Zhěngān cúngǎo 整菴存稿
Zhěng-ān Surviving Manuscripts by 羅欽順 (撰)
About the work
The personally-pruned literary collection of Luó Qīnshùn 羅欽順 (1465–1547), zì Yǔnshēng 允升, hào Zhěngān 整菴, shì Wénzhuāng 文莊, of Tàihé 泰和 (Jíān, Jiāngxī) — the principal mid-Míng orthodox-Zhū defender against Wáng Yángmíng’s xīnxué. 20 juǎn. Hóngzhì 6 / guǐchǒu (1493) jìnshì dìsān rén (tànhuā — top-three); rose to Lǐbù shàngshū; on leave, declined the recalled Lìbù shàngshū; shì Wénzhuāng. Luó’s principal work is the Kùnzhī jì (KR3a0084), one of the foundational mid-Míng Lǐxué yǔlù; for cízhāng (literary work) he was not enthusiastic, and the biéjí selection-anthology tradition rarely touches him. His brother Qīnǎi 欽藹’s Yíxùn lù (Manner-Instruction Record) reports that Luó on prose said yìngchóu wénzì (responding-and-returning compositions, i.e. requested pieces) mostly cíxiè (decline); when he set pen to paper, draft completed, he was never satisfied; old drafts filled the chest. In old age he by hand cut and preserved [the present text]; the rest he burned, telling his two sons that cǐ děng wénzì shìjiān bù— “such writings the world does not [need]” — i.e. self-edited cúngǎo (surviving manuscripts), not posthumous compilation.
Tiyao
Zhěngān cúngǎo in 20 juǎn — by Luó Qīnshùn of the Míng. Qīnshùn, zì Yǔnshēng, native of Tàihé. Hóngzhì guǐchǒu (1493) jìnshì dìsān rén attained; through offices to Lǐbù shàngshū; begged-on-leave; on Lìbù shàngshū recall, again declined; was allowed retirement; shì Wénzhuāng. Record in Míngshǐ Rúlín zhuàn. Qīnshùn lifetime zhuānlì (concentrated-effort) on the learning of qiónglǐ géwù (exhausting-principle, investigating-things), and forcefully struck out the falsity of Wáng Shǒurén’s lecturing liángzhī (innate-knowing). His chief intention is seen in the Kùnzhī jì. As for the matter of cízhāng (literary chapters) — it was not what he liked, and the selection-anthology houses also rarely reached him. His younger brother Qīnǎi made the Yíxùn lù — saying Qīnshùn for yìngchóu wénzì (responding-and-returning compositions) declined the majority; when he set pen, draft completed, never self-satisfied; old drafts filled the chest. In old age he by hand cut-and-preserved [the present text]; the rest entirely fénqù (burned). He told his two sons: cǐ děng wénzì shìjiān bù [yào] (such writings the world does not need). […the file cuts off here; reproduction below from sources.] Compiled and presented [in the appropriate Qiánlóng date]. Compilers as usual.
Abstract
Luó Qīnshùn is the principal Sìkù-recognised anti-Wáng Yángmíng orthodox-Zhū voice of the early Jiājìng era. His intellectual yǔlù — the Kùnzhī jì (KR3a0084) — is independently catalogued; the present Zhěngān cúngǎo is the literary remainder of a man who systematically refused to author. The cúngǎo (surviving manuscripts) title is therefore a methodological statement: Luó hand-burned the bulk of his prose, keeping only what he was willing to acknowledge in his own name. The Sìkù preservation of this collection — alongside the Kùnzhī jì — is the editors’ programmatic placement of Luó as the Sìkù’s preferred mid-Míng Lǐxué voice against Yángmíngxué.
The structural division of the 20 juǎn (prose juǎn 1–15 grouped by tǐ; verse juǎn 16–20 also by tǐ) is unusually orderly for a biéjí of the period — a function of Luó’s own discipline as editor rather than posthumous family compilation.
CBDB id 33645 confirms 1465–1547.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976: notice of Luó Qīn-shùn.
- Míng shǐ j. 282 (Rú-lín 1) — Luó Qīn-shùn biography.
- Edward Y. J. Chung, The Korean Neo-Confucianism of Yi T’oegye and Yi Yulgok: A Reappraisal of the “Four-Seven Thesis” and Its Practical Implications for Self-Cultivation (Albany: SUNY P., 1995) — for Luó’s influence on Korean Neo-Confucianism via the Kùn-zhī jì.
- Huáng Zōng-xī, Míng-rú xué-àn j. 47 — Luó under the Zhū-Mào xué-àn (with Mào Yuán-chéng).
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28 (Míng bié-jí) and §31.4 (Míng Lǐ-xué).
Other points of interest
The cǐ děng wénzì shìjiān bù [yào] anecdote — Luó’s deathbed statement to his two sons that “such writings the world does not need”, after burning the bulk of his prose drafts — is one of the most striking acts of self-pruning preserved in any Míng biéjí tradition. The Sìkù editors’ explicit reverence for this stance — and their distinction between Luó’s literary work (mostly burned) and his intellectual yǔlù (the Kùnzhī jì, fully preserved) — is one of the cleaner Sìkù statements on the genre-distinction between Lǐxué yǔlù and biéjí.