Qiáo xiāng xiǎo jì 樵香小記
Small Notes from the Wood-Gatherer’s Hearth
by 何琇 (Hé Xiù, zì Jūnzhuó 君琢, hào Lìān 勵菴, fl. early eighteenth century; of Wǎnpíng 宛平 [Běijīng]; Yōngzhèng guǐchǒu [1733] jìnshì; Zōngrén fǔ zhǔshì 宗人府主事)
About the work
A 2-juan early-Qiánlóng-period kǎozhèng miscellany of 120 entries by Hé Xiù — a high-Qīng evidential scholar broadly in the lineage of Yán Ruòqú, Gù Yánwǔ, Zhū Yízūn, and Máo Qílíng. Roughly half the entries treat the classics; the remainder cover palaeography, phonology, and miscellany. The book is dated by the catalog meta to 1733 (the jìnshì year, a conventional internal marker). The Sìkù editors place it firmly in the evidential-tradition lineage, citing both Hé Xiù’s individual idiosyncratic readings (some unsuccessful, in their judgment) and his genuine evidential contributions.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Qiáo xiāng xiǎo jì in two juan was compiled by Hé Xiù of our dynasty. Xiù’s zì was Jūnzhuó, hào Lìān. A Wǎnpíng man. Yōngzhèng guǐchǒu (1733) jìnshì; eventually served as zhǔshì of the Imperial Clan Court (Zōngrén fǔ).
This collection is throughout textual-investigative prose, in all one hundred and twenty entries. Discussions of the classics constitute more than half; he also engages with palaeography and rhyme-study. His discussions of liù shū often differ from older readings — for example, on the character 禿 (tū “bald”) he argues it should be read as ideogrammatically combining 禾 (grain) — the Shuō wén gloss that a man crouches under grain being absurd; and even the Liù shū zhèng é 六書正譌 emendation to cóng mù xié shēng (from mù phonetic) is not solid. On the character 為 (wéi), he argues the Shuō wén gloss as “mother monkey” inverts beginning and end: there must first have been a 為 character, which was then borrowed for “monkey.” On the character 射 (shè) — that 從身從寸 — he argues this is a corruption of zhòu wén (seal-script) representation of “hand holding a bow.” All these readings are inevitably idiosyncratic.
Yet his readings of Chūnqiū “xī shòu huò lín” (western hunt: capture of the lín), of Zhōu lǐ “bēn zhě bù jīn” (runners not stopped), and of the Shī yě yǒu sǐ jūn are also occasionally able to articulate what earlier Confucians had not yet brought out. The general orientation of his learning comes through the work of Yán Ruòqú, Gù Yánwǔ, Zhū Yízūn, and Máo Qílíng, and is largely a development of their threads.
Respectfully revised and submitted, sixth 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
Hé Xiù 何琇 (early to mid-eighteenth century; lifedates not securely known), zì Jūnzhuó 君琢, hào Lìān 勵菴, of Wǎnpíng 宛平 (modern Běijīng). Yōngzhèng guǐchǒu (1733) jìnshì; eventually zhǔshì of the Zōngrén fǔ (Imperial Clan Court). The Qiáo xiāng xiǎo jì is his sole substantial work; he is otherwise not registered in CBDB and the biographical record is thin.
The book methodologically follows the high-Qīng evidential mainstream: Hàn + Táng commentary citations marshaled against later glosses, Shuō wén / Jīng diǎn shì wén / Ěr yǎ / dynastic-history evidence assembled into rectifying arguments. The Sìkù editors are evenhanded: they catch several idiosyncratic palaeographic readings (on 禿, 為, 射) but credit several genuine contributions (Chūnqiū and Zhōu lǐ re-readings). Their location of Hé Xiù in the lineage of Yán Ruòqú, Gù Yánwǔ, Zhū Yízūn, and Máo Qílíng is significant: it places him in the Wú / Huái school evidential mainstream, even though he was a metropolitan-resident Wǎnpíng man.
Dating. The work has no internal date; the catalog meta date of “1733” reflects Hé Xiù’s jìnshì year, used here as a conventional anchor. The actual composition runs over Hé Xiù’s mature scholarly career, which extends past 1733 by an indeterminate margin.
The standard text is the SKQS recension.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. The work is intermittently cited in Chinese-language studies of high-Qīng evidential learning. Modern reprints in the SKQS facsimile.
Other points of interest
Hé Xiù’s three idiosyncratic palaeographic readings (禿 from 禾, 為 with reversed semantic priority, 射 as corruption of zhòu wén) are interesting examples of mid-eighteenth-century non-mainstream liù shū speculation. The Sìkù editors’ refusal to endorse them, while remaining respectful, is a clear instance of the high-Qīng standard view on Shuō wén authority — a view that Duàn Yùcái would soon canonize.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Qiáo xiāng xiǎo jì entry.