在軒集

Zàixuān jí 在軒集

The Zài-xuān Collection by 黃公紹 (撰)

About the work

A single-juàn collection of the surviving literary remains of Huáng Gōngshào 黃公紹 (CBDB 19073, fl. 1265–1295; zì Zhíwēng 直翁), native of Zhāowǔ 昭武 (Shàowǔ 邵武 in Fújiàn), a Xiánchún 1 (1265) jìnshì and an early-Yuán yímín — the catalog flags him as Sòng on the strength of his self-styled “mín” (commoner) in the Qiáochuān xīnyì jì (Record of the New Post-Station at Qiáochuān) of Zhìyuán 23 (1286), which is itself one of the few datable pieces in the collection. Huáng named his studio Zàixuān 在軒 (literally “[The mind] is in the xuān [studio]”), borrowing Hú Ānguó’s 胡安國 famous phrase xīn yào zài qiāngzǐlǐ 心要在腔子裏 (“the mind must be inside the cavity”) — a ChéngZhū-school formulation of focused presence — whence the collection’s title. The corpus is small: 39 prose pieces and 28 cí. The Sìkù editors flag a striking generic distortion in the surviving prose: only six pieces are properly Confucian (rúyán); the remaining 33 are Buddhist temple-and-monastery shū and bǎng (subscription-prospectus and proclamations) — almost certainly because the original collection was lost and what survived was preserved by Buddhist temple custodians who took special care of the calligrapher Huáng’s brush-strokes. Lì È’s 厲鶚 Sòngshī jìshì (the largest Qīng survey of Sòng poetry) was unable to locate any of Huáng’s shī and could fill the slot only with the Xīhú zhàogē (West Lake Oar-songs) which fall ambiguously between shī and cí; this confirms that the Sòngshī jìshì compiler too saw only this base. Huáng’s enduring fame however is not as a biéjí author but as the original compiler of the Gǔjīn yùnhuì 古今韻會 — the great rhyming-cum-encyclopedic dictionary; the present transmitted Yùnhuì jǔyào 韻會舉要 is the Yuán-era abridgement-and-revision by Xióng Zhōng 熊忠, no longer Huáng’s original.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Zàixuān jí, one juàn, was composed by Huáng Gōngshào of the Sòng. Gōngshào’s zì was Zhíwēng, a man of Zhāowǔ. A Sòng Xiánchún 1 (1265) jìnshì. In the collection’s “Qiáochuān xīnyì jì” (Record of the New Post-Station at Qiáochuān) it states “this year, Zhìyuán 23 [1286]” — by this time the distance from the Sòng’s fall is ten years; in the record [Huáng] calls himself “the people” (mín) — for [he] entered the Yuán [and did] not take office, [so we] still mark [him] as a man of Sòng.

Gōngshào once took Hú Ānguó’s [phrase] xīn yào zài qiāngzǐlǐ (“the mind must be inside the cavity”) to name his dwelling Zàixuān, by which he named the collection. However, what is recorded comes only to 39 prose pieces and 28 shīyú [cí]. Of his 39 prose pieces, those that are Confucian discourses number six; while those that are Buddhist shūbǎng (subscription-and-proclamation) language number 33 — presumably the original base was scattered, and later persons gathered up the surviving manuscripts, [in which] the sēngtú (monastic disciples) valued his brush-and-ink and stored [them] up as glory, [so] what was collected is especially abundant [of this kind].

We examine: Lì È’s Sòngshī jìshì gathered most broadly, [yet in] seeking a single poem of Gōngshào — [we] could not get [any]; he only used the “Xīhú zhàogē” ten pieces, which fall between poetry and cí, to take its place. [We] know that what È saw was likewise this base; there is no other complete collection.

Gōngshào once composed the Gǔjīn yùnhuì, [a] famous [work] in the world; however the original base has long been scattered. What now circulates is Xióng Zhōng’s Jǔyào — already no longer Gōngshào’s original base. [What] truly issues from Gōngshào’s hand is only this one juàn. The Sòng people’s yíjí [that] do not circulate [are] many; Gōngshào at his time was [an] elder-veteran. Although [the work is] a damaged remnant, it is still to be treasured. [The piece] “Written behind the Zàixuān bǎi*-míng*” — the jìcí [section beginning with the words] “yī xià” onward — is in fact prose of his friend Mò Shēngzhī 莫昇之; presumably at the time the autograph manuscript would have placed it together at the rear; therefore in textual sense [they are] connected. We still record [it] together to preserve the old [form]. Respectfully collated, tenth 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

Huáng Gōngshào (CBDB 19073, fl. 1265–after 1286; date ‘1265’ in the catalog meta refers to his jìnshì year, not his birth year) is one of the most important Yuán-period lexicographers and a marginal but historiographically significant figure as a biéjí author. His Gǔjīn yùnhuì 古今韻會 — completed in Dàdé era (early Yuán) on the basis of Liú Yuān’s 劉淵 reduction of the Píngshuǐ yùn — was the first major dictionary to integrate Shuōwén jiězì etymological information with Gǔjīn yùn rhyme-tabulation, and through Xióng Zhōng’s surviving abridgement Yùnhuì jǔyào 韻會舉要 KR1j0040 became the principal YuánMíng rhyme-and-character-dictionary tradition. The present Zàixuān jí survives in this fragmentary state — 39 prose pieces (33 of which are Buddhist temple-prospectus and proclamation pieces, indicative of the survival pathway through monastic preservation of his calligraphy) plus 28 cí. The composition window for the surviving material is approximately Xiánchún (1265 jìnshì) through the late 1280s (the Qiáochuān piece of 1286 being the latest internally datable). The collection name borrows Hú Ānguó’s ChéngZhū-school phrase, marking Huáng’s dàoxué affiliation. CBDB 19073 confirms Huáng’s activity through 1286. Wilkinson treats Huáng under the Gǔjīn yùnhuì lineage (§16.2, SòngYuán rhyme-dictionaries) rather than as a biéjí author.

Translations and research

• Zhāng Lìn 張琳, Huáng Gōng-shào yán-jiū 黃公紹研究 (Fú-jiàn shī-fàn dà-xué MA thesis, 2010). Principal modern monograph.
• Zhōu Zǔ-mó 周祖謨, Yīn-yùn xué lùn-wén jí 音韻學論文集 (Běijīng: Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1966), discusses Huáng’s Gǔ-jīn yùn-huì and its relation to Xióng Zhōng’s recension.
• W. South Coblin, “A study of the rime-tables in the Gǔ-jīn yùn-huì jǔ-yào,” Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology 79 (2007). Discusses the Huáng-to-Xióng line.
• Quán Sòng wén vol. 358 collates Huáng Gōng-shào’s prose; the surviving cí are collected in the Quán Sòng cí vol. 5.

Other points of interest

The note that Mò Shēngzhī’s jìcí is preserved at the end of Huáng’s Zàixuān míng — and that this stands as evidence of the autograph manuscript’s joint format with the friend’s appended note — is a small but characteristic editorial observation. The Sìkù editors’ detection of the survival-pathway through Buddhist temple custody of Huáng’s calligraphy is historically significant: it documents how mid-Yuán biéjí preservation in Fújiàn frequently depended on Buddhist institutional networks rather than on lineage descendants.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1189.12, p629.
• CBDB person 34527 (Huáng Gōngshào)
• Wikipedia, 黃公紹