Yì fǔ 義府
The Storehouse of Meanings
by 黃生 (Huáng Shēng, zì Fúmèng 扶孟, born 1622, fl. mid-seventeenth century; zhū shēng of Shèxiàn 歙縣)
About the work
A 2-juan early-Qīng evidential miscellany on classical and historical xùngǔ (lexicology). The upper juan treats the classics; the lower juan treats the histories, zhūzǐ, jí, and a closing supplement of items from Zhào Míngchéng’s 趙明誠 Jīn shí lù 金石錄, Hóng Kuò’s 洪适 Lì shì 隸釋, Lì Dàoyuán’s 酈道元 Shuǐ jīng zhù, and Táo Hóngjǐng’s 陶弘景 / Zhōu Zǐliáng’s 周子良 Míng tōng jì 冥通記 (with the biéjiào zhī shū “books of the other teachings” segregated at the end as a signal of methodological distance). The Sìkù editors place the work explicitly above Fāng Yǐzhì’s Tōng yǎ (KR3j0066) on the dimension of evidential precision — a remarkable judgment given the size disparity (2 juan vs. 52). The book is one of the foundational early-Qīng xùngǔ monographs and is a key methodological precursor of Qīng Hàn xué lexicology.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yì fǔ in two juan was compiled by Huáng Shēng of our dynasty. Shēng’s zì was Fúmèng. A zhūshēng of Shèxiàn. The Jiāngnán tōng zhì records that he abandoned the examination calling, dedicated himself wholly to composition, and produced several juan of poetry and prose; his collection is not now available.
This book is entirely textual-investigative zhá jì (notebook entries). The upper juan treats the classics, the lower juan treats the histories, the zhūzǐ, and the jí; appended at the back are entries on Zhào Míngchéng’s Jīn shí lù, Hóng Kuò’s Lì shì, the ancient inscriptions preserved in Lì Dàoyuán’s Shuǐ jīng zhù, and Táo Hóngjǐng / Zhōu Zǐliáng’s Míng tōng jì; the xùngǔ of the “books of the other [Buddhist/Daoist] teachings” is segregated at the end to mark their outsider status.
[A long list of substantial evidential findings follows: Huáng Shēng’s correction of Jiǎ Gōngyàn 賈公彥 and Dīng Dù 丁度 on the Zhōulǐ term péng xiǎn 㲝毨 by citation of Shuō wén; his correction of piāo chǔ 漂杵 (in Shàngshū) as piāo lǔ 漂滷 (clotted blood) by citation of Jiǎ Yì’s Lùn and Chén Lín’s 陳琳 xí memorial; his correction of the Lǐ jì Zhèng Xuán note on the gut of fish by citation of Ěr yǎ; his use of Lǚ shì chūnqiū to prove Zhū bó 朱襮 is not zhū lǐng 朱領; his use of Tángōng to prove bótí 勃鞮 = Pī 披; his use of Zuǒ zhuàn and Shī xù to prove gēng 庚 in qǐng gēng 請庚 (in Tángōng) glosses dàolù 道路 (road); his use of Táng shū to prove the Zhōu guān term lián 廉 in liù jì 六計 glosses chá 察 (to inspect); his use of Wú Yuè chūnqiū to prove è bù = è fū 鄂跗 (flower-foot); his use of Zuǒ zhuàn to prove that chū in chū yú qí lèi glosses chǎn 產; his use of Zhōu lǐ Zǎishī 載師 and Lǘshī 閭師 to prove that the fū bù 夫布 and lǐ bù 里布 are distinct levies; his use of Shī Wángfēng 王風 to gloss shīshī 施施 in the Mèngzǐ; many more.] All of these are well-grounded in tradition and chuck out the chaff with precision.
As to his use of Zhuāngzǐ’s duàn zài gōu zhōng to gloss duàn duàn; his argument that qīng yíng 青蠅 (green flies) in Hàn shū Wáng Mǎng zhuàn and cāng yíng 蒼蠅 should read yā 䵷 (frog); his glossing of méng 氓 in Guó cè as liú mín (drifting people); his use of Yì’s odd-even opposition to gloss qí huò 奇貨: here there is some forcing.
