本堂集

Běntáng jí 本堂集

Collection from [the Hall of] the Root by 陳著 (撰)

About the work

The exceptionally voluminous collected works of Chén Zhù 陳著 (lifedates disputed; see Abstract), a jìnshì of Bǎoyòu 寳祐 4 (1256) — the same examination cohort as Wén Tiānxiáng (文天祥) and Xiè Fāngdé (謝枋得). The collection runs to 94 juàn (with two further juàn of lectures listed in the original table-of-contents but lost to transmission), and is — as the Sìkù tíyào observes — by far the most extensive surviving Sòng biéjí outside the great fourfold of Zhōu Bìdà 周必大, Lóu Yuè 樓鑰, Zhū Xī, and Lù Yóu / Yáng Wànlǐ. It thus has very substantial historical value as a de facto archive of late-Sòng provincial-elite social and literary life from one of the founding jìnshì of the resistance generation.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Běntáng jí, ninety-four juàn, was composed by Chén Zhù of the Sòng. Zhù, zì Zǐwēi 子微, sobriquet Běntáng 本堂, was a man of Yínxiàn 鄞縣 [Níngbō 寧波, Zhèjiāng 浙江]. He obtained the jìnshì in Bǎoyòu 4 (1256), served as Zhùzuòláng 著作郎, and was sent out as Prefect of Jiāxìngfǔ 嘉興府. Having offended Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道, he was changed to be Vice-Prefect of Lín’ān 臨安通判.

This collection consists in all of 34 juàn of poetry, 5 juàn of cí 詞, and 55 juàn of miscellaneous prose; according to its original table of contents there should also be two further juàn of lectures (jiǎngyì 講義), but in this recension the entries are listed without the texts — they were lost in transmission. Among Sòng biéjí that have survived to today, no work equals this one in volume except those of Zhōu Bìdà 周必大, Lóu Yuè 樓鑰, Zhū Xī 朱熹, Lù Yóu 陸游, and Yáng Wànlǐ 楊萬里. Only, his poetry largely follows the Jírǎng jí 擊壤集 [Shào Yōng 邵雍] line, and his prose is also somewhat mixed with the yǔlù (recorded-sayings) idiom — falling short of the dignified-elegant standard of Zhōu, Lóu, Lù, and Yáng. He further inflates praise of [Buddhism and Daoism — the “two schools”] often beyond measure, still less reaching the pure-and-rounded quality of Zhū Xī.

Yet from Yuányòu 元祐 (1086–1094) onward, the school of jiǎngxué 講學 [philosophical-pedagogic prose] had carved out a separate doctrinal path-of-prose; after the southern crossing this proliferated and was passed down, growing into a recognized separate genre — one that cannot ultimately be excluded. Even Zhēn Déxiù 真徳秀, in compiling the Wénzhāng zhèngzōng 文章正宗*, was discriminating-in-the-extreme; and Hú Yín 胡寅, in composing the Chóngzhèng biàn 崇正辨, attacked it with utmost vigour. Yet Zhēn Déxiù’s own Xīshān jí 西山集 and Hú Yín’s Fěirán jí 斐然集 both contain pieces written in the manner of the two schools, and these examples are by no means rare. It is therefore not right to single Chén Zhù alone out for criticism. Sifting the sand for gold, one occasionally finds something worth gathering. The old volumes of the Sòng-men may well be preserved as a complete witness to one branch of the tradition.

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

Abstract

The Běntáng jí is one of the largest surviving Sòng biéjí and so a documentary treasury of provincial-elite literary, social, and ritual life in the final decades of the dynasty and the early Yuán. Chén Zhù’s career trajectory — jìnshì under Lǐzōng (1256), early service in central administrative posts, dismissal under Jiǎ Sìdào, and yímín survival into the Yuán — is in many respects parallel to those of his examination cohort-mates Wén Tiānxiáng and Xiè Fāngdé, though Chén did not engage in armed resistance and instead retreated into elder-scholar private life after the 1276 surrender of Lín’ān.

Lifedates problem. The catalog meta gives 1226–1289 (identical to the meta-entry for Xiè Fāngdé — a likely meta-cataloguing artifact). CBDB person 10543 records only birth-year 1224 with no death-year. Wikipedia and standard Chinese reference works (including the Zhōngguó wénxué jiā dàcídiǎn 中國文學家大辭典) give 1214–1297, citing the Sìmíng jīngcí 四明經詞 and Chén Zhù’s own Běntáng niánpǔ. There is no fully resolved scholarly answer; the 1214–1297 dating is followed here for the work-dates (Chén Zhù’s productive writing-period c. 1256–1297) on the grounds that it produces a coherent biography in which a jìnshì of 1256 (at age 43, after considerable provincial service) survives into early-Yuán life and dies at age 84. The catalog dates of 1226–1289 are not defensible if Chén Zhù was indeed jìnshì of 1256 (which would put him at age 31 at exam — possible, but tightly aligned with the WénXiè cohort’s standard pattern). Further textual work would be needed to resolve the question definitively.

Examination cohort. The Bǎoyòu 4 (1256) examination produced three of the most consequential late-Sòng jìnshì: Wén Tiānxiáng (the zhuàngyuán; resistance martyr), Xiè Fāngdé (the second resistance martyr), and Chén Zhù (the yímín archivist of the cohort). The Běntáng jí should therefore be read as the surviving prose-and-poetic record of this generation’s quieter aftermath.

Stylistic features. The Sìkù tíyào’s critical assessment — that Chén Zhù’s poetry follows the Jírǎng jí 擊壤集 line of Shào Yōng (the lǐxué 理學 didactic poetry tradition) and that his prose is mixed with the yǔlù idiom — is fair to the work’s evident character: Chén writes as a Neo-Confucian moralist of provincial jiǎngxué milieu, not as a Yáng-Wànlǐ-style virtuoso. The collection contains substantial commemorative and ritual material (epitaphs, jìwén 祭文, xíngzhuàng 行狀) for the late-Sòng / early-Yuán provincial elite of Sìmíng 四明 (Níngbō and environs), making it a key source for the social history of that region in the dynastic transition.

For the period, see Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §63 on SòngYuán yímín. Robert P. Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) treats parallel late-Sòng provincial-elite biographies and is the standard model for reading collections like the Běntáng jí as social-historical sources.

Translations and research

• Robert P. Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) — model for late-Sòng provincial-elite collections as social-historical sources.
• Jennifer W. Jay, A Change in Dynasties: Loyalism in Thirteenth-Century China (1991) — passages on Chén Zhù as yí-mín.
• Chén Zhù, Běntáng jí (various modern critical Chinese editions, in part from the WYG and in part from supplementary manuscript witnesses; Zhōnghuá shū-jú forthcoming).
• No substantial Western-language monograph or article devoted exclusively to Chén Zhù has been located.

Other points of interest

The 94-juàn extent makes the Běntáng jí a unique resource for late-Sòng provincial zōngzú 宗族 (lineage) and ritual life. The 5 juàn of cí are also a substantial corpus for late-Sòng cí poetics and deserve more scholarly attention than they have received. The Sìkù editors’ notice of the missing jiǎngyì 講義 (lectures) — listed in the table-of-contents but absent in the body — is one of the relatively well-documented Sìkù instances of “table of contents preserved, content lost”, and supplies a useful methodological example of how to read Sì-kù-recension biéjí.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1185.1, p1.
• CBDB person 10543 (b. 1224)
• Wikidata, Chen Zhu