竹溪鬳齋十一藁續集

Zhúxī Juànzhāi shíyī gǎo xùjí 竹溪鬳齋十一藁續集

Continuation Collection of the Eleven Drafts from Bamboo-Creek and Juàn Studio by 林希逸 (撰), 林式之 (編)

About the work

The continuation (xùjí 續集) of the principal literary collection of Lín Xīyì 林希逸 (c. 1193–1271), the late-Sòng Confucian-Daoist commentator famous for his kǒu yì 口義 (“oral explanations”) commentaries on the Lǎozǐ, Zhuāngzǐ, and Lièzǐ. The original Juànzhāi qiánjí 鬳齋前集 in 60 juàn (recorded in the Sòngshǐ yìwén zhì) is lost; only the present 30-juàn xùjí — known under the title Zhúxī shíyī gǎo 竹溪十一藁 (“Eleven Drafts from Bamboo-Creek”) — survives. The collection was edited by Lín Xīyì’s pupil and fellow-clansman Lín Shìzhī 林式之 of Fúqīng 福清 in Xiánchún 6 (1270), the year Lín Xīyì was recalled to the Hànlínyuàn 翰林院 in the Sòng capital.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Zhúxī Juànzhāi shíyī gǎo xùjí, thirty juàn, was composed by Lín Xīyì of the Sòng. Xīyì has another work, the Kǎogōngjì jiě 考工記解, separately catalogued. The Sòngshǐ yìwén zhì records Xīyì’s Juànzhāi qiánjí 鬳齋前集 in sixty juàn — long since lost. Only the xùjí (continuation), called Zhúxī shíyī gǎo, has a transmitted recension, namely the present thirty juàn. It consists in all of:

• 5 juàn poetry;
• 1 juàn miscellaneous prose (záxù 襍著);
• 3 juàn early-life pieces (shàozuò 少作);
• 2 juàn jì (records);
• 1 juàn xù (prefaces);
• 1 juàn bá (colophons);
• 3 juàn parallel-prose (sìliù 四六);
• 2 juàn examination-style topic-poems (shěngtí shī 省題詩);
• 1 juàn mourning-poems (wǎnshī 輓詩);
• 1 juàn sacrificial-prose (jìwén 祭文);
• 2 juàn tomb-inscriptions (mùzhì 墓誌);
• 2 juàn xíngzhuàng (career-records);
• 4 juàn lecture-notes (xuéjì 學記).

This was compiled by his disciple Lín Shìzhī 林式之 of Fúqīng 福清, in thirteen categories — yet the collection is called “Eleven Drafts” (shíyī gǎo). The reason is unclear; perhaps it carries the intent “of every ten, one is retained” (shízhōng cúnyī 十中存一).

Liú Kèzhuāng 劉克莊 once observed: in the QiánChún 乾淳 (1163–1189) era, Lín Guāngcháo 林光朝 began to favour deep-and-sunken thought, working his prose to the utmost refinement. The line was transmitted to Lín Yìzhī 林亦之, then to Chén Zǎo 陳藻, and finally a third generation to Xīyì. Compared with his teachers’ dry-and-spare quality, [Xīyì] reveals lushness; in the spare-and-distant, severity-and-density; in the cramped-and-narrow, gentleness-and-flow. Liú’s commendation is exceedingly high. On observing the collection now, it contains many ceremonial-and-laudatory pieces of social exchange — and he being a Neo-Confucian scholar (dàoxué 道學) of his age, his submission of a qǐ to Jiǎ Sìdào is fulsome to the extreme, comparing him even to Zhào Pǔ 趙普 and Wén Yànbó 文彦博 — surely a flaw on the white jade, on a par with Yáng Shí’s 楊時 association with Cài Jīng 蔡京.

At the end of the collection is the section Xuéjì 學記 (Lecture-notes); in this, the half is devoted to glossing the Tàixuán jīng 太玄經 [of Yáng Xióng 揚雄]. His poetry too is mostly composed in zōngmén yǔ 宗門語 [Chán Buddhist register], which Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禎 in his Jūyì lù 居易錄 criticized.

Yet the surviving Southern Sòng yíjí are daily fewer. His poetry and prose, even if not throughout deserving of Liú Kèzhuāng’s high praise, still does not fall below the earlier masters’ standard. Among the Xuéjì there are useful observations on learning and the literary arts. The work merits preservation and is properly catalogued as a witness to one branch of the tradition.

