XīJìn wénjì 西晉文紀
Records of Western-Jìn Prose by 梅鼎祚
About the work
A 20-juǎn late-Míng anthology of Western-Jìn prose by Méi Dǐngzuò (梅鼎祚) — covering the brief Western-Jìn dynasty (265–316), an era that was poetically distinctive for Hé Yàn 何晏 and Wáng Bì 王弼’s LǎoZhuāng qīngtán (Daoist clear-talk) movement. The Western Jìn lasted only four generations before fleeing south to Jiànkāng. Yet Méi’s anthology reveals that half the prose record consists of discussions of canonical texts and exhortations on social mores — the inherited Eastern-Hàn Confucian tradition continued into WèiJìn even amid the xuánxué (mysterious-learning) movement. The work includes 司馬懿 Sīmǎ Yì (Wèi-era), Sīmǎ Shī 司馬師, and Sīmǎ Zhāo 司馬昭 under their imperial titles — following the Jìnshū’s “Three Founders” precedent. The SKQS editors criticise this as an error: by historiographical reasoning, Sīmǎ Yì/Shī/Zhāo should be affixed to the end of Wèi, not the beginning of Jìn.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the XīJìn wénjì in 20 juǎn — the Míng Méi Dǐngzuò edited it.
Western Jìn transmitted four generations — wéi rì wú duō (only a few days, brief). Hé Yàn and Wáng Bì and their followers used LǎoZhuāng qīngyán (LǎoZhuāng clear-language) to lead one another in turn; jìnyín bùfǎn (gradually drowned, not returning) — eventually arriving at the southern relocation (nándù) and “settling for peace” (piānān).
Yet looking at what Dǐngzuò edits — one dynasty’s prose — tǎolùn diǎngù chónglì fēngsú zhě (those discussing canonical references and exhortations on social mores) still constitute half. This is because the Eastern-Hàn-and-after old-master and venerable-Confucian legacy of teaching — traversed the Three Kingdoms and still had survivors. Without Dǐngzuò gathering and compiling, we would not know that from Jiànwǔ (Eastern-Hàn founding) back the country could still be established because lǐjiào wèimǐn (the Confucian ritual teaching had not yet perished).
Among these, many use the prefaces of shī and fù to make up the juǎnzhì (fascicle-volumes) — especially numerous compared to other dynasties — feels somewhat gēliè (splitting-apart).
Further: Sīmǎ Yì and going down to Sīmǎ Shī, Sīmǎ Zhāo — though the Jìnshū běnjì records the “Three Founders” together — yet by the standard of historical writing this lacks chronological-boundary. Dǐngzuò already compiles 8 dynasties’ prose comprehensively — these three should be appended to the end of Wèi, so that the titles are not awry and the eras are not misaligned. But he followed the Jìnshū’s defect: keeping the imperial titles for opening pieces — this is also shī yú jiūzhèng (failure to correct).
Reverently submitted, ninth month of Qiánlóng 42 (1777). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date. c. 1605–1618.
Significance. (1) The work covers the canonical xuánxué moment: figures like Hé Yàn, Wáng Bì, Ruǎn Jí 阮籍 (in WèiJìn transition), Jī Kāng 嵇康, Pān Yuè 潘岳, Lù Jī 陸機, Lù Yún 陸雲 — the Western-Jìn literary brilliance. (2) Méi’s observation — that Confucian-ritual instruction (lǐjiào) survived in Western-Jìn prose despite the xuánxué fashion — is a substantive theoretical point about Western-Jìn cultural history that Qīng scholars endorse. (3) The work’s chronological-boundary defect (Sīmǎ Yì etc. placed in Jìn rather than Wèi) is the kind of editorial issue that late-Míng anthological projects routinely show — projecting later dynastic frameworks back onto pre-imperial figures. (4) The volume preserves a large number of fùxù (rhapsody prefaces) — making it a major source for Western-Jìn rhapsody criticism.
Translations and research
- David R. Knechtges, Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature (Princeton, 1982/1987/1996) — the standard Western Wén-xuǎn translation, covers Western-Jìn rhapsodies extensively.
- Donald Holzman, La vie et la pensée de Hi K’ang (223–262 ap. J.-C.) (Leiden, 1957) — major study of Jī Kāng.
- Richard B. Mather, Shih-shuo Hsin-yu: A New Account of Tales of the World (Minneapolis, 1976) — context for the xuán-xué circle.
Other points of interest
The work’s Sīmǎ Yì/Shī/Zhāo opening illustrates the tension between historiographical truth and dynastic conventional treatment in Chinese anthology editing. Sīmǎ Yì was a Wèi general (not a Jìn emperor); but the Jìnshū (Táng compilation) anachronistically gave him an imperial běnjì (founder’s annals). The SKQS editors prefer historiographical accuracy; Méi (and his Táng sources) prefer the conventional dynastic-founding narrative.
Links
- ctext
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §32, §38.