book culture and textual transmission in sung china

Harvard-Yenching Institute

Book Culture and Textual Transmission in Sung ChinaAuthor(s): Susan CherniackSource: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Jun., 1994), pp. 5-125Published by: Harvard-Yenching InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2719389Accessed: 24/07/2010 08:25

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Book Culture and Textual Transmission in Sung China

SUSAN CHERNIACK University of Colorado, Boulder

TEXTS are always changed in the course of transmission, by accident or design. But not all changes are sanctioned, as Hung

Mai AA (1123-1202) reminds us with his story of the five Sung woodblock-engravers who were struck by lightning after changing the texts of prescriptions in a medical book they had been engraving.1 Whether a particular change is sanctioned will depend on the

This study originated in a paper delivered at the 202d Meeting of the American Oriental Society, Cambridge, Mass., March 1992; portions of later drafts were presented at seminars at Harvard University and the University of Washington. I wish to thank the participants for their comments, and to record my gratitude to colleagues who read parts or all of the evolving manuscript and offered criticisms that led to many improvements, and also to those who suggested or generously provided materials that enriched this study: Maggie Bickford, Peter K. Bol, Judith M. Boltz, William G. Boltz, Timothy Connor, S6ren Edgren, Ronald C. Egan, Michael A. Fuller, Horst W. Huber, David R. Knechtges, Paul W. Kroll, Frederick W. Mote, AlfredaJ. Murck, Harold D. Roth, Kidder Smith, Stuart H. Sargent, Shenjin ,?, Hugh M. Stimson, and Stephen F. Teiser. This study was completed in 1993 with fellowship support from the National Endowment of the Humanities.

Note on conventions: Unless otherwise indicated, Sung wood-block editions are identified by the date of engraving, rather than by dates of printing or distribution, which may be very different. On the rationale for this convention, see S6ren Edgren, "Southern Song Printing at Hangzhou, " BMFEA 62 (1989): 25. The translations of government agencies and official titles are in most cases taken from Charles 0. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985). Old and Middle Chinese reconstructions follow Hugh M. Stimson.

I-chien chih AMz- (Shih-wan-chuan lou ts'ung-shu edition, 2d ser., 1879): Ping-chih, "Shu-

5

6 SUSAN CHERNIACK

nature and status of the text, the authority vested in the individual making the change, and also on society's understanding of what transmission entails. That Chinese responses to textual change have differed historically from Western responses is partly due to differences in the concepts of transmission. This essay will draw attention to aspects of Chinese textual transmission favoring change, with special reference to the Sung (960-1279), a period of remarkable textual volatility. Let us begin by drawing a contrast to Western attitudes.

Modern Western textual criticism has come to regard transmission as a wholly degenerative process through which texts become "corrupted" and "contaminated." It views changes occurring in transmission pessimistically as a series of injuries inflicted on a text. The rhetoric of Western textual criticism underscores this. F. W. Hall and Martin West speak of the "pathology of texts,' '2 Paul Maas cautions that some texts may be "incurable,"3 A. E. Hous- man compares interpolations to "bullet-wounds, ' 4 and David

chou k'o-kung," 12.1 a-b. Hung Mai says the woodblock engravers belonged to a rowdy group attached to the Shu-chou 2f')I1 Regional Headquarters (Fu-chien Circuit), who were employed in 1046 to produce half of the blocks for the Huai-nan Fiscal Commission edition of a standard medical reference, Wang Huai-yin's TE1RP (fl. 976-84) T'ai-p'ing sheng-huifang t

+%!*Jt (992). Hung says: "These five men were big drinkers and lazy by nature. Being impatient to finish the blocks, they freely changed characters having many strokes and the dosages for medicines, thus misleading their fellow men. So they were punished. " According to another account of this episode, the engravers deliberately changed the prescriptions because they were angry at not being paid on time, and, of six guilty parties, four were struck dead; see Wang Ming-ch'ing E (1127-after 1214), T'ou-hsia lu RON (Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1920), "Shu-chou k'an-chiang," 27a. As this story suggests, errors in medical imprints were a great source of worry in Sung times. The preface to the Fu-chien Fiscal Commission edition of T'ai-p'ing sheng-huifang (1147) reports that the editors had to correct over ten thousand errors and omissions made in previous editions; see Okanishi Tameto FfiAA, Sung i-ch'ien i-chi k'ao 5W1H0j?W (Peking: Jen-min wei-sheng ch'u-pan-she, 1958), p. 928. Both versions of the story are quoted in Yeh Te-hui 'fft (1864-1927), Shu- lin yu-hua

- i (1928), collected with his Shu-lin ch'ing-hua Z1t#jC (1920) in Shu-lin

ch 'ing-hua, Shu-lin tsa-hua MMm tM, ed. Li Mi -]!M and Nagasawa Kikuya Aj-f 3fii1 (Taipei: Shih-chieh shu-chui, 1970), 1.7. Yeh Te-hui's works are indispensable sources for the history of Chinese books and printing.

2 F. W. Hall, A Companion to Classical Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), p. 154. Martin L. West, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique Applicable to Greek and Latin Texts (Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1973), p. 57.

3 "Unheilbar," see Textkritik, 3d ed. (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1957), p. 1; and Textual Criti- cism, trans. Barbara Flower (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), p. 12.

4 "The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism" (1921), reprinted in Art and Error:

BOOK CULTURE IN SUNG CHINA 7

Vieth ministers to texts that have been "bowdlerized and cas- trated. "5 Transmission is seen as a highly risky business. This view may say as much about modern anxieties about recovering and preserving the Western cultural legacy as about textual transmission itself.

The role assigned to the Western textual critic is to intervene in this historical process to purge the text of its accumulated filth and disease. The vehicle that has been developed to present the results is the "critical edition," which takes as its goal the construction of a text that accurately reflects the author's intentions, or one that ap- proaches that ideal as closely as possible.6 As textual criticism has been conventionally practiced, the editor applies the genealogical method through the two interrelated stages of recensio and emendatio, ending up in the aptly named divinatio phase of conjectural emendation, where editorial innovations are sanctioned, and where, as Hall has said, the critic attempts to "transcend the tradition . . . by eliminating the residuum of error which even the best documents will be found to contain."7

Modern Textual Editing, ed. Ronald Gottesman and Scott Bennett (Bloomington: Indiana Uni- versity Press, 1970), pp. 11-12.

5 "A Textual Paradox: Rochester's 'To a Lady in a Letter' " (1960), reprinted in Art and Error, pp. 102-3.

6 On the theory of a critical edition, see Fredson Bowers, "The Method for a Critical Edition," in On Editing Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Dramatists (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Library, 1955), pp. 67-101, and "Principle and Practice in the Editing of Early Dramatic Texts," in Textual and Literary Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), pp. 117-50; alsoJames Thorpe, "The Ideal of Textual Criticism," in Principles of Textual Criticism (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1972), pp. 50-79.

7 Hall, Companion, p. 108. On the genealogical method associated with Karl Lachmann (1793-185 1), the classic studies are by Sebastiano Timpanaro, Lagenesi del metodo del Lachmann (1963; revised edition, Padua: Liviana, 1981), and Giorgio Pasquali, Storia della tradizione e crit- ica del testo (1934; 2d edition, Florence: Le Monnier, 1962), the latter of which provides an important critique. For an overview of historical developments, see G. Thomas Tanselle, "Clas- sical, Biblical, and Medieval Textual Criticism and Modern Editing," Studies in Bibliography 36 (1953): 21-68; reprinted in Textual Criticism and Scholarly Editing (Charlottesville: Univer- sity Press of Virginia, 1990), pp. 274-321. For an introduction to textual methods, start with William Proctor Williams and Craig S. Abbott, An Introduction to Bibliographical and Textual Studies, 2nd ed. (New York: Modern Language Association, 1989), pp. 52-75 (on the Lachman- nian method, pp. 56-57), and the useful bibliography, pp. 101-4. An interpretation of the method is given in William G. Boltz, "Textual Criticism and the Ma Wang tui Lao Tzu," HJAS 44.1 (1984): 185-224; see also Harold David Roth, The Textual History of the Huai-nan

8 SUSAN CHERNIACK

Yet the goal of the critical edition, contemporary textual theorists argue, is undermined by the scholarly apparatus attached to the edition's reading text. The use of the apparatus changes the reading experience. As we move between one version of the work and another, the shape of the text shifts. What we encounter is not the work as the author wrote it but what Jerome J. McGann calls a "shape-shifting" entity-an ever-changing work of composite authorship, which reveals itself as an ongoing social project, with contributions from sundry readers, editors, collators, printers, and booksellers.8 From this perspective, the variations among the versions may be seen to mark events in the life of the work, like rings on a tree. And insofar as a literary work may be said to have a life, the process can never be arrested, although this may be an implicit goal of the scholar who prepares the critical edition. Whether or not the critical text succeeds in fulfilling the author's intentions (and this is usually unverifiable), we can say with McGann that it is certainly "not a text which ever existed before."9 It is not the author's text reconstituted somehow. Like all previous versions, it is a new text, which emerges in a particular historical context but carries with it the entire history of its evolution.'0

The concept of a literary work as a natural shape-shifter opens the way to the study of textual change as a social phenomenon and to the non-pejorative evaluation of a work in different phases of its development. This approach, which in recent years has been variously developed by D. F. McKenzie, Peter L. Shillingsburg, and McGann, among others," may be applied to the study of change in

Tzu, Monographs of the Association for Asian Studies, no. 46 (Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies, 1992), pp. 121-22.

8 A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), pp. 81-94.

9 McGann, Critique, p. 92. '1 Ibid., p. 93. " See McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts, The Panizzi Lectures, 1985 (Lon-

don: British Library, 1986); Shillingsburg, "Key Issues in Editorial Theory," Analytical & Enumerative Bibliography 6 (1982): 3-16, Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age (Athens: Univer- sity of Georgia Press, 1986), and "An Inquiry into the Social Status of Texts and Modes of Textual Criticism," Studies in Bibliography 42 (1989): 55-79; and essays by McGann in The Beauty of Inflections: Literary Investigations in Historical Method and Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), and especially, "The Socialization of Texts," in The Textual Condition (Prince- ton: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 69-87. Useful critiques of the work of McKenzie,


Chinese textual transmission, for it suits both the complex evolution of older texts and the tolerance for the collaborative authorship that characterizes traditional Chinese textual transmission.

CHINESE ATTITUDES TOWARD TEXTUAL CHANGE IN TRANSMISSION

Like Western textual critics, Chinese critics expect texts to be altered in transmission. Unsanctioned changes are typically described as changes that falsify a text. The character o Mt, as used in phrases describing textual error such as o-ch'uan Xt,4, o-wu YtX, o-miu , and o-t'o M{t%, means "error" or "to make erroneous by changing" -that is, to falsify a text by changing (IL) the words (0412

An early instance of unsanctioned change in a historical chronicle is noted in the Lii-shih ch'un-chi'iu Mik*# attributed to Li! Pu-wei M

T-,i (d. 235 B.C.). The expert who finds the error is Tzu-hsia +X

(Pu Shang Ii, 507-420 B.C.), traditionally identified as the textual critic among Confucius's disciples:

When Tzu-hsia was on his way to Chin, he stopped in Wei, [where he encoun- tered] a person reading aloud a historian's record, which said: "The Chin army crossed the River with three pigs. " Tzu-hsia said: "That's wrong. [-Ew] should be EA. e and are close, and W and A resemble each other. " When he arrived in Chin and made inquiries, they said: "It should be "The Chin army crossed the River in [the cyclical year] EA.,,13

Shillingsburg, McGann, and others are found in G. Thomas Tanselle, "Historicism and Crit- ical Editing, 1979-85," in Textual Criticism Since Greg: A Chronicle, 1950-1985 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987), pp. 121-53, and in "Textual Criticism and Literary Soci- ology," Studies in Bibliography 44 (1991): 87-99.

12 See glosses on o as wei S. ("falsify") and hua fL ("change") in Cheng Hsiian's ]VA (127-200) commentary, in K'ung Ying-ta 7LA (574-648), comp., Mao Shih cheng-i ="iL A, in [Ch'ung-k'an Sung-pen] Shih-san-ching chu-shufu chiao-k'an-chi 1tq? t? !iWI ;I9Eg (1815-17), ed. Juan Yuian iG7G (1764-1849), 2 vols. (facsimile reprint, Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1980), 11:1.165a (no. 183, "Mien-shui" H*), and 12:1.173c (no. 191, "Chieh-nan shan" iIiW). See also the glosses on o as hua ("change") and asyao #;-P ("rumor, false speech") in Hsing Ping Jfi3ji' (932-1010), comp., Erh-ya chu-shu Af., in Shih-san-ching chu-shu, 3.17c ("Shih-yen" 2,) and 2.9a ("Shih-ku" 2 subcommentary), respectively.

13 Liu-shih ch'un-ch'iu (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), "Shen-hsing lun" 2: "Ch'a ch'uan," 22.1 lb. See also in Wang Su TE (195-256), K'ung-tzu chia-yii 7L#g (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), "Ch'i-shih-erh ti-tzu chieh" 38, 9.2a. Note that for she I "cross water," the variant tu A ("ford") is found in the K'ung-tzu chia-yui version and in citations of this passage in Liu Hsieh V!IJIl (c. 465-c. 522), Wen-hsin tiao-lung 1 see Wen-hsin tiao-lung hsin-shu fu

10 SUSAN CHERNIACK

In the Wei version, the pigs join the campaign as the consequence of a confusion in ancient script characters that resemble one another. In ancient script, pig (shih C) and the earthly branch, hai A, are both written with the same graph SFi ,14 and the heavenly stem, chi E, is written with the graph x, which, when carelessly written, can look like the graph for three (san ), -.15 In fact, confusion of similarlyshaped graphs has long been recognized by Chinese critics as one of the most fruitful sources of transcription errors. So the Pao-p'u tzu MtVf predicts, "As the proverb says, when a document is transcribed three times, 'fish' is bound to become 'Lu' (the state or surname; stupid), and 'emperor' is bound to become 'tiger' " Fi -11 =f*,A AE3E9;` in proof of which, the second half of this sentence is now written in most versions as " 'vacant' is bound to become 'tiger"' Ot' 17

t'ung-chien Tfi fA*, Index du Wen sin tiao long, avec texte critique, ed. Wang Li-ch'i fWIJi, Chung Fa Han-hsiieh yen-chiu-so t'ung-chien ts'ung-k'an, no. 15 (1951; reprint, Taipei: Ch'eng-wen Publishing, 1968), "Lien tzu" 39, p. 104, 11. 9-10; and in Ma Tsung ZO (d. 823), comp., I-lin gH (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), 2.27a.

14 According to Hsui Shen 24:, Shuo-wen chieh-tzu &i,ZTm (presented A.D. 121); see Shuo- wen chieh-tzu chu i1, ed. Tuan Yiu-ts'ai &Et (1735-1815) (Ching-yun lou ts'ung-shu edition, 1821), hai 14B.44b, shih 9B.35b. See also Wang Shu-min's iE1 evaluation of the old-script hai graph in his Chiao-ch 'ou hsueh Om*, Chung-yangyen-chiuyiian li-shihyi-yenyen-chiu so chuan- k'an d no. 37 (1959), 3b-4a.

15 See Shuo-wen chieh-tzu chu, chi 14B.21b, san 1A.17b. 16 Ko Hung A (283-344), Pao-p'u tzu, as quoted in Yu Shih-nan J#: (558-638),

comp., Pei-t'ang shu-ch'ao Jft-4P, ed. K'ung Kuang-t'ao 7L (1888 or soon after; facsimile reprint, 2 vols., Taipei: Hsin-hsing shu-chii, 1978), "K'an-chiao miu-wu," 101.2b; I-lin, 4.17b; Li Fang aII (925-96) et al., comp., T'ai-p'ingyu-lan jciIzPt (SPTK edition, 3d ser.), "Cheng miu-wu," 618.3b; and Sun I * (d. after 1205), Lu-chaishih-erh pien FW -y8 (Chih-pu-tsu chai ts'ung-shu edition, 25th ser., 1811), "Shih-lei," 16.14b. In Pei-t'ang

shu-ch'ao, hu )j is written with the variant form S. The same form is seen in Han "pa-fen A54 script" manuscripts from Ma-wang-tui; noted in the discussion of this proverb in "Tso- t'an Ch'ang-sha Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-shu" I WW 220.9

(1974): 56. 17 Pao-p'u Tzu (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), "Nei-p'ien": "Hsia-lan," 19.7a, and other stan-

dard editions. The change to hsu was intended to produce a graph similar in shape to the standard form for hu Aj. Earlier, hu must have been written with a variant that resembles ti I. Possibilities include -N (see n. 16) and also *, which occurs in the phrase 4#k** cited in the entry for this graph in Wu Jen-ch'en :ffi (ca. 1628-89), comp., Tzu-hui pu *j, "Chin-pu" rh I; see Han-yi ta tzu-tien ffllfftT , comp. Han-yii ta tzu-tien pien-chi wei- yuan-hui i 8 vols. (Wuhan: Hu-pei tz'u-shu ch'u-pan-she; [Chengtu:] Ssu- ch'uan tz'u-shu ch'u-pan-she, 1986-90), p. 731. Both variants are attested in Six Dynasties inscriptions, e.g., t in 'Wang Tan-hu mu-chih" EP& :X (A.D. 359); and 1F in "Sun


An explicit goal of traditional Chinese textual criticism has been to weed out unsanctioned changes in order to restore works to some former or original state (fu ch'i chiu &A-M, fu ch'iyiian &A-YR). The identification of that state has varied according to contemporary con- structions of the perennial cultural project to "restore antiquity" (fu-ku iW-). The process has been described since Han times in terms of a socio-political metaphor, "to instill order in" or "regulate texts" (chih-shu M)," the link between political and textual order having been established early on in the Ta-hsueh chapter of the Li-chi, which describes an ideal state as one in which "vehicles have uniform axle lengths, texts have uniform script, and morality adheres to a uniform code of ethics" (28.3). A uniform system of writing was the original ideal, but in later times the statement was reinterpreted to include the elimination of textual discrepancies among different versions of the same work.

To aid in the identification of unsanctioned changes, textual critics have developed taxonomies of textual errors. Most taxonomies concentrate on changes in the Confucian classics and pre-Han philosophical works, works that, together with the Han histories, have traditionally attracted the most attention from Chinese textual scholars, due to their overriding cultural importance. A number of such inventories have been produced since the Ch'ing, a period during which text-critical debates dominated intellectual discourse.

Ch'iu-sheng teng erh-pai-jen tsao-hsiang" *kt- A ARM (483-502); see Fushimi Chudkei tM 'PR, comp., Shodo daiiten . 2 vols. (Kadokawa shoten, 1979), p. 1954.

