晦菴集

Huì’ān jí 晦菴集

The Huì-ān Collection by 朱熹 (撰)

About the work

Huìān xiānshēng Zhū Wéngōng wénjí 晦庵先生朱文公文集 in 100 juǎn (with a continuation-collection xùjí and biéjí) is the literary collection — comprehending memorial-essays, court-memorials, letters, prefaces, jì-records, zàn-eulogies, bǎ-colophons, míng-inscriptions, jìwén, and the canonical yǔlù-companion biéjí — of the supreme Southern-Sòng Dàoxué synthesizer Zhū Xī 朱熹 (1130–1200, zì Yuánhuì / Zhònghuì 元晦/仲晦, hào Huìān 晦庵 / Huìwēng 晦翁 / Kǎotíng 考亭 / Zǐyáng 紫陽; posthumous shì Wén 文, ennobled Wéngōng 文公). The transmitted Sìkù recension occupies four full WYG library-volumes (V1143–V1146), making it among the largest individual biéjí in the entire corpus. The principal compilation is by Zhū’s son Zhū Zài 朱在 (assisted by his disciple Wáng Bǎi 王柏 and others) shortly after Zhū’s death, with subsequent expansions; the SBCK recension carries Sū Xìn’s Jiājìng rénchén (1532) preface to a Mǐntái re-cutting.

Tiyao

The SBCK file’s front-matter consists of Sū Xìn’s 1532 Chóngkān Huìān xiānshēng wénjí xù and the document-tables; the WYG-style Sìkù tíyào is not at the head of the source file (no tíyào found in source).

The Sū Xìn 1532 preface (translated): “Filling the dome-and-floor [of cosmos] is the Dào; congealing it, it dwells in human persons. Humans are present at the Three Talents [Heaven, Earth, Man] — by virtue of this Dào. The Sage shares with Heaven; the Worthy practices and approximates [the Sage], advancing toward Sage[hood]. The Six Canons are the carriages of the Dào; the essence of the various sages is in them; Confucius gathered the whole. The great Rú of the Sòng continued the broken thread of the Mèngshì line; and Master Zhū gathered its whole. From the transmissions of Xī and Nóng received and transmitted, the broad-and-great and refined-and-subtle were exposed and excerpted without remainder. The LiánxīLuòGuān words were still húnlún (mingled in mass); Master Zhū then expounded their detail. Xiàxué shàngdá (lower-learning ascending to upper-attainment) — the steps were like a forest-shutter opened wide. Students who can repeat-and-firmly-walk-it, recover xìng (nature) and clarify lún (relations) — and obtain how to be human-with-substance-and-function: in self and others completed, entering the worthy and gazing toward the sage, gallop on without self-knowing — the great composition of myriad ages, towering above former wise men: yes indeed. Otherwise: chasing-the-quick and being-confused, getting-substance and losing-function — far indeed from the Dào.

“Yet of Master Zhū’s learning, in his time, [the worth] was suppressed for over a hundred years. Our holy dynasty raised it up: scholars practice and recite it, in unanimity without different learning — the Dào now in the great-clear, daylight at high noon. Of his commentaries on the various canons and the Four Books, beyond [those], his composed wén and shī — gathered together, totaling 120 juǎn — too of nothing not from the Dào; and as wén its body — like wind moving over water, the highest wén of Heaven-and-Earth — compared to the diffuse-and-confused, magic-set-and-ghost-displayed, suspended-disconnected. His intent is in awakening men; hence the diction is abundant without diminishing — bù bó shū sù, like cloth and silk, beans and millet, with surplus warmth and flavor in them. Daily on his cultivation, in jūjìng qiónglǐ (residing-in-respect and exhausting-principle), turn-personal-and-tread-substantial, inner-and-outer交-養 (cross-nourishing) — without any moment’s gap — and his heart spirit-roamed with Heaven, hence its rising-out-as-this. Scholar-officials who do not wish to be worthy-sage gentlemen but indulge in cí-craft can put this aside and choose that. Those who wish to be worthy-sage gentlemen — with huáshí jiānbèi (flowering and substance both prepared) — set this aside, what shall they read?

“The collection’s old carving in Mǐnniè (Fújiàn): years long, the blocks worn-away and missing; further, the jiǎnzhì (manuscript bundles) were heavy and large, and people had difficulty storing them. Recently Zhāng Xiànfù dàlún (Zhāng Dàlún) and the previous Inspector Yú shìyù (Yú Yù) and Shǒuyú shìyù (the Shǒuyú censor Jiǎng) memorialized for re-carving, reducing the carving-paper to four parts in ten. The ten directions assembled the labor; the master-of-cutting was Hú xiànshǐ Yuè (Hú Yuè) who personally took on the proofreading; the Director of Education Pān xiànfù Huáng (Pān Huáng) assisted; the censors Luó Yīng, Lù Quán, Jiāng Yí, Liú Àn all had a share of the labor; Xìn hastened on his arrival to its completion. All saying Xìn should preface the meaning of carving. Ah! Master Zhū indeed said: the Dào never perished; men in fact darkened it, made it bright. Setting this work broadcast, will give the realm a road into the Dào of greater radiance; guǐdào yìshuō (deviant-ways and strange-doctrines) get no rise; even those who only do wén will know that wheels and shafts that are merely decorated should be ashamed — to think to attach to the Dào and not be confined to mere yì (skill). Perhaps the State’s huàchéng (transformation-completion) and cānzàn (assistance) governance — not without small补 (supplement) — so I do not firmly decline. Jiājìng rénchén (1532) 9th month jìwàng, late-student Ráopíng Sū Xìn writes at the Mǐn provincial xíngtái.”

