Bái tián zá zhù 白田雜著
Miscellaneous Writings from White Field
by 王懋竑 (Wáng Màohóng, zì Yúzhōu 予中, hào Báitián 白田, 1668–1741; of Bǎoyìng 寶應 in Jiāngsū; Kāngxī jǐchǒu [1709] jìnshì; Hànlín shìjiǎng xuéshì)
About the work
An 8-juan early-Qīng kǎozhèng miscellany of Wáng Màohóng, the most rigorous eighteenth-century Zhū Xī scholar — author of the indispensable Zhūzǐ nián pǔ 朱子年譜 (a separately catalogued chronological reconstruction of Zhū Xī’s life). The Bái tián zá zhù gathers Wáng’s evidential investigations particularly concentrated on the Zhū Xī corpus: the Yì běn yì jiǔ tú lùn 易本義九圖論 (an argument that the nine Yìjīng diagrams attached to Zhū Xī’s Zhōu yì běn yì are not Zhū Xī’s own work but later attributions), the Jiā lǐ kǎo 家禮考 (parallel argument on the Zhūzǐ jiā lǐ 朱子家禮), and a sustained set of investigations into Zhū Xī’s annotative corpus that — uniquely in the kǎozhèng tradition — proceeds from total command of Zhū Xī’s quán jí 全集 and yǔ lù 語錄 to identify chronological inconsistencies, pseudepigraphic accretions, and editorial errors. The Sìkù editors call this method “what SòngYuán scholars had not yet brought out.” Catalogued under Zákǎo of the Zájiā division.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Báitián zázhù in eight juan was compiled by Wáng Màohóng of our dynasty. Màohóng’s Zhūzǐ nián pǔ is separately catalogued. This collection is throughout his evidential-disputative writings, with particular force concentrated on Zhūzǐ’s books.
His Yì běn yì jiǔ tú lùn, his Jiā lǐ kǎo — all repeatedly worked through, mutually compared, and established as the work of later attribution — bring out what Sòng and Yuán Confucians had not previously enunciated. His Mèngzǐ xù shuō kǎo 孟子序說考 — that the Jí zhù follows the Shǐ jì while the Gāng mù 綱目 follows the Tōng jiàn on year-month variants. His Shū Chǔ cí hòu 書楚詞後 — that the Jí zhù erroneously follows the old reading, and uses the materials in the Jiǔ zhāng to prove the variant in the historical text. His various Dú shǐ 讀史 essays — gleaning and supplementing the Tōng jiàn gāng mù in many places. And his Zhūzǐ dá Jiāng Yuánshì shū, Xuē Shìlóng shū kǎo — one juan, the language extending over a juan-volume, all rooted in the complete collected works and yǔ lù, threading-out the year-month, distinguishing variants — particularly luminous in clarifying Zhūzǐ’s learning-sequence.
Truly trusting in Zhūzǐ’s books, every character and phrase he sinks-and-broods to seek out from beginning to end every micro-loss and gain. None is unknown to him; hence his words are level and balanced, not the kind that floats after high fame and uses citation to coerce the public discussion while not really grasping the matter’s edges.
On Lǚ Zǔqiān’s Dà shì jì 大事記 he says now I have not seen the book; awaiting further inquiry. He absolutely refuses to fall silent merely because the present book lacks the citation. This is like Huì Dòng’s Jiǔ jīng gǔ yì 九經古義 self-acknowledging that he has not seen the Yì jǔ zhèng 易舉正 — both retain the substantive integrity of the earlier Confucians. By this we know that the other works he cites are all citations from books actually read — unlike Yáng Shèn, Jiāo Hóng, and that sort who fabricated their citations.
[The Sìkù editors note that this recension carries a colophon by Jì Róngshū 紀容舒 (Jì Yún’s father) dated Qiánlóng dīngmǎo (1747) saying that the manuscript was transcribed from the family of Shēn Xǔ 申詡 of Jǐngzhōu — and they note that this is unclear whether Wáng Màohóng himself or Shēn Xǔ made the selection. A recent printing of the Bái tián cǎotáng quán jí 白田草堂全集 has been issued separately, and contains the contents of this recension within its larger scope but also nearly six-tenths of other material — mostly ceremonial-occasional prose less precise than this recension. They classify the new quán jí in the jí bù, and place this 8-juan version in zájiā on the ground that its entries are each titled like miscellaneous writings but each is in substance evidential investigation — following the precedent of the Dōngguān yú lùn 東觀餘論 classification.]
