通雅

Tōng yǎ 通雅

Comprehensive Approach to Refined Glosses

by 方以智 (Fāng Yǐzhì, zì Mìzhī 密之, hào Lùqǐ 鹿起 / Wúkě 無可, 1611–1671; of Tóngchéng 桐城; Chóngzhēn 13 [1640] jìnshì; Hànlín jiǎntǎo 檢討)

About the work

A 52-juan late-Míng encyclopedic lexicon — the most rigorous late-Míng evidential compendium and a direct precursor of Qīng Hàn xué. Fāng Yǐzhì frames the work explicitly on the Ěr yǎ 爾雅 13-classic xiǎo xué model: tōng (comprehensive) approach to yǎ (the canonical glossatorial tradition). The first 3 juan are introductory under five sub-headings (Yīn yì zá lùn 音義雜論, Dú shū lèi lüè 讀書類略, Xiǎo xué dà lüè 小學大略, Shī shuō 詩說, Wén zhāng xīn huǒ 文章薪火) and not numbered into the canonical 24 mén (gates). The body is organized into 24 categorical gates: Yí shǐ 疑始 (palaeography and ancient phonology), Shì gǔ 釋詁 (lexicology), Tiān wén 天文 (astronomy and calendrics), Dì yú 地輿 (geography), Shēn tǐ 身體, Chēng wèi 稱謂, Xìng míng 姓名, Guān zhí 官職, Shì zhì 事制 (taxation, currency, criminal law), Lǐ yí 禮儀, Yuè qǔ 樂曲 / yuè wǔ 樂舞 / yuè qì 樂器, Qì yòng 器用 (writing materials, inscriptions, jīn shí, calligraphy, mounting, paper, ink, brush, inkstone, seals, antiques, ritual implements, chariots, games — in 13 sub-headings), Yī fú 衣服, Gōng shì 宮室, Yǐn shí 飲食, Suàn shù 算數 (mathematics), Zhí wù 植物 (plants), Dòng wù 動物 (animals), Jīn shí 金石, Yàn yuán 諺原 (proverbs), Qiè yùn shēng yuán 切韻聲原 (phonology), Mài kǎo 脈考 (pulse diagnosis), and Gǔ fāng jiě 古方解 (ancient medical formulas). The two autograph prefaces are dated Xīnsì (1641) and Rénwǔ (1642).

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Tōng yǎ in fifty-two juan was compiled by Fāng Yǐzhì of the Míng. Yǐzhì’s zì was Mìzhī, a Tóngchéng man. Chóngzhēn gēngchén (1640) jìnshì; jiǎntǎo of the Hànlín Academy. The book is throughout an investigation of names-and-things, of mathematical-cosmological figurations, of xùngǔ and of phonology. The first three juan are five sub-rubrics — Yīn yì zá lùn, Dú shū lèi lüè, Xiǎo xué dà lüè, Shī shuō, Wén zhāng xīn huǒ — that do not enter the juan-count.

The book itself is divided into 24 mén [24 categorical gates, each enumerated above by the Sìkù editors with full sub-rubric structure and juan-counts].

After the Míng middle period, those famed for evidential breadth were Yáng Shèn — countered by Chén Yàowén; but Shèn was given to falsehoods to deceive, and Yàowén given to extravagant citation to win. Next was Jiāo Hóng, also fond of investigation, but in his association with Lǐ Zhì he indiscriminately wove in Buddhist sources, marring the work with confusion. Only Yǐzhì, rising in Chóngzhēn, with refined and well-anchored evidential method, far surpassed them. Once the wind was opened — at the beginning of our dynasty, Gù Yánwǔ 顧炎武, Yán Ruòqú 閻若璩, Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 and the rest rode the wave, sweeping clean the empty speculations of the suspended-imagination kind. Although even Yǐzhì could not avoid occasional thousand-thoughts-one-loss, his pursuing of the source and tracing the stream, his every word having attestation, makes him among the Míng-era investigators a stand-alone figure.

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

Fāng Yǐzhì 方以智 (1611–1671) is the major late-Míng polymath and one of the most important Chinese intellectuals of the seventeenth century. Born into the prestigious Tóngchéng 桐城 (Anhui) Fāng lineage — his father Fāng Kǒngzhào 方孔炤 was Húguǎng xúnfǔ 湖廣巡撫 and a notable Yìjīng scholar; his grandfather Fāng Dàzhèn 方大鎮 was a Hànlín shìjiǎng xuéshì; his great-grandfather Fāng Xuéjiàn 方學漸 was a major Anhui Lǐxué scholar — Fāng Yǐzhì grew up at the centre of late-Míng learned culture. He was one of the Sì gōng zǐ 四公子 of Chóng-zhēn-period Nánjīng (with Chén Zhēnhuì 陳貞慧, Hóu Fāngyù 侯方域, Mào Xiāng 冒襄). Chóngzhēn 13 (1640) jìnshì, appointed Hànlín jiǎntǎo. After the Míng collapse in 1644 he refused service under the Qīng, fled south with the Southern Míng court, served briefly under the Lóngwǔ and Yǒnglì emperors, and eventually took Chán-Buddhist vows under the dharma-name Wúkě 無可 (later: Yàodì 藥地). He died in Qīng Kāngxī 10 (1671) at Wànān 萬安 (Jiāngxī), almost certainly by self-drowning to evade arrest.