18 Early uses include the Han shu account of the collation of the Chou I by Liu Hsiang XIJ[0I (79-8 B.C.) and his son Liu Hsin t (d. A.D. 23). They are said to "chih" the work; see Ban Gu i!ft (32-92), comp., Han shu, in Po-na pen erh-shih-ssu shih iZ-tV1R. (SPTK edition, 1930-1937 [hereafter PNPS]), "Ch'u Yuan-wang chuan," 36.10b. Also note Wang Ch'ung's FEIt (A.D. 27-ca. 100) remark: "Putting documents in order (chih shu) and establishing accurate registers is the work of assistant clerks. Discussing the Way and debating policy is the work of wise scholars"; Lun-heng &N (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), "Hsiao-li p'ien," 13.33a. The phrase chih-shu occurs in the common expression chih-shufa ft;, "method for correcting texts, " with an early occurrence in Chia Ssu-hsieh N!, Ch 'i-minyao-shu W$X WI (first half of the sixth century) (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), "Tsa-shuo" 30, 3.16a. Beginning in the Han, chih-shu also occurs in various titles of government officials whose principal or nominal responsibility was to prepare or handle documents; see Hucker, nos. 1060, 1065-67. Interestingly, chih can also mean "to treat" (an illness), but the pathological metaphor was never applied to textual criticism.

12 SUSAN CHERNIACK

Among the most influential are Wang Nien-sun's Ei (1744- 1832) postface to Tu Huai-nan Tzu tsa-chih , and Yu Yiieh's RN (1821-1907) Ku-shu i-i chu-li J.2 These serve as the inspiration for Wang Shu-min's exhaustive enumeration of 122 types of textual error in Chiao-ch'ou hsiieh.2' Working toward a simplified typology, Chiang Yiian-ch'ing JiEP has analyzed the types listed by Wang Nien-sun and Yu Yueh to produce a list of fourteen basic types of error.22 Such taxonomies show the range of textual permutations that Chinese readers have come to expect in transmission. My own inventory of common types of textual errors, in the appendix, outlines the types of errors to which this study refers.

A comparison of lists of Chinese and Western textual errors confirms that people everywhere are much alike, at least when it comes to making mistakes. Copyists are prone to commit the same sorts of psychological blunders in transcription, and revisers are motivated by the same good intentions to improve texts.23 But

19 The postface is variously cited as " Tu Huai-nan Tzu tsa-chih hsiu" a, "hou-hsii" &, "shu-hou" A& (dated 1816); see Wang Nien-sun and Wang Yin-chih FEq I?L (1766-1834), comp., Tu-shu tsa-chih * (1832) (1870 edition; facsimile reprint, Kao-yu Wang-shih ssu- chung f TEHJiU9, no. 2, [Nanking]: Chiang-su ku-chi ch'u-pan-she, 1985), 9.21a-29a. Wang's list of types is presented in a convenient reference format in Chang Shun-hui 4 , ed., Wen-hsien hsueh lun-chu chi-yao t (Sian: Shan-hsi jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1985), pp. 345-58. All categories are presented, but the editor gives only the first example cited by Wang in each case.

20 See Ku-shu i-i chii-li, in Ti-i lou ts'ung-shu -g t; (Ch'un-tsai t'ang ch'iian-shu edition, 1899), 5:5-7. A punctuated, typeset edition is available in Yu Yueh et al., Ku-shu i-i chu-li wu- chung KiU (1956; reprint, Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1983), pp. 86-156. This book copies Ku-shu i-i chu-li ts'ung-k'an 0fi] (Changsha: Ting-wen shu-she, 1924), which includes Yii's list and supplementary lists by Liu Shih-p'ei WIJ;, Yang Shu-ta *1t, Ma Hsii-lun ,K {1; it also adds a list by Yao Wei-jui ttgg. The contents of this book have been incorporated into Ku-shu i-i chu-li teng ch'i-chung 4-L4 (Taipei: Shih-chieh shu-chii, 1962).

21 See "T'ung-li" AM, Chiao-ch'ou hsaeh, 136b-21 lb, an expansion of Wang's earlier enumeration of ninety types in "Chiao-ch'ou t'ung-li" iAi, CYYY 23 (1952): 303-47.

22 See Chiao-ch'ou hsueh shih K.P (Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1935), pp. 5-11 (in the simplified character reprint [Hofei: Huang-shan shu-she, 1985], pp. 3-7). Chiang's list has been copied, with some revisions and additional examples, in Tai Nan-hai t , Chiao-k'an hsueh kai-lun R.bJg (Sian: Shan-hsi jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1986), pp. 37-48. Chiang's book has also recently been published by Chao Chung-i imf+ R as Chao's own work, under the title Chiao-k'an hsueh shih-lueh t (Changsha: Yiieh-lu shu-she, 1983).

23 For listings of Western textual errors, see Hall, Companion, pp. 153-98; Vinton A. Dearing, A Manual of Textual Analysis (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959), pp. 10-18, repeated with supplements in his Principles and Practice of Textual


Chinese critics tend to interpret the errors rather differently from their Western counterparts. On the whole, Chinese critics have been satisfied to explain unsanctioned alterations in terms of personal mistakes due to mechanical lapses in attention, simple igno- rance, or willful recklessness in changing texts (wang-kai kI) on the basis of wild conjectures (i i kai tzu 1J14$f, JJL&Qkj). They do not take textual change to be the inevitable fruit of an intrinsically cor- ruptive process of transmission, as Western critics might. The streak of fatalism found in Western theories of textual incurability or indeterminacy is also lacking here.

This difference is because most Chinese editors, while recognizing the difficulty of correcting texts, hold that virtually all texts are

Criticism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 44-54; and James Willis, Latin Textual Criticism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972), pp. 53- 188.

I do not mean to suggest by this comparison that lists of Western textual error, which guide scholars in determining the direction in which textual change takes place, may be applied straightway for the same purpose to Chinese texts. P. M. Thompson and Michael Robert Broschat, though adopting elements of Dearing's method of textual analysis, wisely refrain from applying Dearing's rules of directional textual error in the absence of adequate analysis of the characteristics of change in Chinese texts; see comments in Thompson, The Shen Tzu Fragments, London Oriental Series, no. 29 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 180 n. 2; Broschat, " 'Guiguzi': A Textual Study and Translation" (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1985), pp. 81-82. Roth follows suit in adopting Thompson's modifications of Dearing in his analysis of the filiation of Huai-nan Tzu editions, see pp. 324-25, 383-85 n. 2, 414 nn. 3-4. However, Thompson does allow two directional principles involving lacunae as variants, which he believes "have validity independent of particular historical conditions. These are that in simple variations between a lacuna and an illegible graph, change is in the direction of the lacuna, and that in simple variations between a lacuna and an omission, change is in the direction of the omission"; idem. For Kuei-ku Tzu texts, Broschat posits direc- tionality in add-omission variations (change is in the direction of the omission) and transpositions (change is in the direction of the transposition shown in a single text); p. 82.

For an experiment to integrate Western and Chinese rules in a textual study of Chin P'ing Mei, see James T. Wrenn, "Textual Method in Chinese with Illustrative Examples," CHHP, n.s., 6.1-2 (1967): 150-98, esp. 161-63. Recently Yumiko F. Blanford has proposed rules of lexical, vacant (equivalent to add-omission), and transpositional errors, which may be applied to determine the most probable original word among variants offered by different versions of a work. Her methodology draws on stemmatics and the lectio difficilior principle as applied by Boltz in "Textual Criticism and the Ma Wang tui Lao Tzu"; see Blanford, "A Textual Approach to 'Zhanguo Zonghengjia Shu': Method of Determining the Proximate Original Word Among Variants," Early China 16 (1991): 187-207. Compare the application of Hall's rules to classical Indian texts in S. M. Katre, Introduction to Indian Textual Criticism (Bombay: Karnatak Publishing House, 1940), esp. pp. 55-71.

14 SUSAN CHERNIACK

correctable. Until recently, moreover, textual criticism has not been regarded as a matter to be left to specialists alone, but as an activity that all educated persons should pursue, and one that lies within their normal sphere of competence. By perfecting texts, scholar- editors participate in the great Confucian tradition of transmission, where there is less emphasis on disfigurement and more emphasis on the opportunities presented in transmission to improve texts. The challenges are by no means underrated. The scholar Yen Chih- t'ui M, (531-91), recognizing that literati are fond of revising texts, may caution eager players against setting upon texts without sufficient prior study: "To collate (chiao I_)24 and establish the text of a work is far from easy. [The Han palace collators] Yang Hsiung - (53 B.C.-A.D. 18) and Liu Hsiang set the standards. Let no one recklessly apply orpiment [tz'u-huang MR-used to erase errors in texts being collated] before exhaustively examining the world's texts."25 The dedicated book collector and collator Sung Shou 5M (991-1040) may lament that the job is never done: "Col- lating is like sweeping up dust. As you sweep in one place, dust springs up in another."26 The philologist Tuan Yii-ts'ai &3Ef (1735-1815), while remaining convinced that in most cases "the accuracy of the text can be determined by collation, " may still acknowledge the difficulty of correcting longstanding errors resulting from earlier, unindicated emendations.27 Yet despite such worries, all be-

24 Chiao is consistently translated as "collate" throughout this study. As a procedure of textual criticism, the meaning of chiao is not restricted to the English sense of comparing and tabulating textual similarities and differences. Chiao covers a broad range of editorial activities, from major surgery that may be required to revise and establish a new text down to proofreading. The specific meaning depends on the context.

25 Yen-shih chia-hsin Jffif 011 (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), "Mien-hsuieh chang" 8, 1.36a. Yen's warning is frequently quoted in discussions of collation methods. Textual criticism is a main topic of this chapter, translated by Teng Ssu-yiu in Family Instructions for the Yen Clan: Yen-shih Chia-hsiin by Yen Chih-t'ui, T'oung Pao Monograph no. 4 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), pp. 64-84, esp. 83-84.

26 Sung Shou goes on to explain that even after books are collated three or four times, errors still remain; Shen Kua &M (1032-96), Meng-hsi pi-t'an V , see Meng-hsi pi-t'an chiao-cheng K.f, ed. Hu Tao-ching -MA , 2 vols. (1956; reprint, Shanghai: Shang-hai ku- chi ch'u-pan-she, 1987), 25.824, no. 479. Sung Shou's comment has become proverbial. For information on Sung as a book collector and collator, see ibid., pp. 824-26; and P'an Mei- yueh *!V1, Sung-tai ts'ang-shu chia k'ao i (Taipei: Hsueh-hai ch'u-pan-she, 1980), pp. 67-70.

27 For Tuan Yu-ts'ai's opinion on the difficulty of coping with unindicated emendations,


lieve that responsible intellectuals should assume an active editorial role in transmission. Thus Yu Yueh speaks with the traditional confidence of scholar-editors when he says, "If you wish books to improve me, then you must first let me improve the books.""

In China, the prospect of failure has been offset by a faith in transmission as the process through which texts become perfected. The exemplar is Confucius, who said of himself: "I transmit. I don't make new works" ANiffiT-Ifl (Lun-ya 7. 1), and who is venerated as the editor who produced the Six Classics, resuming an old family tradition started by a seventh-generation ancestor, Cheng-k'ao-fu iEtX [3t] (fl. 799-28 B.C.), identified as the earliest collator in Chinese literary history.29 Tradition holds that Confucius did not merely pass on the texts in the form in which he found them. He changed them, thereby transforming them into ching M!, canonical works. P'i Hsi-jui 1-$ (1850-1908) makes this point in explaining that prior to Confucius, the component texts of the Classics existed

see "Ch'ung-k'an Ming-tao erh-nien Kuo-yu hsii" IT in Ching-yiin lou chi Mrli *M (Ching-yiin lou ts'ung-shu edition), 8.9b-Oa. For his opinion on the relative difficulties of collating a copy of text against a base-text to eliminate all discrepancies, as opposed to collating the base-text to determine whether it faithfully reflects the author's original and whether its meaning has been interpreted correctly, see "Yui Hu Hsiao-lien (Shih-ch'i) shu" AtM1* t*1, ibid., 5.35a-b; and "Yui chu t'ung-chih shu lun chiao-shu chih nan" g, *::L t:Xt, ibid., 12.47a, where Tuan, in discussing relative difficulties, expands his definition of collation to include the evaluation of the author's meaning as the more difficult stage. This definition is widely quoted in scholarship on collation; see translations in Cheuk-woon Taam [T'an Cho-yiian Xif], The Development of Chinese Libraries Under the Ch'ing Dynasty. 1644-1911 (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1935), p. 71, and Benjamin A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984), p. 68.

28 "Sun Chung-jung cha-i hsii" M rtL#8, in Ch'un-tsai t'ang tsa-wen 3f 2 ; (Ch'un-tsai t'ang ch'iian shu edition, 1899), 6:7.8b. Yu Yueh is echoing an earlier comment by Huang Teng-yen k to the young Lu Wen-ch'ao U (1717-96) on Lu's textual scholarship. Here, Yu repeats the comment as praise, but Lu was stung by the remark, which he recalls in a later apologia, "Ch'iin-shu shih-pu hsiao-yin" if iMJ'|, in Pao-ching t'ang wen-chi *,MM1: (Pao-ching t'ang ts'ung-shu edition, 1795), 7.16a-b.

29 Cheng-k'ao-fu is named as the arranger of the "Shang Odes" in the "Shang sung p'u" 0 E of the Mao Shih (he put the "Na" BP ode first) and as the collator of the "Odes" in the Kuo-yii ; see Mao Shih cheng-i 20:3.352b; and Kuo-yu (SPTK edition, 1 st ser.), "Lu yii" $

f 2, 5.15b. Confucius is earliest identified as a seventh-generation descendent in the genealo- gy given in Ssu-ma Ch'ien J (145-ca. 86 B.C.), comp., Shih-chi, PE (PNPS), "K'ung- tzu shih-chia," 47.3a. Both traditions are discussed by K'ung Ying-ta in Mao Shih cheng-i 20:3.352b-c.

16 SUSAN CHERNIACK

as documents and collections of statements, but they lacked canonical significance. This, they acquired by virtue of Confucius's corrections.30

As a model, Confucius's work provided broad sanction for various types of editorial interventions. According to different traditions, Confucius created the Shih ching by excising 2,700 poems from an original corpus of some 3,000 and reorganizing the selected pieces; he created the Shang shu by rearranging and editing down original historiographic documents in 3,240 chapters (p 'ien ,) into a work of 120 chapters; he either abridged or augmented a Chou ritual text to produce the 17-chapter I-li; he corrected a musical text or texts to produce the Yiieh ching (lost by Han times); he compiled the Chou I by combining ancient divination texts attributed to Fu- hsi and King Wen, with exegesis by the Duke of Chou, and adding commentaries known as the "Ten Wings" to expound their meanings; and he edited and reworded the historical records of the state of Lu to produce his Ch 'un-ch 'iu.31 The changes were justified by the consequences: by dint of Confucius's improvements, these important texts survived. As the K'ung-tzu chia-yui TL-FT- explains: "The texts and documents of the former kings were confused and disorganized. . . . Confucius handed down their teachings to posterity by fashioning them into model forms."32 Such a view provided constant encouragement for editorial activism aimed at or- ganizing, reorganizing, and refashioning texts.

Though the exact extent and nature of Confucius's involvement with different classics has been long debated, the traditional consensus is that Confucius took an active role in composing some of them.33 He was not merely an editor or compiler, an abridger or expur- gator. In the case of the Chou I and the Ch 'un-ch 'iu, he comes close to being what we would call an author. To sum up the contributions

30 See Ching-hsieh li-shih Fff (1907), ed. Chou Yii-t'ung )9pTMt1J (1928; revised edition, 1959; reprint, Taipei: Ho Lo ch'u-pan-she, 1974), pp. 19-20. P'i Hsi-jui's idea is noted and discussed byJohn B. Henderson in Scripture, Canon, and Commentary: A Comparison of Confu- cian and Western Exegesis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 29.

31 P'i Hsi-jui, Ching-hsueh li-shih, pp. 19-26. Extensive discussions are provided in his Ching-hsuieh t'ung-lun OAA (1907) (1936; reprint, Taipei: Ho Lo ch'u-pan-she, 1974).

32 K'ung-tzu chia-yiu, "Pen-hsing chieh" 39, 9.1 lb. 33 See Henderson, Scripture, pp. 21-30.


by saying that Confucius was more than a "mere" transmitter may be to define transmission too narrowly and from the Western perspective.34 The traditional interpretation of Confucius's textual work as an act of transmission suggests that the Chinese understanding of transmission includes a concept of collaborative authorship that is excluded from the modern Western term.

Yet Confucius has also been praised as a model for conservatism in editing. This image is supported by two passages in the Lun-yii, often quoted by editors. In one passage, Confucius urges disciples to "listen much but leave out what you have doubts about (+'Ig1M#), and speak cautiously about the remainder" (2.18). In the other, Confucius criticizes current text-editing by saying: "I am old enough to have known a time when historians would leave a blank in the text [or leave out a text, when they had doubts about it] 3MR P_zZ-t, and when people who had horses would lend them to those who had none. Both customs are now defunct" (15.25). Fur- ther proof of Confucius's conservatism is found in two entries in the Ch'un-ch'iu that are said to display textual errors that Confucius recognized but left uncorrected because he wished to teach later editors caution in emending texts. The locus classicus is the Kung-yang commentary on the Ch'un-ch'iu entry for Duke Chao f-, year 12 (529 B.C.).35 The Ch'un-ch'iu states: "Kao Yen of Ch'i led an army and subdued North Yen's Earl at Yang" WWl MAXkAMTW Ac- cording to the Kung-yang chuan, the passage should read: "Kao Yen of Ch'i led an army and subdued the Noble Scion, Yang Sheng"''

91= fRLOR1i I . That is, in the Ch'un-ch'iu text, po {b (Earl) has replaced kung X (Noble), yii t (at) has replaced tzu 3T (Scion), and the final character sheng I (Yang's personal name) has been dropped.

In the Kung-yang chuan, when a disciple urges Confucius to emend the text, Confucius reproves him: "The 'Earl at Yang'-what can that be? [It should be] 'the Noble Scion, Yang Sheng.' The Master

34 Henderson appears to adopt this perspective; see ibid., p. 29. 3 See Kung-yang chuan chu-shu 9#T1ML, in Shih-san ching chu-shu, 22.126b. The second

Ch'un-chiu entry is from Duke Chao, year 14, summer, fourth month; see the Tu Yue fte (222-84) commentary on lacunae in the text, in Ch'un-ch'iu Tso chuan cheng-i 47.373c; discussed in Lu Wen-ch'ao, "Ch'un-ch'iu tsun-wang fa-wei pa" t=t43EE , Pao-ching t'ang wen-chi, 8.6b-7b.

18 SUSAN CHERNIACK

said: 'I was aware of the event at the time it occurred.' A person beside him asked: 'Since you know about it, why don't you correct it?' He replied: 'How will you ever deal with matters about which you know nothing?' "36 Why did Confucius not correct the text? The Kung-yang chuan commentator Ho Hsiu PMif4 (129-82) explains that it was because Confucius "wanted to provide a model for posterity, so that others would not make conjectural changes to texts. 'There were four things the Master never did: he never guessed, never was arbitrary, never was obstinate, and never relied on purely subjec- tive judgments' [Lun-yui 9.4]." Yet the restraint shown here has been treated as an exception to Confucius's normal practice. As the subcommentator Hsui Yen #,A" says, "Confucius made a great many changes in the Ch'un-ch'iu, but he refrained from changing this as a special case because he wished to leave an example. " Thus, rather than detracting from Confucius's image as an activist editor, the Kung-yang chuan tradition has served to enhance the credibility and authority of the substantial changes Confucius is thought to have wrought elsewhere in the classics, because these changes are seen as proceeding from a mentality of extreme caution. The emphasis on Confucian probity provides further justification for textual in- tervention by conservative editors. Extraordinary textual changes are made on received texts by evidential scholars such as Tuan Yii-ts'ai and Yu Yueh who cite Confucius as the model for collator- editors.38 From this we see that activism need not conflict with conservatism in Chinese traditions of textual criticism.