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
Wáng Màohóng 王懋竑 (1668–1741), zì Yúzhōu 予中, hào Báitián 白田, of Bǎoyìng 寶應 (Jiāngsū). Kāngxī jǐchǒu (1709) jìnshì; appointed Hànlín shìjiǎng xuéshì and (later) Hànlín bóshì. The most rigorous eighteenth-century Zhū Xī scholar, whose Zhūzǐ nián pǔ 朱子年譜 (chronological reconstruction of Zhū Xī’s life, in 4 juan + appendix) is the standard reference and was used as the spine of the Sìkù editors’ chronological information on Zhū Xī.
The Bái tián zá zhù gathers Wáng’s miscellaneous evidential writings on Zhū Xī’s corpus. The fundamental method — total command of the Zhū wéngōng wén jí and Zhūzǐ yǔ lèi combined with strict chronological tracking — is, as the Sìkù editors observe, what allowed Wáng to identify pseudepigraphic accretions to the Zhū Xī corpus. The two most-cited findings are: (1) the Yì běn yì jiǔ tú (nine diagrams attached to the Zhōu yì běn yì) are post-Zhū-Xī attributions, not Zhū Xī’s own work; (2) the popularly received Zhūzǐ jiā lǐ 朱子家禮 is a later compilation, not Zhū Xī’s own composition. Both arguments became part of the standard Hàn xué consensus on the Zhū Xī corpus.
The book also contains the substantial Zhūzǐ dá Jiāng Yuánshì shū, Xuē Shìlóng shū kǎo — a sustained chronological reconstruction of Zhū Xī’s epistolary engagement with Jiāng Yuánshì 江元適 and Xuē Shìlóng 薛士龍 that doubles as a precise account of Zhū Xī’s mature learning-sequence. This essay is regularly cited in modern ZhūXī scholarship as a methodologically definitive piece of biographical reconstruction.
Dating. The work covers Wáng Màohóng’s entire scholarly career. NotBefore 1700 is conservatively the early-mature period; notAfter 1741 his death-year.
Textual transmission. The 8-juan recension presented in the SKQS was transmitted via Shēn Xǔ 申詡 of Jǐngzhōu, transcribed by Jì Róngshū 紀容舒 in Qiánlóng dīngmǎo (1747); the parallel Bái tián cǎotáng quán jí 白田草堂全集 is the fuller collected-works edition, separately classified in the Sìkù’s jí bù.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. Wáng Màohóng features prominently in Daniel K. Gardner, Chu Hsi: Learning to Be a Sage (1990) and various modern Chinese-language Zhū Xī studies as the indispensable source for Zhū Xī chronology. The standard punctuated Zhū-zǐ nián pǔ is in the Shū-mù wén-xiàn chū-bǎn-shè edition. The Bái tián zá zhù itself has been reprinted in the SKQS facsimile.
For the Jiā lǐ attribution problem see Patricia Ebrey, Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China (Princeton, 1991), passim — Ebrey accepts Wáng Màohóng’s argument.
Other points of interest
The Yì běn yì jiǔ tú and Jiā lǐ attributional arguments are model cases of how eighteenth-century kǎozhèng method could be turned not against the apocryphal Hàn or Sòng forgeries but against the more pious SòngYuánMíng accretions to a revered master’s corpus. Wáng Màohóng’s combination of intense Zhū Xī devotion with intense Zhū Xī source-criticism — distinguishing the master’s genuine voice from later pseudepigraphic attribution — is one of the more interesting eighteenth-century intellectual positions.
The Sìkù editors’ explicit comparison of Wáng’s honesty about books not yet read to Huì Dòng’s similar admission in the Jiǔ jīng gǔ yì — both contrasted against Yáng Shèn and Jiāo Hóng’s fabricated citations — is a clear statement of eighteenth-century evidential professional ethics.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Bái tián zá zhù entry.