初學記

Chūxué jì 初學記

Notes for Young Beginners

by 徐堅 (Xú Jiān, Táng, 奉敕撰) and his colleagues 韋述 Wéi Shù, 余欽 Yú Qīn, 施敬本 Shī Jìngběn, 張烜 Zhāng Xuān, 李銳 Lǐ Ruì, 孫季良 Sūn Jìliáng (all 奉敕撰), commissioned by Táng Xuánzōng.

About the work

The most refined of the early-Táng lèishū: 30 juan, 23 bù, and 313 zǐmù 子目, designed by imperial command of Xuánzōng 玄宗 to serve as a teaching anthology for the imperial princes — what later scholars called huángzǐ jiàoběn 皇子教本. The work’s name, “Notes for Young Beginners”, reflects this didactic intent; but, as the Sìkù tíyào notes citing Liú Yì 劉禕’s 春明退朝錄 anecdote, the Sòng scholar Liú Zǐyí 劉子儀 of Zhōngshān used to say “this book is not only for beginners — it can be a record for one’s whole life”. The structural innovation that secured the Chūxué jì’s lasting reputation is its tripartite layout within each zǐmù: a narrative head (xùshì 叙事) drawing the canonical citations into continuous prose; a middle of paired allusions (shìduì 事對); and a verse-and-prose anthology tail (shīwén 詩文). This is more sophisticated than Ōuyáng Xún’s binary “shì-then-wén” in the Yìwén lèijù (KR3k0003) and less encyclopaedic than the Tàipíng yùlǎn (KR3k0012); the Sìkù editors place its breadth below the Yìwén lèijù but its precision above it.

Compilation was directed by Xú Jiān 徐堅 (659–729), then a Jíxián diàn xuéshì 集賢殿學士, and the Xīn Táng shū · Yìwén zhì names six other compilers (Wéi Shù 韋述, Yú Qīn 余欽, Shī Jìngběn 施敬本, Zhāng Xuān 張烜, Lǐ Ruì 李銳, Sūn Jìliáng 孫季良). The Nánbù xīnshū 南部新書 dates the commission to a Kāi- “xx 13, fifth month” — where the Sìkù tíyào writes 開皇 (Kāihuáng), a clear copyist’s slip for 開元 (Kāiyuán), since Kāihuáng belongs to the Suí (581–600). The actual date is Kāiyuán 13 = 725; the work was completed by Kāiyuán 16 = 728 at the latest, since Xú Jiān died the following year.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Chūxué jì in 30 juan was compiled by Xú Jiān 徐堅 and others of the Táng, by imperial command. The Táng shū · Yìwén zhì records under Xuánzōng a Shìlèi 事類 in 130 juan and also a Chūxué jì in 30 juan, with the note: “Zhāng Yuè 張說 categorized and gathered the essential events as instruction for the various princes; Xú Jiān, Wéi Shù 韋述, Yú Qīn 余欽, Shī Jìngběn 施敬本, Zhāng Xuān 張烜, Lǐ Ruì 李銳, Sūn Jìliáng 孫季良 each compiled portions.” This makes it sound as though both books were by Zhāng Yuè in overall charge, with Xú Jiān and the rest as section-compilers. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì says: “Chūxué jì, 30 juan, by Xú Jiān and others of the Táng. Earlier, Zhāng Yuè had categorized and gathered the essentials of events to teach the various princes; in the Kāiyuán period an imperial edict ordered Xú Jiān and Wéi Shù and the rest to divide categories and compile in sequence.” This implies that the Shìlèi was Zhāng Yuè’s compilation, while Xú Jiān and the rest were further ordered to draw out the choicest matter from it to make this book.

Checking the Nánbù xīnshū, it records: “In the fifth month of Kāi-[yuán] 13, the Jíxián Academician Xú Jiān and others compiled the essentials of Classics, Histories and Literature, in subject-categories. The Throne gave it the title Chūxué jì.” On this Cháo’s account is correct; the Táng zhì note states the matter unclearly and accidentally fuses the two books into one. The book is in 23 bù and 313 zǐmù, mostly aligning with other lèishū, except that in the Earth bù, outside the Five Marchmounts, it records Zhōngnán mountain; outside the Four Watersheds, it records Luò, Wèi and Jīng rivers; and Líshān hot springs and Kūnmíng pool are split out as two separate entries — this reflects the two Táng capitals.

The layout: first xùshì, then shìduì, then shīwén. The xùshì, though drawing from various works, follows sequentially as if all of one piece — utterly unlike other lèishū. The shīwén incorporates both Early Táng and pre-Táng material: for the various ministers, Táng material comes after the previous dynasties; for Tàizōng’s imperial compositions, it leads, before the previous dynasties — by contrast with the Yùtái xīnyǒng 玉臺新詠 which places Liáng Wǔdì’s poetry among ordinary ministers, this is a particularly considered editorial form. What it gathers is all pre-Suí ancient works, and its choices are strictly disciplined and broadly useful. Among Táng lèishū, its breadth does not match the Yìwén lèijù, but in refinement it surpasses it; the Běitáng shūchāo and the [Báishì] liùtiē are far below this book.

