元城語錄解

Yuánchéng yǔ lù jiě 元城語錄解

Explanations on the Recorded Sayings of [Liú] Yuán-chéng

by 馬永卿 (Mǎ Yǒngqīng, zì Dànián 大年, jìnshì of Dàguān 3 = 1109; the disciple-recorder) and 王崇慶 (Wáng Chóngqìng, 1484–1565, the Míng commentator who supplied the jiě “explanations”).

About the work

A 3-juàn Sòng yǔlù-style record of the conversations of 劉安世 (Liú Ānshì, 1048–1125, hào Yuánchéng 元城, the Diànshànghǔ “Hall-of-Audience Tiger”), compiled by his disciple 馬永卿 (Mǎ Yǒngqīng), with explanatory glosses (jiě 解) supplied by the Míng official 王崇慶 (Wáng Chóngqìng). Liú Ānshì was a direct disciple of Sīmǎ Guāng 司馬光; the Yǔlù accordingly contains a substantial body of Sīmǎ’s transmitted teaching, and Liú appears (on the testimony of the text) to have been the principal living transmitter of Sīmǎ Guāng’s xīnfǎ in the late Northern Sòng. The recension includes an appended Xíng lù 行錄 in 1 juàn — a biographical compilation of Liú’s deeds compiled by 崔銑 (Cuī Xiǎn, 1478–1541) and supplemented by 于文煕 (Yú Wénxī, Míng) — which the Sìkù editors retained as a useful corroboration of the Yǔ lù’s ethical claims.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Yuánchéng yǔ lù in three juan was compiled by Mǎ Yǒngqīng of the Sòng. Yǒngqīng’s zì was Dànián; a native of Yángzhōu 揚州 who took up residence in Yánshān 鉛山. From the Guǎngxìnfǔ zhì we know he passed the jìnshì of the third year of Dàguān (1109); from his own Lǎn zhēn zǐ [KR3j0103] we know he served as chéng of Jiāngdū, lìng of Zhèchuān, and lìng of Xiàxiàn; he also says he once held office in Guānzhōng, although which office is unrecorded. In the early Huīzōng reign, Liú Ānshì and Sū Shì returned together from the north; in the Dàguān period Liú took up residence in Yǒngchéng. Yǒngqīng was then zhǔbù there and received instruction from Liú Ānshì; he therefore compiled his sayings into this book. Liú’s learning issued from Sīmǎ Guāng 司馬光, so the book preserves many of Sīmǎ’s surviving sayings. Sīmǎ Guāng held that Mèngzǐ was doubtful, yet Liú had firm faith in it — which is enough to show that the friendship of jūnzǐ is not careless conformity.

The entry on Tàizǔ’s xūnlóng 薰籠 is judged by Zhōu Bìdà’s Yùtáng zá jì to have anachronistically retrojected the post-Yuánfēng office-titles back to Tàizǔ’s day — overdone fùhuì — but Liú is no idle talker; perhaps a slip of memory. Lǐ Xīnchuán’s Dào mìng lù further argues that the entry recording Master Chéng’s [Yí] memorial against breaking willow-branches is unreliable: Chéng Yí’s appointment as shuōshū came on the second day of the third month, and his counter-memorial declining the post on the fourth month, shàngxún — not at all “the time when the myriad things spring forth.” Yet the gap between shàngxún of the fourth month and the third month is hardly anything; to argue from this that there cannot have been a “spring-growth, do-not-cut-or-break” memorial is forced reasoning, not the correct principle.

Liú Ānshì’s character was lofty; his integrity shook the empire. Yet Master Zhū [Xī], when compiling the Míngchén yánxíng lù, did include selections from Wáng Ānshí and Lǚ Huìqīng but left Liú out. Dǒng Fùhēng’s Fánlù yuán jí [includes] a preface to this book saying “Master Wéngōng [Zhū Xī]‘s Yánxíng lù not entering the master [Liú Ānshì] is most incomprehensible — only on reading the Sòng shǐ did I understand. The reasons are roughly three: the master once submitted a memorial criticising Chéng Zhèngshū [Yí]; he was friendly with Sū Wénzhōng [Shì]; and he was fond of chán-talk. Wéngōng sided with Zhèngshū and was no friend of Wénzhōng; as to chán, he held it in heart-deep contempt and resisted it with all his strength. Hence the omission was not without reason.” This is a perceptive judgement. Yet the Dào mìng lù records in detail the memorials by Kǒng Píngzhòng and others impeaching Chéng [Yí], so as to ridicule them, but does not include Liú Ānshì’s memorial — merely, under Kǒng Píngzhòng’s entry, noting that he was ignorant of Yīchuān. This too is because Liú Ānshì’s character was so widely esteemed in his time that none dared revile him.

Recently a certain Liú Yuánlù of Ānqiū composed a Lěng yǔ in three juan, picking up the dregs of the YīLuò school and using “defending the Way” as a name to fulminate at will, branding Liú Ānshì a “wicked man” and calling his crimes worse than those of Zhāng Dūn and Xíng Shù. Is this not having only factional vision with no sense of right and wrong? In truth, Liú Ānshì’s mind is like a clear sky in white daylight; not one Liú Yuánlù can dim the gaze of the multitudes.