A preface at the front by Lín Tóng 林同, dated Xiánchún 咸淳 gēngwǔ (1270), records that “in wùchén 戊辰, ninth month, Xīyì rose to be head of the Xiānpéng [仙蓬, an honorific for the inner academic-secretariat], serving the Jìxī 緝熙 establishment [the Emperor’s day-court]; in the spring of the following year he was again drawn into the Forbidden Forest [Hànlín] in charge of literary documents and judicial drafts (cí hàn 詞翰), and the [imperial] order to proceed to the capital arrived in close succession. The day of departure was fixed at this point, and the xùjí was at this point cut into 30 juàn”. This being the case, the collection was completed at the moment of Lín Xīyì’s recall to office.

Respectfully collated, ninth month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). 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 Zhúxī Juànzhāi shíyī gǎo xùjí preserves the documentary basis for Lín Xīyì’s career as a senior Hànlín scholar-official and his place in the Àixuānpái 艾軒派 (the school of Lín Guāngcháo 艾軒先生, transmitting through Lín Yìzhī and Chén Zǎo to Lín Xīyì in the third generation). The Sìkù tíyào’s quotation of Liú Kèzhuāng’s praise — that Xīyì’s prose “compared with his teachers’ dryness reveals lushness; in the spare-and-distant, severity-and-density; in the cramped-and-narrow, gentleness-and-flow” — places him at the third-generation maturation of the Fújiàn Mǐnxué 閩學 tradition.

Lín Tóng’s preface dates the recension to Xiánchún 6 (1270), gēngwǔ — the moment of Lín Xīyì’s recall to the Hànlínyuàn after seven years out of office (he had retired in guǐhài 癸亥, 1263). The compositional window for the xùjí therefore covers the long interval between Lín Xīyì’s first major academic posts (c. 1248, the Chúnyòu wùshēn of the preface, when he served at Xìnghuà 興化 / Pǔ 莆) and the moment of his late recall in 1270 — that is, 1248–1270.

The Jiǎ Sìdào qǐ. The Sìkù editors’ identification of the qǐ to Jiǎ Sìdào — comparing the chancellor to the Northern-Sòng councillors Zhào Pǔ and Wén Yànbó — as a moral flaw on the work is a serious charge. Lín Xīyì was a senior dàoxué 道學 (Cheng-Zhū-tradition) scholar at the time, and the tíyào’s comparison to Yáng Shí’s association with Cài Jīng marks this as one of the more visible documentary cases of late-Sòng dàoxué accommodation with the JiǎSìdào regime. This material is of substantial interest for the political history of late-Sòng Neo-Confucianism.

Other content. The 4 juàn of Xuéjì (lecture-notes) at the end include extensive commentary on Yáng Xióng’s 揚雄 Tàixuán jīng 太玄經 — confirming Lín Xīyì’s standing interest in the xuán tradition of cosmological speculation parallel to his Daoist-classics commentaries (see his person-note for the kǒu yì corpus on Lǎozǐ, Zhuāngzǐ, Lièzǐ). The 2 juàn of shěngtí shī (examination-topic poems) preserve a substantial corpus for the study of late-Sòng examination-poetry conventions; the 4 juàn of xíngzhuàng and mùzhì preserve biographical records of his Fújiàn social circle. The 3 juàn of shàozuò (early-life works) is particularly unusual for being explicitly labelled as juvenilia and so set off from the mature corpus.

For Lín Xīyì’s wider intellectual identity, see the person-note (林希逸).

Translations and research

• Schipper and Verellen, eds., The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang (2004), 2:2371–2374 — the entry on Lín Xīyì (Isabelle Robinet) — focused on his Lǎozǐ and Zhuāngzǐ commentaries, with background on his life and the Zhú-xī jí.
• Imahori Seiji 今堀誠二, Rin Kii no shisō 林希逸の思想 (Tokyo, 1980).
• Wáng Liánjiā 王連嘉, Lín Xīyì Sānzǐ kǒu-yì yán-jiū 林希逸三子口義研究 (Tāipěi: Wén-jīn, 2005).
• Sòng-shǐ 宋史 juàn 416 (biography of Lín Xīyì).
• Sòng-Yuán xué-àn 宋元學案 juàn 47 (the Ài-xuān xué-àn 艾軒學案).

Other points of interest

The collection’s title is etymologically opaque: Zhúxī (“Bamboo-Creek”) is one of Lín Xīyì’s hào; Juànzhāi 鬳齋 (“Three-Legged-Cauldron Studio”) is another; and shíyī gǎo “eleven drafts” matches no obvious number of subdivisions in the actual collection. The Sìkù editors’ speculation that “eleven” carries the meaning shí zhōng cún yī — “of every ten, one is retained” — is plausible but not definitive. Another reading would take shíyī as a chronological marker (cf. the year-numbered drafts of some Sòng biéjí). The matter is not finally resolved.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1185.3, p553.
• CBDB person 11087 (Lín Xīyì)
• CBDB person 11070 (Lín Shìzhī)