Shijing bukao 石經補考

Shijing bukao 石經補考, occasionally also called Shijing kaoyi 石經考異, is a collection of studies on the Stone Classics compiled during the late Qing period 清 (1644-1911) by Feng Dengfu 馮登府 (1783-1841), courtesy name Yunbo 雲伯, style Liudong 柳東. He hailed from Jiajing 嘉興, Zhejiang, and was a bachelor (shujishi 庶吉士) in the Hanlin Academy 翰林院 and was then made a prefectural teacher (jiaoshou 教授) in Ningbo 寧波, Zhejiang.

His book of 12 juan length consists of seven parts, the Guochao shijing kaoyi 國朝石經考異 (2 juan), Han shijing kaoyi 漢石經考異 (2 juan), Wei shijing kaoyi 魏石經考異 (2 juan), Tang shijing wuzi bian 唐石經誤字辨 (1 juan), Houshu shijing kaoyi 後蜀石經考異 (2 juan), Beisong shijing kaoyi 北宋石經考異 (1 juan) and Nansong shijing kaoyi 南宋石經考異 (2 juan).

The part Guochao shijing kao deals with the stone inscriptions that were produced in 1793 according to the calligraphies of Jiang Heng 蔣衡 (1672-1743) who had critically analysed the Tang-period 唐 (618-907) Stone Classics and the proper texts of the Classics, in order to establish a reliable and orthodox version of these venerated scriptures. The texts of the ancient Stone Classics were analysed by Peng Yuanrui 彭元瑞 (1731-1803) in a book called Shijing kaowen tiyao 石經考文提要 that was revised and only finished in 1803. Wrong words in the Qing-period Stone Classics were thereupon replaced by those considered by Peng as the proper ones.

The outcome of this situation was that there were different rubbings from the Qing Stone Classics, some taken from the original version, and some from the revised version. The book of Feng Dengfu used the revised version based on Peng Yuanrui's research and took also into consideration the critical edition of the Thirteen Classics by Ruan Yuan 阮元 (1764-1849), Shisanjing jiaokanji 十三經校勘記.

Jiang Heng's calligraphy was rated as an excellent art work, but it had a peculiar style in some characters that therefore might be not considered as standard script, like his calligraphy of the word 墉 (rendered as {土+(戶/甫)}) or the word 篋 (abbreviated to {竹/匚巫}).

Concerning the Han-period 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) Stone Classics, there were only rare sources on the text of the Yijing 易經 (Zhouyi 周易). Feng Dengfu only incluced one paragraph (Xianxin 先心) from the chapter Xici 繫辭. Fragments of other parts of the Han-period Yijing were only discovered recently (Wenyan 文言, and the hexagrams Lin 臨, Guan 觀, Shihe 噬嗑, Bi 賁 and Bo 剝). The same is true for the text of the Yili 儀禮, of which no definitive originals were quoted in ancient books, but new discoveries show that the word 僎 in the transmitted text was written 遵 in the old-text version of the Yili.

The Stone Classics from the Wei period 曹魏 (220-265) that were written in three facetypes are only very fragmentarily transmitted. Fragments of the Shangshu 尚書 and Chunqiu 春秋 were unknown before modern excavations, and are therefore not to be found in Hong Shi’s 洪適 Lixu 隸續 or Su Wangmin's 蘇望民 reproductions that served as sources for Feng Dengfu.

In the book Tang shijing wuzi bian, Feng Dengfu expressed his opinion that Gu Yanwu's 顧炎武 (1613-1682) book Jinshi wenzi ji 金石文字記 did not exhaust all sources for a critical revision of the texts of the Tang-period Stone Classics, but Feng's own publication is also not complete. According to his preface the research was actually done by his friend Li Yide 李貽德 (1783-1832).

Of the Stone Classics of the empire of Later Shu 後蜀 (934-965), only fragments of the books Shijing, Zhouli 周禮, Zuozhuan 左傳, Shangshu, Zuozhuan and Lunyu 論語 are preserved, yet in Liu Tiqian's 劉體乾 (1512-1576) collection Shu shijing 蜀石經 rubbings from the Song-period 宋 (960-1279) Stone Classis Zhouli, Chunqiu-Zuozhuan 春秋左氏傳, Gongyangzhuan 公羊傳 and Guliangzhuan 穀梁傳 are preserved. It seems that these texts were insertions by later persons.

In the preface to the book on the Northern Song 北宋 (960-1126) Stone Classics, Feng Dengfu refers to a book of Wu Shanfu 吳山夫, the Jinshilu 金石錄, who says that Yan Jia 顏賈 personally visited the Stone Inscriptions of Kaifeng 開封, Henan, the capital of the Northern Song, and found out that two steles of the Yijing were still standing that includes the text of the hexagrams Sheng 升, Kun 困, Ge 革, Ding 鼎 and Weiji 未濟 was well as part of the chapter Xici. Of the Shangshu, three slabs were still preserved with the inscriptions of the chapters Mushi 牧誓, Wucheng 武成, Hongfan 洪範, Lü'ao 旅獒, Jinteng 金縢, Kanggao 康誥 and Jiugao 酒誥. In the late eighteenth century, Bi Yuan 畢沅 (1730-1797) found that nothing of these inscriptions was preserved, but a few parts of the Zhouli that were to be found in Chenliu 陳留. This statements is confirmed in Qian Daxin's 錢大昕 (1728-1804) article Jinshi bawei 金石跋尾. Today the remnants of the prefectural academy (fuxue 府學) in Kaifeng house some stones with chapters of the Classic Xiaojing 孝經. The twenty slabs from Chenliu were also brought to Kaifeng.

In Feng Dengfu's times, 86 stone slabs from the Southern Song period 南宋 (1127-1279) were still to be seen in Hangzhou 杭州, Zhejiang, but the texts were not very reliable. Of the Liji 禮經, only the chapter Zhongyong 中庸 was remaining. Feng Dengfu therefore collected as much material about these inscriptions from earlier sources.

Feng's book is a very important critical study of the inscriptions of the Stone Classics. Unfortunately the book was never printed as a coherent text. The individual parts are to be found in the series Huang-Qing jingjie 皇清經解.

Shijing kaoyi bu 石經考異補

Shijing kaoyi bu 石經考異補 is supplement to Feng Dengfu's 馮登府 (1783-1841) book Shijing kaoyi 石經考異, also known as Shijing bukao 石經補考. The supplement was written during the late Qing period 清 (1644-1911) by Chen Qingyong 陳慶鏞 (1795-1858), courtesy name Songnan 頌南. He hailed from Jinjiang 晉江, Fujian, and obtained his jinshi defree in 1832. His supplement has a length of 2 juan, but is only transmitted as a manuscript. The preface is dated 1852.

The first part discusses the fragments of the Confucian Classic Zhouli 周禮 from the Stone Classics of the empire of Later Shu 後蜀 (934-965), and the second part the remnants of the Gongyangzhuan 公羊傳 from the same collection. Chen Qingyong remarks that the chapter Shu shijing kaoyi 蜀石經考異 by Feng Dengfu speaks of the books Shijing 詩經 (Maoshi 毛詩) and Zuozhuan 左傳, but leaves out the two texts Zhouli and Gongyangzhuan, and Chen Qingyong's Shijing kaoyi bu is therefore an important supplement to Feng's catalogue.

In spite of this valuable contribution, Chen Qingyong has only made use of the palace edition of the texts, and his text has therefore to be compared with Miao Quansun's 繆荃孫 (1844-1919) critical edition Shu shijing jiaozi ji 蜀石經校字記.