白孔六帖

BáiKǒng liùtiē 白孔六帖

The Bái-Kǒng Six Tablets

original 白居易 (Bái Jūyì, Táng, 原本); continuation 孔傳 (Kǒng Chuán, Sòng, 續撰).

About the work

A composite lèishū of 100 juan combining Bái Jūyì’s Liùtiē 六帖 in 30 juan (an aid to literary composition built up from gathered gùshí) and Kǒng Chuán’s Hòu liùtiē 後六帖 in 30 juan (a Sòng continuation by Kǒng Chuán of the Eastern-Lǔ Kǒng family, the great-grandson of the zhōngchéng Kǒng Dàofǔ 孔道輔). The Wénxiàn tōngkǎo lists the two works separately at 60 juan total; the present 100-juan recension is a later (probably late-Southern Sòng) re-combination into a single book under one rubric. The two source-works originated almost three centuries apart — Bái Jūyì’s Liùtiē belongs to his late-life retirement scholarship at Luòyáng (most likely begun in the early Chángqìng / Bǎolì period, ca. 826; Bái died 846), Kǒng Chuán’s continuation to the Northern–Southern Sòng transition with Hán Jū’s 韓駒 preface dated to early Shàoxīng 紹興 (1131–1135).

The title takes its name from the Táng tiējīng 帖經 examination format (Chéng Dàchāng 程大昌’s Yǎnfán lù 演繁露 traces this), in which examiners “tablet-covered” a row of canonical text with paper bearing three characters, asking the candidate to identify which Classic the row came from; “six” meant that six tablets answered correctly was the threshold of tōng 通 (pass). The Sìkù tíyào finds this etymology fùhuì 附會 (over-stretched), since the work mostly collects ornamental phrases for literary use rather than Classics-quotations for examination. Yáng Yì’s 楊億 Tányuàn records the production-method: Bái laid out 30 ceramic gāng (water jars) on a seven-tier rack, labelled them by ménmù, and had his students throw paper-slips inscribed with the gathered events into the appropriate jar, the slips later inverted out and copied into the book — which explains the curiously haphazard chronological ordering of the entries within each section.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the BáiKǒng liùtiē in 100 juan. The Wénxiàn tōngkǎo records the Liùtiē in 30 juan by Bái Jūyì 白居易 of the Táng, and the Hòu liùtiē in 30 juan by the Sòng Zhī Fǔzhōu 知撫州 Kǒng Chuán 孔傳 — adding the two: 60 juan. This recension joins the two works into one — we do not know whose work the joining was — and divides into 100 juan — we do not know whose work that division was. Checking Hú Zǎi’s 胡仔 Tiáoxī yúyǐn cónghuà 苕溪漁隱叢話: “The Liùtiē new-book emerged after the Eastern-Lǔ military fires; south and north were cut off, and the copy did not transmit south, so southern learners could not augment their hearing-and-seeing” — so at the beginning of the southern crossing there was still no transmitted copy. Wáng Yīnglín’s Yùhǎi first records “Kǒng Chuán also has a Liùtiē”; the joining into one book must then have come at the end of the Southern Sòng.

Huáng Cháoyīng’s 黃朝英 Jìngkāng xiāngsù zájì 靖康緗素雜記 records that the Báishì liùtiē had a preface by Wáng Ānshì 王安世 of Bópíng dated Yuányòu 5 [1090]; this recension has lost it. The preface at the head of the present book by Hán Jū 韓駒 is specifically for Kǒng Chuán’s continuation. Yáng Yì’s Tányuàn says: “Bái Jūyì made the Liùtiē by setting out several dozen ceramic vessels in his studio, each labelled with a ménmù; he ordered his disciples to collect shìlèi and drop them into the jars. Then he inverted the jars and copied out the contents — so the chronological order in his book is mostly without sequence.” The Táng zhì names the book Báishì jīngshǐ shìlèi liùtiē 白氏經史事類六帖 — that being its other name.

Chéng Dàchāng’s Yǎnfán lù says: “In the Táng Kāiyuán period the kēshì examinations had a method of tiējīng — three characters of one’s studied Classic were left visible, the two ends being covered; this was tiē; in three tablets (tiē) some got 4, 5 or 6 right, and 6 was the threshold of tōng; hence the name Liùtiē, after the number of correct tablets”. But this book gathers chéngyǔ gùshí for ornamental use, having nothing to do with the jìnshì examination tiējīng method, so it is hard to find the rationale of the name — Dàchāng’s account is over-stretched. The tǐlì is similar to the Běitáng shūchāo but the cutting-and-pasting is even worse.

