Lìdài zhìdù xiángshuō 歷代制度詳說
Detailed Exposition of Institutional Systems Through the Dynasties
by 呂祖謙 (Lǚ Zǔqiān, Southern Sòng, 撰).
About the work
A Southern-Sòng compendium of institutional history in 12 juan and 13 mén: (1) Examination Subjects (Kēmù), (2) Schools, (3) (Kǎokè / Civil-Service Evaluation — title-page lost in the Sìkù recension), (4) Taxes and Corvée, (5) Grain Transport, (6) Salt Administration, (7) Wine Prohibition, (8) Currency, (9) Famine Relief, (10) Land System, (11) Military Agricultural Colonies, (12) Military System, (13) Horse Administration. Each mén opens with a concise summary of the institutional facts (zhìdù) followed by a fuller yìlùn (discussion). The work was compiled by the great Wùxué 婺學 (Jīnhuá) master Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙 (1137–1181) as a private jiāshú (family-school) crammer for examination-candidates preparing the cè 策 (policy-essay) section of the jìnshì — and was, the Sìkù editors emphatically note, not intended as Lǚ’s own teaching document or as a Dàoxué exposition. He left it incomplete at his death. The work was first printed during the Yuán Tàidìng 3 (1326) at Lúlíng 廬陵, with a preface by Péng Fēi 彭飛 of Běishān 北山 attempting (but, the Sìkù editors complain, in a forced way) to harmonize Lǚ with Zhū Xī.
Tiyao (abridged)
The Lìdài zhìdù xiángshuō in 12 juan by Lǚ Zǔqiān of the Sòng. Zǔqiān has a Gǔ Zhōuyì already separately catalogued. This book is in 13 mén: Kēmù; Xuéxiào; (juan 3 missing its head, the topic being kǎokè); Fùyì; Cáoyùn; Yánfǎ; Jiǔjìn; Qiánbì; Huāngzhèng; Tiánzhì; Túntián; Bīngzhì; Mǎzhèng. Each section first lays out the institution in concise narrative, then gives a fuller and clearer yìlùn. In Tàidìng 3 of the Yuán [1326] it was once printed; the front carries a preface by Péng Fēi of Lúlíng, who says the book is something Zǔqiān left unfinished — hence the stopping-place. The printing-blocks have long perished; the present transmitted copy has, through successive copying, accumulated errors and gaps; in the Qiánbì mén two leaves are missing; in the Huāngzhèng mén two leaves are missing. We have supplied the lacunae from the Tōngdiǎn citations and collated the wrong characters. Only juan 2 has lost the head-pages; with nothing to compare them to, we have retained the present state.
Péng Fēi’s preface describes Zhū Xī’s critique of the Zhèjiāng gōnglì school — clearly directed at the Yǒngjiā 永嘉 gentlemen, who were not free of error. Lǚ Zǔqiān, in his zhōngyuán wénzì zhī jiù (older Zhōngyuán learning), stood as the great pole after the southern crossing; Zhū Xī promoted the Way in the south-east, Lǚ Zǔqiān truly assisting him: the source of xìngmìng dàodé was thoroughly canvassed between them; only that Lǚ Zǔqiān was particularly attentive to history, as if wanting to harmonize Yǒngjiā and Zhū Xī into one. This is because in the middle of the Yuán, the Xīnān (Zhū Xī’s home prefecture) school was in vogue; Péng Fēi was afraid people would take Zhū Xī’s view as decisive and slight this book, so he made these remarks.
Checking Lǚ Zǔqiān’s niánpǔ, this book is not recorded. Clearly it was a jiāshú sīkè (family-school private exercise) — a private crammer for cèyì — compiled and transmitted, eventually put to print; not a separately-authored teaching text intended as a vehicle for lìjiào (founding doctrine). What Lǚ taught and how Lǚ wrote are two separate matters, not to be confused. As the saying is, “discussion is not single-tracked; each has its own dāng (appropriateness)“. Péng Fēi insists on harmonizing them: like Yè Shèng’s 葉盛 Shuǐdōng rìjì 水東日記 insisting that wénzhāng guānjiàn (the levers of literary craft) is itself a strand of jiǎngxué (lecturing on learning) — same kind of yūlòu (pedantic narrowness). Zhū Xī wrote on both the Cāntóng qì 參同契 and the Yīnfú jīng 陰符經 — would Péng then say he was harmonizing KǒngMèng and the Huánglǎo into one?
Respectfully revised and submitted, fourth month of the forty-first year of Qiánlóng [1776].
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 Lìdài zhìdù xiángshuō is the principal Southern-Sòng institutional-history cèyì crammer to survive, and a major source for understanding both the practical operation of the Sòng kējǔ examination system and the conjunction of Dàoxué and jīngzhì learning in late-12th-c. Zhèjiāng. Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙 (1137–1181, the great Wùxué 婺學 master) compiled it as a private classroom exercise for his nephews and lineage-students preparing the cè section of the jìnshì; it was not intended for circulation. The 13 mén covered (Examination Subjects, Schools, Civil-Service Evaluation, Taxes, Grain Transport, Salt, Wine, Currency, Famine, Land, Military Colonies, Military System, Horses) correspond closely to the cètí (policy-question) range of the Southern-Sòng examinations. Lǚ left the work incomplete at his death in 1181 — composition is bracketed here from his Jīnhuá teaching period (ca. 1170) to his death.
The work first reached print only in 1326 (Yuán Tàidìng 3) at Lúlíng 廬陵 (modern Jí’-ān 吉安, Jiāngxī), with a preface by Péng Fēi 彭飛 that attempted — clumsily, as the Sìkù editors note — to harmonize Lǚ Zǔqiān’s institutional-history approach with Zhū Xī’s Dàoxué. The Yuán printing-blocks were soon lost; the Sìkù recension was reconstructed from later manuscript copies with lacunae filled from Tōngdiǎn citations.
For the modern student, the Lìdài zhìdù xiángshuō is the most accessible single window into Southern-Sòng institutional-historical pedagogy. Each mén presents the topic at a level appropriate for an able candidate: a concise institutional narrative, then a discussion that integrates the policy debates of each dynasty. The work is also valuable for showing how the great Dàoxué tradition itself produced detailed institutional scholarship as part of its educational mission — undercutting the later (Míng and Qīng) Sòng-philosophy stereotype that Dàoxué was indifferent to statecraft.
Translations and research
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Ch’en Liang on Public Interest and the Law (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), §III, on Lǚ Zǔ-qiān’s institutional learning.
- Conrad Schirokauer, “Lü Tsu-ch’ien’s Political Thought,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 5.2, pp. 622–639.
- Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Sòng.
No European-language complete translation.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào on this work is a small classic of Qīng evidential bibliography: it distinguishes (a) Lǚ Zǔqiān’s actual scholarly programme as known from his Dōnglái jí and niánpǔ (intellectual-philosophical) from (b) this jiāshú sīkè exam-cram (institutional-pragmatic), and forcefully rebukes Péng Fēi for conflating the two. The argument is a useful methodological example of how Sòng Dàoxué masters could have multiple scholarly registers without intellectual contradiction.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Lìdài zhìdù xiángshuō entry.
- Wikidata: Q11075249.