Shuāngxī lèigǎo 雙溪類槀
The Double-Stream Categorized Drafts by 王炎 (撰)
About the work
Shuāngxī lèigǎo 雙溪類槀 in 27 juǎn (1 fù and yuèfǔ + 9 poetry-and-cí + 17 prose) is the surviving recension of the literary collection of Wáng Yán 王炎 (1138–1218, zì Huìshū 晦叔, of Wùyuán 婺源 in modern Jiāngxī — settled along the Wǔshuǐ river-bend where the Shuāngxī — “Double-Stream” — joins, hence the hào). Jìnshì of Qiándào 5 (1169); held office to Jūnqì shǎojiān (Junior-Director of the Office of Military Equipment). Wáng Yán is to be distinguished from the Chúnxī-era Guānwéndiàn dàxuéshì 王炎 (a different, more senior official with the same surname-and-given-name) — explicit in the Sìkù tíyào.
The collection is exceptional in two respects: (a) the substantial body of Wáng’s classical-and-historical scholarly works appended at the back — listed in his zìxù: Dú yì bǐjì (Reading-the-Yì Notes), Shàngshū xiǎozhuàn (Small-Shàngshū Commentary), Lǐjì lùn, Lúnyǔ jiě, Xiàojīng jiě, Lǎozǐ jiě, Chūnqiū yǎnyì, Xiàngshù jīyí, Yǔgòng biàn, Kǎogōngjì, Xiāngyǐnjiǔ yí (Various-canon kǎoyí biān), Niántōngjì, Jìnián tíyào, Tiān duì jiě, HánLiǔ biànzhèng, Shānghán lùn — i.e., a near-total jīngshǐzǐ corpus subsumed under the umbrella title Shuāngxī lèigǎo (these scholarly works are now lost); (b) Wáng’s documented friendship with Zhū Xī 朱熹 — preserved in Zhū’s Hè Yán jì dì poem with the line “zhī jīn xīnshì tóng qiānlǐ / jìng duì dānpiáo dú kuìrán” (“now our hearts and affairs match across a thousand li / in still confrontation with the gourd-and-bamboo we sigh together”) and many back-and-forth pieces preserved in Wáng’s collection.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào: the Shuāngxī lèigǎo in 27 juǎn was composed by Wáng Yán of the Sòng. Yán’s zì was Huìshū, of Wùyuán. Jìnshì of Qiándào 5 (1169); held office to Jūnqì shǎojiān. With the Chúnxī-era Guānwéndiàn dàxuéshì Wáng Yán who shares the same surname-and-given-name, [they are] not the same person.
His authored works Dúyì bǐjì, Shàngshū xiǎozhuàn, Lǐjì lùn, Lúnyǔ Xiàojīng Lǎozǐ jiě, Chūnqiū yǎnyì, Xiàngshù jīyí, Yǔgòng biàn, Kǎogōngjì, Xiāngyǐnjiǔ yí, Various-canon kǎoyí biān, Niántōngjì, Jìnián tíyào, Tiānduì jiě, Hán Liǔ biànzhèng, Shānghán lùn — collectively titled Shuāngxī lèigǎo. These are now untransmitted; only the shīwén jí survives, still under the title Shuāngxī lèigǎo.
What the world circulates is two běn. One běn is Kāngxī-era his clan-grandson Wáng Qí’s [the editor’s name; we do not have the proper character — the tíyào reads 琪] cut, totaling 12 juǎn. The other is this běn: Míng Wànlì bǐngshēn (1596) the Shàngbǎosī chéng Wáng Lín obtained from Shěn Yīguàn’s family the old běn, set to corrected-carving. In all 1 juǎn fù and yuèfǔ, 9 juǎn poetry-and-cí, 17 juǎn prose.
Yán initially with Master Zhū was on close terms. Master Zhū’s collection has Hè Yán jì dì shī, with the line: “Now hearts and affairs match across a thousand li / in still confrontation with gourd-and-bamboo we sigh together.” Yán too has many works of wǎnghuán (back-and-forth) with Master Zhū. Their bond was rather deep. His poetry-and-prose are bóyǎ jīngshēn (broadly-elegant and refined-deep), also possessing root-and-source. Chéng Mǐnzhì compiling Xīnān wénxiànzhì — what he selected was the most numerous; and beyond this, the discussion-pieces chúncuì (pure) with citations diǎnquè (canonical-exact) — still cannot be exhaustively enumerated. Largely: the learning has root-source, then the diction has-no-vulgar-rashness; compared with those who use yǔlù style for poetry-and-prose, certainly there is the distinction of treading-emptiness vs. evidencing-substance. Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 7th month, respectfully collated.
Abstract
Wáng Yán’s Shuāngxī lèigǎo is a remarkable late-Southern-Sòng integrated biéjí: in its original conception it housed not only Wáng’s literary corpus (the surviving 27 juǎn) but a full classical-and-historical scholarly corpus appended (16+ separately-titled works on the Yì, Shàngshū, Lǐjì, Lúnyǔ, Xiàojīng, Lǎozǐ, Chūnqiū, Yǔgòng, Kǎogōngjì, xiāngyǐnjiǔ ritual, the chronological-record genre, the Tiānduì, HánLiǔ polemic, and the Shānghán lùn medical-canon). All the appended scholarly works are now lost — leaving only the literary kernel.
The principal personal anchor is Wáng’s documented friendship with Zhū Xī. Zhū Xī’s poem Hè Yán jì dì shī — replying to Wáng’s letter to his younger brother — and the back-and-forth pieces in this collection establish Wáng as one of the inner senior-official correspondents of Zhū Xī’s late life. The Sìkù editors detect Wáng’s bóyǎ jīngshēn (broadly-elegant and refined-deep) prose-style as a vindication of Lǐxué learning rooted in classical scholarship, distinguishing it from the yǔlù-style Lǐxué prose that Zhū Xī himself sometimes criticized.
The transmission has two principal běn: the 12-juǎn Kāngxī-era clan-grandson recension; and the 27-juǎn Wànlì bǐngshēn (1596) recension cut by Wáng Lín 王麟 from a Shěn Yīguàn 沈一貫 family-archive běn. The Sìkù WYG follows the latter. The dating bracket: 1169 (Wáng’s jìnshì year) through 1218 (his death year per CBDB id 16692).
Translations and research
- Tillman, Hoyt Cleveland. 1992. Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy. Hawai’i. Treats Wáng Yán in the senior Zhū Xī correspondent network.
- Cherniack, Susan. 1994. “Book Culture and Textual Transmission in Sung China.” HJAS 54.1. Treats the Xīn-ān wén-xiàn zhì (the regional-anthology in which Wáng’s prose was best preserved).
Other points of interest
The lost scholarly-corpus appendix — 16+ works on the canon, history, ritual, medicine, and polemic — is one of the most ambitious single-author scholarly programs in late-Southern-Sòng Lǐxué outside Zhū Xī’s own corpus. That all of these survived only as titles attached to the literary collection, with no independent transmission, is one of the more striking cases of asymmetric Lǐxué survival.