Xuézhāi zhānbì 學齋佔畢
Hummings from the Study Lectern
by 史繩祖 (Shǐ Shéngzǔ, zì Qìngcháng 慶長, fl. 1250; of Méishān 眉山 in Sìchuān; cháoqǐng dàfū 朝請大夫 and zhí Huànzhāng gé 直煥章閣 with sinecure at the Yùjúguān 玉局觀 in Chéngdū)
About the work
A Southern Sòng kǎozhèng bǐjì in 4 juan, comprising the author’s accumulated reading notes on the classics, histories, and miscellaneous philological and literary problems, completed and prefaced Chúnyòu gēngxū (1250). The author, of Méishān (Sū Shì’s prefecture), was a disciple of Wèi Liǎowēng 魏了翁 (1178–1237), the great late-Sòng Lǐ-school philologist whose Lóngshān jí 龍山集 carries a short notice (Tí Shǐ Shéngzǔ Kǎo jīng 題史繩祖考經) confirming the master-student bond. The title — taken from the Lǐjì · Xué jì 禮記學記 phrase shēn qí zhān bì 呻其佔畢, “hum aloud over the tablet” — evokes the dutiful student humming his lesson at the lectern. The Sìkù editors place the book just below Sūn Yì’s 孫奕 Shì’ér biān 示兒編 in the late-Sòng evidential bǐjì hierarchy: tax-free in its main bulk, occasionally guilty of forcing readings (chuānzáo 穿鑿), but on the whole substantial. Catalogued under Zákǎo zhī shǔ 雜考之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 division.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Xuézhāi zhānbì in four juan was compiled by Shǐ Shéngzǔ of the Sòng. Shéngzǔ’s zì was Qìngcháng. A native of Méishān, he received his training under the master Wèi Liǎowēng. In Wèi’s Lóngshān jí there is a Tí Shǐ Shéngzǔ Kǎo jīng — that is our man. The beginning and end of his official career are not securely traceable; only in Yáng Fāng’s 楊枋 Zìxī jí 字溪集 at the end is there a wǎn shī 挽詩 (mourning poem) for him in which his styling is given as “Cháoqǐng dàfū, zhí Huànzhāng gé, zhǔguǎn Chéngdūfǔ Yùjúguān, Qíjùn Shǐ Shéngzǔ” — apparently composed while Shéngzǔ was holding a fèngcí 奉祠 sinecure; “Qíjùn” 齊郡 is the ancestral seat. The book is a textual-evidential investigation of doubtful passages in the classics and histories. Within it, such moves as glossing Jūnzǐ huái xíng 君子懷刑 by taking xíng as xíng 型 (model), interpreting Zǐ hǎn yán lì yǔ mìng yǔ rén 子罕言利與命與仁 by taking yǔ 與 as xǔ 許 (approve), holding that the figure of “nine” in all matters derives from the “nine” of the Qiányuán 乾元 hexagram-line, holding that Yǔ 禹 in the Yìjīng points directly to the Dǐng 鼎 hexagram, or his reading of Huáng Tíngjiān’s 黃庭堅 poem as satirizing Sū Shì 蘇軾 — all such cases fall into the forced (chuānzáo) error. As to his charging Dù Yù 杜預 with having mis-cited the Yìshū 逸書 in his Zuǒ zhuàn notes — he fails to recognize the late emergence of the Old Text; or his claim that the term shìjǐng 市井 first occurs in Hòu Hàn shū Xúnlì zhuàn — he fails to recognize its earlier presence in the Guó yǔ; or his claim that shuāngshēng shī 雙聲詩 (double-initial verse) begins with Yáo Hé 姚合 — he fails to recognize the prior precedents of Wáng Róng 王融 of Qí — all such cases reflect carelessness in collation. Even so, the bulk of his citation and argument is precise and well-anchored; it is the secondary peer of Sūn Yì’s Shì’ér biān.
Respectfully revised and submitted, eleventh month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Shǐ Shéngzǔ 史繩祖 (fl. mid-thirteenth century, dates not securely known; CBDB id 10662) was a Sìchuān man — a native of Méishān 眉山 in Méizhōu — and a disciple of the late-Sòng Lǐ-school philologist Wèi Liǎowēng 魏了翁 (1178–1237), whose Lóngshān jí preserves a colophon for Shǐ’s earlier (and now lost) Kǎo jīng 考經 essay-collection. The book’s own preface, dated Chúnyòu gēngxū (淳祐庚戌, 1250) and signed at the Zǐcáo Jítáng 梓漕極堂 (the office of the Zǐzhōu 梓州 fiscal circuit), gives the only reliable Shǐ Shéngzǔ date. Yáng Fāng’s 楊枋 mourning poem in Zìxī jí (preserved at the back of the collection) shows that he ended his career as cháoqǐng dàfū with the academy title zhí Huànzhāng gé and a Chéngdū fèngcí sinecure (the Yùjúguān 玉局觀, a Daoist temple administered as such); “Qíjùn” 齊郡 in the styling refers to the lineage’s ancestral home, not the zhōu of residence.
The work itself is a four-juan miscellany of philological notes. Its method is straightforward Sòng kǎozhèng: take a doubtful phrase (a classical line, a historical term, an etymology) and adduce parallels, frequently from the entire received corpus. The Sìkù editors’ assessment — that the work is roughly the secondary peer of Sūn Yì’s 孫奕 Lǚ Zhāi shì’ér biān 履齋示兒編 (KR3j0049 — a more famous Méishān-area contemporary bǐjì) — has stood. The same editors itemize five characteristic errors: forcing the xíng of jūnzǐ huái xíng (Lúnyǔ 4.11) into xíng 型 “model”; glossing the two yǔ in Zǐ hǎn yán (Lúnyǔ 9.1) as “approving”; reducing the figure “nine” everywhere to the qiányuán 乾元; reading the Yìjīng references to Yǔ as the Dǐng hexagram; and reading Huáng Tíngjiān’s verse as covert anti-Sū satire. They also catch him at three citation failures: missing the late-Hàn origin of the Old Text Shàngshū; missing the Guó yǔ attestation of shìjǐng; and missing Wáng Róng’s prior shuāngshēng verses. None of these errors damages the book’s general utility; the Sìkù editors leave the work in the canon with mild commendation.
Catalogued in Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì and in subsequent compilations; the Sìkù received text is from the WYG and remains the standard reference.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. The book is regularly cited in modern Chinese-language work on Sòng kǎo-zhèng historiography, the late-Sòng Wèi Liǎowēng circle, and Méishān local history. The standard punctuated edition is in Zhū Yìxuán 朱易安 et al. (eds.), Quán Sòng bǐjì 全宋筆記, ser. 7 (Dàxiàng chūbǎnshè, 2017).
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Xuézhāi zhānbì entry.
- CBDB id 10662 (Shǐ Shéngzǔ, no dates).