靈巖集

Língyán jí 靈巖集

The Numinous-Cliff Collection by 唐士恥 (撰)

About the work

A southern-Sòng biéjí in eight juàn by Táng Shìchǐ 唐士恥 of Jīnhuá 金華, recovered by the Sìkù editors from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 after centuries of total disappearance from the bibliographic record. The collection is named for Língyánshān 靈巖山 in Jīnhuá, the site of Língyánsì 靈巖寺 — the former dwelling of the Liáng-dynasty scholar Liú Xiàobiāo 劉孝標 — near which Táng’s family had its estates. Its principal interest is twofold: (1) as the only surviving witness to a member of an intermarried Jīnhuá scholar-clan network linked by marriage to the famous Hé 何 family (Hé Jī 何基’s grandfather Hé Sōng 何松 was both Táng’s maternal uncle and his father-in-law); and (2) as a corpus of zhìgào 制誥, biǎoxí 表檄, zhēnmíng 箴銘, zànsòng 贊頌 written as exercise pieces in preparation for the special cíkē 詞科 (Examination on Forms and Drafts) instituted by Gāozōng. The work is a rare unfiltered glimpse into how a late-Sòng provincial literatus actually trained for the literary-form examination, his uncle Táng Zhòngyǒu 唐仲友 having compiled the Cíkē zálù 詞科雜錄 in the previous generation.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Língyán jí in eight juàn was composed by Táng Shìchǐ 唐士恥 of the Sòng. The official rank, native place, and life-circumstances of Shìchǐ are not recorded in any of the standard works. We examine the Jīnhuá zhì 金華志: Língyánshān is there, with Língyánsì on the mountain — formerly the dwelling of Liú Xiàobiāo 劉孝標 of the Liáng — and the collection’s name “Língyán” tallies with this mountain. Within the collection there is a poem on the Two Streams 兩溪詩 which, according to the gazetteer, refers to the [river] of Jīnhuá; thus Shìchǐ must have been a Jīnhuá man. The collection further contains a xíngzhuàng 行狀 for “President-Adjudicant Lord Hé” 府判何公: this “President-Adjudicant” was named Sōng 松, zì Bógù 伯固 — the grandfather of Hé Jī 何基 of Jīnhuá. Shìchǐ’s mother was Sōng’s younger sister, and Shìchǐ himself was Sōng’s son-in-law: yet another sign that his family was registered in Jīnhuá.

Examining the various Tángs of Jīnhuá: Táng Yáofēng 唐堯封 was the first to enter the jìnshì lists, in Shàoxīng 紹興 2 (1132), and accumulated office to ZhíLóngtúgé Cháosàndàfū 直龍圖閣朝散大夫. His sons — Ráozhōu Professor Zhòngwēn 仲温, Lèpíng Magistrate Zhòngyì 仲義, and the Prefect-of-Tāizhōu Zhòngyǒu 仲友 — all took the jìnshì degree in the Shàoxīng era, and Zhòngyǒu also passed the Hóngcí 宏詞 special examination. Zhòngyǒu’s three sons — Shìjùn 士俊, Shìtè 士特, Shìjì 士濟 — were also linked by marriage to the Hé family, as Zhū Xī’s third zhuàng against Zhòngyǒu records.

In the present collection a qǐ 啓 (memorial-letter) to Shǐ Mízhōng 史彌忠, prefect of Jí[zhōu], reads: “My grand-uncle’s official traces, for years carried the hatpin-pendant of the royal precincts; my forebears’ summons-and-staffs, in the old days, joined the bridled-trace excursions of [your] golden brethren.” The first clause clearly refers to [Táng] Yáofēng when he was Cháosàn[-dàfū]; the second clearly refers to [Táng] Zhòngyǒu when he served as Prefect of Tāizhōu. Cross-checking the lineage, Shìchǐ is in all likelihood a grand-son of [Yáo]fēng and a nephew of Zhòngyǒu — but whether he is the son of Zhòngwēn or of Zhòngyì cannot be ascertained in detail.

The official grades that may be made out: in the collection there is a “Xiè Xǔ Nánchéng tuījǔ qǐ” 謝許南丞薦舉啓 which reads, “merely with a hereditary appointment I have soiled the ranks of shì”. Another reads, “in former times, on the strength of family shade, I held secretarial duties (pòshū 簿書)“. A TōngLuóshǒu qǐ 通羅守啓 reads, “I drew a silken cord [of office] in a county subordinate, served as adjudicating clerk of the assistant-bureau” 牽絲邑屬,讞獄掾曹. There is also an Exchange-Posting letter to Inspector-of-Adjudication Zhāng 張司理. His other letters and notes routinely use phrases like “presumptuously concurrently directing the adjudicating bureau, taking charge of the Five Hearings” 冒綰理曹,典司五聽. We thus know that Shìchǐ entered office by hereditary precedence, was recommended for upgrade in rank, and held posts as deputy magistrate, inspector-of-adjudication, and the like. The places at which his official career can be traced are Jízhōu, Línjiāng, Jiànchāng, Wàn’ān — so all his postings were in the prefectures of Jiāngyòu 江右 (eastern Jiāngxī).