TEXTUAL CHANGE IN SUNG BOOK CULTURE

In China, then, the sanction for textual change was from the be-

36 Kung-yang chuan chu-shu 22.126b. 3 David McMullen notes that the origins of this subcommentary are obscure. It is not list-

ed in the bibliographical treatises of the two T' ang dynastic histories. The earliest attribution to Hsu Yen comes from Tung Yu * (fl. 1130), who dates Hsu to the late T'ang. Modern scholars have argued variously that the subcommentary is of ninth-century or even Northern Ch'i (550--77) origin. For details, see State and Scholars in T'ang China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 297 n. 47.

38 See Tuan Yii-ts'ai, "Ching-i tsa-chi hsii" , in Ching-yiin lou chi, 8.5a; Yu Yiieh, "Sun Chung-jung cha-i hsi, " 9a-b.


ginning implicit in the role of the editor as one who transmits. Given the activist orientation of textual criticism in China, in seeking to understand historical transformations of texts, the most fruitful question to start with may not be "Why are changes made?" but rather "Why are changes not made?" That is, what are the limits to textual innovation? The constraints may be seen most readily in the case of canonized texts-the Confucian classics, for example- where the desire for textual perfection and the prohibition against change posed by traditional authority are at their strongest. Canonized texts appear to provide the fewest opportunities for textual innovation in any culture. After all, one of the functions of canonization is to stabilize and perpetuate a single version of a text declared to be authoritative. The stabilization of a text is absolutely necessary, because the more attention is focused on a text, the more times it is copied, the greater are the chances that it will be altered by accident or design. Between the Eastern Han and the Southern Sung, sets of Confucian classics were engraved in stone half a dozen times,39 the purpose being not only to display a standard version of the texts but also to ensure that no further changes occurred in them. Copies were then disseminated by rubbings and transcriptions.

Engraving the classics on woodblocks was also originally hoped to have the same petrifying effect. The Five Dynasties Directorate of Education (Kuo-tzu chien MfTK) imprint of the Nine Classics (932- 53), begun in the Later T'ang (923-36) and continued and completed under three successive, short-lived dynasties, was undertaken with such an expectation.40 The purpose was to establish a new text

39 Han (A.D. 175-83), Wei (204-48), T'ang (833-83), Shu (950-1024), Northern Sung (1041-54), Southern Sung (1134-77); and also once more, in the Ch'ing (1791-94); after Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginnings of Chinese Books and Inscriptions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 73 n. 37. Different dates are given by other scholars. With regard to the Five Dynasties and Sung sets, Paul Pelliot dates the first Shu (Ch'eng-tu) engravings to as early as 944 and lists additions up to 1123: see his Les D6buts de l'imprimerie en Chine, Oeuvres Posthumes de Paul Pelliot, no. 4 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, Librairie d'Amerique et d'Orient, 1953), ed. Robert des Rotours with additional notes and an appendix by Paul Demieville, pp. 55-61. Fumoto Yasutaka ?;jT cites evidence that work on the Northern Sung classics (K'ai-feng) continued to 1060; see Hokuso6 ni okerujugaku no tenkai ILLM ' f (Shoseki bumbutsu ryuitsiikai, 1967), pp. 15-18.

40 The original Nine Classics were the Chou I, Shang shu, Mao Shih; the Three Rites: viz., I-li, Li-chi, Chou li; and the Three Commentaries: viz., Ch 'un-ch 'iu Tso chuan (includes the Ch 'un-ch 'iu

20 SUSAN CHERNIACK

and at the same time discourage further textual innovations, as Ming-tsung Rg (r. 926-33) declares in his edict authorizing the project: "If anyone wishes to transcribe the Classics, he must copy these printed editions. Interpolations from any other sources and the publication of alternative editions are hereby forbidden.""1 Establishing new texts for the Confucian classics by correcting the texts of the T'ang stone classics in Ch'ang-an would confirm the dynasty's claim to legitimacy. Wood-block printing (xylography) was recommended to Ming-tsung as a more economical means of establishing a new version of a canonical text than engraving it on stone.42 The main purpose in utilizing printing seems not to have

text), Kung-yang chuan, and Ku-liang chuan. The project was subsequently expanded to include imprints of additional classics (Hsiao ching, Lun-yii, Erh-ya) and two T'ang philological references (Chang Ts'an 4, Wu-ching wen-tzu ii.T- [preface 776], and T'ang Yiian-tu , jt, Chiu-ching tzu-yang &T-0 [833-34]). All were completed by 953.

The principal sources for details on the Five Dynasties project are Wang P'u HE- (932-81), comp., Wu-tai hui-yao Kif*O (completed 961) (Wu- Ying tien chii-chen pan shu edition, 1899), "Ching-chi," 8.2b-3b; Wang Ch'in-jo HE_~ (962-1025) et al., comp., Ts'e-fuyiian-kuei ffi

e, (1015), see Sung-pen Ts'e-fu yiian-kuei 5!Zt (facsinmile reprint, composite of mid- Southern Sung Mei-shan editions, 4 vols., Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1989), 608.18a-19a; and Wang Ying-lin TI (1223-96), comp., Yu-hai EiE (1337-40 edition; facsimile reprint, 8 vols., Taipei: Hua-wen shu-chu, 1964) [hereafter YH], "I-wen" LW:, "Hou T'ang Chiu-ching k'o pan," 43.10b-llaff; and Mr. Ye V, Ai-jih chai ts'ung-ch'ao M F O (Shou-shan ko ts'ung-shu edition, 1844; facsimile reprint, Ts'ung-shu chi-ch 'eng ch 'u-pien, 1935- 1937), 1.3-6, quoted in Shu-lin yu-hua 1.1. Most of the documents are collected in Chu I- tsun ** (1629-1709), Ching-i k'ao ,E i (SPPY edition), "Lou-pan," 293. 1a-2b, and the valuable reference, Wu-tai Liang Sung chien-pen k'ao KN 5iOV$t, comp. Wang Kuo- wei TEK, (1877-1927) Hai-ning Wang Ching-an hsien-sheng i-shu edition, 1936; reprint, Wang Kuo-wei hsien-sheng ch'uan-chi - *-: Hsii-pien g vol. 1 (Taipei: Ta-t'ung shu-chiu, 1976), 1.1-12. For a narrative account and translations of documents, see Thomas Francis Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward (1925), 2d ed., revised by L. Carrington Goodrich (New York: Ronald Press, 1955), pp. 67-81, corrected and supplemented by Pelliot, Les Dibuts, pp. 50-54, 61-81; informative discussions in Chang Hsiu-min

J,, Chung-kuo yin-shua shu te fa-ming chi ch'i ying-hsiang 3 (1958; reprint, Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1978), pp. 64-69; Li Shu-hua , "Wu- tai shi-ch'i te yin-shua" ;f IJ, Ta-lu tsa-chih ;d*ML,> 21.3 (1960): 1-9; and Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, Science and Civilisation in China, by Joseph Needham, vol. 5: Chemistry and Chemical Technology, pt. 1: Paper and Printing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 156.

41 Wu-tai hui-yao 8.2b. Kwang-tsing Wu remarks: "The primary object of Feng and his associates was to set the standard for a correct text of the classics, rather than making them more accessible to the masses"; see "Scholarship, Book Production, and Libraries in China (618-1644)" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1944), p. 88.

42 See Sung-pen Ts'e-fu yuan-kuei 608. 18a- 19a.


been to replicate the texts in huge quantities, as was the case in Bud- dhist printing projects, where replication itself was seen to confer karmic benefits; nor was printing intended to replace hand-copying as the popular medium for transmission, though the Directorate editions were put up for sale."3 The Directorate imprints were intended to serve as standards for personal transcription, just as the T'ang stone classics had.

It is only later, in the Sung, with the shift to print culture, that printing came to replace transcription as a direct means of dis- seminating canonical texts, even as it became abundantly clear, through the exploitation of printing's potential for allowing endless adjustments and revisions, that.printed texts lacked the finality of texts engraved in stone. Accompanying this shift was a change in the concept of authority in texts. The supports that had earlier served to stabilize the texts were weakened, and canonical texts, like other texts, became open to textual innovation. We turn now to a consideration of some characteristics of Sung textual change and the contributions of printing to the destabilization process.

SKEPTICISM AND THE QUESTION OF AUTHORITY IN TEXTS

Textual innovations in Sung canonical texts were carried out in the context of widespread attacks on the authority of received texts extending to the Confucian classics. From the Ch'ing-li period (1041-49) on, the revival of Confucian scholarship was stimulated by and in turn contributed to a current of skepticism that sped the collapse of longstanding bibliographic and textual assumptions upon which earlier scholarship had rested. The objects of skepticism included the authority of the definitive Han-to-T'ang commentaries

4 This, according to the report of Ming-tsung's edict in Ssu-ma Kuang t ,)% (1019-86), comp., Tzu-chih t'ung-chien f (1092), ed. Hu San-hsing -MEt (1230-87) (Hu K'o- chia -;A [1757-18161 edition, 1816; supplemented and typeset, Peking Chung-hua shu- chii, 1957), 277.9065 no. 4, 291.9495 no. 28. The selling of the Directorate classics set a precedent for the Sung, excoriated by Hu Yin - (1098-1156) in Tu-shih kuan-chien Osp., see Chih-t'ang Tu-shih kuan-chien & (Yiian-ling chuin chai, 1254, repaired in the Ming; Na- tional Central Library, Taipei), 28.24b-25b; quoted in Ma Tuan-lin ,%M (1254-1325), comp., Wen-hsien t'ung-k'ao J (completed 1308, engraved 1339) (Shih-t'ung edition, 1935; reprint, 2 vols., Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1986) [hereafter WHTK]: "Ching-chi k'ao" RWEX 1: 174.1507c.

22 SUSAN CHERNIACK

and subcommentaries attached to various classics, the credibility of traditional attributions of authorship of different classics, and the integrity of the classical texts themselves.44 The nature and extent of the textual changes proposed have already been documented in detail by P'i Hsi-jui and Chou Yii-t'ung, and more recently, by Yeh Kuo-liang *MA in his study of Sung skepticism and textual change in the Thirteen Classics.45 The force of such criticisms may be gathered from the following summary of Sung opinions:

The Chou I was in most need of repair. It was said that the "Kua-tz'u" Mw (Words on the Hexagrams) and "Yao-tz'u" 1.0 (Words on the Lines) were not the work of King Wen or the Duke of Chou. Many critics argued that some or all of the "Ten Wings" had been composed by someone other than Confucius; these sections should be demoted or excised. In the standard text prepared in the seventh century by K'ung Ying-ta from earlier editions by Wang Pi H0 (226-49) and Han K'ang-po O*M (Han Po *{IfI, fl. 371-85), portions of the Wang and Han commentaries had been interpolated into the text; portions of the "Ten Wings" had been miscopied into the "Kua-tz'u" and the "Yao-tz'u"; errors had been per- petuated in the chapter-titles, and chapters and sections of chapters appeared in the wrong order, the first part of the "Hsi-tz'u" $ (Appended Words, one of the "Ten Wings") attracting the most criticisms on transpositions. Various corrections were urged to restore the text to its original state, but this, too, was a matter for serious disagreement.

As for the Shang shu, the "Great" and "Lesser" Prefaces, attributed respectively to K'ung An-kuo and Confucius, were judged to be spurious. So were twenty-five chapters contained in the old-script version of the classic discovered in Western Han times in a wall of Confucius's former house; these, it was argued, should be ex- pelled from the canon. Even in the more reliable modern-script version, some chapters were out of order, chapter titles were wrong, and chapter divisions had been misplaced so that the concluding portion of one chapter now appeared in the next, chapters that originally were separate had been combined, and new chapters had been created by splitting a single chapter in two, while within individual chapters, gaping lacunae, interpolations (including redundancies due to miscopying), and transpositions were also found.

The "Great Preface" of the Mao Shih was not by Tzu-hsia or the early Han redac-

4 This generalization is offered by Ch'ii Wan-li ,M f; in "Sung-jen i-ching te feng-ch'i" 5ARJWAYAA, Ta-lu tsa-chih 29.3 (Aug. 1964): 93; reprinted in Chii Wan-li hsien-sheng ch'iian chi it, vol. 14 (Taipei: Lien-ching ch'u-pan shih-yeh kung-ssu, 1984), p. 237.

45 See Pi Hsi-jui, Ching-hsiieh li-shih, pp. 220-80; Yeh Kuo-liang [Kuo-liang Yap], Sung-jen i-ching kai-ching k'ao j Wen-shih ts'ung-k'an, no. 65 (Taipei: Kuo-li T'ai-wan ta-hsiieh ch'u-pan wei-yiian-hui, 1980).


tor, Mao Ch'ang -t-. It was a later Han concoction. The "Lesser Prefaces" attributed variously to Tzu-hsia, Mr. Mao, and Confucius, were mostly (if not entirely) Han composites, too. The structure of the classic itself had been tampered with: poems from different states had been grouped together under a spurious blanket category- "Kuo-feng" RJR (Airs of the States)-that did not exist in Confucius's original. And the arrangement of poems in groups of ten (decades) under another category, "Hsiao-ya" JJ (Lesser Elegances), had been confused so that some groups now had thirteen or fourteen poems. The original system of titling poems by quoting from the first line of the poem had been ruined by later editors, who devised two-character titles taken from phrases elsewhere in the poem. The poem texts were also in disorder: in some poems, the order of stanzas had been inverted. Other poems now concluded with stanzas mistakenly transposed from yet other poems. Worst of all, as many as thirty-one debauched poems as well as debauched stanzas found in two other poems, had been interpolated into the text during the Han, in violation of the expurgative rule used by Confucius in making his selec- tion.

In the case of the three ritual classics, the Chou li, I-li, and Li-chi, it was claimed that part or all of the first two works and some chapters in the third had not been composed by their reputed early Chou authors. Neither the Chou 1i nor the I-li was composed by the Duke of Chou; the "Chung-yung" chapter of the Li-chi was not by Tzu-ssu -TEP, (492-31 B.C.), and the "Ju-hsing" 'ME chapter was not by Confu- cius. The Chou 1i was said to be an anthology culled from several works; in the compilation, portions of the original component texts had been misplaced. The I-li was seen to be pitted with lacunae. The Li-chi was found to suffer from interchapter transpositions; some chapters, notably the "Chung-yung" rts and the "Ta- hsiieh, " which would enter the canon as independent texts after the Sung owing to the influence of Chu Hsi (1130-1200), were also marred by significant internal transpositions requiring correction.

The Tso, Kung-yang, and Ku-liang 1x. commentaries on the Ch'un-ch'iu were not composed by Tso Ch'iu-ming ATH1 , Kung-yang Kao -T-A, or Ku-Iiang Ch'ih VP~~, or perhaps Masters "Kung-yang" and "Ku-Iiang" were the same person,

since both pairs of characters constitute fan-ch'ieh 1AVJ spellings for the surname Chiang V. The Tso chuan was disparaged as a later patchwork, dating from the Ch'in-Han period, like the other commentaries.

The Erh-ya dictionary was a miscellany cobbled together by Han scholiasts, not the definitive work of any sage forebear.

The Hsiao ching was not composed by either Confucius or Tseng-tzu 9# (505-435 B.C.), as heretofore thought, but rather by one of Tseng-tzu's disciples, Yiieh- cheng Tzu-ch'un J:FTA, or Tzu-ssu. Moreover, most of the Hsiao ching comprised later commentary drawn by unknown persons from the Tso chuan and other works. The commentary had been miscopied into the text of the classic, which was itself marred by interpolations and transpositions. The work should be restored to

24 SUSAN CHERNIACK

consist of one section of the classic and fourteen sections of commentary, interpolations should be excised, and transpositions corrected-all this, according to Chu Hsi.

The current text of the Lun-yu was not the same as that prepared by Confucius's disciples. It too displayed interpolations and transpositions between and within chapters, all warranting correction.

The Meng Tzu was regarded as not necessarily the work of Mencius or even a faithful report of Mencius's words by his immediate disciples. Later disciples had added to it. All such spurious sections should be excised. Copyist errors should be corrected.

What is remarkable about these criticisms is the importance attached herein to "author-based" authority in texts-that is, authority deriving from claims of original authorship made for various classics or their components-and the corresponding debasement of claims of textual authority derived from traditional transmission and embodied by the orthodox versions endorsed by the imperial government. The denial of the authorial origins of various details of the classics provides a sanction for textual revisions, and such revisions are carried out with the goal of restoring an authorial text. Textual authority has not been lost, but rather transferred from a tradition-based model to a model in which individual readers may assert their own rights to determine authorial intent in the classics, independent of tradition. A good characterization of the shift is provided by Lu Yu's li (1125-1209) well-known summary of developments in classical scholarship down to his time:

From the T'ang down to the beginning of this dynasty scholars did not dare to criticize [the Han classical commentators] K'ung An-kuo and Cheng K'ang-ch'eng a *St [Cheng Hsiian], much less the sages. Since the Ch'ing-li period, scholars have made the meaning of the classics clear to a degree unmatched by those who pre- ceded them. Yet they have dismissed the "Hsi-tz'u" [of the Chou I], vilified the Chou li, cast doubt on the Meng Tzu, ridiculed the "Yin cheng" [Yin Expedition] and "Ku ming" [Testamentary Charge, both chapters of the Shang shu], and re- jected the "Preface" of the [Mao] Shih. They do not find it difficult to criticize the classics, much less the commentaries.46

What Sung scholars did find difficult was to agree with one another about which changes should be adopted. Did the framing of the question of textual authority inhibit the development of a con-

4 Quoted in Wang Ying-lin FE1f (1223-96), K'un-hsueh chi-wen J see Weng chu


sensus? Textual skeptics disagreed sharply about the criteria to be used in scrutinizing and altering texts, and, in the absence of a developed textual methodology that anyone could be trained to apply, their arguments often turned on the question of personal authority: Should the textual critic be sanctioned by some standard, and if so, what should that standard be? Two distinct views were expressed on this score. Ssu-ma Kuang and Su Shih (1036-1 101) offered opinions representative of the traditional viewpoint, exposed in the earlier statement by Yen Chih-t'ui, that scholars should meet some criterion, such as official rank, personal erudition, or age. Thus, Ssu-ma Kuang, who himself argued against the traditional attributions of authorship of the Chou I, Chou li, and Meng Tzu, had this to say about younger skeptics:

The up-and-coming scholars of today all parrot what they hear.... In reading the [Chou] I, they may not be able to recognize the hexagrams and lines yet, but they already claim the "Ten Wings" are not the words of Confucius. In reading the Li [Rites], they may not know how many chapters there are, but they already claim the Chou kuan [the Chou 1i] is a work of the Warring States period. In reading the [Mao] Shih, they may not have got through the "Chou-nan" and "Shao-nan" yet [the first two sections in the "Kuo-feng"], but they already claim that Mao and Cheng [Hsuian] were nothing more than punctuators. In reading the Ch'un-ch'iu, they may not yet know the names of the twelve Dukes, but they already claim that the The Three Commentaries [the Tso chuan, Kung-yang chuan, and Ku-liang chuan] should be wrapped up and put into storage.47

Su Shih, author of a variety of conjectural revisions to the Chou I, Shang shu, and other literary texts, attacked revisions proposed by those whom he describes as troglodytes:

K'un-hszTeh chi-wen I$j5, ed. Weng Yuian-ch'i GfT (1 750-1825) (SPPY edition), "Ching- shuo," 8.40a, where the likely culprits are identified by Weng and the earlier commentators YenJo-ch'ii I (1636-1704) and Ch'iian Tsu-wang -J L (1705-55). These are accepted by P'i Hsi-jui; see Ching-hsiieh li-shih, p. 220. The wording of the translation follows that of Daniel K. Gardner in Chu Hsi and the Ta-hsueh (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1986), pp. 10-11, with some rephrasings and one change in interpretation ("[Great] Preface" rather than "prefaces of the Shih"); cf. Steven Jay Van Zoeren's translation in Poetry and Personality: A Study of the Hermeneutics of the Classic of Odes (Shying) (Stan- ford: Stanford University Press, 1991), p. 155.

