and Daoism.

Tiyao

(Tiyao for Lèān yǔlù in the same SKQS volume as the Chú yán 芻言 KR3j0019; the Lèān yǔlù portion of the SKQS tiyao reads as follows.)

We respectfully submit that Lèān yǔlù in five juan, composed by Gōng Yù 龔昱 of the Sòng. Yù’s zì was Lìdào 立道, a man of Kūnshān 崑山. He studied under Lǐ Héng 李衡 and recorded his master’s everyday lecture-discussions to make this book. Lèān 樂庵 was the name of Héng’s residence. Héng made the Analects the foundation of his learning; he had once received teaching from Zhào Xiàosūn 趙孝孫 of Luò 洛 (Luòyáng), and Xiàosūn’s father had taken instruction from Yīchuān 伊川 [Chéng Yí 程頤] — so Héng too is in the lineage of the Chéng. His Zhōuyì yì hǎi cuō yào 周易義海撮要 KR1a0034 has been separately catalogued. The present compilation expounds lǐxué 理學 (Daoxue) thought; passages on poetry and prose are also occasionally included; and there are passages reaching into the two [other] traditions, such as the discussions of yīnyuán 因緣 (karmic conditioning) and of the hells (dìyù 地獄), which fail to be entirely free of blemish — but their sudden insights (chāowù 超悟) are by no means within the range of the shallow.

At the end of the juan are placed Héng’s biography and several entries of his yíshì 遺事 (surviving anecdotes); also a postface by Wú Rénjié 吳仁傑, and prefaces and postfaces by Wáng Lìn 王藺, Sūn Qiáo 孫僑, Yóu [Jiàng / Lián] 游洚, Zhōu Bìdà 周必大, Fàn Chéngdà 范成大, Wáng Suì 王遂, Liú Wěi 劉煒, and others, all very full. Observing how he raised memorials to discuss public matters without shirking before the powerful, and how at his death he took leave with composure, devoted to rènxù 任卹 (taking on the burdens of others), one sees that he was truly able to slough off the cares of riches and rank and of life and death. With this to corroborate his words, his is a learning of gōngxíng shíjiàn 躬行實踐 (personal practice and concrete realization), not to be classed with those who emptily speak of nature and destiny. Rénjié’s postface says: “My friend Master Gōng Lìdào devoted himself to learning, and studied with the Master for six years; whatever subtle words and essential pointers he heard, he wrote them down in his notebook” — one may say, indeed, of one who did not forget his teacher.

The Míng Kūnshān rénwù zhì 崑山人物志 by Fāng Péng 方鵬 says of Yù that he “had a distinguished air in literary learning, contented in poverty and pleased with the Way; the local people called him Gōng shānzhǎng 龔山長 (Master Gōng of the Mountain). His residence was named Qījiāntáng 棲間堂 (Roosting-in-the-Margins Hall); Lù Yóu 陸游 and Liú Guò 劉過 both wrote poems for him.”

Respectfully revised and submitted, second month of the forty-seventh year of Qiánlóng [1782].

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

Lǐ Héng 李衡 (1100–1178), zì Yànpíng 彦平, hào Lèān 樂庵, of Jiāngdū 江都, jìnshì of Shàoxīng 2 (1132), was a senior Southern-Sòng official under Gāozōng and Xiàozōng, holding posts in the Censorate and the Remonstrance Bureau, a Wùzhōu 婺州 prefectureship, and ultimately Mìgé xiūzhuàn 秘閣修撰 in the Qiándào era; his biography is in the Sòng shǐ. He resided in retirement at Kūnshān 崑山 (modern Sūzhōu region) in a residence he named Lèān, “Hut of Joy,” after the Lúnyǔ idiom lè yì zài qí zhōng 樂亦在其中. As the tiyao notes, his Daoxue lineage descends through Zhào Xiàosūn 趙孝孫 of Luòyáng — whose father had been a direct pupil of Chéng Yí 程頤 (Yīchuān 伊川) — making Lǐ Héng one branch of the Sòng Lǐxué descent from the Chéng brothers. He is also the author of KR1a0034 Zhōuyì yì hǎi cuō yào 周易義海撮要 (his condensation of Fáng Shěnquán’s lost Zhōuyì yì hǎi), separately catalogued in the Yì-classics division.

