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白雲集

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Text ID
KR4d0460
Date
1290–1337
Dynasty
元

Báiyún jí 白雲集

The Bái-yún (White-Cloud) Collection by 許謙 (撰), 李伸 (編)

About the work

The literary collection of Xǔ Qiān 許謙 (1270–1337) — Báiyún xiānshēng 白雲先生, posthumous shì Wényì 文懿 — the fourth and last of the Běi Shān sì xiānshēng 北山四先生 (Hé Jī 何基 → Wáng Bǎi 王柏 → Jīn Lǚxiáng 金履祥 → Xǔ Qiān): the Jīnhuá / Wùzhōu 金華 / 婺州 Yuán transmission of Sòng Zhū Xué orthodoxy. The Sìkù base derives from the SBCK reproduction of the standard transmitted Wú-region recension. The collection was compiled and printed by the Míng-period scholar-official Chén Xiāng 陳相 of Jīnhuá in Chénghuà 2 (1466) — Chén’s preface (preserved in the volume) records that he obtained a manuscript in 4 juàn from the Fāngbó (Provincial-Governor) Zhānggōng (of Jiāngpǔ 江浦) while serving on imperial commission to East-Guǎng. Chén notes that the Wù-region (Jīnhuá) Sòng-Yuán Neo-Confucian lineage — Lǚ Zǔqiān (the Sòng Dōnglái Lǚ chénggōng) → Wáng Wénxiàn → Hé Wéndìng → the Yuán Jīn Wénān 金文安 (Jīn Lǚxiáng) → Báiyún Xǔ Wényì — derives canonically from the Zhū-Xī-via-Huáng Miánzhāi 黃勉齋 transmission. The collection’s prefaces serially link Xǔ Qiān into the trans-dynastic Confucian dàotǒng canon.

Prefaces

The SBCK base preserves several Míng-period prefaces:

  1. Chén Xiāng’s preface (Chénghuà 2 = 1466), recording the manuscript discovery and the local Jīnhuá Neo-Confucian lineage.
  2. A second preface (also Míng-period) tracing the Dào lineage from Yáo-Shùn-Yǔ-Tāng → Confucius-Mencius → through the Hàn-Táng Confucians (Jiǎ Yì, Dǒng Zhòngshū, Hán Yù) → to the Sòng patriarchs Zhōu / Chéng / Zhāng / Zhū → through Zhēn Xīshān (Zhēn Déxiù), Cài Jiǔfēng, Hú Wéndìng → to the Yuán worthies Xǔ Lǔzhāi 許衡, Liú Jìngxiū 劉因, Wú Cǎolú 吳澄 — and finally to Xǔ Qiān as receiving the zhèngchuán (direct-orthodox transmission) of Zhū Xī.

The collection itself contains shī, cí, fù, prose, xù, jì, bēimíng, zàn, míng in 4 juàn. The principal contents are exhortations to study, jì (records) of Confucian academies and shrines, philosophical letters, and bēizhì (epitaphs) for fellow Jīn-huá-school members.

Abstract

The collected works of Xǔ Qiān (1270–1337), the fourth-generation patriarch of the Běi Shān 北山 (North-Mountain) Yuán Zhū Xué transmission centered at Jīnhuá in Wùzhōu (modern Zhèjiāng). For full biographical detail see the person note. Xǔ refused all imperial office and lived as the most famous Yuán-period Confucian teacher of his generation — students reportedly came from across the Yuán empire. Yuánshǐ Rúlín zhuàn gives the principal biographical record; Huáng Jìn 黃溍 composed the epitaph (preserved in Jīnhuá Huáng xiānshēng wénjí).

The Báiyún jí itself is principally a record of Xǔ’s pedagogical and dàoxué-lineage activities — academy-establishment records, exhortations to students, ritual-and-shrine inscriptions — rather than independent literary composition. The Sìkù-canonized Xǔ Qiān corpus consists of four works: his Shàngshū commentary KR1b0028 Dúshū cóng shuō 讀書叢說; his Shī jí zhuàn míng wù chāo 詩集傳名物鈔; his Sì shū cóng shuō 四書叢說; and the present Báiyún jí — making him one of the more comprehensively-transmitted Yuán Neo-Confucians.

The Míng compiler Lǐ Shēn 李伸 (an early/mid-Míng scholar) is named in the catalog as editor, but the editorial work is mostly attributable to Chén Xiāng’s Chénghuà 1466 print, with Lǐ Shēn’s earlier compilation underlying.

Composition window: from Xǔ Qiān’s adult literary activity (after his 1290 entry into Jīn Lǚxiáng’s school, when Xǔ was 21) through his death in 1337.

Translations and research

Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome

  • John W. Chaffee, The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China (1985) — context on Jīn-huá Neo-Confucianism.
  • Hoyt C. Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (1992) — discusses the Běi-Shān school.
  • Hé Yòu-sēn 何佑森, Yuán-dài Jīn-huá xué-pài de yán-jiū — major monograph-scale study of the Jīn-huá school.
  • Yuán-shǐ Rú-lín zhuàn — standard biography of Xǔ Qiān.

Other points of interest

The Chén Xiāng 1466 print preface — preserving the Wù-region Zhū Xī dàotǒng genealogy — is an important Míng-period statement of the Yuán-Jīnhuá school’s self-understanding of its place in the Sòng-Míng Lǐxué succession. The two prefaces together place Xǔ Qiān into the canonical dàotǒng sequence ending with the Míng founder-scholars Sòng Lián 宋濂 (景濂) and Wáng Zǐchōng 王子充 (王禕) — both Jīnhuá natives — making Xǔ the proximate Yuán-source of Míng-founding Confucian institutionality.

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