47 "Lun feng-su cha-tzu" WAftJ:f, in Wen-kuo Wen-cheng Ssu-ma-kung wen-chi fflWZiE JO %5t * (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), 45.9b-10a; quoted in K'un-hsiieh chi-wen 8.38b-39a.

26 SUSAN CHERNIACK

People of recent generations lightly change texts based on pure conjecture. Since shallow and base personalities share the same tastes, the multitude [inevitably] agrees with them. As a result, the old texts are becoming more falsified with each passing day-a hateful situation! Confucius said, "I am old enough to have known a time when historians would leave a blank. " I remember that the older generation did not dare to alter texts; that is why the old large-character Shu X texts are all reliable.48

By contrast, Neo-Confucian thinkers frankly encouraged skepticism in the study of the classics as an effective strategy for learning, especially for beginners. "The student must first of all be able to doubt," Ch'eng I I1g (1032-1107) says.49 This sentiment was echoed by many others, including the most successful Sung reviser of the classics, Chu Hsi, who taught that "great doubts lead to great progress. " He put his philosophy into practice by proposing numerous innovations in the Chou I, Shang shu, Li-chi, Lun-yu, Hsiao ching, and Meng Tzu.50 The difference in opinion points to a basic change in the construction of textual authority, providing a sanction for textual innovation while rendering the authority of such innovations profoundly ambiguous.

But how is textual authority constituted? As Shillingsburg has

48 "Shu chu-chi kai tzu" , in Tung-p'o t'i-pa tgiMi (Chin-tai pi-shu edition, 12th ser., 1630-42), 2.1 la; quoted in Shu-linyii-hua 1.3 from Su Shih, Ch'ou-ch'ih pi-chi ItIl W, 1 (Frederick Mote cautions that, since this work was compiled under doubtful circumstances, the accuracy of the quotation is open to question [pers. com.]). Su Shih goes on to criticize emendations in the Chuang Tzu, and poems of T'ao Ch'ien 1 (365-427) and Tu Fu f?: (712-70). Su's estimation of the reliability of editions from his native Shu is not considered accurate.

49 Ho-nan Ch'eng-shih wai-shu noFTfIV, ed. Chu Hsi (preface 1173), in Erh Ch'eng ch'iian-shu LZI.W (SPPY edition), 11.2b. For related aphorisms by other Neo-Confucian thinkers, see Yeh Kuo-liang, Sung-jen i-ching, pp. 153-55.

50 Chu's remark is quoted in Chang Hung 4 and Ch'i Hsi WIER5 (both fl. 1251-66), comp., Chu-tzu tu-shufa *-T*: (1266) (Ying-yin Wen-yu'an ko Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu edition, 1983-86), 1.31a. The role of skepticism in Chu Hsi's advocacy of open-mindedness in learning is addressed in Daniel K. Gardner, "Transmitting the Way: Chu Hsi and His Program of Learning," HJAS 49.1 (1989): 158-59, and repeated in Learning to be a Sage (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 46-47. For details of Chu Hsi's work as a textual critic, see Ch'ien Mu O C/u-tzu hsin hsueh-an * vol. 5 (Taipei: San- min shu-chii, 1971), pp. 191-341; and Ch'ien's discussion of Chu's Han-wen k'ao-i WMtAj (completed 1197), a textual study of the works of Han Yui # (768-824), "Chu-tzu yu chiao-k'an hsuieh" +ffi; A,, HYHP 2.2 (1957): 87-113; also Ts'ao Chih W?, "Chu Hsi yii Sung-tai k'o-shu" *<9WPtIJ*, Wu-han ta-hsueh hsiieh-pao (she-hui k'o-hsueih pan) e

ttZ (8:~*44ff) 1989, no. 2: 114.


said, authority is not a quality inherent in a work; it is an attribute granted, within a conceptual framework, by the individual, group of individuals, or social institution "that has the right to generate or alter [the] text of the work. " That is to say, authority is an attribute granted by the party or parties who control the text. As the case may be, the text is felt to belong to the reader, to the sponsoring social institution, or to the author alone. But a text is usually felt to belong to more than one party, who share the power-but to unequal degrees-to confer textual authority.52

At the outset of the Sung, textual authority in the Confucian classics was monopolized by the imperial government, which claimed to be the most faithful custodian of the authorial texts, a claim confirmed by a long history of orthodox transmission. The bond between the imperial sponsor and the canonical author seemed indis- soluble. Against this combination, the authority of the individual reader was comparatively weak. This relationship was transformed by attacks on the credibility of the imperial versions. The effect was to separate imperially sponsored textual authority from author- based authority, creating the opportunity for potent new alliances between individual readers and canonical authors, through which readers assumed a more active trusteeship of auctorial texts. No matter that many of the textual changes proposed by readers never won general or lasting acceptance: implanting the idea that imperial authority and textual authority were not necessarily one and the same was sufficient to promote the destabilization of the received texts. The texts were now in play. The determination of authority in texts became far more ambiguous, because it was more equally shared among the hugely increased number of referees concerned.

One consequence of this realignment is highlighted by chin-shih examination questions set by Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-72) in 1057, including one inviting candidates to confront four conflicting explanations in the "Hsi-tz'u" about the origin of the eight trigrams, in evaluating the traditional claim that the "Hsi-tz'u" was "the work of the sage." Every candidate would have been familiar with Ou-yang's iconoclastic argument advanced twenty years earlier in "I huo

5' Shillingsburg, Scholarly Editing, p. 169. 52 Ibid., pp. 15-17.

28 SUSAN CHERNIACK

wen" RimlI'1 that the traditional attribution was spurious: the variant explanations gave certain evidence of multiple authorship; the "Hsi-tz'u" was actually a commentary (chuan f) incorporating interpretations by later scholars. The examination question asked respondents to accept this skeptical position but to find significance in the work as such.53 This was the first of many Sung chin-shih examination questions requiring candidates to assess the authenticity of the received texts of the classics.

As if in recognition of this changed state of affairs in matters of textual authority, in the Hsi-ning period (1068-77), the imperial government relinquished its exclusive right to generate canonical texts by rescinding its monopoly over the printing of the classics. From this time forward, the classics could be printed and reprinted freely by anybody, without advance government permission.54

5 See "Nan-sheng shih chin-shih ts'e-wen san-shou," ?'U5_ , in "Ts'e- wen shih-erh shou, " Chu-shih chi 48, in Ou-yang Wen-chung kung chi k (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), 48.8a-b; "I huo wen san-shou," Chu-shih chi 18, Ou-yang kung chi 18. 1a-4a, esp. 2a-3a; "San-nien wu kai wen" _ Chu-shih wai-chi 10, Ou-yang kung chi 60.7b- 8a. In another work, It 'ung-tzu wen "ii%#IJ (chuan 3), Ou-yang Hsiu analyzes the contradic- tions and redundancies among the four explanations for the origin of the trigrams to prove his claim that the "Hsi-tz'u" is a composite commentary incorporating interpretations by later scholars; see Ou-yang kung chi 78. la-7b; excerpted in P'i Hsi-jui, Ching hsueh li-shih, pp. 224- 25 n. 19. The same charge is repeated in "Ch'uan I t'u hsii" f* rp|, Chu-shih wai-chi 15, Ou-yang kung chi 65.4a-6b. A second examination question raises doubts about the authenticity of a part of the Chou li; see Ou-yang kung chi 48.7a-b. Su Shih and Su Ch'e ,, (1039-1112), who both were passed in the 1057 examination, went on to write scathing attacks on the work; see P'i Hsi-jui, Ching-hsueh li-shih, pp. 225-26 n. 20. On skepticism in examination questions, see Yeh Kuo-liang, Sung-jen i-ching, pp. 151-52. For a different interpretation of the 1057 examination questions, see Peter K. Bol, " This Culture of Ours": Intellectual Transitions in Tang and Sung China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), p. 193. The 1057 examination is better known for the uproar created by the decision to pass only those candidates who wrote their essays in old-prose style; see James T. C. Liu, Ou-yang Hsiu (Stanford: Stanford Univer- sity Press, 1967), pp. 150-52; and Ronald C. Egan, The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu (1007- 72) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 27-28.

5 See Lo Pi V0 (twelfth century), Lo-shih chih-i gFkj. (Hsuieh-hai lei-pien edition, chi-yii 4th ser., 1831; facsimile reprint, 1920), "Ch'eng-shu te-shu nan" 1.3b; quoted in Ching-ik'ao 293.6a. Lo says that in the Chih-p'ing period (1064-68) and earlier j+JAlTO, it was still forbidden to print the classics without permission of the Directorate. Beginning in the Hsi-ning period, the restriction was completely relaxed f From this statement, the Russian Sinologist K. K. Flug derives a date of 1064 for the end of the permission require- ment; see "Chinese Book Publishing during the Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279): A Partial Translation of Istoriia Kitalsko6 Pechatnoi Knigi Sunskof Epokhi by Konstantin Konstan- tinovich Flug" [Moscow, 1959] (M.A. thesis, University of Chicago, 1968), p. 3. (Flug mis-


While the Sung government maintained its right to establish texts for the examinations, the texts it established were no longer auto- matically felt to be the most authentic versions. They had become correctable.

SUNG BOOK CULTURE AND TEXTUAL VOLATILITY

Printing played a key role in the dismantling of textual authority, although printing's contributions to the destabilization process have to date received little attention in studies of Sung social and intellectual history. While the importance of printing to other developments in Sung culture is well recognized, the main emphasis has been on the function of printing as a powerful facilitating mecha- nism: by making books both less expensive and more widely available, it is agreed, printing helped make possible the Sung renaissance in knowledge and scholarship.55 Yet many writers are quick to add that printing's influence goes well beyond this. To clarify the distinct contributions of Sung printing, comparisons of the similarities and differences between the impact of printing on Sung China and on early modern Europe have been offered. Most comparisons seem to support the much broader generalizations advanced by Tsien Tsuin-hsuen about the respective contributions of printing to Chinese and Western civilizations. Tsien finds that in both China and Europe printing contributed to the growth of knowledge, scholarship, the popularization of education, the spread of literacy,

identifies the source as Lo Ta-ching ,WS, Ho-lin yi-lu 04T3E?,.) Denis Twitchett also states that all privately printed editions of Confucian classics were banned until 1064, Printing and Publishing in Medieval China (New York: Frederic C. Beil, 1983), p. 32.

5 Ming-sun Poon, "Books and Printing in Sung China (960-1279)" (Ph.D. diss., Uni- versity of Chicago, 1979), pp. 67-84; see also the following (listed in chronological order): Carter, Invention of Printing, pp. 74, 83; Goodrich, "The Development of Printing in China and its Effect on the Renaissance under the Sung Dynasty (960-1279)," Journal of the Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch 3 (1963): 42; Fumoto Yasutaka, Jugaku no tendai, p. 19; Elman, From Philosophy to Philology, pp. 140-42; Ira E. Kasoff, The Thought of Chang Tsai (1020-1077) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 4-5; John W. Chaffee, The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China: A Social History of Examinations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 14; Thomas H. C. Lee, Government Education and Examinations in Sung China (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, and New York: St. Martin's, 1985), pp. 28-30; Tsien, Paper, pp. 377-82; Van Zoeren, Poetry and Personality pp. 156-57; Bol, "This Culture of Ours," pp. 152-53.

30 SUSAN CHERNIACK

and other cultural enrichments; but, by contrast, printing re- inforced the traditional bookishness of Chinese culture without leading to intellectual unrest as in the West, serving instead as an important vehicle for perpetuating cultural orthodoxies, enforcing cultural and social coherence, and asserting government control over canonical texts used in the civil service examinations.56

In broad balance Tsien's generalizations may be true, but the Sung dynasty presents a more complex picture, with printing serving apparently contradictory functions, both perpetuating and transforming traditional orthodoxies, enforcing cultural conformity and strengthening regional identities, and supporting government control over canonical texts while undermining that control. Recent studies have drawn attention to some of these phenomena. Think- ing of Western analogies, Thomas H. C. Lee links the spread of printing to increased awareness of the "possible diversity of ideas" among a growing literate public, and increased expression of "extreme or even radical ideas."57 Also, Stephen Jay Van Zoeren relates printing to the development of an "independent critical spirit" in classical exegesis, fostered by deeply personal, devotional readings of texts which were made available through printing.58

However we may choose to account for these developments, it is clear that printing should not be treated as a neutral medium for transmitting texts that might have been transmitted more slowly, more expensively, or less widely, by other means. There is good evidence to suggest that the spread of printing transformed Chinese book culture, changing the way people read books, how they felt

56 See Tsien, Paper, pp. 367-69, 377-83, and [Ch'ien Ts'un-hsiin 0#11J] "Yin-shua shu tsai Chung-kuo ch'uan-t'ung wen-hua chung-te kung-neng" a P, in Chung-kuo shu-chi, chih-mo chiyin-shua shih lun-wen chi @- $;g 9*FFi Q_1P_WC* (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1992), pp. 231-40. Tsien concurs with an earlier opinion of Joseph Needham that printing in China did not have destabilizing effects as it did in the West; see Needham, "Science and China's Influence in the World," in The Legacy of China, ed. Raymond Dawson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 245 n. 2; Chaffee follows this view; Thorny Gates, p. 14. Lee says that printing had an enormous impact on Chinese society, although the speed and magnitude were not comparable to the Gutenberg revolution; Government Education, p. 30. Other writers (see n. 55) cite various cultural enrichments due to the increased supply of books.

57 Government Education, pp. 28-29. 58 Poetry and Personality, pp. 156-57. Henderson also relates printing to challenges to tradi-

tional commentarial assumptions; see Scripture, pp. 201-2.


about books, how they used them, edited them, and wrote them. Re- cent studies of Sung printing and book culture by Ming-sun Poon and Jean-Pierre Drege have linked the spread of printing to such developments as speed-reading, competition in prolixity among writers, increased concerns over textual accuracy, bibliomania, and, paradoxically, the vulgarization of books.59 Stuart H. Sargent has also recently suggested that printing may have influenced the development of the Sung song lyric (tz'u j1).60 Much more research is needed on the entire subject. In studies of the impact of printing on Western book culture, Elizabeth L. Eisenstein and others have shown that printing can effect a revolution in communications with far-reaching and unexpectedly complex consequences.6" While analogies to the Western experience must be drawn with caution, the possibility that printing in China fostered comparable changes should be borne in mind, especially when considering characteristics of textual transmission, where a shift in media may be expected to produce a direct impact.

59 See Poon, "Books," pp. 68-71, and [P'an Ming-shen XMAJ "Sung-tai ssu-chia ts'ang-shu k'ao" , Hua-kuo * 6 (1971): 237-40; also Jean-Pierre Drege, "La lecture et l'ecriture en Chine et la xylographie," Etudes chinoises 10.1-2 (1991): 101-3.

60 See "Contexts of the Song Lyric in Sung Times: Communication Technology; Social Change; Morality," in Voices of the Song Lyric in China, ed. Pauline Yu (University of Califor- nia Press, forthcoming).

61 See Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transfor- mations in Early Modern Europe, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Other influential studies include Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, L'Apparition du livre (Paris: A. Michel, 1958), translated by David Gerard as The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800, ed. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and David Wootton (London: N.L.B., 1976); and Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Methuen, 1982). For reviews of scholarship on Western print-culture, see Eisenstein, pp. 3- 42; G. Thomas Tanselle, "From Bibliography to Histoire totale: The History of Books as a Field of Study," Times Literary Supplement, 5 June 1981: 647-49; Robert Darnton, "What is the History of Books?" Daedalus (Summer 1982): 65-85; and the annotated bibliography appended to Eisenstein's one-volume abridgement, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Since then, two noteworthy French studies have been translated into English by Lydia G. Cochrane: collected essays by Roger Chartier, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); and Les Usages de lVimprime (XVe-XIXe siecle) (Paris: Fayard, 1987) as The Culture of Print: Power and the Uses of Print in Early Modern Europe (conference papers), ed. Chartier (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press, 1989). See, in particular, his "General Introduction: Print Culture," pp. 1 -10. Chartier is under the impression that printing remained a government monopoly in China.

32 SUSAN CHERNIACK

The advent of print culture. Following a long period of development under Buddhist patronage that started no later than the seventh century,'2 printing flowered in the Sung, fundamentally changing the conditions of textual transmission that had shaped earlier book culture. As in the West some centuries later, printing had the effect of degrading the authority of pre-print manuscript texts and eventually sending most of them into oblivion. The losses were gradual, the rate of penetration of imprints varying with the nature of the materials.63 The true impact, however, cannot be gauged by counting the

62 The date is speculative. There is little certainty about when printing begins in China. Good accounts of competing theories and evidence are provided in two works by Chang Hsiu-min, Chung-kuoyin-shua shih F JF$JWIJt (Shanghai: Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1989), pp. 27-70, and Chang Hsiu-min yin-shua shih lun-wen-chi I M gAD (Peking: Yin-shua kung-yeh ch'u-pan-she, 1988), pp. 32-50; see also Tsien, Paper, pp. 146-51. Leaving aside reports in later texts, a pre-eighth-century origin seems certain on the basis of the earliest extant printed document, a dhirane (Buddhist spell), discovered in 1966 in the Sokka Stupa ZE

at Pulkuk-sa Temple 1 in Kyongju, South Korea. The text was engraved no later than 751, assuming that the stupa was sealed the same year the temple was erected, and no earlier than 704, judging from the occurrence in the text of characters first promulgated by Empress Wu : in 695-705. As Jean-Pierre Drege points out, since such characters remained in use through the Five Dynasties, the putative date of the text rests on the credibility of the as- sumption about the date of stupa's sealing and the stupa's continued structural integrity; see "Les characteres de l'imperatrice Wu Zetian," BEFEO 73 (1984): 352-54; also Tsien, Paper, pp. 149-50; Twitchett, Printing, pp. 13-14, 88 n. 2. But even earlier origins for printing are suggested by stelae dating from the Northern and Southern Dynasties (fifth-sixth centuries), which display inscriptions that have been carved in relief, and in some cases also carved in reverse (mirror-image), exactly as they are in wood-block engraving; the latter were intended to be reproduced by rubbings. The significance of these inscriptions for printing history is discussed in Li Shu-hua, "The Early Development of Seals and Rubbings," CHHP, n.s., 1.3 (Sept. 1958): 81-84; also Tsien, Paper, pp. 141-42. For further bibliography on print history, consult Tsien, Paper, pp. 389-450, supplemented and updated in [Ch'ien,] "Chung-kuo yin- shua shih chien-mu" r: 5JgIJ4f E, Kuo-li Chung-yang t'u-shu-kuan kuan-k'an fflAtri-Afl 94fiRMMT4I, n.s., 23.1 (June 1990): 179-199, reprinted in Chung-kuo shu-chi lun-wen chi, pp. 296-326. An important addition to Tsien's bibliography is Li Chih-chung t Li-tai k'o- shu kao-shu LfNAMIMAn (Chengtu: Pa Shu shu-she, 1989), offering revisions of the author's previously published articles and new studies on T'ang-to-Ch'ing print history.

