Hú Wénjìng jí 胡文敬集
Collection of Hú Wén-jìng by 胡居仁 (撰), 余祐 (編)
About the work
The slim 3-juǎn literary remainder of Hú Jūrén 胡居仁 (1434–1484), zì Shūxīn 叔心, hào Jìngzhāi 敬齋, posthumous shì Wénjìng 文敬 — the foundational early/mid-Míng orthodox-Zhū Lǐxué master, direct disciple of Wú Yǔbì 吳與弼, and fellow-disciple of Chén Xiànzhāng (陳獻章 KR4e0108). Hú Jūrén deliberately refused to author at length: he disapproved of zhuànshù fánwú (commentary’s redundant overgrowth), holding that xiānrú zhī yán zhì yǐ (the prior Confucians’ words have reached the limit). Apart from his Yìzhuàn and Chūnqiū zhuàn, he wrote almost nothing on the Classics; his principal work is the jiǎngxué notebook Jūyè lù (KR3a0081). The present 3-juǎn collection was compiled posthumously by his disciple Yú Yòu 余祐 (Bōyáng) from his scattered words. The Sìkù judgement: chúnrán Rúzhě zhī yán, bù sì qí shī Wú Yǔbì shū dòng chēng “mèng jiàn Kǒngzǐ” yě — “purely a Confucian’s speech, unlike his teacher Wú Yǔbì’s books, which kept saying ‘I dreamed I saw Master Kǒng’“. A pointed compliment.
Tiyao
Hú Wénjìng jí in 3 juǎn — by Hú Jūrén of the Míng. Jūrén has Yì xiàng chāo (Notes on the Yì Images) separately catalogued. Jūrén originally followed Wú Yǔbì in study, but his chúnzhèng dǔshí (pure-correct, substantial-and-real) far surpassed his teacher. His learning takes zhìxīn yǎngxìng (governing-the-heart, nourishing-the-nature) as foundation, jīngshì zǎiwù (governing-the-world, ruling-things) as function, zhǔ zhōngxìn (mastering loyalty-and-trust) as first, qiú fàngxīn (seeking the wandered-mind) as essential. History calls him the only one after Xuē Xuān — Jūrén, that one. Jūrén disapproved of xuézhě zhuànshù fánwú (scholars’ commentary’s redundant-overgrowth); once said that Master Zhū’s annotations on the Cāntóngqì and Yīnfú jīng could just-as-well not have been made; therefore aside from Yìzhuàn and Chūnqiū zhuàn, on the Classics-and-Books he did not lightly make annotations. His jiǎngshòu zhī yǔ (lecturing-discoursing speech) is also only the Jūyè lù one volume. Poetry-prose especially scarce. This collection is his disciple Yú Yòu wǎngluó (gathering-up) the scattered-lost, completed. Though within it much is youthful work, yet all jìn lǐ zhuójǐ (close-to-inner, attached-to-self) — all cuìrán Rúzhě zhī yán (purely a Confucian’s speech) — not like his teacher Wú Yǔbì’s books, which kept saying mèng jiàn Kǒngzǐ (dreaming of seeing Master Kǒng). Compiled and presented in the tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Compilers as usual.
Abstract
Hú Jūrén’s Hú Wénjìng jí is the literary wing of the Sìkù Hú Jūrén holdings — the intellectual principal is Jūyè lù (KR3a0081, his jiǎngxué notebook with explicit anti-Báishā polemic). The collection’s documentary value is not in its literary craft (Hú deliberately wrote little) but in its preservation of a cuìrán Rúzhě zhī yán — a “purely Confucian voice” against the jìnchán (near-Chán) drift of his fellow-disciple Chén Xiànzhāng. The Sìkù line — bù sì qí shī Wú Yǔbì shū dòng chēng “mèng jiàn Kǒngzǐ” — is a pointed editorial criticism of Wú Yǔbì’s diary-tradition Confucianism, identifying the xīnxué drift of the Chóngrén school (Wú Yǔbì → Chén Xiànzhāng → Hú Jūrén branch) as already visible in Wú Yǔbì himself. The Wénjìng compliment by negation — unlike his teacher, who kept dreaming of seeing Master Kǒng — places Hú as the orthodox-Zhū correction within the Wú Yǔbì line.
Yú Yòu 余祐 of Bōyáng (Ráozhōu, Jiāngxī) — Hú’s principal disciple and posthumous editor — is the documentary anchor for the Chóngrén / Yúgàn lineage Zhūxué orthodoxy survival into the early Hóngzhì era, and the 3-juǎn collection is the canonical recension of Hú’s surviving prose-and-verse.
CBDB id 30631 confirms 1434–1484 for Hú Jūrén; CBDB id 128359 gives 1465–1528 for Yú Yòu.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976: notice of Hú Jū-rén.
- Míng shǐ j. 282 (Rú-lín 1) — Hú Jū-rén biography.
- Huáng Zōng-xī, Míng-rú xué-àn j. 2 — Hú under the Chóng-rén xué-àn.
- Wing-tsit Chan, A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton UP, 1963: Hú Jū-rén selections (under early-Míng orthodox-Zhū).
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28 (Míng bié-jí) and §31.4 (Míng Lǐ-xué).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ line that Master Zhū’s annotations on the Cāntóngqì and Yīnfú jīng could just-as-well not have been made — attributed to Hú Jūrén — is one of the cleaner internal Lǐxué corrections of Zhū Xī preserved in any biéjí tradition. Hú’s refusal to author at length is not a literary failure but a Lǐxué methodological commitment.