Shǔ pú 鼠璞
The Rat-Jade
by 戴埴 (Dài Zhí, zì Zhòngpéi 仲培, fl. mid-thirteenth century; of Táoyuán 桃源)
About the work
A late Southern Sòng kǎozhèng bǐjì in 2 juan. The title is a deliberate paradox: shǔ pú 鼠璞 means literally “the rat-jade,” recalling a Zhànguó cè story (Qín cè 秦策) in which a Zhōu man’s “pú” 璞 (uncarved jade) and a Sòng man’s “pú” (here a dead rat) bear the same name but are utterly different things. The author chose the title — the Sìkù editors point out — to capture the book’s organizing concern: terms that look the same but are not, and conversely, things that look different but are the same. The book is catalogued in the Sòng Shūlù jiětí 書錄解題 (Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫) but not in the earlier Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì 郡齋讀書志 (Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武) — placing the work after about 1240. The chapter on chǔquàn 楮券 (paper currency) discusses the abuses of the Qìngyuán, Kāixǐ, and Jiādìng reigns explicitly, anchoring the work to the late Southern Sòng. The Sìkù editors classify it under Zákǎo zhī shǔ of the Zájiā division and judge that the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo 文獻通考 (which had placed it among the xiǎoshuō 小說 genre) was wrong to do so.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Shǔ pú in two juan was compiled by Dài Zhí of the Sòng. Zhí’s zì was Zhòngpéi, of Táoyuán. His official career is not traceable. The chapter on the origins and corruption of chǔquàn (paper currency) systematically traces the abuses of Qìngyuán [1195–1200], Kāixǐ [1205–1207], and Jiādìng [1208–1224] — proof that he is a man of the late Southern Sòng. He is therefore registered in the Shūlù jiětí but is absent from the Dúshū zhì. The book is throughout a textual-evidential investigation of doubtful matter in the classics and histories — variant glosses on names and things and on the diǎngù 典故 (allusions, precedents) — and its arguments are mostly meticulous. Where he argues that the Línzhǐ 麟趾 [poem of the Shī] is the language of a declining age, he overreads the preface; where he debates Xúnzǐ’s xìng è 性惡 (innate evil) doctrine he sophistically asserts that it is of “equal merit” with Mèngzǐ’s xìng shàn 性善; where he discusses the term yái mì 崖蜜, he repeats Hóng Juéfàn’s [釋惠洪] error and fails to recognize that no such phrase occurs in Guǐguǐzǐ 鬼谷子 — these minor lapses he does not escape. Nonetheless his arguments that Péng Zǔ 彭祖 was a fángzhōng 房中 (sexual-cultivation) figure, that Tàigōng 太公 was an author of yīn móu 陰謀 (military strategy), and his rebuttal of Sū Shì’s denigration of King Wǔ — are all weighty and well-judged. Of his other rectifications: arguing that since the Shī prefaces have no Máogōng commentary, Máogōng must be their author; arguing that the Sī yī 絲衣 [poem]‘s citation of Gāozǐ’s 高子 Língxīng 靈星 saying proves later instructor-additions to the Shī; and so forth — all are well-evidenced and serve students of later generations. As to the title “Shǔ pú,” it takes the meaning of “a Zhōu man’s pú and a Sòng man’s pú, same name, different objects.” The Wénxiàn tōngkǎo erred in placing the book among the xiǎoshuō genre.
Respectfully revised and submitted, third month of the forty-second year of Qiánlóng [1777].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Dài Zhí 戴埴 (zì Zhòngpéi 仲培, fl. mid-thirteenth century; CBDB id 34831) was a late Southern Sòng bǐjì author of Táoyuán 桃源. His official career is unrecoverable; the work itself is the principal datum for his lifetime. The chapter on paper currency (chǔquàn) walks through the abuses of the Qìngyuán (1195–1200), Kāixǐ (1205–1207), and Jiādìng (1208–1224) reigns in sequence and the book must therefore postdate 1224. Chén Zhènsūn’s Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí 直齋書錄解題, completed c. 1244–1248 (some scholars push to c. 1264), carries the entry — providing the upper bound; Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì, of c. 1151 with a later supplement, does not. The dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 1224, notAfter 1264) brackets these two anchors. The relative obscurity of the work in subsequent transmission and the lack of any positive biographical datum from a contemporary all support the Sìkù editors’ view that he was a private shìdàfū of no political prominence.
The book takes its name from the classical Zhànguó cè parable in which the Zhōu word pú 璞 (uncarved jade) and the Sòng word pú (a freshly-killed rat) coincide phonetically — a perfect emblem for Dài’s central concern with shared names of different things and different names of the same thing. Methodologically it stands in the broad late-Sòng evidential tradition: identify a doubtful gloss, line, or institution; bring in citations from the classical, historical, and Tang-Sòng literary corpus; and either confirm, refute, or correct. The work is registered in Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì under the Zájiā division. The Sìkù editors’ verdict is straightforwardly approving — the work earns a place above the xiǎoshuō category in which the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo had misplaced it.
Cataloged in Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì; the Sìkù received text from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 is the standard reference.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. The text is intermittently cited in modern Chinese-language studies of Southern Sòng currency policy (for the chǔ-quàn chapter), of Sòng evidential-philology lineage, and of literary criticism. 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).
Other points of interest
The chǔquàn chapter — a sustained Sòng witness on the chronic over-issue of huìzǐ 會子 paper currency in the late Southern Sòng — is among the more frequently extracted passages of the book in modern economic-historical anthologies. Dài Zhí is one of relatively few late-Sòng bǐjì authors to treat the monetary crisis as a topic of textual-evidential investigation rather than only of political criticism.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Shǔ pú entry.
- CBDB id 34831 (Dài Zhí).