Nánléi wén àn 南雷文案
The Nánléi File of Prose by 黃宗羲 (撰), with appendix (坿錄) by his son 黃百家 (撰坿錄)
About the work
The collected prose of 黃宗羲 Huáng Zōngxī (1610–1695, zì Tàichōng 太沖, hào Líchuāng 梨洲 and Nánléi 南雷) — one of the “Three Great Confucians of the Early Qīng” alongside 顧炎武 and 王夫之 — in 10 juan, with a supplementary fùlù 坿錄 of family genealogy and biographical apparatus assembled by his son 黃百家. The title takes its place-name from Nánléi 南雷 — the locality near Yúyáo (Shàoxīng prefecture, Zhèjiāng) that includes the ruins of the Táng-period eremite Xiè Yíchén 謝遺塵’s residence; Huáng Zōngxī took the hào Nánléi from this association, and the collection’s name follows the precedent of Hú Zhù’s 胡助 prefacing the Sòng family genealogy of Sòng Lián 宋濂 at the head of the Qiánxī jí 潛溪集. The collection’s prose covers political memorials, philosophical treatises, biographies, eulogies, letters, prefaces, and the famously dense SòngMíng xué àn — style prosopographic essays.
Prefaces
Preface by 鄭梁 Zhèng Liáng (a senior disciple), undated:
My master, the Huáng Master, was not one who wished to be known by his prose. Yet, your humble servant Liáng has heard the words of Confucius: “Is the wén not here within us?” — for wén is precisely Dào. Since Mencius’ death wén and Dào have been sundered and become two. From the Sòng onward there have at times been those who reunited them — sometimes Dào enclosing wén, sometimes wén enclosing Dào — but those of whom one could say they truly named the age, the count cannot be twice exhausted on the fingers. Yet the master arose at a moment when wén had decayed and Dào was lost, and…
The collection is preceded by a substantial Líchuāng xiānshēng shìpǔ 棃洲先生世譜 — a 17-generation Huáng-family genealogy compiled by Bǎijiā’s elder fellow-student Wàn Sīdà 萬斯大 (1633–1683) — running from the Sòng-period Huáng Wànhé 黃萬河 of Yúyáo down to Huáng Zōngxī’s own father, the Dōnglín martyr Huáng Zūnsù 黃尊素 (executed by Wèi Zhōngxián 魏忠賢’s faction in 1626). This is followed by 鄭梁’s preface and by the table of contents.
Abstract
The Nánléi wén àn survives in multiple recensions: the chūkè (first imprint) compiled by Huáng Zōngxī himself in the 1670s-80s; the zàikè (second imprint, often called Nánléi wén dìng 南雷文定) reorganized by Huáng late in life; and the posthumous fùlù materials assembled by 黃百家. The SBCK base-edition follows the first imprint with the appendix.
The work is not in the Sìkù quánshū — like Gù Yánwǔ’s Tínglín wénjí, it was excluded as politically inadmissible on account of Huáng’s Míng-loyalist service (he had held appointments under the Lóngwǔ and Lǔ Wáng Southern Míng courts) and his refusal of Qīng office. The SBCK is therefore the standard pre-modern recension of Huáng’s prose. (Huáng’s separately-circulating works — the Míng yí dài fǎng lù 明夷待訪錄, the SòngYuán xué àn 宋元學案, the Míng rú xué àn 明儒學案, and the Yì xué xiàng shù lùn KR1a0123 — were variously included or excluded by the Sìkù, depending on perceived genre.)
Important pieces in the collection include the Tàizǔ and Yuán jūn passages — kernels of the political philosophy more famously elaborated in the Míng yí dài fǎng lù — the Yuán xué 原學 and Yuán fǎ 原法 essays, the Bǔ lìdài shǐbiǎo 補歴代史表 preface (in which Huáng records his marathon reading of the Twenty-One Histories at age 19–20: see Wilkinson §42547), and a dense corpus of friendship-network biographies and prefaces that document the Zhèdōng (Eastern-Zhejiang) historical school’s social field.
Translations and research
Wm. Theodore de Bary, tr., Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince (New York: Columbia UP, 1993) — translation of the Míng yí dài fǎng lù, drawing extensively on the corpus represented here.
Julia Ching, ed., The Records of Ming Scholars by Huang Tsung-hsi (Honolulu: UH Press, 1987) — partial translation of the Míng rú xué àn, with substantial use of the Nánléi wén àn for biographical context.
Lynn A. Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (New Haven: Yale UP, 1984) — uses Huáng’s prose as primary source.
Whalen Lai, “Huang Tsung-hsi and the New Ming History,” in Asian Thought and Society 7 (1982).
Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (Harvard, 2018), §24263 (on Sòng-Yuán xué àn), §24265 (on Míng rú xué àn), §42547 (on Huáng’s history-reading).
Other points of interest
The opening Líchuāng xiānshēng shìpǔ 棃洲先生世譜 is itself a primary source for SòngYuánMíng family history of the Huáng lineage of Yúyáo, with documented contacts including Wú Cǎolú 吳草廬 (Wú Chéng 吳澄) and Wáng Yángmíng 王陽明; the genealogy lists multiple intermarriages and study-relations with the Yúyáo branch of the Liú 劉 family (i.e., Liú Zōngzhōu 劉宗周, Huáng Zōngxī’s teacher). The Wàn Sīdà colophon — closing with the note that the Yúyáo Huáng descended from the Yǐngchuān Hàn-Huáng-clan — is an important Qīng-Republican source for genealogical-historical method.
Links
- Wikidata Q557068 (Huang Zongxi)
- ECCP 351–354 (Tu Lien-che)
- Wilkinson 2018, §24263, §24265