橫浦集

Héngpǔ jí 橫浦集

The Héng-pǔ Collection by 張九成 (撰), 郎曄 (編)

About the work

Héngpǔ jí 橫浦集 in 20 juǎn is the literary collection of the early-Southern-Sòng official, classicist, and zhuàngyuán of 1132 Zhāng Jiǔchéng 張九成 (1092–1159, zì Zǐsháo 子韶, hào Wúgòu jūshì 無垢居士 — the self-styled “Stainless Layman”, named after his fourteen years of exile-residence on the Héng River in Nánān 南安, Jiāngxī). The collection was edited by his disciple Láng Yè 郎曄 and contains four juǎn of fù and poetry plus sixteen juǎn of prose. Zhāng was the principal early-Southern-Sòng Dàoxué figure to combine the ChéngYángShí (程‒楊時) classicist transmission with serious Chán practice under Dàhuì Zōnggǎo 大慧宗杲, and his prose style, polemics against Qín Huì’s appeasement policy, and his examination cè are the principal interest of the collection.

Tiyao

The Sìkù tíyào: the Héngpǔ jí in 20 juǎn was composed by Zhāng Jiǔchéng of the Sòng. Jiǔchéng’s zì was Zǐsháo, self-styled Wúgòu jūshì. His ancestors were of Kāifēng but the family had moved to Qiántáng. Jìnshì placed first in Shàoxīng 2 (1132); appointed Zhèndōngjūn qiānpàn; rose through Zōngzhèng shǎoqīng concurrently shìjiǎng; acting Xíngbù shìláng; was hated by Qín Huì who accused him of slandering court policy and exiled him to Nánānjūn for fourteen years. After Qín Huì’s death he was reappointed Magistrate of Wēnzhōu, then begged a sinecure-temple appointment, and died. Posthumously granted Tàishī, ennobled Chóngguógōng, shì Wénzhōng. His record is in the Sòngshǐ biography.

Jiǔchéng was deeply devoted to classical scholarship, with explanations on each of the canons. In his youth he studied under Yáng Shí, taking the unmanifest zhōng (the zhōng yōng “centeredness”) as the master. The Sòngshǐ says he early on associated with Buddhists, hence his arguments are often biased — but his roots were genuinely deep, truly worthy of being a great Confucian. Today, of his classical commentaries only the Mèngzǐ zhuàn survives, separately listed elsewhere. The present collection was edited by his disciple Láng Yè: in all 4 juǎn of fù and poetry plus 16 juǎn of miscellaneous prose. Among them works such as the Shūzhuàn tǒnglùn, the Chūnqiū jiǎngyì, and the Mèngzǐ shíyí are largely his classical-exegetical writings.

His Court Examination duìcè (memorial) lays out the great plan of recovery and reproaches Gāozōng for taking refuge in the peace settlement. He also denounces contemporary abuses; his words are pointed and severe; on eunuch interference in government he warns repeatedly. Yáng Shí said: “Without firm-and-great spirit, one who can neither bend nor turn before gain or loss — only such a one.” Truly may be called loyal speech and upright discourse. Lù Yóu’s 陸游 Lǎoxuéān bǐjì says Jiǔchéng’s cè contained the line Guìzǐ piāo xiāng (“Cassia-seeds blowing fragrance”), and Lǐ Yìān (Lǐ Qīngzhào 李清照) composed the lines Lùhuā dàoyǐng Liǔ Sānbiàn / Guìzǐ piāoxiāng Zhāng Jiǔchéng to mock him. But reading the cè now, where it is most ornate and discursive — that is precisely where it most heavily reproaches those who indulge in mountain-and-river pleasures and forget kin and bear humiliation. Its intention is most pointed and earnest; how can it be mocked on such grounds?

As to Hóng Mài’s Róngzhāi suíbǐ: Hóng Hào 洪皓 died en route, passing through Nánān; Jiǔchéng went to perform the sacrifice — his ritual text mentioned only year-month-office-rank without sentiment, yet was all the more poignant. Mài calls this an unprecedented gé; he does not realize this was simply temporary self-protective phrasing in a perilous time, not a matter of literary craft. Mài’s words verge on excessive ingenuity.

Jiǔchéng also wrote the Xīn chuán and the Rì xīn records; the original edition appended these after his collection, but since they have separately-printed editions, they are here struck out. Qiánlóng 43 (1778), 7th month, respectfully collated.

Abstract

The Héngpǔ jí is the principal literary monument of an unusual figure in early Southern Sòng. Zhāng Jiǔchéng combined the conventional rise of a zhuàngyuán (top-placed jìnshì of 1132) with a profound personal commitment to the Chán monk Dàhuì Zōnggǎo, then with a public stance of opposition to Qín Huì’s 1141 peace settlement with the Jin, for which he paid with fourteen years of exile in Nánānjūn 南安軍 (modern Dàyú 大庾, Jiāngxī). The collection’s two principal interests are (a) the cè (court memorial) presented at his examination, which doubled as an open critique of Gāozōng’s accommodationist policy, and (b) the prose miscellanies and exegetical fragments composed during the long Nánān exile.

The collection was assembled posthumously by Zhāng’s disciple Láng Yè 郎曄. Of Zhāng’s classical commentaries, only the Mèngzǐ zhuàn KR1h0013 (in WYG) and the fragmentary Zhōngyōng shuō KR1h0042 (SBCK) survive separately. The Sìkù editors note that Zhāng’s prose draws extensively on Buddhist locutions — a feature that prompted Zhū Xī to attack him repeatedly in the Yǔlù, but which made him an attractive ancestor for the later Xīnxué school of Wáng Yángmíng 王陽明. The bracket here uses Zhāng’s jìnshì year (1132) as notBefore and his death (1159) as notAfter for the underlying composition; the editorial recension is later but the constituent texts are his.

A celebrated anecdote in Lù Yóu’s Lǎoxuéān bǐjì records Lǐ Qīngzhào’s mocking couplet on Zhāng’s “Guìzǐ piāo xiāng” line; the Sìkù editors defend Zhāng against the charge of empty ornamentation, reading the passage in its polemical context.

Translations and research

• Levering, Miriam. 2000. “Zhang Jiucheng and Dahui Zonggao: Pre-Cheng-Zhu Daoxue and the Encounter with Chan.” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies. The principal English-language treatment.
• Tillman, Hoyt Cleveland. 1992. Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy. Hawai’i. Treats Zhāng Jiǔchéng’s role in the early-Southern-Sòng Dào-xué contestation.
• Araki Kengo 荒木見悟. 1958. “Chō Kyū-jō to Daie Sōkō” 張九成と大慧宗杲. In Bukkyō to Jukyō. The classic Japanese study of the Zhāng-Dà-huì relationship.
• Schlütter, Morten. 2008. How Zen Became Zen. Hawai’i. Discusses Zhāng Jiǔchéng in the Dà-huì Zōng-gǎo orbit.

Other points of interest

The collection is one of the few sources where one can directly observe a major Northern-tradition Lǐxué official simultaneously inhabiting the Chán world and the Dàoxué world without resolution. The Mèngzǐ zhuàn, separately catalogued, was excluded by Zhū Xī from the dàotǒng canon precisely on the grounds visible in this collection.

Links

• Zhang Jiucheng (Wikipedia, zh)
• Wikidata Q15911468
• Sòngshǐ 374 (biography of Zhāng Jiǔchéng).