文憲集

Wénxiàn jí 文憲集

Collection of [Sòng] Wén-xiàn by 宋濂 (撰)

About the work

Wénxiàn jí 文憲集 in thirty-two juǎn is the Sìkù recension of the collected works of Sòng Lián 宋濂 (1310–1381), titled after his posthumous honorific Wénxiàn 文憲 (“Letters and Norms”). Sòng was the senior literary authority of Zhū Yuánzhāng’s 朱元璋 founding administration — the principal author of the imperial ceremonial zhì, gào, and bēijì of the Hóngwǔ inaugural decade — and is conventionally placed first among the so-called “Three Great Masters of Early Míng” 明初三大家 (alongside Liú Jī 劉基 and Wáng Yī 王禕). The collection assembles his prose and verse from his late-Yuán years onward, covering the ceremonial documents of state, bēi and jì for the great officials of the founding generation, xù and bá for friends and disciples, lay-Buddhist temple records, and his elegant gǔwén-style essays. Sòng’s other major prose corpus (the Hùfǎ lù 護法錄, an anthology of his Buddhist writings extracted by 袾宏 in the late Míng) is preserved separately at KR6q0187.

Tiyao

Examined respectfully: Wénxiàn jí, thirty-two juǎn, by Sòng Lián of the Míng. (Sòng’s Piānhǎi lèibiān 篇海類編 is already separately recorded in our catalog.) The late-Yuán literary tradition culminated in three figures — Wú Lái 吳萊, Liǔ Guàn 柳貫, and Huáng Jìn 黃溍 — and Sòng Lián studied first with Wú Lái and then with Liǔ Guàn and Huáng Jìn; he had earlier read the Five Classics under Wénrén Mèngjí 聞人夢吉. His learning therefore stood on firm foundations. The Míng shǐ biography of Sòng Lián records that from youth to old age he never let a single day pass without books, that there was nothing in learning he did not penetrate, and that his prose was deeply distilled and richly modulated, equal to the ancient masters. The court entrusted him with the rituals of the jiāo, shè, ancestral temples, mountains and waterways, and the various spirits; with the regulations for court audiences, banquets, calendars, and dress; with the protocols for tribute, taxation, reward, and exhortation regarding the four barbarian peoples; and even with the bēijì and lapidary inscriptions for the founding generals and great ministers. They unanimously made him the head of the literary officials of the dynastic founding. Shìdàfū coming to his gate to beg writings followed one upon another; foreign tribute envoys also knew his name, and Koryǒ 高麗, Annam 安南, and Japan 日本 went so far as to expend gold to purchase his collected writings.

The Míng shǐ biography of Liú Jī also says of Liú’s prose that “its qì is luxuriant and uncanny” and ranks him with Sòng Lián as joint masters of an age. Now examining the two collections side by side: Sòng’s prose is composed, expansive, deep, and serene, like a fine steed in the imperial stables — moving in fish-formation, in elegant order, internally regulated. Liú’s prose has divine sharpness leaping out on all four sides, like a thousand-gold thoroughbred jumping ravines and plunging into waves. Both are utterly first-rate, but in moral substance and in raw force there is some difference between them. Fāng Xiàorú 方孝孺 studied under Sòng Lián and strove to continue him, but the comparison of their grade is ultimately like that between Sū [Shì] and Ōuyáng [Xiū] — Liú Jī taught the strategies of statecraft, and his learning did not match Sòng’s purity; Fāng Xiàorú thought too highly of himself and his disposition was too vehement, and his cultivation did not match Sòng’s distilled refinement. Reverently collated on the tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). General compilers: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Sòng Lián’s writings have a complicated transmission history. He compiled his own Qiánxī jí 潛溪集 (six juǎn, prefaced by Liú Jī) and an altarum of further collections during the Hóngwǔ years; after his death in exile (1381) the family compiled a much larger seventy-five-juǎn Sòng xuéshì wén jí 宋學士文集, transmitted in the SòngYuánMíngQīng manuscript line and reprinted in the SBCK KR4e0004. The thirty-two-juǎn Wénxiàn jí in the WYG-Sìkù is a re-edition that the Sìkù editors derived from the longer collection, omitting some Buddhist material that the Sìkù compilers regarded as redundant (most of the omitted material survives in the Hùfǎ lù KR6q0187). The Sìkù tíyào above sets out the school-lineage (Wú Lái → Liǔ Guàn / Huáng Jìn) and the institutional importance of Sòng’s prose as the public voice of the Hóngwǔ throne in its inaugural decade. The catalog meta lifedates 1310–1381 are confirmed by CBDB and by the Míng shǐ j. 128 biography.

Sòng’s prose in this collection covers the entire range of mid-fourteenth-century gǔwén — court documents, bēijì, xù, jì, zhuàn, zàn, and zázhù — with the genres of imperial ceremonial composition (shèjiāo wén, shūzhǔchìgào etc.) particularly well represented because of Sòng’s office as senior Hànlín ghostwriter. A small body of shī and cí is appended but is not considered his strongest production. Standard scholarship (Dardess 1983, Langlois 1981, Mote 1962) treats Sòng’s prose as the formative model for the Hóngwǔ-era literary self-presentation of the Confucian state.

Translations and research

• John W. Dardess. 1983. Confucianism and Autocracy: Professional Elites in the Founding of the Ming Dynasty. Berkeley: University of California Press. Has substantial discussion of Sòng Lián’s writings as the public voice of the Hóngwǔ project.
• John D. Langlois Jr (ed.). 1981. China Under Mongol Rule. Princeton UP. Several chapters on the late-Yuán scholarly milieu (Wú Lái–Liǔ Guàn–Huáng Jìn lineage) out of which Sòng’s prose emerged.
• F. W. Mote. 1962. “The Growth of Chinese Despotism: A Critique of Wittfogel’s Theory of Oriental Despotism as Applied to China”. Oriens Extremus 8/1, 1–41 — uses Sòng’s prose extensively.
• Goodrich, L. Carrington & Fang Chaoying (eds.). 1976. Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. Columbia UP. Entry on Sòng Lián 1:1225–1231.
• Zhèng Lǐmín 鄭禮民. 1992. Sòng Lián yǔ Míng chū wén-tán 宋濂與明初文壇. Táiběi: Wén-shǐ-zhé chū-bǎn-shè.

Other points of interest

The thirty-two-juǎn WYG recension is the abridged Sìkù form; the fuller seventy-five-juǎn recension (also titled Sòng xuéshì wén jí) is in SBCK at KR4e0004. The Hùfǎ lù anthology of Sòng’s Buddhist prose is at KR6q0187. The catalog meta lists no editors in the persons field; the Sìkù WYG edition is anonymously collated under the zǒngzuǎnguān.

Links

• Song Lian (Wikipedia)
• 宋濂 (Wikidata)
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí).