學林

Xuélín 學林

A Forest of Learning

by 王觀國 (Wáng Guānguó, fl. ca. 1111–1142; zì Jiànhóu 建侯)

About the work

A ten-juan Southern-Sòng bǐjì by Wáng Guānguó 王觀國 of Chángshā 長沙, dedicated almost entirely to xiǎoxué 小學 — the philological investigation of zìtǐ 字體 (graphic form), zìyì 字義 (graphic meaning), and zìyīn 字音 (graphic pronunciation). It ranges across the Liù jīng, the Shǐjì, the Hàn shū and outward into miscellaneous works, examining commentaries (zhùshū jiānshì zhī jiā 註疏箋釋之家) and adjudicating among them. The work was originally titled Xuélín xīnbiān 學林新編 — Wú Zēng’s KR3j0034 Nénggǎizhāi mànlù preserves this longer title; the “xīnbiān” 新編 element was lost in later transmission, presumably through casual abbreviation. The Sìkù editors rate it highly: “xìnwúkuì yú bóqià zhī shì zhuórán tèchū zhě yǐ” 信無愧於博洽之士卓然特出者矣 — outstandingly placed among the broadly-learned scholars. The book is more rigorous on questions of xiǎoxué than the rival contemporary works Shì’ér biān 示兒編 of Sūn Yì 孫奕 and Jiāshuō 家説 of Xiàng Ānshì 項安世.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Xuélín in ten juan, by Wáng Guānguó of the Sòng. Guānguó was a man of Chángshā. His career-record is not in the Sòng shǐ, nor is he listed in the Húguǎng tōngzhì 湖廣通志. Only at the head of Jiǎ Chāngcháo’s 賈昌朝 Qúnjīng yīnbiàn 群經音辨 KR1d0021 is preserved a postface composed by Guānguó, signed Zuǒ chéngwù láng zhī Tīngzhōu Nínghuàxiàn zhǔguǎn quànnóng gōngshì jiān bīngmǎ jiānyā 左承務郎知汀州寧化縣主管勸農公事兼兵馬監押 Wáng Guānguó, dated Shàoxīng rényì 紹興壬戌 (= 1142) seventh month, middle decade — establishing him as a post-southern-crossing man.

Examining Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武 [Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì] and Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫 [Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí] and the Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì, none of them records this book; only Wú Zēng’s Nénggǎizhāi mànlù cites it, calling it Xuélín xīnbiān; the manuscript that survives is titled simply Xuélín without the xīnbiān — copyists having abbreviated the title.

The book takes the discrimination of graphic-form, meaning, and pronunciation as its specialty, ranging from the Six Classics, Shǐjì, and Hàn shū to the miscellaneous works, with no commentary tradition omitted from its tabulation of sames and differences and adjudication to the most fitting reading. For instance, on the character wú 無, he says that antiquity had only wú 无 and wáng 亡, and that the character wú 無 first came into use in the Qín for the yǒuwú 有無 sense; he also cites the Shuōwén explanation 文甫切 — “now borrowed for the yǒuwú sense” — and the Yùpiān meaning fánwǔ 繁廡, “luxuriant growth.” The verification is extremely precise. There are several hundred such items, mostly bringing forth what earlier rú had not noticed. Among Southern-Sòng authors he can be called a true reader and recognizer of characters.

Although Wú Zēng’s Mànlù picks at his shortcomings — saying that in Zuǒ zhuàn “Jìshì jiè qí jī 季氏介其雞” he should have followed Gāo Yòu 高誘 in reading jiè as putting an iron-helmet on the cock’s head and not as armoring the cock; that fójiā jīngshè 佛家精舍 already appears in the Jiāngbiǎo zhuàn 江表傳 in the matter of Yú Jí 于吉 (showing it existed already in WèiWèi’s early period), so Guānguó’s claim that it began in the Jìn is wrong; that in Mèngzǐ “yǐ yán tiǎn zhī 以言餂之,” Guānguó rejects Guō Pú’s 郭璞 yīnyì and follows the Yùpiān reading tián 甜; and that for Jīngsuǒ 京索 he reads suǒ in the rhyme-class of shānkè fǎn 山客反 not knowing that Lù Démíng’s 陸德明 Shìwén 釋文, the Wǔchén zhù, and Hán Tuìzhī’s 韓退之 poem all read xīluò fǎn 悉落反 — these specific corrections are all on target. But they amount only to a few percent of the whole; the rest opens up the depths of xiǎoxué 小學 with no exception, all canonical and pure. Compared to Sūn Yì’s Shì’ér biān 示兒編 and Xiàng Ānshì’s Jiāshuō 家説 it considerably surpasses them — without question one of those who broadly investigated and stood out exceptionally.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