The Lèān yǔlù is the result of six years’ study by his disciple Gōng Yù 龔昱 (zì Lìdào 立道) of Kūnshān, who recorded his master’s lectures and conversations and assembled them after Lǐ Héng’s death. The work foregrounds the Lúnyǔ as the foundation of Lǐ Héng’s teaching (Héng wèi xué yǐ Lúnyǔ wéi běn 衡為學以論語為本) — placing him within the pre-Zhū Xī Sòng-Lǐxué tradition that elevated the Analects alongside the (already canonized) Mèngzǐ, Dàxué, and Zhōngyōng. The compilation is genuinely yǔlù in genre: short conversational fragments on doctrine, on ethical practice, on poetry and prose, with occasional excursions into Buddhist and Daoist topics (the Sìkù editors flag the discussions of yīnyuán 因緣 and the hells as the chief blemishes from a strict-Confucian standpoint). The Daoxue establishment found in the work a reassuring instance of integrated gōngxíng shíjiàn — Lǐ Héng having been celebrated for his outspoken memorials and the equanimity of his death — and the high quality of the appended prefaces (Zhōu Bìdà, Fàn Chéngdà, and Wáng Suì are all major Southern-Sòng figures) testifies to the network in which the book circulated.

The dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 1172, notAfter 1178) reflects Wú Rénjié’s testimony that Gōng Yù studied with Lǐ Héng for six years; with Lǐ’s death in 1178 fixing the terminus ante quem, the recording of the yǔlù itself falls in the last six years or so of Lǐ Héng’s life. (The compilation in its received form — including the appended Sòng shǐ biography — must be later than the completion of the Sòng shǐ in 1345; the SKQS recension descends from a Yuán or Míng compiled edition.)

The work is recorded in the Sòng shǐ · Yìwén zhì (under Lǐ Héng’s name), in the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo, and in later SòngYuán bibliographies; the SKQS recension preserves the appended Sòng shǐ Lǐ Héng zhuàn in 1 juan as the standard appendix.

Translations and research

No complete European-language translation exists. Substantive scholarship is principally Chinese:

• Sòng shǐ 卷 390 (Lǐ Héng zhuàn).
• Jiànyán yǐ lái xìnián yàolù 建炎以來繫年要錄 70.8b and 78.12b (entries on Lǐ Héng’s offices).
• Modern punctuated editions of the Lè-ān yǔlù (in Cóng-shū jí-chéng 叢書集成 and other anthologies).
• Wāng Pèi 汪佩 et al., studies of the Southern-Sòng yǔlù genre and of the pre-Zhū Xī Daoxue lineages.
• Lǐ Cún-shān 李存山 and other Sòng-intellectual-history surveys, briefly on Lǐ Héng’s place in the Chéng-school descent via Zhào Xiào-sūn.

No substantial European-language secondary literature located.

Other points of interest

The book is one of the small but significant body of Southern-Sòng yǔlù compilations from the Lǐxué lineage that predate Zhū Xī’s canonization of the Four Books and the consolidation of Daoxue orthodoxy; as such, it preserves an important alternate-line snapshot (via Zhào Xiàosūn’s father from Chéng Yí) of how the early Chéng-school inheritance was being received and adapted in Jiangnan in the 1170s. The high prestige of its prefacers (Zhōu Bìdà, Fàn Chéngdà, Wáng Suì, Liú Wěi, Wú Rénjié) is itself an important documentary trace of Lǐ Héng’s standing in late-Xiào-zōng-era shìdàfū networks. The Sòng-history biography appended in the SKQS recension provides convenient consolidated biographical reference.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Lèān yǔlù entry.
• 《宋史》卷390 (李衡傳); 《文獻通考》.
• Related work by same author: KR1a0034 Zhōuyì yì hǎi cuō yào.