Mòtáng jí 默堂集
The Silent-Hall Collection by 陳淵 (撰), 沈度 (編)
About the work
Mòtáng xiānshēng wénjí 默堂先生文集 in 22 juǎn is the literary collection of Chén Yuān 陳淵 (zì Zhīmò 知默 — also recorded as Jǐsǒu 幾叟; signed his hall Mòtáng “Silent Hall”; rose to Zōngzhèng shǎoqīng and Zhèngyán; nephew of Chén Guàn 陳瓘, the Liǎowēng 了翁). The collection was edited by Chén’s disciple Shěn Dù 沈度 in 514 pieces totaling 22 juǎn; Shěn provided the principal preface in Shàoxīng 17 (1147). A second preface, by Yáng Wànlǐ 楊萬里 in Chúnxī wùxū (1178), was added when Chén’s son Lù 簵 sought a second commendation. Chén was the principal Southern-conduit for the Yáng Shí — Chén Guàn line of Dàoxué transmission and a direct precursor of Zhū Xī’s reception of Yīchuān-style Lǐxué.
Tiyao
The WYG file has no Sìkù tíyào: the SBCK is the principal recension and the front matter consists of Shěn Dù’s 1147 preface and Yáng Wànlǐ’s 1178 second preface, both translated under “Abstract” below. (No tíyào found in source.)
Abstract
Chén Yuān (also signed Jǐsǒu 幾叟; zì Zhīmò 知默, used both as personal-style and as hall-style “Silent Hall”; hào Mòtáng xiānshēng 默堂先生) was a Southern-Sòng Lǐxué figure of the second generation: nephew (yóuzǐ) of Chén Guàn 陳瓘 (Liǎowēng 了翁), and disciple of Yáng Shí 楊時, the Guīshān master who carried the Chéng-brothers transmission southward. Shěn Dù’s 1147 preface places Chén explicitly in the Dàoxué line: “from Mèngzǐ the Dàoxué lost transmission and heterodoxies vied; the Sòng arose, the two Chéng masters of Hénán received their learning from Zhōu Màoshū of Liánxī; only the Guīshān Master Yáng truly entered the inner chamber and transmitted; only Master Chén Zhīmò, with a firm-and-bright resolute capacity, received the orthodox flow of the school.” Yáng Wànlǐ’s 1178 second preface — written when Chén’s son Lù sought endorsement at Pílíng — places Chén in the Yīchuān (Chéng Yí) line “transmitted in eight steps to Confucius; thereafter through Yánzǐ, Zēngzǐ, Zǐsī, Mèngzǐ; thereafter the line is broken for over a thousand years until the Yīchuān; whose true reception is held by Xièshì, Yóushì, Yángshì, and the Mòtáng Master Yáng’s chief disciple — and his close confidant”.
Chén’s career: rose to Zhèngyán (Speaker-Censor) and Zōngzhèng shǎoqīng (Vice-Director of the Imperial Clan); died (per Shěn Dù) before being able to fully implement his program. He was opposed by the chief minister of his day (i.e., Qín Huì) and died in office. His career bracket is approximately the Xuānhé through early Shàoxīng decades. The dating bracket here (1115 – 1145) marks his probable scholarly maturity through his death.
The collection is principally important as one of the very few extant works of a direct YángShí disciple — and the only one of Chén Guàn’s nephews — and is the principal documentation for the lineage Yáng Shí → Chén Yuān that Zhū Xī cited as the south-transmitted half of the Chéng heritage.
Translations and research
- Tillman, Hoyt Cleveland. 1992. Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy. Hawai’i. Touches on Chén Yuān as a transmitter of the Yáng Shí line.
- 高令印. 1995. 《福建朱子學》. Fú-jiàn rén-mín. Treats the Mò-táng line of pre-Zhū-Xī Fú-jiàn Lǐ-xué.
Other points of interest
Yáng Wànlǐ’s 1178 preface is one of the principal pre-Zhū-Xī assessments of the dàotǒng lineage: it explicitly places Yáng Shí (and through him Chén Yuān) at the head of the post-Yī-chuān Lǐxué genealogy, before Zhū Xī’s own canonical Dàoxué genealogy was finalized. The collection’s preservation in SBCK (rather than WYG) reflects this Lǐ-xué-internal interest.