The Tōng yǎ — completed and printed in his last pre-Qīng years (the two autograph prefaces are 1641 and 1642) — is the central monument of his pre-monastic scholarly career. The 52-juan structure is one of the most ambitious xiǎo xué compendia of the entire Míng period. Methodologically the work is unlike any earlier Míng evidential miscellany: every citation carries a source, every gloss is set against multiple parallels, and (uniquely for the period) Fāng integrates astronomy, mathematics, music theory, palaeography, phonology, geography, materia medica, and the social-institutional vocabulary into a single coherent classified architecture. The Sìkù editors’ verdict — that he “stands alone” among Míng kǎozhèng — is borne out by the work’s actual influence on Gù Yánwǔ, Yán Ruòqú, Zhū Yízūn, and the founders of Qīng evidential learning, all of whom drew on the Tōng yǎ.

Among the most-cited individual sections: the Qiè yùn shēng yuán 切韻聲原 is an original contribution to Míng historical phonology (proposing a syllabary based on Sanskrit-Chinese transcription correspondences, anticipating later Qīng phonological work); the Yí shǐ 疑始 juan on palaeography is a substantial reconstruction of ancient script and pronunciation; the Suàn shù 算數 juan demonstrates Fāng’s engagement with the European mathematical material introduced by the Jesuits (Fāng was personally acquainted with the Jesuit Adam Schall von Bell 湯若望). The Dòng wù and Zhí wù sections are early attempts at a systematic natural-historical taxonomy.

The book’s transmission is straightforward: Fāng’s printed edition of 1641/1642 was reprinted in the Qīng under various titles and incorporated into the SKQS in 1781. The standard punctuated edition is Hóu Wàiluó 侯外廬 et al., Tōng yǎ (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1988).

Translations and research

Fāng Yǐzhì has been extensively studied in Western and Japanese sinology, and the Tōng yǎ features prominently in this scholarship. Substantial treatments include:

• Willard J. Peterson, Bitter Gourd: Fang I-chih and the Impetus for Intellectual Change (Yale UP, 1979). The standard English-language monograph; treats the Tōng yǎ in detail.
• Peterson, “Western Natural Philosophy Published in Late Ming China,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 117 (1973): 295–322.
• Cheng-Yih Chen (Chéng Zhèn-yì 程貞一), “The Generation of Chromatic Scales in the Chinese Bamboo Tube Music Theory in the Late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Chinese Science: Explorations of an Ancient Tradition (MIT Press, 1973), pp. 155–183 — uses Fāng Yǐzhì.
• John Henderson, The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology (Columbia UP, 1984), substantially on Fāng Yǐzhì’s cosmology.
• Hsia Floris-Cheng-cheun (Xià Fú-zhèng), Fang Yizhi’s Discourses on Philosophy and Science, multiple Chinese-language monographs.
• Standard Chinese-language monographs: Rén Dào-bīn 任道斌, Fāng Yǐ-zhì nián-pǔ (1983); Páng Pǔ 龐樸, Fāng Yǐ-zhì zhé-xué sī-xiǎng yán-jiū; Liú Yuǎn-fú 劉元復.

For the Tōng yǎ specifically: Sūn Yìxún 孫亦顯, Fāng Yǐ-zhì Tōng yǎ yán-jiū (Bā Shǔ shū-shè, 1996); Yáng Wǔquán 楊武泉, “Fāng Yǐ-zhì Tōng yǎ kǎo-shì” (multiple articles).

Other points of interest

The Qiè yùn shēng yuán (juan 49–50) is one of the earliest Chinese phonological-systematic attempts to integrate Sanskrit transcription evidence with traditional rhyme-table phonology — a methodological move that anticipated by a century and a half the Qīng evidential work of Qián Dàxīn, Duàn Yùcái, and Wáng Niànsūn. The Suàn shù juan engages Western (Jesuit-introduced) mathematical material in a synthesis with traditional Chinese mathematics — perhaps the earliest substantial Chinese-language attempt at such a synthesis. The Wén zhāng xīn huǒ essay (in the front matter) is an important late-Míng literary-theoretical document.

Fāng Yǐzhì’s post-Qīng monastic life under the dharma-name Wúkě / Yàodì is itself one of the major intellectual-biographical episodes of the early-Qīng yímín phenomenon. His suicide (or near-suicide) at Wànān in 1671 has been read by Wāng Róngzǔ 汪榮祖 and others as the most articulated late-Míng intellectual suicide.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Tōng yǎ entry.
• Wikipedia
• Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3093164 (Fāng Yǐzhì).
• CBDB id 54996 (Fāng Yǐzhì, 1611–1671).