古今攷

Gǔjīn kǎo 古今攷

Investigation of Antiquity and the Present

by 魏了翁 (Wèi Liǎowēng, 1178–1237; zì Huáfū 華夫, hào Hèshān 鶴山; major late-Sòng Lǐ-school scholar of Pújiāng 蒲江), with continuation 方回 (Fāng Huí, 1227–1307; zì Wànlǐ 萬里, hào Xūgǔ 虛谷; SòngYuán transition scholar of Shèxiàn 歙縣) — Xù gǔjīn kǎo 續古今攷 in 37 juan, Xiánchún 3 (1267)

About the work

A Sòng bǐjì devoted to the evidential reconstruction of ancient institutions through Hàn-dynasty material vocabulary, in two distinct strata: (1) Wèi Liǎowēng’s original Gǔjīn kǎo in 1 juan, drafted at some point in his adult life and left unfinished at his death (only 20 entries with content survive, plus 4 “headed-but-empty” entries Wèi had set up but not written); and (2) Fāng Huí’s massive Xù gǔjīn kǎo 續古今攷 in 37 juan, written in 1267 (Xiánchún 3), which preserves the original Gǔjīn kǎo embedded within it (each Wèi-entry headed Hèshān xiānshēng yuē 鶴山先生曰 / Fāng-entry headed Zǐyáng Fāngshì yuē 紫陽方氏曰) and adds Fāng Huí’s enormous expansion of comparable institutional studies. Despite the catalog meta’s “1 juan” — which reflects only Wèi Liǎowēng’s contribution — the actual transmitted text held in this Kanripo entry is the 37-juan composite recension, and the WYG file structure (37 juan + frontmatter) confirms this. The catalog meta extent (1 卷) is correct for Wèi Liǎowēng’s original but misleads as to the textual reality of the file held; the dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 1200, notAfter 1267) accordingly spans both strata, from Wèi Liǎowēng’s adult composing life to Fāng Huí’s Xiánchún 3 (1267) preface to the Xù gǔjīn kǎo.

Methodologically the project is one of evidential institutional reconstruction by the huán běn 還本 (back-to-source) procedure: take a Hàn shū běnjì 漢書本紀 phrase and unpack each material referent — when “draws sword and beheads serpent” appears, append a Guǎng jiàn kǎo 廣劍考 (extended treatise on swords); when “Fàn Zēng 范增 raises a yùjué 玉玦” appears, append a Yùpèi kǎo 玉佩考 (treatise on jade pendants), etc. The procedure derives from Wèi Liǎowēng’s view that the Han classicists’ formula “such-and-such ancient object is like such-and-such of today” is the only access we have to genuine Three-Dynasties material culture, and that Kǒng Yǐngdá’s 孔穎達 and Jiǎ Gōngyàn’s 賈公彥 dismissals of even Hàn evidence as “too remote” are self-defeating. Catalogued under Záxué zhī shǔ 雜學之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 division (subdivision zákǎo 雜考).

Tiyao

[The Sìkù tíyào is missing from the WYG source frontmatter (KR3j0049_000.txt is empty: “page missing”). The text below is translated from the Kyoto University Zinbun digital Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào at http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/db-machine/ShikoTeiyo/0248702.html.]

Gǔjīn kǎo in one juan, by Wèi Liǎowēng of the Sòng. Xù gǔjīn kǎo in thirty-seven juan, by Fāng Huí of the Yuán. Huí’s zì was Wànlǐ 萬里, hào Xūgǔ 虛谷, of Shèxiàn 歙縣; he passed the Biéshěng 別省 examination of Jǐngdìng rénxū 景定壬戌 (1262), held the post of Píyáng 池陽 Tea and Salt Superintendent (tílǐng cháyán 提領茶鹽), was promoted to Magistrate of Yánzhōu 嚴州, and entered Yuán service as Total Administrator of the Jiàndé Circuit 建德路總管.