The dated traces in the text run from Jiādìng 嘉定 down to Chúnyòu 淳祐 — so we know that he was a man of the Níngzōng and Lǐzōng reigns. Beyond this the collection gives no plain statement and nothing can be further ascertained.

Within the collection, the zhìgào 制誥 pieces give no names of appointees, and likewise the biǎoxí, zhēnmíng, zànsòng are all written as exercise pieces. The topics range from Fú Xī and the Yellow Emperor down to the Hàn and Táng, taking up themes drawn from the eight reigns of the Northern Sòng and the early years after the southern crossing. Gāozōng established the cíkē with a total of twelve question-types — zhì, zhào, gào, biǎo, lùbù 露布, xí, zhēn, míng, jì 記, zàn, sòng, xù 序 — drawing six out at random for three rounds, each round mixing one ancient and one contemporary topic in the manner. Shìchǐ’s pieces were probably composed precisely to prepare for cíkē use. His uncle Zhòngyǒu had compiled the Cíkē zálù 詞科雜錄: this art, indeed, ran in the family.

The collection long ago vanished. Not only is it not recorded in the dynastic history; even the local gazetteers do not list his name, and the various critics of literary art simply do not mention him. We have now drawn the texts from within the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 and edited them into eight juàn, attaching the writings he composed on behalf of others under appropriate categories. Reading his prose one finds wide learning and the antique gleam of bygone usage, no mere late-Sòng dabbler in private opinion and empty talk could reach his shore. The work should not be passed over merely because his name is little known.

Respectfully collated, ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief-Compiler Officers Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; Chief-Collation Officer Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Língyán jí is a recovered text — its only modern witness is the Sìkù reconstitution from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. The Sìkù tiyao must do the basic biographical reconstruction itself, since no dynastic history, local gazetteer, or critic of letters had preserved Táng Shìchǐ’s name. The tiyao’s reconstruction proceeds entirely by internal evidence: place-name allusions (the Liángyánshān poems, the Two Streams of Jīnhuá), prosopographical clues from his qǐ-letters to provincial officials, and the genealogical bracket of the broader Jīnhuá TángHé intermarriage network into which his uncle Táng Zhòngyǒu 唐仲友 had brought him. The dating of the composition window — Jiādìng (1208) to Chúnyòu (post-1241) — is established by the dates of the persons to whom his qǐ are addressed; the bracket adopted here (1208–1250) is somewhat broader than but consistent with this evidence.

The principal historical interest of the work lies in its formal-exercise cíkē pieces. The cíkē (also bóxué hóngcí kē 博學宏詞科) had been instituted by Gāozōng in 1132, regularized under Xiàozōng, and remained one of the principal routes by which scholar-officials qualified for drafting duties at the central level. Examination preparation manuals are notoriously poorly preserved — the surviving evidence is mostly indirect, through jíbù 集部 collections like Táng Zhòngyǒu’s lost Cíkē zálù — so Língyán jí is a useful surviving witness to what late-Sòng cíkē preparation looked like in practice.

A subsidiary interest is the work’s record of the Jīnhuá TángHéLiú network. Táng Shìchǐ is doubly related to the family that produced Hé Jī 何基 (1188–1268), the principal disciple of Huáng Gàn 黃榦 and a foundational figure of the so-called Jīnhuá Sì xiānshēng 金華四先生 lineage of Zhūxué transmission. The collection contains a xíngzhuàng for Hé Jī’s grandfather Hé Sōng, who was both Táng’s maternal uncle and his father-in-law — a remarkable instance of cross-cousin / dual-affinal marriage among the leading Wu region literati clans, of the kind documented in Robert Hymes’s work on the Sòng shìdàfū marriage pool.

Táng Zhòngyǒu (Táng Shìchǐ’s uncle), the prefect of Tāizhōu impeached three times by Zhū Xī, is one of the most famous figures of late twelfth-century factional history; the Sìkù tiyao’s evident concern to detach Táng Shìchǐ from his uncle’s reputation is one of the more subtle currents in the bibliographic note. Táng Shìchǐ himself appears not to have aligned politically; the absence of any zòuyì (memorials) in the collection is consistent with the tiyao’s account of a man who entered office by hereditary privilege rather than examination.

Translations and research

• No substantial secondary literature located. Brief mentions in studies of the Jīnhuá Táng-Hé scholarly clan and of late-Sòng cí-kē preparation; no monograph or critical edition.
• Robert Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambridge, 1986), for the broader pattern of intra-clan marriage of which the Táng-Hé alliance is a regional Wu-region instance.
• For cí-kē preparation generally, see John Chaffee, The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China (rev. ed., 1995), and the bibliography of cí-kē manuals in the introduction to Lǐ Cí-míng 李慈銘’s notes.

Other points of interest

The collection’s recovery from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn is unusually clean: the Sìkù editors do not flag major lacunae or attribution problems, and the categorical organization (which sub-classifies the pieces written on behalf of others under their respective form-categories rather than as a separate appendix) is one of the more sensible Sìkù reconstitutions of a lost biéjí. The tiyao’s evident pride in finding a hidden talent — “no mere late-Sòng dabbler in private opinion and empty talk could reach his shore” — is among the more enthusiastic recovery-notes in the late-Sòng biéjí section.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1181.8, p501.
• CBDB person 17635 (Táng Shìchǐ)