Dìng é zá lù 訂譌雜錄
Miscellaneous Record of Corrections of Errors
by 胡鳴玉 (Hú Míngyù, zì Tíngpèi 廷佩, hào Yínōu 吟鷗, fl. 1736; of Qīngpǔ 青浦 [Sūzhōu]; suì gòng shēng; Qiánlóng 1 [1736] Bóxué hóngcí candidate)
About the work
A 10-juan high-Qiánlóng-period kǎozhèng miscellany on phonological and lexicographical errors. The book’s method — extensively cite earlier shuōbù writers, then add the author’s own brief judgment — is a self-conscious step back from the open-ended speculation of earlier bǐjì and toward the citation-led discipline of Qīng Hàn xué. The Sìkù editors recognize the work’s value precisely on this methodological ground: “what he wishes is for every statement to have evidence; what is gained accordingly exceeds what other authors achieve.”
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Dìng é zá lù in ten juan was compiled by Hú Míngyù of our dynasty. Míngyù’s zì was Tíngpèi, hào Yínōu, of Qīngpǔ. He was a suì gòng shēng; in Qiánlóng bǐngchén (1736) was recommended for the Bóxué hóngcí.
The book is throughout investigation of phonological-and-graphic errors. Largely it gathers the shuōbù of various authors and adds his own opinion. Within it, some entries coincidentally agree with earlier authors: e.g. the Wén xuǎn Shén nǚ fù 神女賦 entry — Hú says the characters 玉 and 王 have been written reversibly in the manuscripts — which is correct; but the first scholar to identify this error was Yáo Kuān 姚寬 in Xīxī cóngyǔ 西溪叢語, and the elaborated argument was Zhāng Fèngyì’s 張鳳翼 Wén xuǎn zuǎn zhù 文選纂注; Hú nonetheless repeatedly argues the point, evidently never having seen these two earlier accounts.
[Several other entries are itemized: the Yáng Xióng Fǎ yán “hóng fēi míng míng, yì rén hé zhuàn” entry — Hú correctly demonstrates the received text’s 慕 should be 篡 — but mistakenly attributes the corruption to “recent persons” rather than to Zhāng Jiǔlíng’s 張九齡 Gǎn yù poem; the lóngzhōng 龍鐘 entry, in which Hú correctly rejects the “bamboo-name / stone-name” readings but misattributes the famous Cén Cān 岑參 line to Cháng Jiàn 常建; the shuāng lǐ yú 雙鯉魚 entry, in which he correctly refutes the Hàn shū Chén Shèng zhuàn / Sòng shū Fú ruì zhì “fish-belly-hidden-letter” reading but fails to identify Cài Yōng’s Yǐn mǎ Chángchéng kū xíng 飲馬長城窟行 as the terminus a quo; and the yàn zú bó shū 雁足帛書 entry, where he treats the Sū Wǔ story as wholly fictional, missing the Yuán-period actual instance of Hǎo Jīng’s 郝經 letter-via-arrow-shot-bird, documented in the Língchuān jí 陵川集.]
Such occasional missed-collations occur. But because his desire was for every statement to be evidenced — not adding many original speculations — his gains exceed those of other authors. The white-fox robe is not made of one armpit-skin alone; the diligence of his net-and-gather collation cannot be dismissed.
Respectfully revised and submitted, first 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
Hú Míngyù 胡鳴玉 (fl. 1736, lifedates not securely known), zì Tíngpèi 廷佩, hào Yínōu 吟鷗, of Qīngpǔ 青浦 (in Sòngjiāng prefecture, modern Shànghǎi). Suì gòng shēng (annual-quota provincial student). Recommended for the Bóxué hóngcí of Qiánlóng 1 (1736); did not pass. He is otherwise unrecorded.
The Dìng é zá lù in 10 juan is one of the most methodologically disciplined early-Qiánlóng bǐjì: a sustained effort to correct received errors of phonology and graphic form, with strict citation, deliberately suppressing the author’s speculative voice in favour of marshaled evidence. The Sìkù editors’ explicit praise of this methodological stance — “his gains exceed those of other authors” — is significant. The method anticipates Wáng Niànsūn’s Dúshū zájì 讀書雜志 and Wáng Yǐnzhī’s Jīngyì shù wén 經義述聞 by a generation.
The Sìkù editors’ itemized list of citation errors (failure to know Yáo Kuān, Zhāng Fèngyì, Zhāng Jiǔlíng, Cài Yōng, Hǎo Jīng on specific entries) is a small kǎozhèng reading-list in itself and a marker of mid-Qiánlóng evidential expectations. Despite these errors, the Sìkù editors’ verdict is firmly positive.
Dating. The book was compiled in the run-up to the 1736 Bóxué hóngcí. NotBefore and notAfter are both 1736.
The standard text is the SKQS recension.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. The work is intermittently cited in modern Chinese-language studies of high-Qiánlóng evidential lexicology. Modern reprints in the SKQS facsimile.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ formulation — “every statement must have evidence; not adding many original speculations” — is one of the clearer mid-Qiánlóng articulations of the Hàn xué methodological program, and is directed against the speculation-tolerant late-Míng evidential mode (Yáng Shèn, Jiāo Hóng). Hú Míngyù’s deliberate authorial-modesty stance — gathering and adjudicating others’ arguments rather than asserting his own — is a methodologically purified version of late-Míng bǐjì practice.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Dìng é zá lù entry.