The Chūnmíng tuìcháo lù 春明退朝錄 and the Wéngōng shīhuà 溫公詩話 both report Liú Zǐyí 劉子儀 of Zhōngshān admiring the book and saying “not only for beginners, this can be a record for a lifetime”. Lǐ Kuāngyì 李匡乂’s Zīxiá jí 資暇集 says: in the Moon section, Wú niú 吳牛 is paired with Wèi què 魏鵲, the “Wèi què” referring to Cáo Cāo’s Gēxíng (“when the moon is bright, the stars sparse, the wūquè fly south”); this is rather forced. Hàn Wǔ’s Qiūfēng cí 秋風辭 says “grass and trees yellow and fall, the geese return south”; if the Moon section can cite Wèi què, then a Wind section could cite Hàn geese. If one is loose with words like this, anything goes. Xú Jiān of Dōnghǎi is a great Confucian — how could he be so out of joint! This is rather to the point. Later Lǐ Shāngyǐn’s poem, following Bào Zhào’s Dài Báitóu yín line qīng rú yùhú bīng 清如玉壺氷, then took Bào (referring to Bào Zhào’s surname) as a parallel for the Wáng in Wáng pèi 王佩 — yes, that is sustaining Xú Jiān’s flaw. But we should not let one flaw cover the whole book.

Respectfully revised and submitted, second month of the fifty-first year of Qiánlóng [1786].

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 Chūxué jì is the most artistically successful of the early Táng lèishū: smaller, more precisely cut, and more user-friendly than the Yìwén lèijù and Běitáng shūchāo that preceded it by a century. Its commission belongs to Xuánzōng’s Kāiyuán court at its cultural apogee. Xuánzōng’s eldest sons were of an age to begin formal classical instruction; the existing Táng lèishū were too unwieldy for tutorial use. The emperor ordered the Jíxián diàn xuéshì under Xú Jiān 徐堅 (659–729) to produce a 30-juan abridgment of pre-Táng learning, organized in 23 categories, suitable for boys. Compilation was undertaken in Kāiyuán 13 (725) and completed before Xú Jiān’s death in 729 — most likely by Kāiyuán 16 (728), since the surviving text contains no material datable later. The Xīn Táng shū · Yìwén zhì lists six co-compilers (Wéi Shù, Yú Qīn, Shī Jìngběn, Zhāng Xuān, Lǐ Ruì, Sūn Jìliáng); the older Zhāng Yuè 張說 (667–730), already the dominant statesman of the Kāiyuán court, had earlier produced a 130-juan Shìlèi on similar lines, and the Chūxué jì is essentially an abridgment of that.

The work’s structural signature is the three-layer arrangement within each zǐmù: an xùshì head, a shìduì middle, and a shīwén tail. This was praised by the Sìkù editors as a deliberate improvement on Ōuyáng Xún’s bipartite shì/wén arrangement. The categories include some that reflect Táng specifically — the Earth bù gives separate sections to Zhōngnán mountain (south of Chángān) and the Luò, Wèi, Jīng rivers (the metropolitan watersheds), plus the imperial pools (Líshān hot spring, Kūnmíng pool) of the two capitals — confirming the imperial-court provenance. The work was a great success: Lǐ Fǎng’s 977 Tàipíng yùlǎn preface names the Chūxué jì (together with the Xiūwén diàn yùlǎn and the Yìwén lèijù) as one of the three predecessor compendia on which his own commission was modelled.

The Sòng reception, recorded in Liú Bīn’s 劉本 1134 preface (Sháoxīng 4, jiǎyín New Year), the Chūnmíng tuìcháo lù, and Sīmǎ Guāng’s Shīhuà, was admiring; the principal criticism, from Lǐ Kuāngyì’s Zīxiá jí and quoted in the Sìkù tíyào, concerns specific cross-categorical pairings (Wú niú with Wèi què) that the editors of the Chūxué jì allowed to stand. The standard modern punctuated edition is Xǔ Yìmín 許逸民, Chūxué jì (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1962, repr. 1985), with the Chūxué jì suǒyǐn 初學記索引 (1980) by the same hand.

Translations and research

• Xǔ Yì-mín 許逸民, Chū-xué jì (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1962; repr. 1985). Standard punctuated edition.
• Xǔ Yì-mín, Chū-xué jì suǒ-yǐn 初學記索引 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1980). Concordance.
• David McMullen, State and Scholars in T’ang China (Cambridge UP, 1988), §VI (on the Jí-xián diàn compilers and the role of the Chū-xué jì in Táng pedagogy).
• Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Táng (on Chū-xué jì and its compilation context).
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §72.1.2.1.

No complete European-language translation.

Other points of interest

The Chūxué jì is the principal source through which a number of pre-Suí works — notably Cǎomùzǐ 草木子 fragments and the Wǔjīng yìyì 五經異義 of Xǔ Shèn 許慎 — partially survive. Its narrative xùshì sections are often the only continuous-prose presentation of a topic that survives from the early medieval period, a feature that has made the Chūxué jì particularly valuable for the reconstruction of lost prose. The Liú Běn 1134 preface preserved in the Sìkù recension is itself a useful early Sòng meditation on the function of lèishū as carriers of dào through wén.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Chūxué jì entry.
• Wikipedia (en): Chuxue ji; Wikidata: Q1085128.
• Modern critical edition: Xǔ Yìmín (Zhōnghuá 1962/1985).