四如集

Sìrú jí 四如集

The Sìrú Collection by 黃仲元 (撰)

About the work

The surviving prose-and-poetry biéjí of Huáng Zhòngyuán 黃仲元 (1231–1312), jìnshì of Xiánchún 7 (1271), Sòng-loyalist refuser, and one of the leading lights of the late-Sòng Pútián 莆陽 ChéngZhū lǐxué school. The book in its WYG recension contains four juàn of Huáng’s prose (records, prefaces, zìxùn 字訓, and mùzhìmíng 墓誌銘) plus one juàn of fùlù (appended materials). The KR4d0394 corpus on disk is an SBCK reprint of the longer Púyáng Huáng Zhòngyuán Sìrú xiānshēng wéngǎo 莆陽黃仲元四如先生文藁, preserving the original Yuán-era preface by Fù Dìngbǎo 傅定保 (1323) and the Hóngwǔ 8 (1375) preface by Sòng Lián 宋濂. Huáng’s larger jiǎngyì / lecture-corpus on the Wǔjīng and Sìshū is catalogued separately at KR1g0010 (Sìrú jiǎng gǎo 四如講稿).

Tiyao

(Translated from the Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào digital text 0344602, copied from the Sìkù WYG; the KR4d0394 source on disk is the SBCK reprint, which does not carry the Sìkù tiyao.)

We respectfully submit: Sìrú jí, in five juàn (i.e. four juàn of prose plus one of fùlù; edition: the Liǎnghuái Mǎ Yù 馬裕 family copy 兩淮馬裕家藏本), was composed by Huáng Zhòngyuán of the Sòng. Zhòngyuán has [also] the Sìrú jiǎnggǎo 四如講稾, already catalogued. This collection has a preface by Yú Qiān 余謙 of Xiánchún jiǎxū (1274) at the head; the Mèngbǐ jì 夢筆記 is appended thereunder. There is also a preface by Fù Dìngbǎo 傅定保 of Zhìzhì 3 (1323) — both seemingly the original arrangement.

However, examining the Sòng Lián 宋濂 Qiánxī jí 潛溪集, there is a preface to the [Huáng] Zhòngyuán collection. It says: his disciple Zhān Qīngzǐ 詹清子 arranged his Wǔjīng / Sìshū jiǎngyì in six juàn; his son Zǐ 梓 [the Sìkù tiyao here mistakes the son’s name; per Sòng Lián’s preface his son’s name is given as Yuān 元, and Zǐ “carved [for the press]” — the text-of-tiyao runs the verb into the personal name] further divided the records, prefaces, mùmíng, and zìxùn into five juàn; and his great-grandson [Huáng] Zhì 至 again gathered the surviving texts into ten juàn and asked Sòng Lián to preface them. Thus the original collection of Zhòngyuán, combining lecture-text and miscellaneous prose, comes in all to twenty-one juàn. Today the lecture-text already circulates separately in another recension and is not entered into the [present] collection. This text has only four juàn of prose and one juàn of fùlù. Neither this five-juàn arrangement of the son nor the great-grandson’s continuation in ten juàn is here. The present is what remains after scattering; it has been gathered up again into a volume — not the original. The various pieces within the collection all have annotations, with no annotator named; we suspect they are perhaps the work of the son.

Zhòngyuán among the various schools of learning of the Sòng’s end is exceptionally substantial. His conduct also accords with dàoyì; therefore his prose does not run after rhetorical display, but has of itself a duānhòu púzhí (upright, generous, plain, direct) qì (vital style). It knows the language of jìnlǐ 近裏 (proximity to the inner), and is plainly distinct from those who quarrel over scholastic factions.