63 Drege says that the rate of penetration of imprints varied according to the type of collection, with Buddhist libraries being affected earliest and most rapidly, and the general preference for imprints over manuscripts being established in the Ming; Les Bibliotheques en Chine au temps des manuscrits (jusqu au XI siecle), Publications de l'Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient, no. 161 (Paris: Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient, 1991), pp. 266-68. However, Erik Zurcher contends on the basis of the scarcity of imprints in the Tun-huang collection, sealed ca. 1035, that printing played a marginal role in the production and spread of Buddhist texts up to that time; "Buddhism and Education in T'ang Times," Neo-Confucian Education: The Formative Phase, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and John W. Chaffee (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer-


number of print books in circulation relative to manuscript books. Although Sung printers were prolific, the majority of books in Sung imperial and private libraries were still manuscripts.64 But print books exerted an influence disproportionate to their numbers. Over time, the popular preference for print and the better survival rates

sity of California Press, 1989), pp. 54-55. Yet the real influence of printing on the dissemination of Buddhist texts may be masked by the less obvious role of imprints as standards for transcription. Stephen F. Teiser has documented one example: "A true printed copy of the Kuo 9 family of Hsi-ch'uan MII [in Szechwan]" served as a master copy for the production of many transcriptions of the Diamond Sutra in at least one Tun-huang scriptorium; see "Hymns for the Dead in the Age of the Manuscript, " The Gest Library Journal 5.1 (Spring 1992): 41-42, 53-52 nn. 27-30, and Chapter 2, Section 3: "Production of the Scripture: Booklets," in 'The Scripture on the Ten Kings' and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (University of Hawaii Press, forthcoming).

64 According to John H. Winkelman's figures for the holdings catalogued by the Southern Sung Imperial Archives (Pi-ko), imprints amounted to only 8 percent of the book collection (6,098 chiuan in 1,721 ts'e ), out of an estimated 72,567 chiian in 21,359 ts'e); "The Imperial Library in Southern Sung China, 1127-1279," Transactions of theAmerican Philosophical Society, n.s., 64.8 (1974): 33-35. The figures are drawn from Ch'en K'uei N (1128-1203), comp., Nan Sung kuan-ko lu XA*#PJ- (1178) (recollected from Yung-lo ta-tien [completed 1408]; Wu- lin chang-ku ts'ung-pien edition, 1886), "Chu-ts'ang": "Pi-ko chu-k'u shu-mu," 3.3a-b, also quoted in YH, "I-wen," 52.43a-b. Winkelman (pp. 34-35) further notes that the imprints were housed apart from the main collection which contained only manuscripts-an indica- tion that imprints were held in less esteem; on the disposition of imprints, see Nan Sung kuan- ko lu, "Sheng-she," 2.4b.

According to Poon; manuscripts continued to predominate in great Sung private collections because imprints constituted only a fraction of total book production and were less valued by bibliophiles because they were often badly collated. Also, collation itself often resulted in multiple manuscript copies (a duplicate [fu-pen "N*] working copy might be transcribed before collation, and a corrected copy afterwards), rare books could be obtained only by transcription (often, of borrowed copies-collectors often exchanged books for this purpose), and transcription itself was preferred as a means of gaining familiarity with a text; see [P'an,] "Ssu-chia ts'ang-shu k'ao," pp. 215-18; also Shu-lin ch'ing-hua, "Shu-chieh ch'ao- pen chih shih," 2.30-31.

A possible exception concerns the bibliophile PrinceJung VE (Chao Tsung-ch'o c 1034-96). One volume of the catalogue for his collection of about 70,000 chuan is said to have itemized 22,836 chiuan of manuscript books and imprints, in addition to Directorate imprints which were listed in another volume; see Hung Mai,Jung-chai ssu-pi V*N* 13.8a, inJung- chai sui-pi wu-chi fi K (SPTK edition, 2d ser.). The figure of 70,000 chuian is also given in Kao Ssu-sun , (1160-1220), comp., Shih-lieh -JI3 (Ku-i ts'ung-shu edition, 1883), "Pen ch'ao," 5.15b-16a. The Ming biliblophile Hu Ying-lin Mfig (1551-1602) thought that the figure was greatly exaggerated even allowing for duplicates, since the size of the imperial library was then about 40,000 chiian, and imprints were not yet plentiful; see Shao-shih shan-fangpi- ts'ung 'VINAX**, in Shao-shih shan-fang chi - (Kuang-ya [shu-chi] ts'ung-shu edition, 1896), 1.16a-b.

34 SUSAN CHERNIACK

for print editions generated in multiple copies, have produced the result that most pre-Sung and Sung works survive today only in the form of Sung imprints and later copies and revisions of them. As Joseph Needham once remarked, after the invention of paper and the introduction of printing, "practically everything in Chinese is either printed or lost," though printing, of course, did not guarantee survival.65

Sung intellectuals were aware of the permanent consequences of the loss of manuscripts, as evinced by an early warning sounded in a memorial of 1034, requesting permission to revise the prior Direc- torate imprints of the Three Histories (the Shih-chi of Ssu-ma Ch'ien, the Han shu of Pan Ku, and the Hou Han shu of Fan Yeh M1 [398- 446]). These had first been engraved some forty years earlier, and had already been corrected once before, in the Hsien-p'ing (998- 1004) and Ching-te (1004-8) periods. Now a second revision was needed, it was argued, because the very success of the printed versions had doomed alternative versions that might have been consulted to check their accuracy:

Earlier dynasties transmitted the Classics and Histories by transcribing them on paper and silk. Even though errors were made, still, the versions could be compared and collated. Then in the Five Dynasties, officials began to use inked-[wood]- blocks to print the Six Classics, prompted by a sincere desire to make the texts uniform so that scholars would not be misled. During the reign of T'ai-tsung (r. 976-97), the Histories of Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Pan Ku, and Fan Yeh were also printed. With this, the manuscript versions of the Histories and Six Classics that had been transmitted down to that time were no longer used. Yet the inked-blocks were riddled with errors. They were never correct (zheng IE) to begin with, but later scholars will not be able to turn to other versions to discover and rectify the mistakes in them.66

65 "The Unity of Science; Asia's Indispensable Contribution" (1948), in Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 24. Hu Ying-lin comes to the same conclusion, comparing the survival rates of works before and after the spread of printing; Shao-shih shan-fang pi-ts'ung 1.17a.

66 Ch'eng Chu Wff (1078-1144), comp., Lin-t'ai ku-shih M*& (completed 1 131) (Shih- wan-chiuan lou ts'ung-shu edition, 2d ser., 1892), "Chiao-ch'ou," 2.14b, quoted in Chien-pen k'ao 2.53. Note that this edition is punctuated and annotated by Yao Po-yueh -*FM& in Chung-kuo li-shih ts'ang-shu lun-chu tu-pen F ed. Hsii Yen rfJ1f and Wang Yen-chun T]nij (Chengtu: Ssu-ch'uan ta-hsiieh ch'u-pan-she, 1990), pp. 98-155. The same memorial is found in Li T'ao - (1115-84), comp., Hszi Tzu-chih t'ung-chien ch'ang-pien i A2FbM (1183) (Che-chiang shu-chii edition, 1881; facsimile reprint with


As this statement suggests, it was the presumed superiority of imprints to manuscripts in the minds of Sung readers that eventually allowed print texts to overwhelm long-standing manuscript traditions, guaranteeing that flawed imprints would not be effectively countered by manuscripts.67 Concerns about this echo through later Sung textual criticism, as intellectuals find themselves confronting a much changed transmission environment.

The prestige of printing had been established at the outset of the Sung dynasty, when the imperial government committed itself to large-scale projects to produce revised editions of the Confucian classics and commentaries, classical dictionaries, new compendia on literature, law, medicine, and political institutions, new editions of the dynastic histories, starting with the Three Histories, and the first printing of the entire Buddhist canon, the Tripitaka.68 Many were complex undertakings involving years of editing and production work. The number of projects authorized by reigning emperors increased from five under T'ai-tsu (r. 960-76) and six under T'ai- tsung, to thirty-five under Chen-tsung A' (r. 998-1022), and thirty-nine additional projects under Jen-tsung f:' (r. 1023-64),

supplements from Yung-lo ta-tien and Hsu Tzu-chih t'ung-chien shih-pu, Taipei: Shih-chieh shu- chu, 1961; reprint, 1974), 117. 1Oa (Ching-yu/9/jen-ch'en), quoted in Ching-i k'ao 293.6a; also YH: "I-wen, "K'an-cheng Ssu-ching," 43. 19a.

The author of this statement is not clear from the context. Lin-t 'ai ku-shih attributes it to an unnamed advocate. This may be Chang Kuan k (Hanlin Scholar) or Yii Ching +,I (1000-64, Assistant Director of the Palace Library), who are both associated with this project; see nn. 160-62.

67 A good example is Ch'ao Kung-wu's X9WA (d. 1171) criticism that errors in the Five Dynasties Directorate imprint of the Classics, reprinted at the beginning of the Sung as the standard text, had driven independent manuscript versions out of circulation, making the collation of errors difficult. Ch'ao further claimed that, even though everyone recognized that the official texts were flawed, individual scholars lacked the means to rectify them. Ch'ao compared the imprint with the texts o'f the Shu stone classics in Ch'eng-tu, had the corrections engraved on stelae, and placed thesh beside the classics in I170; see "Shih-ching k'ao-i hsi" MI *TV, quoted in YH, "I-wen": "T'ang shih-ching, Hou T'ang Chiu-ching k'o-pan,"

43.10a; Chien-pen k'ao 2.14-15; Ching-i k'ao 293.5a. This project is discussed in Pelliot, Les Debuts, p. 59.

68 The K'ai-pao tsang fi edition (971-83), 130,000 blocks, engraved in Ch'eng-tu (I- chou 1'Y', after 994) under imperial supervision then shipped to K'ai-feng; see Chih-p'an *& B (1220-75), comp., "Fa-yiin t'ung-se chih" i Fo tsu t'ung-chi f4 R3, in Taisho shinshui daizokyo ;IFEVfi;JR,, ed. Takakusu Junjir6 MAgJIMkM and Watanabe Kaikyoku O&S)LB (Taish6 issaiky6 kankokai, 1924-32), no. 2035, 49: 43.396a, 43.398c. This edition was bound in book-rolls, composed of printed sheets of paper glued end-to-end.

36 SUSAN CHERNIACK

the subject areas gradually expanding to include selected Taoist classics, reference works on agriculture, astronomy, geomancy, and works of general knowledge.69 The Directorate of Education, which remained the dominant printing agency of the Sung central government, was responsible for printing and distributing most of the works."

As the close correspondence between Directorate imprints and government examination fields indicates, one of the main purposes in the early decades was to provide standard texts for use in the examination system. Printing made real standardization achievable for the first time, inasmuch as uniformity was nearly impossible in repeatedly transcribed manuscripts. The imprints included works required for the top degree, the chin-shih, and all eight of the different specialty degrees (chu-k'o X"4) in classics, ritual, history, and law; the series was completed in 1029 with the printing of the law texts.7" The imprints were embraced as chen-pen At, the "true texts," rapidly supplanting the alternatives.72

A second purpose of the early Sung publishing program was to make useful reference works available to court officials in the easily consultable, bound-page book format utilized in printing.73 Paged

69 Based on Poon, "Books," pp. 117-20. I have included the Tripitaka imprint under the count for T'ai-tsung.

70 For details of the role of the Directorate in central government printing, see Poon, "Books," pp. 87-92, 113-17; Flug, "Chinese Book Publishing," pp. 32-37. Other responsibilities of the Directorate are described in Lee, Government Education, pp. 58-62.

71 This, according to the list of imprints in Poon, "Books," pp. 117-20, and the account of degree fields given in WHTK: "Hsiian-chii" j 3, 30.283b. For a standard discussion of degree fields, see Chin Chung-shu fiV, "Pei Sung k'o-chii chih-tu yen-chiu" |t95k#$IJ )J[3, HYHP 6.1 (1964): 211-26; and see translations of examination listings in E. A. Kracke, Jr., Civil Service in Early Sung China, 960-1067, Harvard-Yenching Monograph Series, no. 13 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 61-63; also Lee, Government Education, pp. 143-45. Although no record survives of the printing of the examination texts for one field in ritual-the T'ang K'ai-yuian li MT (732) and the K'ai-pao t'ung-li (973) which replaced it-a memorial of 1026 requesting permission to print the law texts states that, among texts required for specialty fields, these alone remained unprinted. They were completed in 1029 and engraved by the Academy for the Veneration of Literature (Ch'ung-wen yuan); Sung hui-yao 5k*, see Sung hui-yao chi-kao *A, comp. Hsii Sung nz (recollected from Yung-lo ta-tien, 1936; facsimile reprint, 8 vols., Peking: Chung-hua shu-chui, 1966) [hereafter SHY]: "Ch'ung-ju" - , ts'e 55, 4.6b-7a (T'ien-sheng 4/11).

72 SHY: "Ch'ung-ju", ts'e 55, 4.6b (T'ien-sheng 4/11). 73 Note that Flug links printing to the development of "reference materials permitting an-


books were not new. They had developed in the T'ang dynasty (618-907). Indian Buddhist books made from the leaves of the talipot palm are thought to have provided the inspiration for the new flat-leaf format, as an alternative to the traditional scroll or book- roll (chiian i). Central Asian influence is also likely, though not generally recognized. A pottery figure dated to the late Sui-early T'ang period (late sixth century-early seventh century) of a seated woman with Tocharian features holding a small, Western-looking, bound-page book in her hand suggests that the bound-page format was known long before it was popularized in the ninth century for manuscript-books and then adapted for print-books in the tenth.74

During the T'ang and Five Dynasties, books circulated in different flat-leaf formats. In the Sung, the preferred format for print books and also for those manuscript books not bound in book-rolls was the "glued-leaf" (nien-yeh MV) or "butterfly" format.75 The

alytical and mechanical access to sources rather than learning by rote; "Chinese Book Pub- lishing," p. 81. Ou-yang Hsiu associates the earlier, T'ang development of a flat-leaf format called yeh-tzu ko - - g with works intended for ready reference, and notes that book-rolls were difficult to roll and unroll; see Kuei-t'ien lu XINE[B 2, Ou-yang kung chi 127.12b. Another genre well suited to the codex format was the notebook, or miscellany (pi-chi i3 and shih- hua j,). Such works lent themselves to intermittent reading. They were first popularized in the Sung.

74 See Seated Lady, in Robert L. Thorp and Virginia Bower, Spirit and Ritual: The More Collec- tion of Ancient Chinese Art by (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982), p. 55, pl. 29. One of the popular forms of Central Asian books was the codex with folded leaves bound together on one side; the books were made in folio, quarto, and small sizes; see Emil Esin, "Central Asia," in The Book Through Five Thousand Years, ed. Hendrik D. L. Virvliet (Lon- don: Phaidon, 1972), p. 84. This may well be the type of book represented here.

75 Butterfly and book-roll formats were used in both private and imperial libraries: in one eleventh-century album leaf, both types are shown among books piled on a table behind a seated woman; see Kojiro Tomita, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Portfolio of Chinese Paintings in the Museum (Han to Sung Periods), 2d ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), pl. 39: Woman in a Pavilion and Children Playing by a Lotus Pond PMRIM. The same mix is seen in Scholars of the Liu-li Hall (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), a thirteenth-century copy of a handscroll by Chou Wen-chii MUM (fl. 940-75), said to represent a gathering of the T'ang poet Wang Ch'ang-ling I3E (d. ca. 756) and his friends. Here, a seated scholar in the center of the scroll is shown reading a butterfly book, while two scholars on the far left hold an open scroll; see Wen Fong and Maxwell K Hearn, "Silent Poetry: Chinese Paintings in the Douglas Dillon Galleries," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 39.3 (winter 1981- 82): 22-23, fig. 12, and the enlargement of the detail on the inside back cover; also Wen C. Fong, Beyond Representation: Chinese Calligraphy and Painting, 8th-14th Century (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992), pp. 39-41, pl. 6.

Even though both formats were popular, the butterfly codex was nevertheless appreciated

38 SUSAN CHERNIACK

"butterfly binding" (hu-tieh chuang NkM) favored by Sung printers

as the "modern" form for books. Thus, the artist of an eleventh-century handscroll portray- ing Chen-ts'ung 1007 visit to the T'ai-ch'ing lou tiIT (the imperial family library, located in the rear palace garden)-the occasion for a rare opening of the library to invited guests-chooses to show butterfly books only being held up for inspection by attendants and being read by the visitors, though the collection is known to have included many rolls. This may be a tribute to Chen-tsung's patronage of library-expansion, compilation, and printing projects; see Fong, Beyond Representation, p. 175, fig. 75: "Emperor Chen-tsung Viewing Books at the Great Purity Pavilion" ti%cI , a detail from Four Scenes from the Ching-te Reign 5,&wAf.tqERUM, no. 4 (National Palace Museum, Taipei). (Fong's comment that, on this occasion, "Chen-tsung celebrated the completion of a new encyclopedia [totaling 24,192 volumes!]" is puzzling, since no early Sung encyclopedia exceded 1,000 chiuan, and the total number of books in the T'ai-ch'ing lou library was then 33,725 chiuan. The latter figure is recorded in the account of Chen-tsung's visit in Hsu ch'ang-pien 65.5a-b [Ching-te 4/3/chi- ssu].)

Wang Chu praised glued-leaf books for their durability and persuaded Sung Shou to convert his collection to this format; see Chang Pang-chi 4X (d. after 1150), Mo-chuang man-lu

g (completed 1144) (SPTK edition, 3d ser.), 4.19a, quoted in Shu-lin yii-hua 1.7. Chang Pang-chi also reports seeing yellow-paper and white-paper editions (po-pen 04, huang-pen IA*) from the Northern Sung collections of the Three Institutes (San-kuan), all of which had glued leaves; ibid., 4.19a. This report is confirmed in the Ming by Chang Hsuan WN (1558-1641), who says that all of the Sung editions in the Imperial Archives were butterfly books; Iyiieh R (Ling-nan i-shu, 2d ser., 1845; facsimile reprint in Ts'ung-shu chi- ch'eng), 5.104. By Chang's time, butterfly binding had become a curiosity, having been replaced by the stitched-binding style (hsien-chuang OR).