The Zīxiá jí picks out its mis-citation of the Zhū Bó 朱博 crow-flock anecdote; the Nánbù xīnshū picks out its mis-citation of Táo Qián’s “five willows” anecdote; the Dōnggāo zálù picks out its mis-citation of the Niǎo míng yīngyīng anecdote; the Xuélín jiùzhèng picks out its mis-citation of Máo Bǎo’s tortoise-release anecdote. But what it cites is all from pre-Táng works that survive only in fragments — broken slips and fallen leaves, often only here — so it is not without use for evidential research. Hóng Mài’s Róngzhāi suíbǐ also says: “The shallow vulgar books like Yúnxiān sǎnlù are all extremely laughable; Kǒng Chuán’s Hòu liùtiē takes everything from them into his book — he sullies his own book.” But the Fùzhāi mànlù (now lost; here drawn from Hú Zǎi’s Tiáoxī yúyǐn cónghuà) says: “Kǒng Chuán zì Shèngchuán of the Eastern Lǔ is a descendant of the Former Sage [Confucius] and grandson of Kǒng Dàofǔ; broadly learned, much heard; from the Táng down to our Sòng, poetry, eulogy, inscription, encomium and the rare and secret literature, he has investigated to the limit, leaving not a hair behind; he extracts the essentials, divides them by category, gathers them by group; he has continued Bái Jūyì of the Táng’s Liùtiē, calling it the Liùtiē xīnshū 六帖新書; Hán Jū made a piece-preface for it, saying ‘Kǒnghóu’s book is like the rich man’s stockpile of timber — beams, lintels, pillars and brackets piled like mountain and cloud; the craftsman comes to it and his hand can never exhaust the supply, no small thing’” — so the Sòng too thought highly of his book.

The Yùhǎi cites the Zhōngxìng shūmù as saying “Bái Jūyì gathered from classics, histories and the hundred schools, picking the choice and arranging by category, fully noting in each entry the source-book and the author’s name.” Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì says “Bái’s original did not record sources; my great-grandfather Mìgé gōng 秘閣公 made the notes and the version with notes is what circulates.” The accounts differ — Cháo recounts his own family’s deed, so it cannot be wrong; and the Yùhǎi also cites the Zhōngxìng shūmù as saying “Bái Jūyì took Tiān, Dì and Shì matters and made them into rhyming couplets without recording sources” — so this account is also internally contradictory. Probably both versions circulated in their day — one with sources noted, one without — and Wáng Yīnglín recorded each on a different occasion. This recension’s notes are quite abridged, and the annotator is not named; whether they are the Cháo-family notes or not is no longer recoverable. We retain the received copy without adding an attribution. Bái Jūyì’s full life is in the Táng shū biography; Kǒng Chuán has an Dōngjiā zájì 東家雜記 already catalogued KR2j0011.

Respectfully revised and submitted, fifth 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

The BáiKǒng liùtiē is the Sòng-period composite of two originally separate lèishū: Bái Jūyì’s Liùtiē 六帖 (the Báishì jīngshǐ shìlèi liùtiē 白氏經史事類六帖, ca. 826 — Bái Jūyì 772–846, the great Mid-Táng poet, undertook the work in retirement at Luòyáng, with the production-method preserved by Yáng Yì) and Kǒng Chuán’s Hòu liùtiē 後六帖 of about 1131 (Kǒng Chuán, descendant in the Kǒngfǔ 孔府 lineage of Confucius and grandson of the Sòng zhōngchéng Kǒng Dàofǔ 孔道輔, repeatedly failed the jìnshì examinations and turned to continuing Bái’s work). Hán Jū 韓駒’s preface, written for Kǒng’s Liùtiē xīnshū at the start of the Shàoxīng period, is the only contemporary statement of motivation. The merging of Bái’s and Kǒng’s works into a single 100-juan whole probably belongs to the late Southern Sòng — the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo (Mǎ Duānlín, completed 1307) still lists them separately at 60 juan combined.

The dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 826, notAfter 1131) brackets the two compositional moments. The textual core dates to Bái’s late life at Luòyáng; the supplement was finished by the time of Hán Jū’s Shàoxīng preface. The 100-juan recension as a unified work is a later editorial product and is unattributed.

The Sìkù tíyào gives an unusually rich critical reading: it summarises the four major Sòng-period attacks on the work’s reliability (Lǐ Kuāngyì’s Zīxiá jí, the Nánbù xīnshū, the Dōnggāo zálù, the Xuélín jiùzhèng) and the two competing accounts of who supplied the source-citations (Cháo Gōngwǔ’s claim that his great-grandfather did so versus the Yùhǎi / Zhōngxìng shūmù claim that Bái had done so himself), and concludes that the surviving annotated text is probably one of two parallel Sòng recensions. The standard modern punctuated edition is the Zhōnghuá shūjú reprint of the Sìkù recension (1965); a critical reconstruction of the original Bái stratum is not available.

Translations and research

• Bái Huà-wén 白化文, Bái Jū-yì xué-shù tǎo-lùn jí (Běijīng dà-xué chū-bǎn-shè, 2000) treats the Bái-shì liù-tiē among Bái’s late-life works.
• Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Táng, discusses the Liù-tiē alongside its companion lèishū.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §72.1.2.1, names the Bái-shì liù-tiē shì-lèi jí 白氏六帖事類集 as the fourth of the four great early lèishū (with Yìwén lèijù, Běi-táng shū-chāo, Chū-xué jì).

No European-language translation.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù tíyào’s presentation of Yáng Yì’s anecdote about Bái Jūyì’s “ceramic-jar” production-method — taohé píng on a seven-tier rack, with disciples throwing slips of gùshí into the jars — is the only such description of pre-modern lèishū compilation technique that survives in any detail. It accounts for the work’s notorious chronological disorder within sections.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, BáiKǒng liùtiē entry.
• Wikidata: Q11074149.
• Related work: KR2j0011 (Kǒng Chuán, Dōngjiā zájì).