則堂集

Zétáng jí 則堂集

The Zé-táng Collection by 家鉉翁 (撰)

About the work

The reconstructed literary collection of Jiā Xuànwēng 家鉉翁 (b. 1213, hào Zétáng 則堂), the late-Sòng Duānmíng diàn xuéshì qiānshū shūmìyuàn shì who in Déyòu 2 (1276) was dispatched as one of the qíqǐngshǐ 祈請使 (“envoys of supplication”) to the Mongol court, was detained in the north when the Sòng surrendered, and refused to take Yuán service. Relocated to Yíngzhōu 瀛州 in Héjiān 河間 (modern Héběi), he taught the Chūnqiū to local students for a decade and composed the major work for which he is best remembered, the Chūnqiū jízhuàn xiángshuō 春秋集傳詳說 KR1e0054. The Sìkù editors note that Jiā’s separately-printed twenty-juàn literary collection and his Yìjīng exposition had both perished by the Qiánlóng era; the present six-juàn work is a Yǒnglè dàdiǎn re-aggregation — one juàn of prose and one juàn of poetry-and-cí, with the rest filled out by jì, shuō, zàn, and miscellaneous prose extracted from the encyclopedia. Most of the surviving material can be dated to Jiā’s captivity period at Héjiān (post-1276); the Héjiān jiǎguǎn poem (preserved in the collection) records his wish that his Héjiān students bury him beneath a stone marked “Sòngshǐ xìng X míng X — xià shū “rén shì Xīzhōu zhī xī, lǎo féngyè"" — Sòng envoy so-and-so, an old Confucian of the western West.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Zétáng jí, in six juàn, was composed by Jiā Xuànwēng of the Sòng. Wēng was fond of discoursing on the Chūnqiū and particularly fond of discoursing on the Yì. His Héjiān jiǎguǎn (At the Borrowed Office in Héjiān) poem says: “I propose, from you gentlemen, to beg one slab of stone in advance / to be buried, in some future year, three or four feet before my mound / inscribed above: ‘A Sòng envoy of such-and-such surname, named so-and-so’ / inscribed below: ‘I am the old Confucian master of the west-of-Xī-zhōu’ / All my life I have written, painfully, not much / What may be transmitted is to be found in [my work on] Chūnqiū and Zhōu yì.” However, the Chūnqiū xiángshuō still has a printed edition extant today, separately entered in the catalog [as KR1e0054]; whereas his book expounding the Yì, together with his literary collection in twenty juàn, are already wholly lost. Only the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn has gathered up his poetry and prose, still rather plentiful. We have respectfully assembled and arranged them, classing them by kind, and dividing them into one juàn of prose and one juàn of poetry-and-cí. An examination of his works [shows] more than half were [composed] at Héjiān; and in the Míng Shénzōng era, when Fán Shēn 樊深 was compiling the Héjiānfǔ zhì, he could not procure them — so their being lost [was] before the Wànlì period.

Xuànwēng was registered in Méishān 眉山 — a fellow townsman of Sū Shì 蘇軾 — therefore among the pieces in the collection, such as the “Wénpǐntáng jì”, “Yǎngzhìtáng jì”, “Zhìtáng shuō”, “Dǔxìnzhāi shuō”, “Postface to the Tàibái shǎngyuè tú”, and “[Tao] Guīqùláicí” harmonizations — and in the self-notes to the “Wāndòu cài” poem — there are occasional references to and accounts of Sū Shì’s affairs. Guǎnghàn 廣漢 Zhāng Shì 張栻 [Nánxuān] was also his fellow townsman; therefore the opening of the “Jìngshì jì” likewise laments that the Nánxuān learning’s transmission is gradually becoming obscure. However, the deepest origin of his learning in fact emerges from the Jīnxī [school of] Lù Jiǔyuān 陸九淵 — observing the pieces “Xīnzhāi shuō” and “Zhǔjìng zhēn” can outline this. Therefore his discourse is steeped in Buddhism; his exposition of the Yì also only takes the xiāntiān and tàijí to reflect upon, in the vague and dim; and in one piece, the “Zūnjiàotáng jì,” he goes so far as to quote Lù Jiǔyuān’s words to establish a “Three Teachings into One” doctrine — particularly aberrant.