Various theories have been proposed relating the development of butterfly binding to other T'ang and Five Dynasties flat-leaf book formats, including loose leaves, accordion-style folded-leaf formats used for Buddhist sutras, and books made of folded leaves either sewn or glued together. The last type is a likely precursor to butterfly binding, and Tun-huang examples are sometimes cited as butterfly books. A good example is Han ba-nien Ch'u mieh Han hsing Wang Ling pien fflAq-fiVfi%fi<PRN (ten leaves, dated 939), P[elliot].3627a, 3867, and 2627b; reassembled as S[tein].5437. One of the earliest examples, dating from the second half of the eighth century is S.5478; see Ishizuka Harumichi ESfrA, "Roran, Tonko no katenbon" WM-#M6;bn%*, Bokubi M. 201 (1970): 34, pl. 27. For a detailed discussion of this format, see Jean-Pierre Drege, "Les Cahiers des manuscrits de Touen-houang," in Contributions aux etudes sur Touen-houang, ed. Michel Soymie, Centre des Recherches d'Histoire et de Philologie de la IVe Section de l'Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, II, Hautes Etudes Orientales, no. 10 (Geneva: Librarie Droz, 1979), pp. 17-28. For discussions of the development of butterfly books and their characteristics, see Tsien, Paper, pp. 227-31; Poon, "Books," pp. 187-204, which includes an examination of the standard format description given in Shu-linyui-hua 1.27-28; Edward Martinique, Chinese Traditional Book- binding (Taipei: Chinese Materials Center, 1983), pp. 15-37; and additional references in Drege, "Les Cahiers," p. 17 n. 2. Clear reproductions of full leaves from Sung butterfly books are displayed in Chung-kuo pan-k'o t'u-lu JPMWAIEi, comp. Pei-ching t'u-shu-kuan ;|tXp1X?, 8 vols. (Peking: Wen-wu ch'u-pan-she, 1961), 1-2: pl. 50-55, 97, 104-106, 110-111, 141; and in the exhibition catalog by Soren Edgren, Chinese Rare Books in American Collections (New York: China Institute in America, 1984), p. 64, pi. 1Oa; p. 66, pl. lIa.


yielded durable, stiff-cover books that opened to the touch: the leaves were folded down the middle and piled together, with the print-side facing up, and then glued together at the center fold, and to the spine, so that the pages opened like butterfly wings when the covers were spread apart. This format made it possible to flip through a book quickly to find a passage,76 to read a book in any order,77 to view different pages simultaneously (by bending back leaves), and to save a reference with a bookmark,78 operations impossible with book-rolls. In addition, butterfly books usually offered practical reference features. A table of contents listed chapters (chiian A) by numbers. The chapter number was recorded on every leaf, together with the leaf number for that chapter, in the center column that straddled the fold-line on the leaf. The chapter number was sometimes also repeated in a thumb-index located at the upper corner of the page.79 These innovations made it convenient both to

76 Flipping is encouraged by the format. One of the distinctive experiences in reading butterfly books is that the reader is presented with both halves of the printed leaf at once, since the leaves are bound print-side facing up. In turning the leaf, one encounters a pair of blank pages (the reverse sides of the printed leaves that precede and follow). Blank pages alternate with printed pages; see the facsimile reprint of a fragment of a butterfly-book, Wen-yuianying- hua ; Hsiang-kang Chung-wen ta-hsuieh t'u-shu-kuan ts'ung-shu, no. 2 (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1974). The facsimile reproduces one ts'e of the original imprint (engraved 1201-04; bound 1260), comprising chkian 201-10. On this work, see nn. 186-89.

77 Thus Ssu-ma Kuang complains that his contemporaries have developed the habit of skip- ping around in books, rarely reading them through from the first chiian to the last; see Chang Lei 3 (1054-1114, or 1052-1112), Ming-tao tsa-chih P (Hsuieh-hai lei-pien edition, chi-yui, 4th ser.), 14a.

78 Thus Chao Meng-fu W& (1254-1322) includes bending, dog-earing leaves, and inserting objects into books in his list of forbidden book abuses, together with such offenses as clawing at the leaf or dribbling saliva on the fingertip to turn pages, and using a book as a pil- low; see colophon recorded in Ch'en Chi-ju Wffi (1558-1639), "Tu-shu shih-liu-kuan" a *:I+ (Shuo fu [hsii ssu-shih-liu-chuian] edition, 32d ser., 1646), 4b-5a; quoted in Yeh Ch'ang-ch'ih R (1847-1917), Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih jglFU (preface 1891) (1920; reprint Shang-hai: Ku-tien wen-hsuieh ch'u-pan-she, 1958), 2.60. Yeh's work provides much valuable information on traditional book-culture, presented in the form of annotations to quatrains devoted to leading bibliophiles and various topics in book history. It has inspired many sequels and supplements. For bibliographic details, see Hsui Yen's entries in Ts'ung-shu lun-chu tu-pen, pp. 39-43.

79 These thumb-indexes are called "book-ears" (shu-erh ;, erh-t'i 4;ffi, erh-tzu M;,); see diagram in Edgren, Chinese Rare Books, p. 15, fig. 1. An illustration is given in Ma Heng MIM, "Chung-kuo shu-chi chih-tu pien-ch'ien chih yen-chiu" 9g %I -

T'u-shu-kuan hsuieh chi-k'an W-4MW*:PJ 1.2 (June 1926): pl. 7 (Ch'un-ch'iu Tso chuan). The

40 SUSAN CHERNIACK

use a book without first memorizing the order of chapters and to locate a reference efficiently. The simple transfer of existing works from book-roll to codex, which had been in progress since the ninth century and was then speeded up by printing, served to shrink down to portable sizes works that formerly might have occupied dozens or hundreds of scrolls. This physical condensation made the job of managing and storing books much easier.

Acquiring government imprints, however, was not an easy matter in the early Sung. A few editions were restricted to palace use, or printed in limited quantities to be distributed as gifts to favored officials, imperial relatives, or foreign governments. Most editions were made available to local governments, government and private academies, and individuals, but only at hefty prices that covered costs for materials and labor, and a profit.80 These imprints included

same feature may be seen on leaves in ts'e 1 of the PNPS edition of Ou-yang Hsiu's Wu-tai shih-chi A{KS"i, a Yuian recut of a mid-Southern Sung imprint from Chien-yang , Fukien.

80 Several sources report the acquisition of early Directorate imprints by application and payment of "paper and ink" charges. The K'ai-yiian Temple in Wu-chou sent a delegation to the capital in 995 with money for "paper and ink" (ch'u-mo *i) to order a copy of the Tripitaka, which was installed in their new Tripitaka Library building; Yang I ;Of (974- 1020), "Wu-chou K'ai-yiian ssu hsin chien Ta-tsang ching lou chi" l6f C 5d (dated Jan. 1006), in Wu-i hsin-chi A.W* (P'u-ch'eng i-shu edition, 1811), 6.15a. A dispatch note (tieh-wen W-3;l;) dated 986, appended to the Directorate imprint of Shuo-wen chieh- tzu, ed. Hsui Hsiian #, (916-91) et al., grants permission "to allow persons to remit money for costs of paper and ink to purchase them, as in the case of the Nine Classics" (LS?fJS AMfk~J&M ); Shu-lin ch'ing-hua, "Fan-pan yu li-chin shih yii Sung-jen," 2.38; Chien- pen k'ao 2.39. An edict of Dec. 1007 authorizes the imprint of the Ch'ieh-yuin !JJft1J dictionary to be sold in the same way, YH: "I-wen," "Ching-te chiao-ting Ch'ieh-yiin," 45.24a (Ching-te 4/1 1Iwu-yin); Sung ta chao-ling chi *A;,2'p. (comp. Shao-hsing period; Peking: Chung-hua shu-chui, 1962), "Ching-shih wen-chi," 150.556.

Although the phrase "paper and ink" has been interpreted literally, it is probably a euphe- mism for charges covering not only the costs of paper (for printing and binding) and ink, but also labor, and even block rental (lin-pan A&, a royalty charged to recoup engraving costs), since such charges are noted on other Northern and Southern Sung central government agency and local government imprints, cited in Shu-lin ch'ing-hua, "Sung chien-pen hsiu jen tzu-yin ping ting-chia ch'u-shou," 6.143-45. This is confirmed by a dispatch note of 1088 quoted in the preface to the small-character Directorate edition of the medical book, Shang- han lun 16; . The note authorizes small-character reprints of this and other voluminous medical books that had been first printed by the Directorate in 1065; this, in response to a Di- rectorate petition claiming that "due to the bulk and large number of volumes, the cost of ink and paper is high, and people have difficulty buying them. " The note states that the small- character editions should be priced to reflect "costs for paper, labor, and ink only. Let peo-


Directorate editions of the Confucian classics, which were at first not distributed systematically. They were available only by application and payment of charges to the Directorate in Pien-ching 1tA( (K'ai-feng). An edict of 998 forbade private reprints elsewhere.8" It was not until 1012 that copies of Directorate classics, in unknown quantities, began to be shipped to circuit governments for regional sale.82 Yet price remained an obstacle for many would-be buyers. The books were costly for several reasons. The deluxe "large- character" (ta-tzu )k4) format utilized for Directorate imprints

ple submit requests for purchase and also send them to the circuits to be sold." It further stipulates that the profit requested by the Directorate should be limited to ten percent; see in Cheng Wu-chi )1ifi (ca. 1064-after 1156), comp., Chu-chieh Shang-han lun tg (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), "Chin-ch'eng," la-2a; excerpted in Chien-pen k'ao 2.87-88. Also to reduce costs, especially in 1096, T'ai-p'ing sheng-huifang and other medical books were reprinted in less expensive small-character editions. Ten copies were sent to Defense Commands [chieh-chen], and five to prefectures for sales to local doctors; Shu-lin ch'ing-hua, "Fan-pan yu li-chin shih yii Sung-jen," 2.39-40, and "Sung-chien ch'ung-k'o i-shu," 6.148; Chien-pen k'ao 2.94. In the Southern Sung Shao-hsing period, court officials were asked to contribute toward the "costs of ink and paper" for new Directorate editions of the classical subcommentaries and Lu Te-ming's RNM (556-627) Ching-tien shih-wen V^ft.. Here, "chih-mo ch'ien" g- seems to refer to production costs; see Li Hsin-ch'uan 2'fZJ1# (1166-1243), comp., Chien-yeh i-lai ch'ao-yen tsa-chi *AU;*Vff*2 (ser. 1, completed 1202; ser. 2, 1212) (Shih-yuan ts'ung-shu edition, 5th ser., 1914), ser. 1, "Chih-tso": "Chien-pen shu-chi" 4.9b-lOa; cf. variant versions in the Wu- Ying tien chui-chen pan shu edition, 4. 1Oa-b; Chien-pen k'ao 3.128-29; Ching-i k'ao 293.5b.

8 SHY: "Chih-kuan" 9, ts'e 75, 28.lb (Chih-tao 3/12). 82 Ibid., 28.2a (Hsiang-fu 5/9). Other Directorate imprints were later sold in this way; see

n. 80 on medical books. Print-runs for Sung woodblocks cannot be calculated with any accuracy. Because the blocks could be stored and printed at will as required, there was little need to stockpile copies. Tsien estimates that for Chinese wood-block editions in general, the average print-run for first editions was about one hundred copies, but it varied considerably depending on the nature of the materials; [Ch'ien,] "Chung-kuo tiao-pan yin-shua chi-shu tsa-t'an"

@SItYiESGlJfftffi, Chung-kuoyin-shua 20 (May 1988), reprinted in Chung-kuo shu-chi lun- wen chi, pp. 146-47. In one notorious case, Chu Hsi accused the former Prefect of T'ai-chou WM1i, T'ang Chung-yu )A{4J, of using prefectural funds to print for private distribution

and sale as many as 606 (or 603) sets of a collection of works in 15 ts 'e (comprised of the Hsun Tzu, Yang Hsiung's Fayen & F, Han Yii's collected works, and Wang T'ung's IEA [fl. late sixth century] Chung shuo tp). These sets appear to have been produced during a single print-run in 1181; see Chu Hsi, "An T'ang Chung-yu ti-liu-chuang" ,V9#:M, )f, Hui- an chi **P (Ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu edition), 19.33b-35a; see also bibliographic note in Wang Kuo-wei, Liang Che ku k'an-pen k'ao, in Wang Kuo-wei hsien-sheng ch'iian-chi: Hsui-pien, 1:2.304- 5; on the print count, see Ts'ao Chih, "Chu Hsi yii Sung-tai k'o-shu," p. 118 n. 24; for related discussions of printing abuses by T'ang, see Shu-lin ch'ing-hua, "Sung Chu-tzu ho T'ang Chung-yu k'o-shu kung-an," 10.272-73; Poon, "Books," pp. 141-42.

42 SUSAN CHERNIACK

entailed higher production costs, the materials used were of the finest quality, the product, though much in demand, was monopolized by the Directorate, and since the Directorate depended on printing for revenues, it had a persistent interest in raising prices.83 That high prices posed a difficulty is suggested by two facts: academies that could not afford the government-produced books ap- pealed for price waivers, and mid-sized, cheaper imprints, such as the Chung-shu wu-ching FMOM editions of the classics, became very popular once they appeared during the Chia-yu (1056-64) and Chih-p'ing (1064-68) periods.84

Intermittent attempts by the Sung court to improve state-wide dissemination of the Nine Classics imprints can be traced through imperial decrees authorizing the distribution of one free set to each of the province-sized circuit governments (990),85 granting donations to (private and government) academy and prefectural- government petitioners (895-1031),86 to prefectural academies and

83 The Directorate's financial interest may explain an edict of 987 ordering that prices on Directorate imprints remain unchanged (SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 75, 28. la [Yung-hsi 4/11]), an edict of 1017 denying further price increases on the Classics and canonical subcommentaries, in which Chen-tsung reminds the Directorate in stern Mencian terms that the Classics are not being printed for the sake of profit (Sung ta chao-ling chi 150.556 [T'ien-hsi 1191kuei-hai ]; Hsu ch'ang-pien 90.12b; YH: "I-wen," "Ching-te ch'iin-shu t'ien pan," 43.18b); also Pi Yuan :%i [1730-97] et. al., comp., Hsu Tzu-chih t'ung-chien (Che-chiang shu-chui, 1881; facsimile reprint, Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1957), 33.752, no. 67. For the Directorate request for profit on the 1088 imprints of Shang-han lun and other medical books, see n. 80.

84 The earliest example of a price-waiver is one granted to the Yen-chou prefectural academy in 985. The newly-founded academy could not afford to buy the imprints, so it offered its own printing paper instead. The paper was returned with a free set; Ch'en Kung- liang M-9A (fl. 1200?), Yen-chou t'u-ching j19i, (Chien-hsi ts'un-she hui-k'an edition, 1896; facsimile reprint in Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng), 1.95; discussed in Poon, "Books," p. 92. Poon notes that donations to academies were discontinued in the Southern Sung after prices were reduced owing to the influx of commercial imprints; "Books," p. 95. The reduced-size editions were produced because booksellers complained that the standard large-character Direc- torate imprints sold poorly, and readers found the very small characters in "kerchief-box" editions inconvenient; Hsu ch'ang-pien 266.7b-8a, interlinear note quoting Lu T'ao Mm (1031-1107), Chi-wen 2r.

85 Hsiu t'ung-chien 15.358, no. 6. Both senior and junior officials were ordered to read them. 86 In 977: White Deer Grotto (Po-lu tung 00AJM1) Academy of Lu-shan, Chiang-chou;

YH: "Kung-shih" 91 167.30a, Hsu t'ung-chien 9.213-14, no. 26. In 989: K'ang-chou *fi+ Academy; SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 54, 2.2a (Tuan-kung 2/5/3). In 996: Sung-yang Aj

Academy, Sung-shan; YH: "Kung-shih" 167.32a; SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 54, 2.2a (Chih- tao 21716). In 1001: Yuieh-lu & Academy, T'an-chou; YH: "Kung-shih" 167.30b, Hsu ch'ang-pien 48.1 la, Hsii t'ung-chien 22.51 1, no. 17, Ai-jih chai ts'ung-ch'ao 4.165. In 101 1: Wen-


study halls (1001),87 and then (in 1031) to all government academies upon their establishment.88 In the early years, distribution was more haphazard. The Chancellor of the Directorate, Hsing Ping, was speaking diplomatically when he assured Chen-tsung in 1005 during an inspection visit to its printing department (the Book Treasury, Shu-k'u ) that all deficiencies in the supply of copies of even the companion classical subcommentaries had been corrected by Directorate imprints that "all officials and commoners now own. 89 Presumably, most individuals outside the court who succeeded in obtaining personal copies of early Directorate imprints got them by copying them out by hand, or by copying or purchasing someone else's transcription.

Imprints steadily became more plentiful through the eleventh century as increasing numbers of local government, academy, private, and commercial printers came on stream.90 Increases in print books begin to register after mid-century.9' Still, it was probably well into

hsuan-wang miao IA242E*, Ying-chou; SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 54, 2.2b (Hsiang-fu 3/2). In 1031: Ch'ing-chou n)1j Academy; Hsii ch'ang-pien 110.4a, Hsu t'ung-chien 38.874, no. 9.

87 SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 54, 2.2a (Hsien-p'ing 4/6); Hsu ch'ang-pien 49.2b; Hsu t'ung- chien 22.513, no. 33.

88 Hsu t'ung-chien 38.874, no. 9. 89 Hsui ch'ang-pien 60. la; Ou-yang Hsuian WWI; (1274/5-1358) et al., comp., Sung shih 5 , attr. T'o T'o Li (1313-55) (PNPS edition) [hereafter SS], 431.7a (Hsing Ping biog.),

quoted in Ching-ik'ao 293.3a; abbreviated in YH: "I-wen," "Ching-te ch'iin-shu t'ien pan," 43.18a; translated in Poon, "Books," pp. 118-19, and Kasoff, Chang Tsai, pp. 4-5. In the slightly different version given in SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 75, 28. lb, "many" (k) replaces "all" (h). Hsing Ping also reports that the number of printing blocks in the Book Treasury had grown from less than 4,000 at the beginning of the dynasty to over 100,000, including complete sets of the classics, histories, and classical subcommentaries. Hsing directs Chen- tsung's attention to the subcommentaries because he compiled the Erh-ya subcommentary, edited others, and supervised the printing of all of them.

90 For example, in a memorial of 1055, Ou-yang Hsiu remarks that despite the government ban on unauthorized printing of literary collections, imprints have recently become quite numerous because booksellers are not regulated; "Lun tiao-yin wen-tzu cha-tzu" &

W U#TJT, in Tsou-i chi *fi* 12, Ou-yang kung chi, 108.1 lb-12b. The ban was promulgated in 1027; see SHY: "Hsing-fa" IJjl, ts'e 165, 2.16a (T'ien-sheng 5/2/2).

