Yúnchuāng jí 篔窗集
The Bamboo-Window Collection by 陳耆卿 (zhuàn 撰)
About the work
The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn-recovered residual collection of Chén Qíqīng 陳耆卿 (1180–1236), prime student of Yè Shì 葉適 in the Yǒngjiā tradition and author of the gazetteer KR2k0017 Chìchéng zhì. The original chūjí (30 juan) and xùjí (38 juan) noted in Zhào Xībiàn’s 趙希弁 Dúshū fùzhì were already lost by the time of Mǎ Duānlín 馬端臨’s Wénxiàn tōngkǎo; the Sìkù compilers reassembled 131 prose pieces, 38 poems and 4 cí — perhaps one tenth or one fifth of the original — into the present 10 juan. Yè Shì’s preface, the Xùjí preface by Wú Zǐliáng 吳子良 (Míngfǔ 名輔), and Chén Qíqīng’s own self-preface are preserved as front matter and offer a remarkable internal genealogy of the Yǒngjiā literary line: from Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙 through Yè Shì to Chén Qíqīng to Wú Zǐliáng.
Tiyao
We respectfully observe that the Yúnchuāng jí in ten juan was composed by Chén Qíqīng of the Sòng. Qíqīng has the Chìchéng zhì already on record. According to Wú Zǐliáng’s Jīngxī línxià ǒután, Yè Shì in promoting younger talent had not yet found a literary heir; late in his life he found Qíqīng and at once committed his fùzhǔ to him. At the time the world’s literary opinion was not yet ready, but Yè Shì cited his Dōngpō tàixī 東坡太息 as proof that “another day judgement will settle”. And so within barely a decade, while the literature of the world declined day by day, Qíqīng stood eminently as the master of the learned. Wú further says: “Qíqīng’s sìliù has profound lǐ and a long flame; he uses the literary man’s brushwork to set up the model-form of the rú-scholar — uniting Ōuyáng, Sū and Wáng into one tradition.” Yè Shì applauded this deeply. Cross-checking with what Yè Shì himself wrote in his preface to Qíqīng’s collection, where his praise is exceptionally warm, we know that Zǐliáng’s report is not exaggerated. Xiè Duó’s 謝鐸 Chìchéng xīnzhì likewise praises his prose: “his battlefield is wide but his footing is exact”. Only Chē Ruòshuǐ 車若水 — Qíqīng’s own pupil — in his Jiǎoqì jí dissents: “When I entered Qíqīng’s gate I had just passed twenty. Wú Míngfǔ — i.e. Zǐliáng — had already passed under Qíqīng before me, and we worked together at producing a ‘new-style’ ancient prose. Each time a piece appeared we admired and flattered each other, regarding it as exemplary in form, and brought it home to my grandfather. He was not pleased; we privately thought that the old gentleman, being eighty and more, must be obstinate and unable to grasp the prose, looking only at heads and tails, divisions and frames, while our diction was sharp and crisp and did not suit him. Then both my grandfather and Qíqīng died, and I began to think: the Six Classics are not like this; the Hánwén (Hán Yù) is not like this; nor is ŌuSū (ŌuyángSū) like this — and I knew at last that the new style was wrong.” His judgement stands alone. Examining the present collection: although it bears the marks of the post-Southern-crossing decay of literary form and has not entirely shed the accumulated habits, yet its sweep is far-reaching and ultimately submitted to discipline; there is a vast qì moving through it, not at all the limp note of a slack flute, and it is fitting that he and Yè Shì alternated as master. The Dúshū fùzhì records his Yúnchuāng chūjí in 30 juan and xùjí in 38 juan. Already the Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì and Mǎ Duānlín’s Jīngjí kǎo did not register them, and the world has long had no transmitted copy. We have now drawn together from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, recovering 131 prose pieces, 38 poems, and 4 cí; some of those mentioned by Línxià ǒután — for instance the proxy Xiè Xīmèng shàng Qián xiàng qǐ and the Yóu Zhōnghóng shìyì — are already lost. What survives is no more than one fifth or one tenth. Carefully correcting errors, we have arranged the whole into ten juan, that it may not be wholly extinguished. Yè Shì’s, Wú Zǐliáng’s prefaces and Qíqīng’s self-preface remain placed at front and back, so that something of the outline may still be discerned. Reverently collated, ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-chief Jì Yún, with Lù Xīxióng and Sūn Shìyì; chief proofreader Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Yúnchuāng jí is one of the central documents for tracing the lineage of Yǒngjiā (永嘉學派) literary practice into the second quarter of the thirteenth century. The Sòng shǐ gives Chén Qíqīng no biography, and his Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì and Tōngkǎo registrations are blank: the only way to reconstruct his work is through this very collection, the front-matter prefaces of which establish the discipleship: the zhèngtǒng and qìmài of Sòng prose, says Wú Zǐliáng, runs Hàn (Jiǎ Yì, Sīmǎ Xiāngrú) — Liú Xiàng, Yáng Xióng, Bān Gù — Hán Yù, Liǔ Zōngyuán — Ōuyáng, Sū, Zēng — Lǚ Zǔqiān, Yè Shì — Chén Qíqīng. (Wú Zǐliáng adds, in a striking biographical note, that Yè Shì on his deathbed entrusted his zhèngtǒng to Chén Qíqīng with the words “what I once said to Lǚ Bógōng I now say to you, Shòulǎo; forty years apart”.) The author’s own zìxù, dated Hánshí festival of Jiādìng 6 (1213), is a remarkable bit of self-criticism: he confesses to producing more than a thousand sìliù pieces under prefectural pressure and resolves to abandon the genre for the yìlǐ of the Classics. The dating of the received recension: notBefore 1213 follows the self-preface; notAfter 1236 is the year of the author’s death. The catalog meta date ‘1214’ presumably refers to the jìnshì year — but Chén Qíqīng’s own zìxù states he took the mòdì (final-rank) at age 35 zhúsuì (i.e. jìnshì in 1214); both are consistent. CBDB id 10881; Wilkinson’s Chinese History notes the work indirectly via the Chìchéng zhì gazetteer-tradition.
Translations and research
Modern Chinese scholarship has produced steady output on Chén Qíqīng since the 1990s, primarily as part of the post-Yè Shì Yǒngjiā school. See the introductory studies in:
- Zhōu Mèngjiāng 周夢江, Yè Shì yǔ Yǒngjiā xué-pài 葉適與永嘉學派 (Hángzhōu: Zhèjiāng Gǔjí, 1992) — situates Chén as the principal post-Yè-Shì transmitter.
- Hé Jùn 何俊, Nán-Sòng rú-xué jiàn-gòu 南宋儒學建構 (Shànghǎi: Rénmín, 2004) — discusses the qì-mài statement in Wú Zǐliáng’s preface.
For the Chìchéng zhì and the Yúnchuāng jí together, the most accessible point of entry remains the Sìkù tíyào itself.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū tíyào (juan 162, jíbù biéjí lèi sān).
- CBDB id 10881 (Chén Qíqīng).
- See also KR2k0017 Chìchéng zhì (Chén Qíqīng’s prefectural gazetteer of Tāizhōu).