純正蒙求

Chúnzhèng méngqiú 純正蒙求

Pure-and-Correct Beginner’s Inquiry

by 胡炳文 (Hú Bǐngwén, Yuán, 撰).

About the work

A 3-juan Yuán-period children’s méngqiú primer, in the same general form as Lǐ Hàn’s Méngqiú (KR3k0010) — four-character rhymed gùshí couplets — but with explicitly Confucian-moral content drawn from the Báilù dòng 白鹿洞 guī (the Zhū-school White-Deer Cave Academy rules). The compiler Hú Bǐngwén 胡炳文 (1250–1333) was a leading Yuán-period Zhū-Xī-school Confucian, zì Zhònghǔ 仲虎, hào Yúnfēng 雲峰, of Wùyuán 婺源 (Huīzhōu) — author of the Zhōu yì běnyì tōngshì 周易本義通釋 and several other major ZhūXī commentaries (KR1a0079 series).

The work organizes 360 four-character couplets (paralleling the days of the year) in three juan of 120 each: (1) lìjiào mínglún (establishing teaching and clarifying the wǔlún relations) — parent-child, ruler-subject, husband-wife, elder-younger, friend; (2) lìshēn xíngjǐ (establishing oneself and acting upon oneself) — self-cultivation; (3) dàirén jiēwù (dealing with people and engaging things) — social conduct. Each juan contains zǐmù sub-categories with anywhere from 4 to 20 couplets each. Below each couplet Hú attaches a brief source-note.

The work’s explicit pedagogical ambition is to replace the Táng-derived Méngqiú of Lǐ Hàn with a chúnzhèng (pure-and-correct, i.e. ZhūXī orthodox) alternative. The Yuán preface by Wú Dùnzhāi 吳遯齋 specifically targets the contemporary teaching of children with such non-Confucian texts as Bái Jūyì’s Chánghèn gē and Pípá xíng — declaring that “non-canonical books harm the heart-mind most of all”. The work circulated widely in late-Yuán and early-Míng Confucian elementary education.

Tiyao (abridged)

Chúnzhèng méngqiú in 3 juan by Hú Bǐngwén of the Yuán. Bǐngwén has the Zhōu yì běnyì tōngshì and other works already separately catalogued. Méngqiú from Lǐ Hàn onwards has been imitated by several hands — mostly drawing from classics and histories indiscriminately for memorisation aid, with little organising order. This book gathers ancient jiāyán shànxíng (admirable words and good conduct), forming 4-character couplets, with self-notes giving source — all suitable for elementary education — clearer pedagogy than the dòudīng gēliè (cobbled-together) tradition.

Juan shàng: lìjiào mínglún. Middle: lìshēn xíngjǐ. Lower: dàirén jiēwù. Modelled on the Báilù dòng guī. Each juan has 120 couplets, total 360 — symbolically the days of the year. Zǐmù within each juan: at most 20 lines, at least 4. Sometimes the duìǒu and shēngyùn constraints force omissions or category-confusions: e.g., the Huáng Xiāng warm-pillow couplet should be in the fùzǐ (parent-child) relation but is placed under yòuxué jiànqù; the Chén Zǐgāo yielding-the-field couplet should be in the zhǎngyòu (senior-junior) relation but is placed under chǔ zōngzú. Classification not consistently right.

But for primary-education entry: choose the simple and clear; this book’s wording is plain — not as comprehensive as Zhūzǐ’s Xiǎoxué — but reciting it conveys gǎnfā (responsive arousal). For founding-the-root and rectifying-the-beginning, it cannot be said to have no contribution.

Respectfully revised and submitted, twelfth 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 Chúnzhèng méngqiú is the principal Yuán-period Zhū-school méngqiú primer for elementary Confucian education. Hú Bǐngwén (1250–1333), the leading Yuán ZhūXī commentator on the Yì jīng, designed the work to replace Lǐ Hàn’s older Táng Méngqiú (which the Zhū school regarded as containing morally indifferent material) with a strictly Báilù dòng / Zhū-Xī-orthodox alternative. The 360-couplet structure (paralleling the days of the year) and the three-juan division (mirror of the Wǔlún / self-cultivation / social-conduct trinity that defines Zhū-school xiǎoxué) make this a self-consciously systematic primer.

Composition is bracketed here to Hú’s productive middle period (1300–1320), shortly after his major Zhōu yì běnyì tōngshì compilation. The Wú Dùnzhāi 吳遯齋 preface and the Wén Tiānyòu 文天祐 preface (bǐngxū 4/18, perhaps Dàdé bǐngxū = 1306; the Sìkù recension does not specify the year) are preserved as paratexts.

The work circulated widely as a school text into the early Míng. For the modern study of Yuán-period Zhū-school pedagogy, of SòngYuán xiǎoxué primer literature, and of the formal genre of the méngqiú tradition, the Chúnzhèng méngqiú is a key primary source.

Translations and research

• Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Yuán.
• William Theodore de Bary, Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart (Columbia UP, 1981), §II on Yuán-period Zhū-school education.
• John Dardess, Confucianism and Autocracy: Professional Elites in the Founding of the Ming Dynasty (Berkeley, 1983), references Yuán-period primers including the Chún-zhèng méng-qiú.

No European-language complete translation.

Other points of interest

The Wú Dùnzhāi preface’s polemic against the use of Bái Jūyì’s poetry as children’s reading material is one of the strongest Yuán-Zhū-school statements of the principle that primary-education materials must be chúnzhèng (pure and correct) — i.e. strictly Zhū-school orthodox in content and intent. This anticipates MíngQīng primer politics by several centuries.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Chúnzhèng méngqiú entry.
• Wikidata: Q11074563.