Cíhú yíshū 慈湖遺書
The Posthumous Writings of Cí-hú by 楊簡 (撰)
About the work
Cíhú yíshū 慈湖遺書 — 18 juǎn with a 2-juǎn supplement (xùjí) — is the surviving recension of the biéjí of Yáng Jiǎn 楊簡 (1141–1226, zì Jìngzhòng 敬仲, hào Cíhú 慈湖), of Cíxī 慈谿 in Míngzhōu 明州 — the principal disciple of Lù Jiǔyuān 陸九淵 and the leading Sòng exponent of xīnxué 心學. The collection’s structure is heterogeneous: juǎn 1–6 are miscellaneous prose and poetry; juǎn 7–16 are jiājì 家記 — recorded discussions of canon, history, and statecraft in yǔlù style; juǎn 17 records xiānxùn (his father’s instructions); juǎn 18 contains Qián Shí’s 錢時 xíngzhuàng (biography) of Yáng plus Zhēn Déxiù’s 真德秀 postface; the 2-juǎn xùjí contains miscellaneous prose and the standalone Kǒngzǐ xiánjū jiě 孔子閒居解.
Tiyao
The Cíhú yíshū in 18 juǎn with continuation-collection in 2 juǎn was composed by Yáng Jiǎn of the Sòng. Jiǎn — author of Cíhú Yìzhuàn — has already been cataloged. The Jīnxī learning [of Lù Jiǔyuān] takes Jiǎn as its principal heir; what he composed for wénzhāng by-and-large amplifies his master’s doctrine. His exposition of learning is purely entered into Chán: the earlier scholars have discussed this in detail. As to his discussions of governance: he reckoned five matters most urgent, and eight matters next-urgent — by-and-large wishing to abolish the kējǔ examinations and restore the xiāngjǔ and lǐxuǎn (village recommendation), to limit private fields and restore the jǐngtián (well-field). All these are far-fetched, not in touch with the times. Yet Jiǎn’s record-of-administration in office actually contains many things to be recorded — he was no rigid-and-rarely-flexible man. Indeed Jiǎn was at root well-versed in the substance of administration and also recognized that the institutions of the Sāndài certainly cannot be put into practice in later ages — and further foresaw that even if he held to his teaching and proclaimed it to the world, the world would still certainly not be willing to use it. He did not worry about its being tested and failing: therefore he uttered lofty discourses for the sake of self-marking his distinction from vulgar-learning and bàshù (hegemonic-arts), nothing more. When in office and confronted with affairs, where benefit-and-defect could be tested-and-known, [Yáng] acted according to the local situation, not daring to apply this [theoretical] art in administering — therefore [his career] was not without real effects. The Sòngshǐ biography records Jiǎn’s writings: Jiǎgǎo, Yǐgǎo, Guānjì, Hūnjì, Sānglǐ jiājì, Jìjì, Shìcài lǐjì, Shíyú jiājì, YǐYì, Qǐbì — and various other books — the titles are very many. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí states only that Jiǎn’s yíshū numbered 3 juǎn. The present běn: from juǎn 6 and earlier are miscellaneous prose and shī; juǎn 7 to 16 are jiājì — all miscellaneously recorded discussions on canon, history, and the way of governance, in yǔlù style. Juǎn 17 records xiānxùn; juǎn 18 contains Qián Shí’s xíngzhuàng and Zhēn Déxiù’s postface; further [were] compiled miscellaneous prose in 1 juǎn and the Kǒngzǐ xiánjū jiě in 1 juǎn appended at the back — called the continuation-collection. The juǎn-counts disagree with what Zhènsūn recorded; and the jiājì sections of the collection have separately-marked entries reading “see yíshū”, suggesting that there was originally a 3-juǎn yíshū circulated separately, after which various further compilations were gathered together to form this collection — still totaled under the name yíshū. Just as Wáng Zhì’s Xuěshān jí exists in a 3-juǎn and a 40-juǎn recension. Qiánlóng 43 (1778), 3rd month, respectfully collated.
Abstract
Cíhú yíshū is the principal biéjí of Yáng Jiǎn and a foundational repository for late-Sòng xīnxué. The most-cited single passage in the collection is the shànbǐng 扇柄 (“fan-handle”) encounter (in juǎn 18, the Qián Shí xíngzhuàng): while a young Yáng Jiǎn was zhǔbù of Fùyáng 富陽 holding a fan, Lù Jiǔyuān (passing through) asked “This — what is this?”, precipitating Yáng’s awakening to the identity of xīn with YìLǐ. The jiājì sections (juǎn 7–16) preserve Yáng’s yǔlù-style recorded discussions, the principal source for his applied xīnxué hermeneutic and his political-economic recommendations to abolish the examinations in favor of village-recommendation and to restore the jǐngtián. The Sìkù editors’ tíyào — quoted above — is unusually candid: while disapproving of Yáng’s xīnxué (which they read as Chán), they recognize that Yáng’s actual administrative record was sound, separating the rhetorical from the practical layers of his thought.
The dating bracket is from Yáng’s death year (1226) to the principal recension assembled across the Sòng and early Yuán — Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí (mid-13th c.) records only a 3-juǎn yíshū; the present 18+2 juǎn recension is post-Chén, likely Yuán-era. The Sìkù editors describe a multi-stage assembly process resembling that of Wáng Zhì’s Xuěshān jí. CBDB id 15072 anchors Yáng’s lifedates.
Translations and research
- 鄭吉雄. 1996. 《楊簡》. Taipei: Dong-da. Standard monograph on Yáng’s thought.
- 何俊. 2008. 《南宋儒學建構》. Shanghai: Renmin. Treats Yáng as principal exponent of Lù-school xīn-xué.
- de Bary, William Theodore. 1981. Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart. Columbia. Treats Yáng’s transmission of Lù’s xīn-xué into the Yuán.
- The Sòng-Yuán xué-àn 宋元學案 juǎn 74 (慈湖學案) is the principal traditional reference.
Other points of interest
The deliberately-utopian rhetorical layer of Yáng’s political thought — the recommendations of xiāngjǔ over kējǔ and jǐngtián over private fields — is a textbook case of what the Sìkù editors called gāolùn (lofty discourse). The editors’ practical-vs-rhetorical reading of Yáng has not been replicated in modern scholarship, which tends to read his political writings literally; the Sìkù observation deserves more attention than it has received.