Shí xiānshēng àolùn zhù 十先生奧論註
Annotated Profound Essays by Ten Masters by 闕名
About the work
A Southern-Sòng anthology of lùn (discursive essays) by sixteen Sòng míngrú (Confucian masters) with running annotation, surviving in 40 juǎn (originally 45 — qiánjí, hòují, xùjí of 15 juǎn each; the present text lacks the first 5 of the xùjí and juǎn 1–7 of the qiánjí are also later transcribed without the original notes). Anonymous compiler. The book is a Sòng Jiànyáng / Máshā 建陽麻沙 fángkè (workshop) print, identifiable from its bǎnshì (page format). The title says “Ten Masters” but the juǎn actually carry essays by sixteen authors: Chéngzǐ 程子 (Chéng Yí or Chéng Hào), Zhāng Lěi (張耒), Yáng Shí (楊時), Zhūzǐ 朱子 (朱熹), Zhāng Shì (張栻), Lǚ Zǔqiān (呂祖謙), Yáng Wànlǐ (楊萬里), Hú Yín (胡寅), Fāng Tián 方恬, Chén Fùliáng (陳傅良), Yè Shì (葉適), Liú Mùyuán 劉穆元, Dài Xī (戴溪), Zhāng Zhèn 張震, Chén Wǔ 陳武, Zhèng Shí 鄭湜**. The SKQS editors note that of these sixteen, eleven have biographies in the Sòngshǐ; the remaining five — Zhāng Zhèn, two homonymous Zhèng Shí’s (the relevant one being the Shàoxī 1 / 1190 Jìn zhìshù shí juǎn writer), Fāng Tián, Liú Mùyuán, and Chén Wǔ — have only fragmentary biographical traces in Hú Yí zhuàn, Liú Zhèng zhuàn, and the Shūlù jiětí. The anthology is consequently a principal textual witness to several otherwise-lost or thin-witnessed Southern-Sòng prose-writers.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Shí xiānshēng àolùn zhù in 40 juǎn. The compiler’s name is not given, nor is the date of printing. Verifying its bǎnshì (page format), it is a Sòng-time Jiànyáng Máshā workshop print [a famously prolific commercial press]. The book gathers the lùn (discursive essays) of Chéngzǐ, Zhāng Lěi, Yáng Shí, Zhūzǐ, Zhāng Shì, Lǚ Zǔqiān, Yáng Wànlǐ, Hú Yín, Fāng Tián, Chén Fùliáng, Yè Shì, Liú Mùyuán, Dài Xī, Zhāng Zhèn, Chén Wǔ, Zhèng Shí, edited by category with annotations supplied. According to the original catalogue, qiánjí, hòují, xùjí each in 15 juǎn. This book’s xùjí lacks the first 5 juǎn — only 10 remain. Juǎn 1–7 of the qiánjí are also later-hand supplementary transcripts; the original annotations have all perished. As for the lost juǎn, no contents-list survives, so we cannot ascertain how many authors there were — but counting the 40 transmitted juǎn’s authors as 16. But the title says “Ten Masters”. Of those with Sòngshǐ biographies — eleven. Of the rest: Zhāng Zhèn, zì Dōngfǔ, Yìníng man, Xiào-zōng-time Zhōngshū shěrén, made out Lóng Dàyuān and Zēng Dí — appointed Chú zhī Gémén shì — incident in Hú Yí zhuàn. Zhèng Shí has two: one, zì Pǔzhī, Fúzhōu man, in Guāngzōng time as cóngchén memorialised establishing the Crown Prince’s regency — in Liú Zhèng zhuàn; one, in Shàoxī 1, as cóngzhèngláng, submitted Zhìshù in 10 juǎn — in the Shūlù jiětí. The one preserved here, jìnzhìshù author — is he this one? Fāng Tián, Liú Mùyuán, Chén Wǔ — three men — both shǐzhuàn and other sources are all without trace.
Sòng-men’s literary collections — famous in the historical record, today already eight or nine in ten lost; and those without name or biography, with chapters extinct — like the Fāng Tián etc. of this collection — zhǐbùshèngqū (countless). This book, though not the product of the kējǔ zhī xué (examination scholarship), still — by cánpiān duànjiǎn (broken pages and severed slips) preserved from the wreckage — its yìlùn often shows-its-worth; its cícǎi also each-and-every-one selectable. Indeed those who wǎngluó fàngshī (cast a net for what is lost) cannot dispense with it.
Reverently submitted, ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date. Late Southern Sòng, after the QìngyuánJiādìng period (1200–1224, based on the latest author Yè Shì d. 1223 being included) but before 1279. Jiànyáng Máshā in northern Fújiàn was the dominant Southern-Sòng commercial book-printing centre; the SKQS editors’ identification by bǎnshì (page format) places this book firmly in that workshop tradition.
Significance. (1) Sòng commercial-pedagogical anthology. Like KR4h0058, KR4h0064, and KR4h0065, the Shí xiānshēng àolùn zhù is a Sòng fángkè product aimed at the examination-prep market — gathering authoritative essays by míngrú on stock topics. Its annotations are the kind that workshop editors added to make texts accessible to students.
(2) Daoxue / Dao-xué canonical mix. The author-list is exceptionally instructive: it mixes strict Dao-xué figures (Chéngzǐ, Zhūxī, Zhāng Shì, Yáng Shí) with Zhèxué representatives (Lǚ Zǔqiān, Chén Fùliáng, Yè Shì) and Sū-school disciples (Zhāng Lěi). This canonical eclecticism is characteristic of pre-Yuán Southern-Sòng pedagogical anthologies, before the late-Yuán narrowing onto Zhūxī orthodoxy.
(3) Textual witness. The anthology is the principal source for the prose of several otherwise-thinly-witnessed Sòng-mid-period writers — especially Fāng Tián, Liú Mùyuán, Chén Wǔ. For the major figures it offers a useful collation source.
Translations and research
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Honolulu, 1992) — for the canonical-eclectic milieu the anthology reflects.
- 朱熹研究 Zhū-xī Yán-jiū journals — Zhū-xī prose reception.
- 王水照 Wáng Shuǐ-zhào, Sòng-dài wén-xué tōng-lùn — Sòng yì-lùn prose tradition.
- 內山精也 Uchiyama Seiya, Dú Sòng-dài “Ào-lùn zhù” sī-kǎo (Tokyo) — focused study.
Other points of interest
The book is an excellent example of how commercial-pedagogical anthology preserves what míngrén jí (collected-works of the famous) loses: workshop editions, printed in volume for students, lose their cultural prestige but survive in greater numbers — and through them, the writings of obscure Sòng masters reach later ages. The Jiànyáng Máshā trade was the engine of this preservation.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §31.4.
- ctext