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

Wáng Guānguó 王觀國 (CBDB id 38498; fl. earliest year 1111, fl. latest 1131; zì Jiànhóu 建侯; native of Chángshā 長沙) is otherwise extraordinarily poorly documented: he has no biography in the Sòng shǐ and is not even listed in the Húguǎng tōngzhì 湖廣通志 covering his native region. The single external prose document by him to survive is the postface he wrote for Jiǎ Chāngcháo’s 賈昌朝 Qúnjīng yīnbiàn 群經音辨 KR1d0021, dated Shàoxīng rényì 紹興壬戌 (= 1142) seventh month, middle decade, in which he gives his title as Zuǒ chéngwù láng 左承務郎 (rank 8b), magistrate of Nínghuàxiàn 寧化縣 in Tīngzhōu 汀州 (modern western Fújiàn), with the additional duties of zhǔguǎn quànnóng gōngshì 主管勸農公事 (agricultural supervision) and jiān bīngmǎ jiānyā 兼兵馬監押 (military escort officer). This places him in a relatively junior provincial post in 1142.

The CBDB floruit window of 1111–1131 reflects earlier documented activity than the postface date. The postface date (1142) sets a terminus ante quem for at least one of his recorded official assignments and serves as the standard external attestation. The dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 1130, notAfter 1145) places the Xuélín’s composition in his mature philological career, between his first datable activity and shortly after the documented postface.

Catalog meta gives “fl. 1142,” the postface date; CBDB gives an earlier floruit. The two are reconcilable as the natural span of a Sòng official’s career and are reflected in the bracket above.

The work itself is the primary monument of Wáng’s scholarship — Wilkinson’s category of “scholarly biji” pioneered in the Sòng (see Chinese History, §62.3.11) is exemplified by the Xuélín in its specifically philological-lexicographical mode. Wáng’s analyses of the historical development of the negation graphs wú 无 / wáng 亡 / wú 無, his rectification of pronunciations against multiple authorities, and his patient cross-citation of Shuōwén jiězì 説文解字, Yùpiān 玉篇, Jīngdiǎn shìwén 經典釋文, and the standard commentaries of HànTáng, place him among the more rigorous Sòng xiǎoxué writers — even though his work was overshadowed by the more famous and contemporaneous compilations of his fellow Southern-Sòng authors. The Sìkù editors single him out as significantly better than two important rival bǐjì: Sūn Yì’s KR3j0042 Shì’ér biān 示兒編 and Xiàng Ānshì’s Xiàngshì jiāshuō 項氏家説 KR3j0043.

The work is recorded only by Wú Zēng’s KR3j0034 Nénggǎizhāi mànlù (under the longer title Xuélín xīnbiān 學林新編), and was reconstituted by the Sìkù editors from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and from Héfáng 何坊 family manuscripts. The longer title is the only secure attestation that the work circulated under two names.

Translations and research

No substantial European-language secondary literature located. Modern Chinese editions:

• Xuélín 學林, Sìkù quánshū recension; reprinted in Cóngshū jíchéng chūbiān 叢書集成初編.
• Tián Zǐlín 田子琳 (ed.), Xuélín jiào-zhèng 學林校證, Zhōnghuá shūjú 1988 — the standard modern punctuated and corrected edition.
• Quán Sòng bǐjì 全宋筆記 series (Dàxiàng chūbǎnshè).
• Citations of the Xuélín are routine in modern Sòng-period Chinese philology, especially in studies of the historical phonology of Sòng poetic readings.

Other points of interest

The Xuélín’s entry on the historical formation of the negation graph wú 無 — derived ultimately from the Shuōwén and Yùpiān but synthesizing the pre-Qín wú 无 / wáng 亡 system into a single account — is one of the earliest worked-through accounts of the philological history of a function word in Chinese. The same entry is still cited in modern dictionaries of historical syntax.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Xuélín entry.
• Wáng Guānguó, postface to Jiǎ Chāngcháo’s Qúnjīng yīnbiàn 群經音辨 KR1d0021.
• Quán Sòng bǐjì 全宋筆記 series.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §62.3.11 on Sòng bǐjì.