二程文集

Èr Chéng wénjí 二程文集

Joint Collected Prose of the Two Chéng by 程顥 and 程頤, compiled by 胡安國, revised by 譚善心

About the work

The joint collected prose of the two Chéng brothers — Chéng Hào 程顥 (1032–1085, Míngdào xiānshēng) and Chéng Yí 程頤 (1033–1107, Yīchuān xiānshēng) — founders of Sòng Dàoxué and the principal teachers of the Lìxué tradition that Zhū Xī later canonised. The text is in 13 juǎn of main content plus 2 juǎn of fùlù (appendices) containing 16 supplementary prose pieces, 11 yíshì anecdotes, and Zhū Xī’s critical correspondence on the textual problems of the earlier HúAnguó redaction. The book has a complex transmission:

(1) Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records the Sòng-period transmission as several separate items: Míngdào jí 4 juǎn with yíwén 1 juǎn; Yīchuān jí in 20-juǎn and 9-juǎn versions; Hénán Chéngshì wénjí in 12 juǎn — already discrepant.

(2) Hú Ānguó 胡安國 (1074–1138) edited the joint version from family copies; his redaction was printed at Chángshā by Liú Gǒng 劉珙 and Zhāng Shì 張栻 (mid-Southern-Sòng). Hú made substantial editorial cuts (in the Dìngxìng shū, Míngdào xíngshù, Shàng Fùgōng xièshuài shū) and other small substitutions (reversed the order of the Cíguān biǎo; changed yán 沿 to sù 泝 in the Yìzhuàn xù; changed zhí 姪 to yóuzǐ 猶子 in a jìwén). Zhū Xī 朱熹 strongly objected — multiple sharp letters to Liú Gǒng and Zhāng Shì preserved in the Huìān jí — but Liú and Zhāng did not fully adopt his corrections.

(3) Tán Shànxīn 譚善心 of Línchuān, in Zhìzhì (1321–1323), undertook the third major redaction with the Shǔ scholar Yú Pán 虞槃, restoring the Hú-cut passages from other surviving copies and accepting all of Zhū Xī’s corrections. The Tán redaction is the basis of all subsequent printings, including the WYG copy.

Tiyao

Your servants respectfully submit: the Èr Chéng wénjí in 13 juǎn plus 2 fùlù — the joint collection of the Míngdào and Yīchuān Chéng brothers of the Sòng. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records Míngdào jí in 4 juǎn with yíwén in 1; Yīchuān jí in one form of 20 juǎn and another of 9; Hénán Chéngshì wénjí in 12 juǎn, the two Chéng combined: this is the Jiànníng print, the Sòng transmission already divergent.

This text comes from Hú Anguó’s house; Liú Gǒng and Zhāng Shì printed it at Chángshā. Hú had made substantial editorial cuts: as in the Dìngxìng shū, the Míngdào xíngshù, the Shàng Fùgōng xièshuài shū — tens of characters removed; the Cíguān biǎo with reversed order; the Yìzhuàn xù’s yán 沿 changed to sù 泝; a jìwén’s zhí 姪 changed to yóuzǐ 猶子. Liú and Zhāng’s print followed Hú in all things; Zhū Xī thought this thoroughly wrong, and addressed Liú Gǒng and Zhāng Shì in sharp letters — strongly enough; the letters are in the Huìān jí. Yet Liú and Zhāng did not in the end fully follow Zhū: in the early Southern Sòng each man still honoured what he had heard, not yet like the Chúnyòu period (1241–1252) when the schools had formed and the partisans were many, with no one daring to deviate one character from Zhū Xī.

In Yuán Zhìzhì (1321–1323), Tán Shànxīn of Línchuān re-edited and re-printed: he consulted with Shǔ-man Yú Pán and decisively adopted all of Zhū Xī’s corrections; for the Dìngxìng shū and Fù-and-Xiè liǎng shū’s cut passages he sought out separate copies and restored them; he gathered 16 supplementary pieces and 11 additional yíshì, plus Zhū Xī’s letters discussing the Hú-text errors, into 2 separate juǎn appended at the end. Only Yīchuān’s poetry now amounts to 3 pieces — the Hénán fǔ zhì records his Lùhún lèyóu shī “Dōngjiāo jiàn wēilǜ, qūmǎ xīn dúwǎng; zhōu yíng yědù shí, shuǐyuè chūnshān xiǎng; shēn xián ài wùwài, qù xié xīn shǎngguī; lùzhú qiáogē, luòrì hánshān shàng” — which the collection does not have, and Tán Shànxīn and Yú Pán did not collect. Topographical gazetteers often appropriate famous names for celebrity — this is probably attributed by enthusiasts after Tán Shànxīn’s time? Reverently submitted, intercalary fifth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

Date: the final TánShànxīn redaction in Zhìzhì (1321–1323) is the form transmitted; the earlier Hú Anguó and Liú Gǒng / Zhāng Shì Southern-Sòng forms are lost as separate witnesses but preserved in fragments through Tán’s apparatus and Zhū Xī’s letters.

The textual significance of the book is twofold. (1) As the primary corpus of Chéng-brother prose, it is one of the foundational documents of Sòng Dàoxué; the Dìngxìng shū (Chéng Hào’s letter to Zhāng Zǎi on the Dìngxìng problem), the Yánzǐ suǒ hào hé xué lùn (Chéng Yí’s youthful examination essay), the Yìzhuàn xù (Chéng Yí’s preface to his commentary on the Yìjīng), and the Sìzhēn (the Four Admonitions) are all canonical Lìxué documents whose authoritative readings come from this collection. (2) As a case study in textual scholarship, the editorial history — Hú Anguó’s cuts, Zhū Xī’s protests, Tán Shànxīn’s restoration — is the principal SòngYuán example of editorial-scholarly disagreement preserved in apparatus form. Zhū Xī’s letters on the matter are foundational documents of Sòng kǎozhèng.

The collection is complementary to but distinct from the Èr Chéng yíshū 二程遺書 KR3a0009 (the yǔlù or “recorded sayings” of the two Chéng, compiled by Zhū Xī) and the Èr Chéng cuìyán 二程粹言 (the topical extract). Together these three books constitute the Èr Chéng corpus as transmitted in the SòngYuán Lìxué tradition.

Translations and research

• A.C. Graham, Two Chinese Philosophers: The Metaphysics of the Brothers Ch’eng (London: Lund Humphries, 1958; rev. ed. La Salle: Open Court, 1992) — the foundational English-language monograph; relies heavily on the Èr Chéng wén-jí.
• Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, 1963), ch. 31–32 — translated excerpts from the Èr Chéng wén-jí.
• Yáng Jǐnggāng 楊景剛, Lǐ-xué wén-xiàn lǐ-lùn yánjiū 理學文獻理論研究 — textual-critical study of the Èr Chéng wén-jí.
• Sōng-Yuán xuéàn 宋元學案 (Huáng Zōng-xī / Quán Zǔ-wàng), juǎn 13–15 — Chéng-brother xué-àn.

Other points of interest

The book exemplifies the Yuán-period editorial recovery of Sòng Dàoxué texts — a process by which Yuán scholars reconstructed the Southern-Sòng Lìxué canon under newly-orthodox conditions, often correcting the partisan editorial preferences of the original Southern-Sòng compilers. Tán Shànxīn’s redaction, by adopting Zhū Xī’s reading against Hú Anguó’s, embodies a Yuán-period consolidation of the Zhū-school canon at the expense of the older Sòng eclectic tradition.

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §31.4, §32.
• ctext
• Wikipedia, “Cheng Yi (philosopher)”