辯言

Biàn yán 辯言

Disputations

by 員興宗 (Yún Xīngzōng, d. 1170; zì Xiǎndào 顯道, hào Jiǔhuázǐ 九華子). The character 辯 is also written 辨 in some recensions.

About the work

A 1-juàn Sòng polemical bǐjì by 員興宗 (Yún Xīngzōng), the Sìchuān-born late-Southern-Sòng Jiǔhuázǐ. The book is the polemical-philological companion to Yún’s Jiǔhuá xiānshēng jí 九華先生集 (KR4d0259); it lost transmission until the Sìkù editors recovered it from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, and they printed it apart from the Jí. Yún was an exam-graduate who served in the Tàixué, rose to Zhùzuò láng, and was removed from court in Qiándào (early-to-mid 1160s) for memorialising forthrightly; he died at Rùnzhōu. The book’s polemical targets range broadly over the Liù jīng, the histories, the Zhūzǐ, and Sòng Lǐxué commentary, biàning (disputing) what its author found unsound.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Biàn yán in one juan was compiled by Yún Xīngzōng of the Sòng. Xīngzōng’s biography is not in the Sòng shǐ; his name appears only in the Xìngshì jíjiù piān. He composed a Jiǔhuá xiānshēng jí 九華先生集 which is also not transmitted in the world; only the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserves some pieces, with the six sacrificial eulogies appended to the end of the collection. From these texts collated, Xīngzōng was a Shǔ-man, zì Xiǎndào; on summons he first held office at the Tàixué, rose by stages to Zhùzuò láng; in Qiándào on grounds of having made an impeachment, was removed from court and granted a fèngcí (sustenance-office); finally died at Rùnzhōu. Zhào Rǔyú in writing of him compared him to Ōuyáng Yǒngshū and Sū Míngyǔn, with great deference. He too was one of the independently virtuous shì.

This book is in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn but is not titled “Jiǔhuá jí”; we suspect it circulated separately, outside the Jí. The book runs through the Jīngzhuàn, the shǐ and zǐ, down to Sòng-period various Confucians’ arguments; wherever it finds the principle unsteady, it argues against it. Among the entries, only the one on Gōngyáng zhuàn Jì jì rù Qí — Yún’s claim that “Jì, having a thousand chariots, [acted] for fear of others” — was drawn from current Shàoxīng-period events, and is not exactly on point. As for his disputations of the Shàng shū’s “Liù zōng” old commentary, of the Lǐ jì’s “Wénwáng’s nine-decades” (the absurd nine-decade-age tradition), and his criticism of the Liú-shi Hàn shū kān wù for ignorance of historians’ rules of writing — these all display distinctive insight. Other entries also are mostly in line with principle. Only that his “the Shī needs no Xù to be clear; the Duàn Xù is not ancient” follows Zhèng Qiáo’s new doctrine — let it stand as one school’s view.

Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng (1781).

Abstract

The Biàn yán is the principal polemical work of the Jiǔhuázǐ — Yún Xīngzōng, a mid-Southern-Sòng official whose forthrightness shut him out of the central administration in the Qiándào years (1165–1173). The book is a biàn-style polemic on the Liù jīng, the histories, the Zhūzǐ literature, and the new commentaries of the Sòng Lǐxué schools. The Sìkù editors flag four of its distinctive contributions:

1. The disputation of the old Shàng shū commentary on Liù zōng — Yún advancing a fresh reading against the orthodox Zhèng Xuán / Wáng Bì tradition;
2. The disputation of the Lǐ jì “Wénwáng’s nine-decades-of-age” passage — a long-standing absurdity in the textual tradition;
3. The criticism of the Liú-shi Hàn shū kān wù — for ignorance of historians’ writing rules;
4. Concurrence with Zhèng Qiáo 鄭樵 (1104–1162) in dismissing the Mao Shī xù.

The fourth position is one of the more important Southern Sòng moves: Yún’s alignment with Zhèng Qiáo against the orthodox Mao Shī xù tradition is part of the broader twelfth-century reorientation of Shī studies away from the Xù-based reading toward direct engagement with the poems — a current that would issue, a generation later, in Zhū Xī’s Shī jí zhuàn.

The single misjudgement the Sìkù editors flag is the Gōngyáng Jì jì rù Qí entry, which they identify as a thinly veiled Shàoxīng-period commentary (i.e. on the post-Jīngkāng SòngJīn relationship) inappropriately retrojected onto a Chūnqiū text.

Dating. Yún held office and was removed from court during Qiándào (1165–1173); he died in 1170. The book is plausibly the product of his fèngcí period at Rùnzhōu (mid-to-late 1160s). NotBefore 1160 / notAfter 1170.

The standard text is the SKQS 1-juàn recension, restored from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language treatment. The book is cited in modern Chinese-language scholarship on Southern Sòng Shī-criticism and on the Zhèng Qiáo line of Shī-studies reform; also in studies of mid-Southern-Sòng intellectual independence — particularly Zhāng Shì 張栻 and Lù Jiǔ-yuān 陸九淵 contemporary networks.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3, Biàn yán entry.