Likewise: his citing the Yán Zhēnqīng stele but not the Kǎo gǔ tú; his citing Yán Shīgǔ but not the Shì shuō; his citing the Sānguó zhì annotations on jiǔ dé 九德 but not the Guó yǔ; his citing Jí yì jì 集異記 but not the Jiāo Zhòngqīng qī poem on dēng shí 登時 — these are losses of what was right under his eyebrows. But small slips do not weight the work. Even though its bulk is modest, what is worth taking is not in any way below Fāng Yǐzhì’s Tōng yǎ.
Respectfully revised and submitted, seventh month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng [1778].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Huáng Shēng 黃生 (born 1622, fl. mid-seventeenth century; CBDB id 87946 gives 1622–1696), zì Fúmèng 扶孟, of Shèxiàn 歙縣 in Huīzhōu 徽州 (modern southern Anhui), was an early-Qīng evidential lexicographer who never passed the examinations beyond zhūshēng (provincial student) status. The Jiāngnán tōng zhì record cited by the Sìkù editors notes that he “abandoned the examination calling and dedicated himself wholly to composition.” Beyond the Yì fǔ, the Tōng yǎ parallel work Zì gǔ yì 字詁義 is sometimes attributed to him. His poetry-and-prose collection mentioned in the Tōng zhì is lost.
The Yì fǔ is one of the founding texts of Qīng xùngǔ lexicology. Its method — accumulate parallel attestations across the entire received corpus, recover the original or unattested gloss, and overturn the standard jízhù gloss with explicit citation — anticipates the techniques of Duàn Yùcái 段玉裁, Wáng Niànsūn 王念孫, and Wáng Yǐnzhī 王引之 by a century. The book is direct evidence of how Qīng Hàn xué developed not as a sudden break with Míng xìnglǐ but as a continuation of strands present in the late-Míng and Shùnzhì / Kāngxī transition period — Huáng Shēng working entirely outside the central institutions, in Huīzhōu, in the 1660s and 1670s.
The Sìkù editors’ explicit ranking of Yì fǔ above Fāng Yǐzhì’s Tōng yǎ is methodologically significant: precision of evidential method, in their view, trumps encyclopedic scope. This is the implicit standard by which the Sìkù editors privilege early-Qīng Huīzhōu Hàn xué lexicography over late-Míng polymathic kǎozhèng.
Dating. The work has no internal date; the notBefore of 1660 is conservative given Huáng Shēng’s b. 1622, and the notAfter of 1696 is his death-year. The book first appeared in late-seventeenth-century private printings and was incorporated into the SKQS in 1778. The standard text is the SKQS recension.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. The work is regularly cited in modern Chinese-language histories of Qīng xùn-gǔ — Liáng Qǐ-chāo 梁啟超’s Qīng-dài xué-shù gài-lùn 清代學術概論 mentions Huáng Shēng among the pre-Hàn-xué precursors. The book is reprinted in the Sì-kù quán-shū facsimile and in the Cóng-shū jí-chéng chū-biān. Specialized recent studies in Huī-xué 徽學 (Huī-zhōu studies) treat Huáng Shēng as part of the seventeenth-century Huī-zhōu intellectual milieu.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ decision to segregate Huáng Shēng’s entries on “the xùngǔ of the books of the other teachings” (i.e. Buddhist and Daoist material) at the back of the lower juan as a marker of methodological distance is a small but telling instance of mid-Qīng editorial classification. Huáng Shēng himself appears to have included these materials willingly and without apology; the Sìkù editors’ editorial framing reflects their own categorization preferences. The book’s tight evidential method, the close attention to Zuǒ zhuàn, Ěr yǎ, Shuō wén, Lǚshì chūnqiū, and Hàn-era inscriptional material, all anticipate the central Qīng Hàn xué canon.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Yì fǔ entry.
- CBDB id 87946 (Huáng Shēng, 1622–1696).