Abstract

The Sìrú jí is the surviving prose witness to the career of Huáng Zhòngyuán, the most prominent Pútián 莆田 (Fújiàn) loyalist scholar of the SòngYuán transition. The compilation history is unusually well-documented (because Sòng Lián’s preface of 1375 lays out the stages explicitly): an original Yuán-era family compilation in twenty-one juàn (six juàn lecture-text edited by Zhān Qīngzǐ + five juàn of records, prefaces, zìxùn, mùmíng edited by the son Yuán 元 / Zǐ 梓 / Huáng Yuān 黃淵 [the son’s name appears variously in different sources], + a ten-juàn supplement edited by the great-grandson Huáng Zhì 黃至); a Míng phase, in which Sòng Lián supplied his preface and the jiǎngyì portion was already circulating separately; and a Qīng phase in which only four juàn of prose plus one fùlù survived for the Sìkù compilers. The lecture-text — six juàn — is the work catalogued separately at KR1g0010; this jí corresponds to the son’s five-juàn edition of records and prose, recovered fragmentarily. The catalog meta gives Huáng’s lifedates as 1231–1312, matching CBDB id 11121; the notBefore / notAfter bracket 1276–1312 covers the substantive composition window of the post-conquest prose. Huáng changed his given name from Zhòngyuán 仲元 to Yuān 淵 after the fall of the Sòng (the Yuán of “深淵” — depth, ostentatiously avoiding the Yuán dynasty’s name) and adopted the hào Yùnxiāng lǎorén 韻鄉老人 (“Old Man of the Native Soil”). His preferred biographical anchor is the Mèngbǐ jì 夢筆記 (Dream of the Brush) — a brief autobiographical record in which Confucius appears to him in a dream and presents him with two brushes — which opens juàn 1 of the present collection and serves as the raison d’être of the Sìrú designation.

The Sòng Lián preface of 1375 is one of the major early-Míng reflections on the late-Sòng Pútián / Fújiàn Confucian inheritance — placing Huáng in the line from Lín Guāngzhāo 林光朝 (Àixuān 艾軒) and the Wǎngshān 網山 / Lèxuān 樂軒 school down through the Guāshān 瓜山 (Pān Bǐng 潘柄) and Fùzhāi 復齋 (Chén Mì 陳宓) generation, both of whom were senior disciples of Zhū Xī by way of Huáng Gàn 黃榦 — and the preface is the principal source for Huáng’s intellectual genealogy. The Yuán-era preface by Fù Dìngbǎo (a 1271 examination-batch contemporary of Huáng) is contained in the SBCK source.

Wilkinson has no specific entry. The Sìkù editors’ verdict — “exceptionally substantial among Sòng-end scholars, language of inner proximity, plainly distinct from scholastic faction-fighters” — places Huáng in the company of Wáng Yīnglín 王應麟 and Wèi Liáowēng 魏了翁 as principal exemplars of late-Sòng Confucian gravitas.

Translations and research

• Chén Wén-yì 陳文義 (ed.), Huáng Zhòng-yuán Sì-rú jí jiào-zhù 黃仲元四如集校注 (Běijīng: Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 2018) — modern critical edition.
• Lín Sī-mǐng 林思明, “Huáng Zhòng-yuán yǔ Sòng-mò Pútián lǐ-xué” 黃仲元與宋末莆田理學, Mǐn-tái wén-huà yánjiū 閩台文化研究 (2009, no. 2), pp. 56–63.
• Hoyt C. Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992) — discusses the Fújiàn Daoxue inheritance into which Huáng falls; brief reference.
• Mark Halperin, Out of the Cloister: Literati Perspectives on Buddhism in Sung China, 960–1279 (Cambridge MA: Harvard, 2006) — passing reference to Huáng among Fújiàn Sòng-loyalist literati.
• Lín Tiān-yòu 林天祐, “Sòng Lián xù Sì-rú jí kǎo” 宋濂序《四如集》考, Wén-xiàn 文獻 (2014, no. 3), pp. 102–115.

Other points of interest

The KR4d0394 corpus on disk is from the SBCK series and preserves the original Yuán/early-Míng arrangement (with Fù Dìngbǎo’s and Sòng Lián’s prefaces); the WYG Sìkù recension reorganizes the surviving material into four juàn of prose + one fùlù and prefixes the Sìkù tiyao. The split between this biéjí and the lecture-text KR1g0010 is therefore a Qīng editorial decision; in the original Yuán compilation they belonged to a single twenty-one-juàn family corpus.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1188.6, p591.
• Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào digital text 0344602
• CBDB person 11121 (Huáng Zhòngyuán)