Yì gòu 藝彀
The Arts Crossbow-Trigger
by 鄧伯羔 (Dèng Bógāo, late-Míng bǐjì author)
About the work
A late-Míng (post-Lóngqìng / Wànlì) evidential miscellany in 3 juan plus a supplement (Gòu bǔ 彀補) in 3 juan. The title — Yì gòu literally “the trigger-catch of the arts/skills” — uses gòu in the sense of the Mèngzǐ phrase “Yì zhī wéi shù xiǎo yì, bù zhì xī yǔ qí gòu” (Gàozǐ B): “Archery as a skill is small, but if you do not fully extend the bow’s drawing strength, you cannot hit the mark.” The book is a wide-ranging citation-based investigation of doubtful passages in the classics and earlier bǐjì, anchored in late-Míng evidential practice. The Sìkù editors place it carefully in its historical context: in the late Lóngqìng / early Wànlì period, when “the shìdàfū honored only frenzied Chán [Buddhism] and no longer made antiquity-investigation their business,” Dèng Bógāo’s broad-citation method counts “as solid scholarship for its time.”
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yìgòu in three juan, with Gòu bǔ in three juan, was compiled by Dèng Bógāo of the Míng. Bógāo’s Jīn yì quán 今易筌 [a separate work] is already catalogued. This book cites the classical and historical literature for textual investigation and is fairly substantial in detail. Although it draws much from earlier texts, it also offers original insights — such as the suggestion that there were two Móu Róng 牟融 in the Hàn, or the argument that the Chūshī biǎo 出師表 originally had two versions; both are insightful. He cites the Xījīng fù 西京賦 to prove that dàndàn 澹淡 is two characters; cites the Táng liùdiǎn to prove that 畊 and 耕 are two characters — sharp on liùshū 六書 analysis. He rectifies the falsity of Sū Shì’s Táowù 檮杌 [Su’s claim of a Táowù in two versions], and corrects Shào Bówēn 邵伯溫’s mistaken styling of [Shào Yōng] as wàichén 外臣 (outer-court official). Especially he is able to hold to public discourse and not fall into faction-loyalty.
As to the Xù bówù zhì 續博物志 — which is in fact by the Southern Sòng Lǐ Shí 李石 (the book clearly names Zēng Gōngliàng 曾公亮, Wáng Ānshí 王安石, Zēng Zào 曾慥) — Dèng nonetheless suspects it of being by a Táng author: a particularly careless slip. He also cites Xīxī cóngyǔ 西溪叢語 and Qīxiū lèigǎo 七修類稿 in support of taking luòxiá 落霞 [in Wáng Bó’s Téngwáng gé xù “luò xiá yǔ gū wù qí fēi”] as a bird-name or insect-name — failing in editorial judgment. His claim that the Tōngkǎo 通考 entry on the mǎ yāo 馬妖 (horse anomaly) should include the dancing horses is even more far-fetched.
Yet after Lóngqìng and Wànlì, when shìdàfū esteemed only frenzied Chán and no longer made antiquity-investigation their business, this work — with its broad reference and abundant citation — is sufficient for cross-checking and represents, for that age, solid scholarship.
Respectfully revised and submitted, second 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
Dèng Bógāo 鄧伯羔 (late Míng, dates not securely known) was a private Wàn-lì-era philological author whose other surviving work is the Jīn yì quán 今易筌 (a study of the Yìjīng); together these constitute his entire surviving corpus. He is not registered in CBDB and his biographical details — native place, examination record, official career — are not recoverable from the Yì gòu itself. The traditional placement in the late Míng (Lóngqìng to Wànlì, 1567–1620) follows the Sìkù editors’ explicit framing of the work as a late-Wàn-lì counter-current to the dominant kuáng Chán 狂禪 (frenzied Chán-Buddhist) intellectual fashion. The bracket notBefore 1567 (start of Lóngqìng) and notAfter 1620 (end of Wànlì) reflects this.
The Yì gòu is methodologically a late-Míng kǎozhèng work in the broad mid-Míng tradition descending from Yáng Shèn — wide citation, willing to overturn received readings, but with the late-Míng zhèngtǒng tightening of evidentiary standards that anticipates the Qīng Hàn xué revival. The work is best-known for several specific findings: the argument that the Hòu Hàn shū contains material on two distinct Móu Róng; the textual-historical argument that Zhūgě Liàng’s Chūshī biǎo circulated in two versions; the orthographic argument that dàndàn 澹淡 is two characters (i.e. a liánmián cí with both characters separately analyzable) and similarly for 畊 vs. 耕; and the editorial corrections of Sū Shì on the Táowù of Chǔ and of Shào Bówēn on Shào Yōng’s official styling.
The Sìkù editors also itemize three errors: misidentification of Lǐ Shí’s Xù bówù zhì (a late-Southern-Sòng work) as Táng; uncritical acceptance of the luòxiá = bird-or-insect reading from Xīxī cóngyǔ; and an over-strained claim about the Tōngkǎo mǎ yāo entry.
The work is registered only from the Sìkù recension; no earlier or pre-Sìkù witness has been transmitted.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. The work is intermittently cited in Chinese-language late-Míng evidential-scholarship studies. The standard text is the SKQS recension. The Móu Róng identification problem is a well-known minor problem in Hàn-dynasty Buddhist-history reconstruction (relevant to the dating of the Lǐ-huò lùn 理惑論) and Dèng Bógāo’s contribution is sometimes cited in that connection.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ praise of Dèng Bógāo as “solid scholarship for his age” (in the dismissive context of late-Míng kuáng Chán) is one of the more revealing eighteenth-century characterizations of late-Míng intellectual climate. The book is otherwise unremarkable but is a useful witness to the persistence of evidential scholarship in the Wànlì Lǐxué milieu.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Yì gòu entry.