91 For informative treatments of developments in the supply of imprints, see Shu-lin ch 'ing- hua, chuian 3 (pp. 60-88); Chang Hsiu-min, "Sung Hsiao-tsung shih-tai k'o-shu shu liueh" X

t84ggIJt%, T'u-shu-kuan hsiieh chi-k'an XffitfJ 10.3 (1936): 385-96, and "Nan Sung k'o-shu ti-yui k'ao" XaaME T'u-shu-kuan X-4M Sept. 1961, no. 3: 52-56, both rpt. in Chang Hsiu-minyin-shua shih lun-wen-chi, pp. 96-117, 84-95, and incorporated into his excellent survey of Sung printing in Chung-kuo yin-shua shih, pp. 53-200; Su Po MO, "Nan Sung te tiao-pan yin-shua" M5$1 JRWWNIJ, WW 135.1 (1962): 15-28, 53; Poon,

44 SUSAN CHERNIACK

the second half of the eleventh century that prices began to decline significantly, dropping further in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.92 Throughout most of the eleventh century, transcription

"Books," pp. 8-27, 127-44, 145-81; Edgren, "Southern Song Printing"; and studies in Nagasawa Kikuya, Nagasawa Kikuya chosakushui f vol. 3 (Si-Genpan no kenkyui

57ji',CD6F5) (Kyakogaku shoin, 1983). 92 Attributed to the commercialization of printing in the Southern Sung; Poon, "Books,"

pp. 95, 180. This is difficult to document by reference to book prices, since scanty data are available, and practically none for the Northern Sung. A price of 1,000 cash [ch 'ien] for an edition of Tu Fu's works in 20 chuian, published in 1059 by the Su-chou Treasury [kung-shih k'u

, is mentioned in a later Sung source, which also claims, improbably, that ten thousand copies were sold; see Fan Ch'eng-ta -)AiAk (1120-93), Wu-chiin chih :;I,i (1192) (Shou-shan ko ts'ung-shu edition, shih ser., 1844; reprint, 1922), 6.1 lb.

Complete account statements and fragments appended to a handful of Southern Sung imprints are collected in Shu-lin ch'ing-hua 6.143-45 from P'eng Yiian-jui 3y/ (1731-1803), comp., T'ien-lu lin-lang shu-mu hou-pien ; (comp. 1798) (Changsha, 1884, with T'ien-lu lin-lang shu-mu, comp. Yu Min-chung :ftr et al.); also Lu Hsin-yuian L'i, (1834-94) and Li Tsung-lien g (chin-shih 1874), comp., Pi Sung lou ts'ang-shu chih i

W,1 (privately printed, 1882; facsimile reprint, Ch'ing-jen shu-mu t'i-pa ts'ung-k'an A Mgi ,- no. 2, Peking: Chung-hua shu-chiu, 1990). The Shu-lin ch'ing-hua data are interpreted with different conclusions in Flug, "Chinese

Book Publishing," pp. 58-62; Tsien, Paper, pp. 372-73, and Twitchett, Printing, pp. 64-65, 90 n. 17. Twitchett finds that printed books were still an expensive luxury. He cites the price of 8,000 cash ("8 strings [kuan iR]") for the imprint, Ta I ts'ui-yen 2jt- (20 ts'e) (Shu- chou Treasury, 1176; see T'ien-lu lin-lang shu-mu hou-pien 2.5a-b). Since so few data have been preserved, however, it is difficult to generalize with any certainty about the prices of books produced by commercial printers, who aimed at a broader market. By contrast, Tsien, em- phasizes the relative cheapness of print books over manuscript books. He agrees with Weng T'ung-wen AiM}ii who finds that printed books cost only ten percent as much to produce as manuscript books during the Late T'ang, that this price differential generally held constant through the Sung and Ming periods, and that the same differential was reflected in retail prices; see Weng, "Yin-shua shu tui-yui shu-chi ch'eng-pen te ying-hsiang" WOIJ*+11g )AU'WO CHHP, n.s., 6.1-2 (1967): 35-43. But the evidence cited seems too slender to support such a generalization. For the Sung, Weng cites an interlinear note in Hsu ch 'ang-pien for 1024 which reports that the cost of producing calendars was reduced from 300,000 to 30,000 (cash) when printing replaced hand-copying; see Hsu ch'ang-pien 102.18a-b (T'ien- sheng 2/10/lhsin-ssu; Weng writes " 1042" here.). Weng's hypothesis, based on one interlinear note, ignores other factors, including supply and demand. For example, the account statement preserved in a Ming replica of a Huang-chou 1147 imprint of Wang Yii-ch'eng's TEA M (954-1001) literary collection, Wang Huang-chou Hsiao-hsu chi 3tJfi '1& (30 chuan in 8 ts'e) lists costs totaling 2,426 cash (wen i;): 260 for printing and binding paper, 500 for block and brush rental, 430 for binder's salaries, and 1,136 cash ("1 string and 136 cash") for all other charges excluding printing paper). But the book was priced at 5,000 cash ("five strings"), more than double the printer's cost; see Pi Sung lou ts'ang-shu chih 72.19a-b; cf. leaf displayed in Twitchett, p. 65, pl. 25, from another replica of Wang Huang-chou Hsiao-hsii chii, described in Sun Hsing-yen *,iIi (1753-1823), comp., P'ing-chin-kuan chien-ts'ang chi shu-chi +*MKOU-04 (preface 1808) (Shih-hsiin t'ang ts'ung-shu edition, 2d ser., 1878-85), 3.9b.


remained the popular mode of reproduction and the usual way personal libraries were built. Most students intending to cheat on government examinations by smuggling miniature "kerchief-box editions" (chin-hsiang pen rhM*) into the examination halls, had to rely on hand-copied texts; in the 1050s, the going rate for transcribing these was 20,000-30,000 cash (ch'ien 0).93 In the twelfth century, though, anybody could buy cheap, commercially printed "pock- et books" (chia-tai ts'e t.)MJ) suitable for such a purpose.94

To be sure, connoisseurs still preferred to build book collections around cherished manuscripts, and in times of peril, printed books were the first to go. In 1127, when Chao Ming-ch'eng M (1081- 1129) was forced by the advancing Jurchen invasion to abandon much of the collection of books, rubbings, and antiquities that he had assembled with his wife, Li Ch'ing-chao i (1084-1144), choosing but a portion to transport to safety in Chien-k'ang 4! (Nan-ching), knowing it was only a matter of time before the remainder would be lost, the first objects he jettisoned were "bulky imprints," followed by "sets of paintings in many scrolls, old bronzes that lacked inscriptions, and Directorate [print] editions. " Even so, he took with him fifteen cart loads of books, the final choices being dictated as much by a collector's values as by size and weight.95 Nonetheless, by this time, for the majority of readers whose interest in books was utilitarian, imprints were becoming the staple.

An important phase in the transition from manuscript to print culture comes in the late Northern Sung. Many writers who lived through the transition recorded the changes with regret. In evaluating their reports, it should be kept in mind that some of the

9 The price is reported in a memorial of 1057 by Ou-yang Hsiu describing examination abuses, "T'iao-yuieh chii-jen huai-chia wen-tzu cha-tzu" t Aff 1I#, in Tsou-i chi 15, Ou-yang kung chi, 111. 1a. The relevant passage is translated in Poon, "Books, " p. 109.

94 For a discussion of developments in miniature books used for cheating, see Shu-lin ch 'ing- hua, "Chin-hsiang-pen chih shih," 2.31-32, and Li Mi's supplement in Shu-lin ch'ing hua, Shu-lin tsa-hua, p. 301; Poon, "Books," pp. 109-12; also Chaffee, Thorny Gates, pp. 113-14, and Lee, Government Education, p. 168.

95 Li Ch'ing-chao, "Chin-shih lu hou-hsii" !&TM&fi8, in Li Ch'ing-chao chi chiao-chu f

1>>tiAE, [ed. Wang Hsiieh-ch'u FTEMl] (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsuieh ch'u-pan-she, 1979), p. 179. This work is translated and discussed by Stephen Owen in Remembrances: The Ex- perience of the Past in Classical Chinese Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 80-98.

46 SUSAN CHERNIACK

reactions were colored by criticism of the reformist programs implemented between 1069 and 1085 by Wang An-shih (1021-86) and continued from 1093 to 1125 by his followers.96 Wang chose print as the medium for launching his attack on tradition, using the Di- rectorate to issue imprints of new interpretations of the Shang shu, Mao Shih, and Chou li, intended to replace the canonical Han and T'ang commentaries and support his programs.97 The works were begun in 1073, engraved in 1075, and distributed to all government academies. To speed distribution, the Fiscal Commissions of Ch'eng-tu and Hang-chou were authorized to engrave and sell mid-sized editions; private reprints and sales were forbidden upon penalty of flogging, and rewards were offered to informants.98 In 1093, the new commentaries were made the sole standard for evaluating examination papers.99 This was the first time the power of Directorate printing had been used to establish innovative interpretations of the Classics. Before this, the Directorate imprimature had been restricted to traditional interpretations. The speed and success with which the new orthodoxy was propagated in print awak- ened many to the power of printing to alter intellectual traditions. It also made critics wary of the ever-increasing influence of printing

96 Poon links attacks on regressive scholarly standards made by Yeh Meng-te and others to criticism of the corrupting influence of Wang's reforms, but does not consider the significance of Wang's use of printing; see "Books," pp. 80-81.

97 These three are referred to as the Hsin-hsiu ching-i ffX or San ching-i ; In- dividual titles vary in different Sung citations. In WHTK: "Ching-chi k'ao" 4 and 8, see entries for Hsin-ching Shang shu [sic], 13 chiuan, 177.1533a; Hsin-ching Shih i, 30 ch/uan, 177.1546c;

and Hsin-ching Chou-li i, 22 chuian, 181.1557a-b; cf. Chien-pen-k'ao 2.31-32. The WHTK en-

tries are quoted from two private bibliographic catalogues, Chun-chai tu-shu chih 5 *V:: (ca. 1151-1180 to 1184; revised and enlarged by 1187), comp. Ch'ao Kung-wu (WHTK cites the Ch'u-chou M11'I edition of 1249), and Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i AWI W (ca. 1250), comp. Ch'en Chen-sun |* (ca. 1190-after 1249). The WHTK entries from Ch'en's work are copied in the reconstituted Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i (Kuo-hsuieh chi-pen ts'nung-shu edition,

1939), 2.27-28, 35, 41-42. For Ch'ao's work, consult Chiin-chai tu-shu chih chiao-cheng t

plrIi, ed. Sun Meng *,V, (Shanghai: Ku-chi ch'u-pan-she, 1990), pp. 57, 67, 81. Sun's edition collates the Ch'ui-chou edition (1819 recut) against the different version of the work given in the Yiian-chou .'01Ji edition of 1249 (facsimile reprint in SPTK, 3d ser.).

98 See discussion in Robert M. Hartwell, "Historical Analogies, Public Policy, and Social Science in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century China, American Historical Review 76.3 (1971): 713- 14; on the purpose and organization of the work: Hsn ch/ang-pien 265. 10a- lla (Hsi-ning 8/6/ hsin-hai), 24b-25b (chia-yin); on donations to the National University and all prefectural government schools in 1075: Hsn ch/ang-pien 266.4b (Hsi-ning 8171kuei-yu).

99 Hsu t'ung-chien 266.7b (Hsi-ning 8171keng-chen), quoted in Chien-pen k'ao 2.32.


on younger generations, for whom print-texts were naturally the "right texts" (cheng-wen iELZ).100

The generational changes may be traced through comparisons of book culture past and present recorded by contemporary commentators. Thus, Su Shih, writing in the late eleventh century at a time when "printed books are everywhere, and a myriad new leaves are printed every day, " draws a contrast to conditions earlier in the century when books were in short supply. He recalls stories by older scholars, about how, when they were young, it was difficult even to find a copy of the Shih-chi or the Han shu to transcribe. Given the abundance of imprints in his own day, Su Shih observes, scholars should be more learned, but instead they don't open the books.'0' Ch'ao I-tao JUL1 (1059-1129) testifies to the growing glamour of printed texts. To the younger generation schooled increasingly on standardized print texts rather than idiosyncratic manuscripts, imprints seemed to lay claim to a public authority that manuscripts lacked. Commenting on a holograph edition of Tu Fu's poems by Sung Ch'i , (998-1061), which Ch'ao thought provided a more reliable text than any current imprint, Ch'ao recognizes that errors in the print versions might never be corrected because people now gave credence to whatever appeared in print: "The older generation had extensive experience with documents, unlike the younger generation who think that print editions alone provide the correct text (cheng-wen). 11102

After Chu I's * (1097-1166/67) observation on the popular embrace of imprints since the Five Dynasties Directorate Classics: "People put away their own copies of the Clas- sics and Histories, and they regarded the printed ones as correct;" I-chiieh liao tsa-chi , n (Chih-pu-tsu chai ts'ung-shu, 3d ser., 1776), 2.53b-54a; quoted in Ching-i k'ao 293.4b.

'O' See Su Shih, "Li-shih shan-fang ts'ang-shu chi" 4ElW EIRS4 (composed to honor Li Ch'ang 4g [1027-90] for having donated his library of more than 9,000 chuan to Po-shih an bTi Monastery, at Lu-shan), Tung-p'o chi **i.$, in Tung-p'o ch'i-chi tQ-Lt, ed. Miao Ch'uian-sun 6 (1844-1919) (Ch'eng-hua period [1465-1488] edition; recut, Pao- hua an, 1908-9), 32.6b-8a; quoted in WHTK: "Ching-chi k'ao" 1, 174.15IOc-la. This passage is translated in K. T. Wu, p. 128. A later source reports that Su Shih himself obtained treasured copies of Han shu and Hou Han shu through personal transcriptions; see Li Jih-hua

F EI (1539-1635), Tzu-t'ao hsuian tsa-chui 4t ff*iW (Tsui-li i-shu edition, 1878), 3.9b- lOa.

102 Colophon to Sung Ch'i's Tu Shao-ling chi 4$??P R, 1 chuian, quoted in Chou Tzu-chih 1VE (1082-after 1151), Chu-p'o lao-jen shih-hua t*U9A4j (Pai-ch'uan hsiieh-hai, 2d ser., 1930), 2.13a. For Chou's criticism of contemporary Tu Fu imprints, see ibid., 3.8b.

48 SUSAN CHERNIACK

Ch'ao's concerns are reiterated in the next generation by Yeh Meng-te 'M,^ (1077-1148) who links printing to the deteriorating quality of texts. Yeh attributes the decline to the decay of the scholarly traditions of collating and memorizing books. Careful collation of hand-copied texts had been one of the prime tasks of book collectors in pre-print times. It was an activity that dignified the materialistic enterprise of acquiring books, offering scholars a prized opportunity to contribute to the improvement of texts in transmission. The collation process also imparted personal benefits-intimate familiarity with a work and ease in memorizing it.103 Although collation continued to be an important part of book collecting in the Sung and later,104 Yeh remarks that many scholars of his day no longer collated the books they collected. They simply accumulated them. He tells us that the sheer abundance of imprints was having a pro- found psychological impact on scholars who could acquire books easily and, for that reason, read them carelessly. Yeh's famous statement on these matters echoes the 1034 memorial we have seen above, which urged the correction of the Three Histories imprints:

Before the T'ang, when all books were hand written and printing had not yet been invented, people regarded book collecting as an honor. Not many people could collect books. Collectors were meticulous about comparing and collating their books,

103 These are included in Yeh Te-hui's list of the eight virtues of collation: collation develops inner tranquility and self-control, and offers release from all vulgar worries; enables one to accumulate merit with the ancients while helping students to come; prevents books from getting moldy and being eaten by insects; enables one to acquire lasting fame as a transmitter; enables one to remember books better after reaching middle-age when memory begins to fail; aids one in acquiring detailed knowledge of the contents of books, which can be applied in writing, prevents one from napping on long summer days, keeps one warm in winter, and helps one bear the burdens of life; and it increases one's knowledge of bibliography, which helps in hunting down other books; Ts'ang-shu shih-yuieh agR+ (1911; Kuan-ku t'ang so-chu shu edition, 2d ser., 1919), "Chiao-k'an" 7, 9a-lOb; trans. Achilles Fang, "Book- man's Decalogue," HJAS 13 (1950): 149-50. For additional remarks on collation as a memory aid, see Tzu-t'ao hsuian tsa-chui 3.10a.

104 The attention given to collation in later book-collecting manuals testifies to the survival of this tradition; see Ts'ang-shu shih-yuieh 9a-lOb; Sun Ts'ung-t'ien j (before 1680-after 1749), Ts'ang-shu chi-yao g (Ou-hsiang ling-shih edition, 1896), "Chiao-ch'ou" 4, 7b- 8b, trans. Achilles Fang, "Bookman's Manual," HJAS 14 (1951): 233-35. Hung Liang-chi AM' (1746-1809) also describes "collators" as one of the five breeds of book collectors; see Pei-chiang shih-hua IMPAM (Yiieh-ya t'ang ts'ung-shu edition, 6th ser., 1854), 3. la. For a survey of contributions by later book collectors to textual criticism, see Taam, Chinese Libraries, pp. 68-84.


so they very often had reliable texts (shan-pen **). And scholars, due to the difficulty of transcribing texts, were meticulous about learning to recite books from memory, down to the last detail. During the Five Dynasties, Feng Tao 51 (881-954) asked that the government print the Six Classics. During the Ch'un-hua reign [990- 94], our Court also printed the Shih-chi and the Ch'iten [i.e., Han] and Hou Han shu.'05 From that time on, printers multiplied greatly, so gentlemen no longer set their minds on book collecting. Since it was easy for scholars to obtain books, the [tradition] of reciting them from memory was neglected. And yet, the woodblocks were not correct to begin with. They all contained errors. But that generation [and successive generations have] accepted wood-block texts as correct, while the manuscripts of collectors have been lost with every passing day, and so the errors can never be corrected. What a pity!

When Yu Ching (Hsiang-kung 0&9) was Assistant Director of the Palace Li- brary [Pi-shu sheng], he reported that the text of the Han shu was riddled with errors. [In 1034], he was commanded, together with Wang Yiian-shu TWO [Wang Chu] to compare and collate [the imprint] against the old texts in the Imperial Archives. The result was a corrigenda (k'an-wu 11i;) in 30 chuian.'06 Later, Liu Kung-fu WMJWM [Liu Ch'ang J, 1019-68] and his younger brother [Liu Pin A, 1022-88] both compiled corrigenda to the two Han histories.'07 When I was at Hsii-ch'ang A:,, I obtained a copy of Sung Ching-wen's X 3Z [Sung Ch'i] own collation notes on the Directorate imprint of the [History of the] Western Han [i.e., the Han shu]. In it, he cites thirteen other editions he consulted in collating the

105 The project was authorized in 994 (Ch'un-hua 5). The engraving was completed in 997 (Chih-tao 3). See n. 155.

106 In addition to Yui Ching and Wang Chu, Chang Kuan also participated in the editing; see n. 66. The imperial library catalogue, Ch'ung-wen tsung-mu WIZ; H (completed 1042), comp. Wang Yao-ch'en 3EPf (1001-56) et al., also includes Li Shu 24R and Sung Ch'i (both, Administrators of the Proclamation Drafting Section) on the list of editors assigned to the Three Histories recollation, but their role in the Han shu is unclear; see the Ch 'ung-wen tsung- mu entry quoted in WHTK: "Ching-chi k'ao" 27, 200.1675b (Hsin-chiao Shih-chi, Han shu, Hou Han Han-San-shih k'an-wu), from which it has been collected in the reconstituted Ch'ung- wen tsung-mu chi-kao 1#, comp. Ch'ien Tung-yuian ag (d. 1824) et al. (Yueh-ya t'ang ts'ung-shu edition, 15th ser., 1853), 2.2b-3a. On the Three Histories recollation and resulting corrigenda, see nn. 160-62.

