Shí xiǎo biān 識小編
Notebook of Knowing the Small
by 董豐垣 (Dǒng Fēngyuán, zì Jútīng 菊町, fl. 1751; of Wūchéng 烏程; Qiánlóng xīnwèi [1751] jìnshì; magistrate of Dōngliú 東流 county)
About the work
A 2-juan kǎozhèng miscellany of 24 essays — nine-tenths of them on ritual matters — completed in 1751 by Dǒng Fēngyuán. The book is a substantial mid-Qiánlóng evidential engagement with the Sān lǐ (the three ritual classics): the Zhōu lǐ, Yílǐ, and Lǐjì. Dǒng is critical of earlier Confucian readings on multiple specific ritual problems — sacrifice-to-Earth and the fāngqiū 方丘; office-and-fief tenure for ministers and grandees; the number of ancestral temples permitted to a dà fū (high officer). The Sìkù editors’ assessment is mixed: they identify a series of erroneous readings (one driven by Dǒng’s mis-reading of the Sī xūn 司勳 chapter) but credit Dǒng’s substantial refutations of Wàn Sīdà 萬斯大 and Máo Qílíng on specific ritual problems, and conclude: “his arguments are most correct; his citations also detailed; he is helpful to ritual institutions; among recent persons, he is still one who applies his mind to the canonical meaning.”
Catalog-vs-text note: the data/catalogs/meta/KR3j.yaml entry’s title field is given as 識小織, which is a transcription slip for 識小編 (the WYG and the SKQS tíyào agree on 識小編, taken from the Lúnyǔ 19.22 phrase shí qí xiǎo zhě 識其小者). The slip is preserved in the meta but corrected here in the kb entry.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Shí xiǎo biān in two juan was compiled by Dǒng Fēngyuán of our dynasty. Fēngyuán’s zì was Jútīng. A native of Wūchéng. Qiánlóng xīnwèi (1751) jìnshì; served as magistrate of Dōngliú county. The book has twenty-four essays; nine-tenths discuss ritual matters.
[The Sìkù tíyào then engages in an extensive evidential argument with Dǒng Fēngyuán’s positions: on jì shè 祭社 versus jì dì 祭地 — Dǒng argued they are one and the same (the Zhōu lǐ sacrifice to Earth on the square mound and the Wáng zhì great altar are both within the kù mén 庫門); the Sìkù editors marshal Míngtáng wèi, Jiāo tè shēng, Yuè lìng, Dà sī mǎ, Sì shī, and their commentaries to refute, arguing that jì shè is on jiǎ days in spring/autumn while fāng qiū is at summer solstice. On official tenure: Dǒng argued the qīng dà fū who hold office without cǎi dì (fief lands) are the standard case, while those who receive cǎi dì through merit are exceptional; the Sìkù editors refute via the Zuǒ zhuàn’s case of Tū jī 屠擊 and Zhù Yǐng 祝頴 having guān yì 官邑 (administrative-fief land) despite being modest officials, and via Lǐ yùn’s programmatic “tiānzǐ yǒu tián, zhūhóu yǒu guó, dàfū yǒu cǎi” — Dǒng has mis-read the Sī xūn chapter and conflated shǎng tián 賞田 (reward-fields) and jiā tián 加田 (additional fields) with cǎi dì. On the ancestral temples of dà fū: Dǒng argued for fewer levels than received tradition; the Sìkù editors refute through the Jì fǎ 祭法, Dà zhuàn, and Bái hǔ tōng, arguing that a dà fū who is the head of a dà zōng lineage may indeed maintain a shǐ zǔ temple.]
Other matters in his book: that the Yǔ gòng “five services” 五服 and the Zhí fāng “nine services” 九服 are two-but-actually-one; that the Zhōu lǐ “gōng wǔ bǎi, hóu sì bǎi lǐ” measurement (five hundred and four hundred lǐ) is consistent with “the Lǔ state being a hundred-square lǐ” (i.e. five-square-hundred-lǐ = twenty-five hundred-square-lǐ); that the Jì fǎ says the Yǒu Yú shì ancestral the Zhuān Xū and venerated Yáo, which does not match the Lǔ yǔ’s jiāo offering to Yáo and zōng to Shùn — all are arguments developed from earlier Confucians.
His refutation of Wàn Sīdà’s 萬斯大 Dì shí yī 禘十一 essay (especially the position that the Lǔ dì sacrifice did not extend back to the originating ancestor, and the position that the Eastern Zhōu took Wén and Wǔ as zǔ and zōng without taking Hòu jì as zǔ), and his refutation of Máo Qílíng on the establishment of a separate tiào zhǔ 祧主 temple (Máo argued that the tiào spirit-tablet is set up separately and not stored in the tàizǔ temple) — these arguments are most correct, with citation also detailed, and are helpful to ritual institutions. Among recent persons he is still one who applies his mind to the canonical meaning. Although his arguments are in places mixed, there is also room to take what is useful.
Respectfully revised and submitted, eleventh month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng [1780].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Dǒng Fēngyuán 董豐垣 (fl. 1751; lifedates not securely known), zì Jútīng 菊町, of Wūchéng 烏程 (in Húzhōu, Zhèjiāng). Qiánlóng xīnwèi 16 (1751) jìnshì; served as magistrate of Dōngliú 東流 county (in An-qìng prefecture, An-huī). The Shí xiǎo biān in 2 juan is his sole substantial transmitted work; he is otherwise not registered in CBDB and the biographical record is thin.
The work is a substantial mid-Qiánlóng evidential engagement with the Sān lǐ. Dǒng’s specific positions are largely outside the mainstream of received commentarial tradition — and the Sìkù editors’ detailed point-by-point refutation (running to several thousand characters in the original tíyào) is itself a small Sān lǐ sub-monograph. What survives of value, on the Sìkù editors’ own reckoning, are: (a) Dǒng’s refutations of Wàn Sīdà’s positions on the Lǔ dì sacrifice and on Eastern-Zhōu ancestral worship; (b) Dǒng’s refutation of Máo Qílíng on the tiào zhǔ separate temple. These are explicitly endorsed by the Sìkù editors. The remaining individual arguments (on jì shè / fāng qiū; on dà fū fief tenure; on dà fū ancestral temples) are systematically refuted.
The intellectual milieu is the mid-Qiánlóng Sān lǐ revival, contemporary with Huì Dòng 惠棟 and the early Yángzhōu Hàn xué school. Dǒng Fēngyuán’s engagement is fully within the standards of the period: scholastic, citation-heavy, willing to overrule earlier authorities on specific philological grounds. The Sìkù editors’ qualified praise — “among recent persons one who applies his mind to the canonical meaning” — places him in the second tier of mid-Qiánlóng ritual scholarship.
Dating. The jìnshì year of 1751 is the only firm anchor; the book is dated here to that year. The actual composition probably extends a few years after 1751.
The standard text is the SKQS recension.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. The work is occasionally cited in modern Chinese-language studies of mid-Qiánlóng Sān lǐ scholarship and of the mid-Qīng Wàn Sīdà / Máo Qílíng / Huì Dòng debate environment. Modern reprints in the SKQS facsimile.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ explicit endorsement of Dǒng’s refutation of Wàn Sīdà and Máo Qílíng is interesting given that Máo Qílíng was the most aggressive defender of the Sòng jízhù tradition against the rising Hàn xué. Endorsing Dǒng on this specific issue places the Sìkù squarely in the Hàn xué mainstream on the tiào zhǔ problem.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Shí xiǎo biān entry.