勿軒集

Wùxuān jí 勿軒集

The Wù-xuān Collection by 熊禾 (撰), edited by 熊孟秉 (編)

About the work

The collected works in eight juàn of Xióng Hé 熊禾 (originally named Hé 鉌, zì Qùfēi 去非, hào Wùxuān 勿軒, also Tuìzhāi 退齋), a late-Sòng / early-Yuán Confucian scholar of Jiànyáng 建陽 (Fújiàn) who passed the jìnshì in Xiánchún 10 (1274) and served briefly as sīhù cānjūn of Tīngzhōu before the Sòng collapse; thereafter he refused Yuán service, built the Hóngyuán Academy 洪原書院 in his native district, and devoted the rest of his life to teaching and to the writing of Sìshū biāotí 四書標題 and Yìjīng jiǎngyì 易經講義. The collection was edited posthumously by his zúsūn (clan-grandson) Xióng Mèngbǐng 熊孟秉 from what survived of his writings — said by the Sìkù editors to be one or two parts in ten of the original output — and first printed in Tiānshùn (1457–1464) by Xióng Bīn 熊斌, the author’s sixth-generation descendant and then zhǔbù of Bóluó 博羅 (Guǎngdōng).

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Wùxuān jí, eight juàn, was composed by Xióng Hé of the Sòng. Hé’s original name was Hé 鉌, zì Qùfēi 去非, hào Wùxuān, also Tuìzhāi; a man of Jiànyáng. In Xiánchún 10 (1274) he changed his name to Hé 禾; he passed the jìnshì examination and was appointed sīhù cānjūn of Tīngzhōu. When the Sòng fell, he retired and did not take office, building the Hóngyuán Academy and teaching disciples. He composed the Sìshū biāotí, the Yìjīng jiǎngyì, and other works, by which he expounded the orthodox learning. The poetry and prose of his lifetime was very abundant, but after his death eight or nine parts in ten were lost. His clan-grandson Mèngbǐng compiled and arranged what remained into a volume, dividing it into eight juàn. In the Tiānshùn era of the Míng, Hé’s sixth-generation descendant Bīn — zhǔbù of Bóluó — first had it engraved and circulated. Later the blocks were again dispersed; in recent times Zhāng Bóxíng 張伯行 recut his collection but his version has the prose only and no poetry, which is quite deficient. This [present text] is still the old base that Mèngbǐng compiled. Hé’s literary writing is plain and substantial, not making its name by ornament, yet rooted in the Six Classics; from this we see its true colors. It is certainly not what the makers of empty talk and rootless discourse can come near.

In the original copy there was prefixed a preface by Xǔ Héng 許衡 of the Yuán, which states that Hé in later life revised the Sānlǐ tōngjiě 三禮通解, and that as the manuscript was about to be completed he died of illness; that his grandson Shù 澍 preserved the manuscript in the family and transmitted it down to his second-generation grandson Bīn, who had it engraved and was sent forth, asking [Xǔ] to compose a preface, etc. We have examined this: Zhìyuán was the year-name of [Yuán] Shìzǔ (i.e. Kublai), but Hé died in [Yuán] Rénzōng’s Huángqìng 1 (1312); from Zhìyuán down to Huángqìng is a distance of more than thirty years — how could [Xǔ] have spoken in advance of Hé’s death by illness? Moreover, Bīn was a Míng Tiān-shùn-era man, certainly not someone Xǔ Héng could have lived to see. That this [preface] is a forged attribution is manifest: it must be that his descendants composed this text in falsity, borrowing the name to dazzle the vulgar — not knowing that Hé too was a comprehensive Confucian and surely did not need to borrow Héng’s name as ballast. We have now specially excised it, so as not to let it confuse the true.

Respectfully collated, sixth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778). 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

Xióng Hé (CBDB 11825, 1253–1312; the catalog meta gives 1247 but CBDB and the standard SòngYuán xuéàn j. 64 give 1253, followed here) is one of the principal Zhū-Xī-school jiǎngxué figures of the SòngYuán transition in northern Fújiàn — the heartland of the Mǐn-school. He is conventionally grouped with Liú Yīn 劉因 and Wú Chéng 吳澄 KR4d0446 as a yímín who, refusing Yuán recruitment, channeled the dynasty’s intellectual energy into private academy teaching and a sustained kǎojù engagement with the canon. The Hóngyuán Academy that he founded at Jiànyáng became one of the foundational sites of dàoxué transmission in early-Yuán Fújiàn, and Xióng’s lectures from there are a principal source for the academy’s curricular layout. His Sìshū biāotí and the various Classics-commentaries are noted in the Sòngshǐ yìwénzhì and the Jīngyì kǎo 經義考 (j. 88, 100, 142).

The collection survives in this Tiān-shùn-printed eight-juàn recension by his clan-grandson Xióng Mèngbǐng. A later Qīng partial recension by Zhāng Bóxíng (1651–1725) preserved the prose only; the Sìkù editors here returned to the older Mèngbǐng base. The original Xǔ Héng 許衡 preface preserved in some pre-Tiān-shùn line was rejected by the Sìkù editors as a forgery (Xǔ Héng died in 1281, three decades before Xióng Hé’s death, and could not have written about Hé’s deathbed work on the Sānlǐ tōngjiě). The composition window for the surviving material is essentially Xióng’s lifetime (1274 — jìnshì — to 1312); the editorial recension is Yuán-late to Míng-early. No CBDB entry exists for Xióng Mèngbǐng. Wilkinson does not single out the Wùxuān jí but treats Xióng Hé in the context of the early-Yuán Mǐn-school ZhūXī line (§28.1, Sòng biéjí corpus).

Translations and research

• Hé Xiào-yán 何曉燕, Xióng Hé yánjiū 熊禾研究 (Běijīng: Zhōngguó shè-huì kē-xué chū-bǎn-shè, 2014). The principal modern monograph, comprehensive on biography and intellectual position.
• Hé Xiào-yán 何曉燕, “Xióng Hé jiào-yù sī-xiǎng yán-jiū” 熊禾教育思想研究, Fú-jiàn shī-fàn dà-xué xué-bào (philosophy and social science edition), 2009 no. 4 — on his academy curriculum.
• Liú Shù-xūn 劉樹勛 (ed.), Mǐn-xué yuán-liú 閩學源流 (Fú-zhōu: Fú-jiàn jiào-yù chū-bǎn-shè, 1993), pp. 312–330 — Xióng Hé in the Mǐn-school lineage.
• Sòng-Yuán xué-àn 宋元學案 j. 64 (Hǎn-míng-zhāi xué-àn 罕明齋學案) — primary biographical source, drawn on by all later treatments.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1188.8, p761.
• CBDB person 11825 (Xióng Hé)
• Wikipedia, 熊禾