The Xíng lù in 1 juan is the continuation compiled by Cuī Xiǎn of the Míng; the Dàmíngfǔ Military-Defence Assistant Yú Wénxī further supplemented and patched its text; an old recension affixed it to the end of the Yǔ lù, and we accordingly preserve both — so that the reader, knowing Liú Ānshì’s deeds, may the more thoroughly confirm his words.

As to the Yǔ lù’s occasional appearance of Chán-tinged talk, this is a fault Master Zhū himself charged against the leading disciples of the Chéng school — Yóu, Yáng, Lǚ, Xiè — and is not to be made Liú Ānshì’s sole responsibility, nor concealed on his behalf.

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

The book is the principal record of 劉安世 (Liú Ānshì, 1048–1125, hào Yuánchéng 元城), one of the most uncompromising Northern Sòng remonstrance officials and a direct disciple of 司馬光 (Sīmǎ Guāng, 1019–1086). The compiler 馬永卿 (Mǎ Yǒngqīng, jìnshì of Dàguān 3 = 1109; native of Yángzhōu) served from 1109 onward as zhǔbù (subprefect) of Yǒngchéng 永城 county, where Liú Ānshì was then in retirement. According to Mǎ’s own preface (dated Shàoxīng 5 = 1135), he met Liú on the second day of his appointment, attended on him over a year, and continued to visit him after Liú moved to Nánjīng; the Yǔ lù is the cumulative record of those conversations, written down on his return each evening and preserved in private notebook form. The book has primary value as a witness to the late-Northern-Sòng transmission of 司馬光’s ethical and historical teaching, with substantial material on Sīmǎ Guāng’s xīnfǎ (the discipline of bù wàng yǔ “not speaking falsely”), on the Yuányòu / Shàoshèng factional struggles, and on the major political figures of the late Northern Sòng. The Yǐng preface by 張九成 (Zhāng Jiǔchéng, 1092–1159; dated Shàoxīng bǐngzǐ = 1156) explicitly identifies the Yǔ lù’s pedagogical core as the discipline of bù wàng yǔ inherited from Sīmǎ Guāng.

Dating. The earliest recension carries Mǎ Yǒngqīng’s preface dated Shàoxīng 5 = 1135 and Zhāng Jiǔchéng’s preface dated Shàoxīng bǐngzǐ = 1156; the compilation thus belongs to 1135, well after Liú’s death in 1125. The catalog meta gives “1109” as the date — this is the year Mǎ took up his Yǒngchéng post and began his association with Liú, not the compilation year. NotBefore 1135 (Mǎ’s preface) / notAfter 1135 (compilation finished by then; later prefaces are paratextual additions).

The Míng jiě “explanations” were added by 王崇慶 (Wáng Chóngqìng, 1484–1565), a Míng jìnshì of 1508 and Lǐbù shàngshū, who supplied a moderate Lǐxué gloss to the more theologically thorny entries — particularly those touching on Liú’s chán interests. The appended Xíng lù by 崔銑 (Cuī Xiǎn, 1478–1541) and 于文煕 (Yú Wénxī) is a Míng biographical-compilation, drawing on the Sòng shǐ j. 345 Liú Ānshì zhuàn and supplementary anecdotal sources.

The Sìkù editors’ tíyào is notable for its outspoken defence of Liú Ānshì against Zhū Xī’s omission of him from the Míngchén yánxíng lù — Zhū Xī had passed Liú over because Liú had impeached Chéng Yí and was friendly with Sū Shì — and for its dismissal of the Qīng dàotǒng polemic of Liú Yuánlù 劉源渌 of Ānqiū, whose Lěng yǔ had branded Liú Ānshì a “wicked man” worse than Zhāng Dūn 章惇 and Xíng Shù 邢恕.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language translation of the Yǔ lù. The text is regularly cited in Chinese-language scholarship on Sī-mǎ Guāng’s school, on Liú Ān-shì, and on Northern Sòng factional politics; see Yú Yīng-shí 余英時, Zhū Xī de lì-shǐ shì-jiè 朱熹的歷史世界 (Sānlián, 2003) for context on Zhū Xī’s relationship to the late-Northern-Sòng remonstrance tradition that Liú Ān-shì represents. A modern punctuated edition is in Sòngyuán bǐjì cóngkān, Zhōnghuá shū-jú.

Other points of interest

The Yǔ lù’s entry on Sīmǎ Guāng’s bù wàng yǔ discipline (“for seven years I have not spoken a single word that is not from the heart”) is the single most cited witness to Sīmǎ Guāng’s personal ethical practice in later Lǐxué literature.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3 · Záshuō zhī shǔ, Yuánchéng yǔ lù jiě entry.
• Liú Ānshì biography, Sòng shǐ j. 345.