宋景濂未刻集

Sòng Jǐnglián wèikè jí 宋景濂未刻集

The Uncut Pieces of Sòng Jǐng-lián [Sòng Lián] by 宋濂 (撰), compiled by 蔣超 (編)

About the work

A short two-juǎn supplement to the standard collected works of Sòng Lián 宋濂 宋濂 (1310–1381), assembling pieces that the Jiājìng-era reprinting of Sòng’s literary collection had quietly suppressed. The compiler is Jiǎng Chāo 蔣超 (1624–1673), a jìnshì of Shùnzhì 4 (1647) from Jīntán 金壇, who in Shùnzhì 12 (乙未, 1655) was shown the Wén Zhēngmíng 文徵明 family-treasured original Hóngwǔ-era cutting of Sòng’s collection by Sòng Lián’s descendant Sòng Shíyǐng 宋實穎 and used it to compare against the Jiājìng standard text. The “uncut” pieces are mostly bēimíng and zàn composed in the Yuán for Mongol grandees and Buddhist–Daoist material that the Jiājìng editors had judged either politically embarrassing or doctrinally suspect.

Tiyao

Examined respectfully: Sòng Jǐnglián wèikè jí, two juǎn, by Sòng Lián of the Míng. Sòng’s collection was reprinted in the Jiājìng 嘉靖 reign-period [1522–1566] and has long circulated. The present book was assembled when, in our current dynasty’s Shùnzhì 順治 12 (乙未, 1655), Sòng Lián’s descendant Sòng Shíyǐng 宋實穎 obtained the original cut, formerly preserved in the Wén Zhēngmíng 文徵明 family, and showed it to Jiǎng Chāo 蔣超 of Jīntán 金壇. Jiǎng selected from it those pieces not contained in the present-day book — thirty-eight in all — and edited them as the present collection to fill out what had been lost.

Now collating it against the cutting of Hán Shūyáng 韓叔陽 (Jiājìng era) once more: among them, the bá 跋 on Hé Dàofū 何道夫’s work, the Xuānfǔ Zhènggōng mùmíng 宣撫鄭公墓銘, etc. — eleven pieces in all — are in fact already present in the current book. Jiǎng evidently checked the present book without due care. The remaining twenty-seven pieces are truly lost prose. Pursuing the intent behind their original suppression: it is presumably either because the sòng and tomb-inscriptions for the Yuán-dynasty meritorious officials were generally written under the previous dynasty, and under the Míng could not avoid being matters of avoidance; or because, in honoring the two religions [Buddhism and Daoism], some of them went so far that one suspects entrapment in heterodox learning, and the editors therefore hid them. Looking at Yáng Shìqí’s 楊士奇 Dōnglǐ jí 東里集 and Ní Qiān’s 倪謙 Wénxī jí 文僖集: in both, prose pieces written for the two religions are bracketed off into a separate fascicle and tacked on at the end, rather than dispersed into their proper genre-categories. From this one can see roughly how the shìdàfū before the Zhèngdé–Jiājìng reign-periods held opinion.

But among the cāogūzhīshì [men who handled the bamboo strip, i.e. writers] from antiquity onward, [men] like Hán Yù 韓愈 with respect to [his prose for the monks] Gāo Xián 高閑 and Wén Chàng 文暢 — those who held their opinion uniformly strict from start to finish — are of course the orthodox case. But when it comes to Yán Zhēnqīng 顏真卿’s calligraphy of the Duōbǎotǎ bēi 多寶塔碑 and his composition of the Mágūtán jì 麻姑壇記, his lifelong major principles are after all unimpaired. Throughout history, literary collections have many such cases; one cannot judge by a single corner. The reader of this collection should know that on opinion-principle this material is a failure, but on prose-quality it may be received. Reverently collated on the sixth month of Qiánlóng 45 (1780). General compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General collator: Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The compiler Jiǎng Chāo 蔣超 (zì Hǔchén 虎臣, hào Suíān 綏菴, 1624–1673) was a jìnshì of Shùnzhì 4 (1647) from Jīntán 金壇 (Jiāngsū), who later abandoned office and lived as a recluse on Mt. Éméi 峨嵋. The Sìkù tíyào identifies his Shùnzhì 12 (1655) base text as the original Hóngwǔ-era cutting preserved in the family of the Wú-school painter and bibliophile 文徵明 (1470–1559), which had been shown to Jiǎng by Sòng Lián’s descendant Sòng Shíyǐng 宋實穎. Jiǎng identified what he took to be thirty-eight pieces missing from the standard recension, although the Sìkù editors note that eleven of these are actually present in the Jiājìng (Hán Shūyáng) reprint that Jiǎng had used for comparison; the genuine recovery is therefore twenty-seven pieces. The recovered material is heavily weighted toward (a) Yuán-period commissions for Mongol grandees, omitted under Hóngwǔ-era avoidance taboo, and (b) prefaces and tomb-inscriptions for Buddhist–Daoist clerics, which Míng editors judged compromising for a literatus of Sòng’s stature. The Sìkù editors register both reasons and defend the preservation of the pieces on aesthetic, not doctrinal, grounds — citing the parallel case of Hán Yù’s bá for monastic friends and Yán Zhēnqīng’s Mágūtán jì. The Sìkù WYG copy reproduces the Shùnzhì-era cutting.

Translations and research

No substantial secondary literature located on this particular supplement, beyond the standard discussions in:

• Dardess, Confucianism and Autocracy (1983), passim;
• Goodrich & Fang, Dictionary of Ming Biography (1976), 1:1225–1231 (entry on Sòng Lián);
• The relevant entries in the Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào yán-jiū 四庫全書總目提要研究 reference series.

Other points of interest

The collection is historically interesting as a small specimen of Qīng-dynasty antiquarian recovery of suppressed Míng material. Although Jiǎng Chāo’s “discovery” is therefore partly an editorial illusion (eleven of thirty-eight pieces were already in print), the remaining twenty-seven pieces are genuinely useful — especially for the picture of late-Yuán Buddho-Daoist patronage networks and for the Hóngwǔ-era literary politics of self-censorship.

Links

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