Liǎowēng held that ancient institutions are largely beyond evidential recovery — that the LiǎngHàn classicists could only follow Shūsūn Tōng’s 叔孫通 formula “such-and-such object is like such-and-such of today,” and that the zhūshū 諸疏 of Kǒng [Yǐngdá] and Jiǎ [Gōngyàn] further insisted that even Hàn institutions could not be evidenced because the Hàn was already too remote. He therefore took the Hàn shū běnjì 漢書本紀 as it stood, examined each phrase in turn, and made the Gǔjīn kǎo. The book carries an author’s preface; but his work did not reach completion — only twenty entries were finished, plus four that have a heading but no text. In Xiánchún dīngmǎo 咸淳丁卯 (1267), Huí obtained the manuscript from Liǎowēng’s son and proceeded to extend its method, completing the present compilation. Both works are preserved together: each entry of Liǎowēng’s original is given with the discussion appended below, distinguished by Hèshān xiānshēng yuē 鶴山先生曰 and Zǐyáng Fāngshì yuē 紫陽方氏曰. The four “no-text” entries Huí also supplements: in the Liú Ǎo mèng yǔ shén yù 劉媼夢與神遇 entry he sets out the example, saying: “Hèshān’s original book has this title but the text is missing. Now Huí supplements it after his manner, and adds the words Zǐyáng Fāngshì yuē 紫陽方氏曰 (five characters). Hereafter all the entries are by Huí, and the five characters are not repeated; or where I cite an ancient passage at the head, the five characters resume.”

Now Huí’s continuation also follows the Hàn shū main text in setting up its headings, and on each historical institution he generalizes from one particular to exhaust the rest. As at the Bá jiàn zhǎn shé 拔劍斬蛇 entry he appends a Guǎng jiàn kǎo 廣劍考; at the Fàn Zēng jǔ yùjué 范增舉玉玦 entry he appends a Yùpèi kǎo 玉佩考 — clearly making use of a single object-name in the Hàn shū to push back to ancient institutions; the relation to the Hàn shū’s actual narrative is loose. Yet what Liǎowēng investigated mostly concerned institutions, while Huí, having in the Sòng days first ingratiated himself with Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道 and then, when Sìdào’s cause failed, impeached him in turn — repeatedly cunning and unprincipled — and being further despised by public opinion for, when the Sòng fell, surrendering his prefectural city to the Yuán in person; and old and aimless, then taking up dàoxué 道學 lecturing as a late-life cover — accordingly his book mixes in much lǐyǔ 理語 (Lǐ-school formulary). Thus on the four characters kuān rén ài rén 寬仁愛人 in the Gāozǔ chapter he drags in ChéngZhū zhū rú 諸儒 discussions of rén 仁 to the extent of twelve sub-headings, and a single character’s meaning fills a whole juan — unable to escape the charge of zhīlí 支離 (digressive proliferation). Yet though Huí’s character and conduct will not bear discussion, his learning and reading are wide and orderly, and what he investigates contains much that is worth taking; we therefore catalog it together with Liǎowēng’s book — also in the spirit of “do not throw away the matter for the sake of the man” 不以人廢之義.

(Edition: copy held by Sub-Censor-in-Chief Huáng Dēngxián 副都御史黃登賢家藏本.)

Abstract

Wèi Liǎowēng’s 魏了翁 Gǔjīn kǎo in its original form is a very brief unfinished work — only 24 entries (20 with content, 4 headed but empty) — composed at some unspecified point in his maturity. Wèi’s underlying argument, set out in his short preface (preserved in Fāng Huí’s continuation), is that the Hàn classicists were the only generation positioned to bring living Three-Dynasties material culture into philological evidence, and that all subsequent commentary tradition has been reduced to second-hand inference; the Gǔjīn kǎo therefore proposes to take the Hàn shū běnjì phrase by phrase and exhaustively unpack the material institutions implicit in each — beginning, as it happens, with Liú Ǎo’s 劉媼 dream-encounter (Hàn Gāozǔ’s mythic conception). Wèi died in 1237 with the project barely begun.

Thirty years later, in Xiánchún 3 (1267), Fāng Huí 方回 — then magistrate of Yánzhōu 嚴州 and a Biéshěng 別省 jìnshì of Jǐngdìng 3 (1262) — obtained Wèi’s manuscript from his son and undertook a continuation on the same method but on a vastly larger scale, eventually filling 37 juan. The procedure is the huán běn 還本 (back-to-source) reading of the Hàn shū: when the běnjì says “draws sword and beheads serpent,” Fāng Huí appends a Guǎng jiàn kǎo 廣劍考 (treatise on swords); when it says “Fàn Zēng raises a yùjué,” he appends a Yùpèi kǎo 玉佩考 (treatise on jade pendants). Wèi’s original 24 entries are preserved within Fāng’s continuation, each headed Hèshān xiānshēng yuē 鶴山先生曰 and Fāng’s own contribution headed Zǐyáng Fāngshì yuē 紫陽方氏曰. The four “no-text” entries Fāng Huí filled in himself, with a programmatic note at the Liú Ǎo entry explaining the editorial convention.

The Sìkù editors’ assessment is mixed. They concede the antiquarian value of Fāng Huí’s enormous learning (“his learning and reading are wide and orderly, and what he investigates contains much that is worth taking”), but disapprove sharply of his political career — first ingratiating himself with Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道, then impeaching Jiǎ when his patron fell, then surrendering Yánzhōu to the Yuán in 1276 — and detect in his late turn to dàoxué lecturing a politic late-life “cover.” They further criticize Fāng Huí’s tendency to load Lǐ-school doctrinal exposition (lǐyǔ) into a project nominally about institutions: a single character’s meaning will fill a whole juan, an excess they label zhīlí 支離 (digressive proliferation). Yet, “not to throw away the matter for the sake of the man,” they catalog Wèi’s and Fāng’s combined work in the Sìkù.

The catalog meta extent of “1 卷” reflects Wèi Liǎowēng’s original alone; the actual transmitted text in this Kanripo entry is the 37-juan composite. The Sìkù tíyào is missing from the source’s _000.txt frontmatter and has been supplied here from the Kyoto University Zinbun digital Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào.

The work is paired in the Sìkù tíyào with the abridged 9-juan Xù gǔjīn kǎo of the Cúnmù 存目 — a shorter recension also extant — but the present 37-juan version is the principal text.

Translations and research

No substantial European-language secondary literature located. Modern Chinese scholarship treats Wèi Liǎo-wēng and Fāng Huí separately and the joint Gǔjīn kǎo / Xù gǔjīn kǎo receives passing notice rather than monographic treatment.

• Wú Cāngzhōu 吳滄洲 (punct.), Gǔjīn kǎo · Xù gǔjīn kǎo (selections), in Cóngshū jíchéng chū-biān 叢書集成初編 (Shāngwù yìnshūguǎn, 1936; repr. Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1985–1991).
• Cài Fāngluó 蔡方鹿, Wèi Liǎo-wēng pínɡzhuàn 魏了翁評傳 (Bā-Shǔ shūshè, 2002), discusses the Gǔjīn kǎo methodology.
• Hú Zhāoxī 胡昭曦, Liú Fùshēng 劉復生, et al., Sòng-dài Shǔ-xué yánjiū 宋代蜀學研究 (Bā-Shǔ shūshè, 1997).
• For Fāng Huí: Jonathan Chaves, “The ‘Yenshui Fang Hui’” and other studies of Fāng Huí’s poetics; Wáng Lìjùn 王礪鋒, Fāng Huí Yíng-kuí lǜ-suǐ yánjiū 方回瀛奎律髓研究 (Fùdàn Dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2006) — though all this concerns Fāng’s literary-critical work rather than the Xù gǔjīn kǎo.

Other points of interest

The methodological premise — that Hàn-dynasty bricks-and-mortar witnesses are our nearest evidence for Three-Dynasties material institutions, and that Sòng kǎozhèng should accordingly proceed by an indexed huán běn reading of the Hàn shū běnjì rather than by abstract debate — anticipates by some four centuries the Qīng kǎozhèng 考證 movement’s institutional studies (the Hàn shū commentaries of Wáng Xiānqiān 王先謙, etc.). The Sìkù editors’ moralism aside, the Xù gǔjīn kǎo’s 37 juan of object-by-object Hàn institutional dossiers is a major (and underused) SòngYuán antiquarian achievement.

The Sìkù editors’ biographical and political indictment of Fāng Huí is unusually severe; their note that he was “fǎnfù yīnjiǎo, wéi shì suǒ jī 反覆陰狡為世所譏” (repeatedly cunning and treacherous, reproached by the world) and “lǎo ér wú liáo, nǎi chàng jiǎng dàoxué, yǐ móu wǎn gài 老而無聊乃倡講道學以謀晚蓋” (old and aimless, took up dàoxué lecturing to engineer a late-life cover) is some of the harshest zǒngmù prose directed at any cataloged SòngYuán author. It is worth comparing with Fāng Huí’s own treatment in the Sìkù tíyào of his Tóngjiāng xùjí 桐江續集 (also catalogued).

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Gǔjīn kǎo + Xù gǔjīn kǎo entry (Zinbun id 0248702).
• Companion Wèi Liǎowēng bǐjì: KR3j0048 Jīngwài záchāo.
• Fāng Huí’s literary-critical magnum opus: Yíngkuí lǜsuǐ 瀛奎律髓 (49 juan).
• Wikidata: no separate entry located for this work.