Abstract

The Huìān jí is the largest, most comprehensively compiled, and most institutionally consequential personal biéjí in the Sòng tradition. It runs to 100 juǎn of memorials, court-essays, letters, jì, xù, zàn, bǎ, míng, fù, cí, qíncāo, and the canonical biéjí / xùjí extensions, totaling well over 4,000 documents. The collection’s principal documentary classes are: (a) court memorials and zházǐ — including the famous Three Memorials of Màowǔ Yìngzhào (1188) — central documentation of the late-12th-century Court of Xiàozōng’s xīnzhèng and the Guāngzōng / Níngzōng filial-piety crisis; (b) Zhū’s vast personal correspondence — letters to Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙, Zhāng Shì 張栻, Lù Jiǔyuān 陸九淵, Wūjiāng (吳澄, sic — actually Wāng Yīngchén 汪應辰), Yáng Wànlǐ 楊萬里, Chén Liàng 陳亮, Lín Guāngcháo 林光朝, and many hundreds of other senior figures — which is the most extensively transmitted intellectual epistolary in pre-modern Chinese history; (c) the jì-records and xù-prefaces for the great shūyuàn (academies) — White Deer Grotto Báilùdòng, Yuèlù 嶽麓, Cāngzhōu — that document the Southern-Sòng academy movement; (d) ritual and lecture pieces for the Lǐxué lineage; (e) cí and fù of literary interest. The biéjí (separate collection, xùjí and biéjí) extends the personal correspondence by another several thousand pieces.

The compilation history: Zhū’s son Zhū Zài 朱在 began the assembly immediately after Zhū’s death (1200), with Wáng Bǎi 王柏 and other disciples assisting; Wáng Yīnglín 王應麟 (mid-13th c.) further expanded; the YuánMǐn (Yuán-era Fújiàn) edition consolidated the 100-juǎn / xùjí / biéjí arrangement; the Míng Hóngzhì and Jiājìng (Sū Xìn 1532, in Sū’s preface) re-cuttings reduced the bulk; the Sìkù WYG recension is the canonical Qīng-era version. The dating bracket: 1148 (Zhū’s jìnshì year, the start of his career-document trail) through 1200 (his death year).

The collection is the principal documentary substrate for the modern study of Zhū Xī’s life, philosophy, social network, and political-administrative practice. It is paired in the Cheng-Zhū canon with the Zhūzǐ yǔlèi 朱子語類 KR3a0014 (the disciple-recorded conversations) — the two together constituting the bulk of Zhū’s recorded intellectual production beyond the great commentaries.

Translations and research

• Chan, Wing-tsit. 1989. Chu Hsi: New Studies. Hawai’i. Treats the corpus comprehensively.
• Tillman, Hoyt Cleveland. 1992. Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy. Hawai’i.
• Adler, Joseph A. 2014. Reconstructing the Confucian Dao. SUNY.
• Gardner, Daniel K. 1990. Chu Hsi: Learning to Be a Sage. California. (Translates extensively from the Yǔ-lèi but with parallel attention to the wén-jí.)
• Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. 1991. Chu Hsi’s Family Rituals. Princeton. (Translation and commentary on Zhū’s Jiā-lǐ, but with extensive use of letters in the wén-jí.)
• Wittenborn, Allen. 1991. Further Reflections on Things at Hand. UPA. (Translation and commentary on Zhū’s Jìn-sī lù with reference to the wén-jí.)
• Tillman, Hoyt Cleveland. 1982. Utilitarian Confucianism: Chen Liang’s Challenge to Chu Hsi. Harvard. (Treats the Zhū-Chén Liàng correspondence preserved in the wén-jí.)
• 束景南 (Shù Jǐng-nán). 2003. Zhū-zǐ dà-zhuàn (Great Biography of Master Zhū). The principal modern reference work, drawing comprehensively on the wén-jí.

Other points of interest

The 100-juǎn canonical structure is itself a deliberate Sìkù-era arrangement; the underlying pre-Sìkù recensions varied between 100 juǎn, 100 juǎn + xùjí, and 120-juǎn total counts (per Sū Xìn’s 1532 preface). The “xué wén bù néng tuìzhuàng” (the Lǐxué “Daoist learning” prohibition of 1196–1207) cited in Sū Xìn’s preface — “his learning was for over a hundred years suppressed” — is the period of the Qìngyuán dǎngjìn 慶元黨禁, lifted only on Lǐzōng’s accession (1224). The full canonization of Zhū’s wénjí into the YuánMíngQīng official curriculum dates from this lifting forward.

Links

• Zhu Xi (Wikipedia)
• Wikidata Q47284
• Sòng shǐ j. 429 (Zhū Xī’s biography in Dàoxué lièzhuàn).
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §53 (Sòng Lǐxué).