琴堂諭俗編

Qín táng yù sú biān 琴堂諭俗編

Compilation of Instructions to the Common People [for the Yámen]

by 鄭玉道 (Zhèng Yùdào, lìngjūn), continued by 彭仲剛 (Péng Zhònggāng, lìngjūn), edited and supplemented by 應俊 (Yīng Jùn, Yífēng lìng), and further supplemented by the Yuán official 左祥 (Zuǒ Xiáng, Cháozhōu administrator).

About the work

A 2-juàn late-Southern-Sòng / early-Yuán moral-instructional compilation, intended for the practical use of county magistrates (qín táng = “the qin-hall,” the magistrate’s office). The book compiles the Yù sú biān (1 juàn) by 鄭玉道 (Zhèng Yùdào) and the Yù sú xù (1 juàn) by 彭仲剛 (Péng Zhònggāng) — two early-Southern-Sòng lìngjūn (county-magistrate) instructional pamphlets — and adds to them the supplementary commentary of 應俊 (Yīng Jùn, Yífēng lìng) in Xiánchún xīnyǒu (1261). The whole was then further supplemented by the Yuán official 左祥 (Zuǒ Xiáng) in Tiānlì 2 (1329) — adding a 14th section on zé jiāoyóu (choice of friends) which had been missing from the original. The book draws on the jīngshǐ (classics and histories) for moral exemplars and presents them to the common people in plain language for the purpose of xiān jiàohuà hòu xíngfá (instruction first, punishment second). The Sìkù editors classify the book in zǐbù zájiā (rather than the shǐbù xíngfǎ misclassification of the Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì) as the proper rubric.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì records Zhèng Yùdào’s Yù sú biān in 1 juan and Péng Zhònggāng’s Yù sú xù in 1 juan; though one continues the other, each is properly its own book. The present recension was edited by Yīng Jùn, lìngjūn of Yífēng, into a single compilation, with his own additional discussion appended; the final zé jiāoyóu (choice of friends) section was further supplemented by the Yuán-period Zuǒ Xiáng, filling a lacuna of the original.

The book draws principally on the classics and histories for material bearing on lún cháng rì yòng (ethical-relationships in daily use), illustrating them through proverb-explanations and indirect analogies, in order to instruct and warn. Hence the title “yù sú” (instructing the common people). The literary register descends to the colloquial — but the book was made for the common people of the country districts, and to judge it by the standards of literary art is to miss its purpose.

The Sòng zhì lists the book in zǐbù zájiā; but in the shǐbù xíngfǎ class it also lists Zhèng Yùdào’s Yù sú biān — not only redundant but inapt: this is neither a record of legal proceedings nor a record of prohibitive ordinances; placing it in xíngfǎ is markedly disordered. We therefore retain it in zájiā, the truer rubric.

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

Abstract

The Qín táng yù sú biān is a four-author compilation reaching from the early Southern Sòng through the Yuán period (c. 1150 to 1329). The component layers:

1. Yù sú biān by 鄭玉道 (Zhèng Yùdào, early Southern Sòng), 1 juàn: the original bǐjì-style instructional pamphlet for rural commoners.
2. Yù sú xù by 彭仲剛 (Péng Zhònggāng), 1 juàn: continuation, also early Southern Sòng.
3. Editing and supplementary discussion by 應俊 (Yīng Jùn, Yífēng lìng), in Xiánchún xīnyǒu = 1261. Yīng’s own preface (from the Ruìzhītíng — his magistrate’s pavilion) frames the late-Southern-Sòng social deterioration and the urgent moral need of his rural population.
4. Supplement by 左祥 (Zuǒ Xiáng, Cháozhōu administrator), in Tiānlì 2 = 1329: adding the zé jiāoyóu (choice of friends) section that the original 14-section table-of-contents had wanted, modelled on Zhū Xī’s Xiǎo xué parallel lacuna.

The book is one of the principal early yùsú moral-instructional manuals — a tradition that would expand significantly in the Míng (under the Liù yú and Shèng yú edicts) and Qīng (under the Kāngxī and Yōngzhèng Shèng yú guǎngxùn). The 14-section table covers wǔfú tú (the mourning-grade chart), xiào yǒu, zhōng xìn, wù běn, jié yòng, and similar moral-practical topics, closing in Zuǒ’s supplement with zé jiāoyóu and jī yīn dé. The Sìkù editors firmly classify the work in zǐbù zájiā (against the Sòng shǐ’s misclassification in xíngfǎ).

Dating. NotBefore 1261 (Yīng Jùn’s editorial-supplement preface); notAfter 1329 (Zuǒ Xiáng’s final supplement). The two early Southern-Sòng layers (Zhèng and Péng) cannot be precisely dated. The standard text is the SKQS recension, in 2 juàn.

Translations and research

No complete Western-language translation. The book is regularly cited in modern Chinese-language scholarship on Sòng popular morality and on the early development of the yù sú (moral-instructional) literature. The work is comparable, in genre and intent, to Lǚ Zǔ-qiān’s Lǚ-shì xiāng-yuē and Zhū Xī’s Zēng-sǔn Lǚ-shì xiāng-yuē — the principal Sòng village-compact texts.

Other points of interest

The four-layer compilation — Sòng-Yuán-spanning, with explicit reference to Zhū Xī’s Xiǎo xué model — places the book in the principal lineage of late-imperial moral-instructional manuals. Zuǒ Xiáng’s Tiānlì 2 (1329) Cháozhōu printing is significant as one of the earliest documented Yuán-prefectural publications of a moral-instructional manual aimed at the xiāngmín (rural commoner).

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3, Qín táng yù sú biān entry.