[But] in surveying his general intent, [his discourse] in every case returns to enriching morals and customs, exalting and rewarding míngjiào, expounding [it] in every matter, taking lǐ and yì as the standard of instruction — never indulging or unloosed as in the late-Míng Yáojiāng [Wáng Yángmíng] dregs. His diction and intent are sincere and unornamented, his prose does not conceal substance — quite unlike the xiānguǐ fánsuì (slender-deceitful, fragmented) style frequent in the late-Southern-Sòng period; he is still much that may be taken from. Moreover, looking at his lifetime — though above he does not match Wén Tiānxiáng KR4d0381, yet below in comparison to the Liú Mèngyán 留夢炎 type he is conspicuously not their equal. Even these scattered pieces and broken bamboo-strips, [we may] value them on account of his person — this too is admissible.

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

The present Zétáng jí is not the original work of that title — Jiā Xuànwēng’s twenty-juàn literary collection was already lost in pre-Wàn-lì transmission, as the failed compilation of the Míng Héjiānfǔ zhì attests — but a Yǒnglè dàdiǎn re-aggregation by the Qiánlóng Sìkù editors, presented in six juàn. The editors openly note the dependence on the encyclopedia and the resulting fragmentary character. The substantial majority of the surviving material dates from Jiā’s captivity at Héjiān (post-1276), where he refused Yuán office, taught Chūnqiū to local students, and was sustained by an annual stipend. The poetic and prose materials accordingly bear strong yímín coloring — Jiā’s most-anthologized lines, the Héjiān jiǎguǎn couplet on his desired epitaph, are an emblematic statement of Sòng-loyalist refusal. The collection also preserves substantive prose: jì on the Wénpǐntáng, the Yǎngzhìtáng, and the Jìngshì of Méishān; shuō on the Xīnzhāi and the Zhǔjìng zhēn; and the controversial Zūnjiàotáng jì that quotes Lù Jiǔyuān to support a “Three Teachings into One” formulation — which the Sìkù editors flag as the most theologically wayward moment of an otherwise orthodox Confucian corpus. The collection thereby documents Jiā’s intellectual position: rooted in the Sūshì Méishān lineage and the Nán-xuān-school heritage but inflected toward the Lù-school’s mind-centered reading and to a Buddhist-tinted reading of the Yì. CBDB 26431 confirms the 1213 birth year. Wilkinson treats Jiā within the late-Sòng Chūnqiū hermeneutic line (§24, Chūnqiū jīngzhuàn jíjiě tradition).

Translations and research

• Hé Zōng-měi 何宗美, Sòng-mò Yuán-chū yí-mín wén-rén qún-tǐ yán-jiū 宋末元初遺民文人群體研究 (Běijīng: Rén-mín chū-bǎn-shè, 2009), ch. 4 — Jiā Xuàn-wēng among the captive-loyalist Chūnqiū exegetes.
• Yáng Sī-fàn 楊思帆, “Jiā Xuàn-wēng Zé-táng jí yán-jiū” 家鉉翁《則堂集》研究, Wén-xué yí-chǎn 2013, no. 3.
• Quán Sòng shī vol. 67, Quán Sòng wén vol. 367 collate the present material against the Yǒng-lè dà-diǎn base.
• Sòng-Yuán xué-àn 宋元學案 j. 88 (Zé-táng jiā-shì xué-àn 則堂家氏學案) — the standard pre-modern biographical-and-intellectual account.

Other points of interest

The Héjiān jiǎguǎn couplet on the desired stone slab inscription (“A Sòng envoy of such-and-such name, an old Confucian of the western West”) is one of the most-quoted single utterances of Sòng-loyalist captivity literature, on a par with Wén Tiānxiáng’s Zhèngqì gē. The Sìkù editors’ “Three Teachings into One” caveat against the Zūnjiàotáng jì reflects standard Qián-lóng-era kǎojù orthodoxy; it is in fact a substantial LùWáng–Buddhist position-paper of late-Sòng vintage and is one of the more philosophically interesting pieces in the corpus.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1189.4, p273.
• CBDB person 26431 (Jiā Xuànwēng)