107 The Liu brothers collaborated with Liu Ch'ang's son, Liu Feng-shih *Ut (1041-1113), in a private study on the Han shu. Other corrigenda on the two Han histories are also credited to Liu Pin, who assisted Ssu-ma Kuang with research for Tzu-chih t 'ung-chien in his speciality. See nn. 164, 172.

108 Sung Ch'i compiled collation notes on the Han shu during the Ching-yu period (1034- 37), but these do not seem to have been included in Yu Ching's revision. Collation notes attributed to Sung Ch'i are found in the Han shu imprint from the Southern Sung (Chien-an R

2, 1196) by Huang Shan-fu t and Liu Chih-wen WIJN (Yiian-ch'i Ek), and in the later reprints from the Ch'ing-yiian (1195-1200) and Chia-ting periods (1208-24); see n. 172. However, the authenticity of the notes is debatable; see discussion in M. A. N. Loewe, "Some Recent Editions of the Ch'ien-Han-shu," AM, n.s., 10.2 (1964): 165, 166 n. 13.

50 SUSAN CHERNIACK

text. 109 But two lines are missing from the middle [of his list]. Alas, these works are now lost. "0

Chu Hsi's later "Rules of Reading" (Tu-shufa Mri43),"' with its prescriptions for the proper approach to reading the classics, may be seen as a nostalgic attempt to convert the print-oriented students of his day to the traditions of pre-print book culture idealized by Yeh Meng-te. The sins of reading that Chu Hsi addresses in the "Rules of Reading" -book greed (the desire to gobble down as many books as possible), speed-reading, superficial reading, jump- ing around in books rather reading them continuously from beginning to end-are all by-products of the new Sung print culture. Chu Hsi says:

Loewe draws on Hiranaka Reiji :V 2p+k, "Yonezawa no S6han Zen-Go Kanjo ni tsuite" * e t "' XM< C X r, in Chu-goku kodai no densei to zeiho O)O i f J c & , Toy6shi

kenkyiu s6kan, no. 16 (Kyoto: T6y6shi kenkyufkai, Kyoto University, 1967), pp. 446-48. A list of fifteen sources reportedly used by Sung Ch'i in collation is given in Shih-leh 2.13b-14b (it includes the Yu Ching imprint). The same list is found in the prefatory matter of exemplars of different Chien-an Huang-Liu editions; see Hiranaka Reiji, p. 448; and facsimile leaves displayed and discussed in Ozaki Yasushi MOM, Seishi So-Genban no kenkyuz iL _SP_51~t&7CDF6 P (Kyuako shoin, 1989), pp. 258-59, 261, 266, 268.

'09 "Thirteen" is probably an error for "fifteen." This is noted by Yui-wen Shao-i 4iZF S (ca. 1208-24), who cites the list from a Ch'ing-yiian period Han shu edition (see n. 108) in his textual notes to Yeh Meng-te, Shih-linyen-yu Tii # -M (completed 1136) (Shih-lin i-shu edition, 1908), 8.5a.

110 Shih-lin yen-yui 8.5a; quoted in WHTK: "Ching-chi k'ao" 1, 174.1509b, Ching-i k'ao 293.3b; excerpt translated in Carter, Invention, pp. 95-96. Yeh's criticism has strongly influenced later views of the impact of printing on Sung scholarly practices. For instance, Chiao Hung X (1541-1620) says that when Han Ch'i 0* (1008-75) was a young man, printed books were rare and all texts were copied out by hand, so borrowers read books carefully and repaired them before returning them. Chiao then contrasts such behavior to the habits of his time; Chiao-shih pi-sheng hsui-chi XA**M-% (Chin-ling ts'ung-shu edition, 2d ser., 1915), 4.13a-b; for a similar contrast, see Hu Ying-lin, Shao-shih shan-fang pi-ts'ung 1.17a. Elsewhere, Hu uses Yeh's statement to launch his widely-quoted defense of the reliability of print-books. Hu concedes that Yeh's criticism of the textual accuracy of imprints may be valid for the Sung, but maintains that the opposite is true in his time. He argues that more care is taken in preparing print-texts than manuscripts because printing involves a greater investment of capital; scholars, therefore, no longer take manuscript-books seriously. Once a print edition appears, manuscript copies instantly become unsaleable; Shao-shih shan-fang pi- ts'ung, 4.6a-b; quoted in Shu-lin yui-hua 1.11; excerpt translated in Drege, Les Bibliotheques en Chine, p. 267. Hu's comments disclose a remarkably commercial valuation of books.

"'. Chapter titles (chuian 10-11) in Chu-tzuyui-lei *T N ffi (1270), ed. Li Ching-te ~tl, (fl. 1263) (Liu-shih ch'uan-ching t'ang edition, 1876); translated in Gardner, Learning to be a Sage, pp. 126-62; hermeneutics discussed in Van Zoeren, Poetry and Personality, pp. 230-49; and the subject of Chu-tzu tu-shufa (see n. 50).


People today read books carelessly because books are available in printed copies, and these are abundant. Consider that the ancients all used bamboo strips [for transcribing books]: unless a person possessed great resources, he could not acquire [books]. How could a person of limited means secure them? . . . Consider that when Huang Pa RV was in prison [73-70 B.c.] he received the [Shang] shu from Hsia-hou Sheng fiW'112: two winters passed before the entire work could be transmitted. Surely it was because the ancients did not have written texts that they could acquire [books] only by thoroughly memorizing them from beginning to end. Those wishing to receive lectures on a work they were learning to recite, also had to be able to recite it by heart before receiving instruction from their teacher. Con- sider Tung-p'o's [Su Shih's] "Record of the Library in Mr. Li's Mountain Stu- dio": at the time he wrote it, books were still difficult to acquire.113 Ch'ao I-tao once wanted to acquire the Kung[-yang] and Ku[-liang] chuan. He searched for copies everywhere, but none were to be had. Later on he found one text and then acquired his copies by transcribing it. People today regard even transcription as too much bother. That is why they read books carelessly.114

Chu Hsi's recommendations for reform-read less but more slowly, repeatedly, and with greater concentration, one book at a time; vocalize the text when reading; learn to recite books from memory-reflect his understanding of the ethics of reading in pre- print times. In most respects, his characterizations are accurate. The emphasis on vocalization and memorization is true to what we know about earlier book culture. Lecturing and public recitation of texts were traditional arts, and reading aloud was normal for private reading, tu =at (read) often meaning "to speak a written text. " '115 The Rhapsody on Reading (Tu-shu fu Ati0) by Shu Hsi I*1tf (d. ca. 300) gives a vivid description of the art as it was practiced at the end of the fourth century:

The Master Who Abandons Himself to the Way Lives detached in calm retirement Cultivating and training his pure spirit

112 Hsia-hou Sheng was imprisoned for opposing Emperor Hsiian's X (r. 73-48) decision to honor Emperor Wu t (r. 141-87 B.c.), and Huang Pa, for supporting Hsia-hou. Hsia- hou Sheng ("the Elder Hsiao-hou"), a foremost authority on the Shang shu, agreed to teach the text to Huang Pa after Huang declared that he was willing to risk death to receive his instruction; see Han shu 75.2a-4b, also 88.12a.

113 See n. 101. 114 Chu-tzuyu-lei 10. lOa. For a complete translation, see Gardner, Learning to be a Sage, pp.

139-40, no. 4.43. "' See discussion in Drege, "La Lecture et l'ecriture," pp. 77-103.

52 SUSAN CHERNIACK

Inhaling and exhaling sheer emptiness He thrusts his will beyond the clouds Folds away his form in a lowly hut Lowering the curtains, leaning on his arm rest Clad in white silks, he reads his books (tu shu): Rising, falling, resonantly reverberating Sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly Relaxed and at ease, yet concentrated and controlled, Now restrained, now abandoned. When he intones (sung M) the "Chiuan-erh" 4,116 the loyal

minister rejoices When he sings (yung U) the "Lu-o" , the filial son is

grieved When he declaims (ch 'eng f) the "Big Rat" W .118 rapacious

officials depart When he trills (ch'ang "R) the "White Colt" OiJ,"9 the worthy

gentleman returns. Thus it was that Shun sang (yung) the Poems to the end of his

life120

Confucius read (tu) the Changes at mid-life12' Yiian-hsien YO immersed himself in chanting (yin "+), and so

forgot his lowliness122

116 Mao Shih, no. 3. '7 Mao Shih, no. 202.

118 Mao Shih, no. 113. 119 Mao Shih, no. 186. 120 Shun is associated with poetry because he charged his Music Master, K'uei *, to instill

accord in the world by regulating sounds: "Poems speak of the author's resolve, and singing prolongs speech. Sounds are carried by singing, and pitches create harmony among the sounds. When the eight timbres have been brought into accord, then none will encroach upon one another, and harmony will exist between spirits and people; Shang shu cheng-i, in Shih-san- ching chu-shu, " Shun tien, " 3.19c. The first sentence is quoted in the Great Preface of the Mao Shih.

121 Confucius said: "Grant me a few more years, so that I may study the Changes at the age of fifty, and I shall be free from major errors"; Lun-yi 7.17, trans. D. C. Lau, The Analects (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979), p. 170.

122 Yuian Hsien (Tzu-ssu #,, b. 515 B.C.), one of Confucius's disciples, devoted himself to his studies in complete indifference to extreme poverty and neglect. He is depicted as strum- ming his zither and singing, in similar anecdotes in K'ung-tzu chia-yu and Chuang Tzu; see Richard B. Mather's translation of the K'ung-tzu chia-yu anecdote, quoted in Liu Chuin's WIJ


Yen-hui gZl I concentrated diligently on it and so made light of poverty"'

Ni K'uan YM recited (sung A) as he weeded'24 Mai-ch'en =1 chanted (yin) as he walked, bearing a load of

firewood. 125

If even worthies and sages read with such tireless devotion How much more should middling talents and petty people?126

Silent reading was so little known in early medieval China that one purported instance of it-Juan Chan's IRLP (fl. 307-12) habit of reading "silently to grasp the essential points of a work, without seeking detailed understanding" Mt71T*WPft, 91M-receives special mention in Juan's Chin shu biography, as a demonstration of his unconventionality.127 Augustine's (d. 430) astonishment at seeing Ambrose read silently ("But when he read, his eyes wept across the pages, and his heart sought out the sense, but his voice and tongue were at rest." Sed cum legebat, oculi ducebantur per paginas et cor intellectum rimabatur, uox autem et lingua quiescebant . . .; Confessionum libri XIII) reminds us that vocal reading was also the norm in the medieval West, as it was in Western antiquity.128

$1 commentary (early sixth century) to Liu I-ch'ing WIJ (403-44), Shih-shuo hsin-yui t-A& "Yen-yi" 2.9, in Shih-shuo Hsin-yi: A New Account of Tales of the World (Minneapolis: Uni-

versity of Minnesota Press, 1976), p. 33 n. 4; also A Concordance to Chuang Tzu, Harvard- Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, Supplement no. 20 (Cambridge: Harvard Uni- versity Press, 1956), "Jang-wang" 28, p. 78, 1. 44ff; trans. Burton Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), pp. 315-16.

123 Yen Hui (521-490 B.C.) was praised by Confucius for being the one most eager to learn among his disciples (Lun-yii 6.2, 11.6) and also for remaining cheerful in dire poverty (Lun-yii 6.10).

124 Ni K'uan (d. 102 B.C.), an authority on the Shang shu, hired himself out as a farm laborer to earn his livelihood. During rest periods, he used to recite the classic from a book he brought along to the fields. Later, he served as Censor-in-Chief at the court of Emperor Wu; Han shu 58.11a-14a; Shih-chi 121.9b.

125 Chu * Mai-ch'en (d. 115 B.C.) supported himself for many years by selling firewood. He would sing and chant as he walked down the road with his burden, much to the embarrassment of his wife, who left him. Later, he achieved renown as a rhapsodist, serving as Grand Master of the Palace in the court of Emperor Wu; Han shu 64A. 1 la-13b.

126 Ou-yang Hsuin WMA, (557-641), comp., I-wen lei-chu N&;ffiy (Shao-hsing period edition, recut, thirteenth century; facsimile reprint, Peking: Chung-hua shu-chui, 1959), 55.6b- 7a.

127 Fang Hsiuan-ling bjAN (578-648), comp., Chin shu R O (PNPS edition), 49.3a. 128 As translated by William A. Graham in Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture

54 SUSAN CHERNIACK

Indeed, vocal-reading traditions continue in China and the West long after the introduction of printing. Though the influence of the print environment on the continuing oral stream in Chinese book culture is poorly understood, the situation may be similar to that in the West, where the development of soundless reading adds an option that does not eliminate the older practice.'29 References to the continuation of vocalized reading in the Sung are found in sundry descriptions of collation, study, and sonorous bathroom reading. Ex- amples include Ssu-ma Kuang's collaborator, Liu Shu XJq (1032- 78), reciting while copying a text, when shut up in Sung Min- ch'iu's 5ktkI (1019-79) library for a fortnight;'30 Chou Mi RPM (1232-1308) estimating that good scholars have excellent reading

voices; 3' and Sung Shou at the Historiography Institute (Shih- kuan), reading in a palace privy, his voice heard near and far.'32

However, Chu Hsi's peculiar insistence that "the ancients did not have written texts" (ku-ren wu pen iJRiX4), illustrated in the above passage and elsewhere by Han examples of oral transmission of the classics, 33 is an example of myth-making, rather than an accurate report of the conditions of textual transmission in Han times. Chu Hsi's broader claim is that the authentic texts of the classics were mental and oral: they existed in the minds of sages and were transmitted on the lips of the disciples. The written texts, being later transcriptions of the internalized oral texts, are derivative and therefore less authentic. According to his scheme, among written

in the History of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 35. For a good overview of the Western tradition of vocal reading, see Chapter 3 (pp. 30-44).

129 Graham notes that the coming of printing in the West has been viewed by many as "the decisive blow that felled the practice of oral, vocalized reading," but he also observes, "Si- lent, private reading appears to have become dominant only with the advent of widespread literacy in much of Western Europe, which was largely a nineteenth-century phenomenon"; ibid., pp. 39, 41.

130 See Ssu-ma Kuang, "Liu Tao-yuan Shih-kuo chi-nien hsui" I , in Wen-kuo Wen-cheng Ssu-ma kung chi, 65.8a.

131 Ch'i-tungyeh-yui Y43kf f; (Chin-taipi-shu edition, 15th ser.), "Tu-shu sheng," 20.5a-b. 132 See Ch'en Meng-lei NO& (1651-1741) et al., comp., Ku-chin t'u-shu chi-ch'eng -&i-I

-)A (1725) (facsimile reprint, Taipei: Ting-wen shu-chui, 1977), ts'e 605 ("Hsuieh-hsing tien," chuian 96), "Tu-shu pu chi-shih," p. 940a; also miscellaneous anecdotes, pp. 938-40.

133 See Chu-tzuyui-lei 10. lOa. The preceding entry also explains errors by Han scholars and by Mencius in quotations of the classics as memory slips due to lack of written texts; trans. Gardner, Learning to be a Sage, p. 139, no. 4.42.


texts, ready-made print texts would seem to have even lower value than transcribed texts. Lacking a personal dimension, they would seem to be most in need of redemption. For Chu Hsi, the goal of reading is to reverse the historical sequence, by internalizing texts and ultimately leaving behind the written prompts. The combination of skepticism about authority in print texts and the nostalgia for pre-print culture are symptomatic of the reaction to print-culture in twelfth-century China. The personal complexity of Chu Hsi's position may be imagined, when we recall that he supported himself by running a printing business, which he also used to promote his ideas. 134

Finally, we note that Chu Hsi's devaluation of written texts was by no means unique. The importance of leaving behind written texts is commonly emphasized in Sung classical exegesis. Some of the philosophical implications of this move have been discussed by intellectual historians. Kidder Smith and the co-authors of Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching have shown how the exegetical insistence on the possibility of transcending texts develops into an insistence on the necessity of transcending not only the traditional commentaries on the classics, but also the classics themselves. From this standpoint, the texts of the classics loom as potential obstacles to a direct apprehension of "things as they are"; as a corrective, readers are urged to put texts in second place, "reading the things of the world as the basis for reading the Classics.""'l3 The Neo-Confucian scholar and textual critic Wang Po HET (1197-1274), while acknowl- edging the historical importance of writing in transmitting the Way of the sages, goes so far as to blame books as the chief obstruction, averring that "the Way of the sages has been obscured because it was written down. 2

136

134 On Chu Hsi's printing business, see Wing-Tsit Chan, Chu Hsi: New Studies (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), pp. 77-81; on his concerns as a printer, see Ts'ao Chih, "Chu-tzu yu chiao-k'an hsiieh," pp. 113-18. In the Southern Sung, many scholar-officials became involved in private, quasi-official (i.e., printing utilizing government funds to produce books intended for private distribution), and local government printing projects. The names of more than one hundred such individuals are known; see discussion and list in Chang Hsiu-min, Chung-kuoyin-shua shih, pp. 56; 58 n. 3.

135 Kidder Smith, Jr., Peter K. Bol, Joseph A. Adler, and Don J. Wyatt, Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), Chapter 7 (by Smith), pp. 227- 28.

136 Shih i R (T'ung-chih tang ching-chieh edition, shih ser., 1680; reprint, 1873), "Shih pien

56 SUSAN CHERNIACK

The shift in attitudes toward texts exemplified by such views is symptomatic of the general Sung reappraisal of the status of texts as material artifacts: for many, books were no longer icons, but tools, and often, very imperfect ones. The sheer multiplication of texts due to printing, which helped make books common household objects, contributed also to the banalization of books, as Lo Pi noted in the twelfth century: "Printing has made books into things of no value. Young people today are so accustomed to them that they treat them as ordinary objects or utensils."'37 The devalorization of written texts implied by Sung intellectual developments cannot be separated from the general reconception of books as public commodities that was abetted by the explosion in book production. Sung intellectuals inhabited a world in which the growing physical presence of books could not be ignored. As the average size of major private libraries tripled and quadrupled from the pre-Sung average of 10,000 chuan (an unexceptional size for serious Sung collectors), more and more cabinets and buildings were required to house expanding collections in residences, academies, and palace libraries,'38 and more and more scholars like Lu Yu lived in quarters that had been converted into "book nests" (shu-ch'ao 8) with books rising to the rafters on all sides."39 How very difficult it must have been for

hsii," 1. la-b. The author, who is often identified as a "third-generation disciple" of Chu Hsi, proposed radical textual revisions of the Mao Shih, Shang shu, and other classical texts. See Ch'eng Yuan-min Vt4t, Wang Po chih sheng-p'ing yu hsiieh-shu i 2 vols. (Taipei: Wen-hai ch'u-pan-she, 1975), esp. 995-99, et seq.

137 Lo-shih chih-i, "Ch'eng-shu te-shu nan," 1.3a; quoted in Ching-i k'ao 293.6a. I am ap- propriating Drege's phrase, "banalisation du livre" from Les Bibliothetques en Chine, p. 267.

138 See references to sizes of collections in K. T. Wu, pp. 257-58; Ch'i-tungyeh-yii, "Shu- chi chih o," 12.9a-IOa; Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih 1.17-18. Two sources together give the most comprehensive coverage of individual Sung collectors: P'an Mei-yiieh, Sung-tai ts'ang-shu chia k'ao, and Fang Chien-hsin )ft , "Sung-tai ssu-chia ts'ang-shu pu-lu" 5KtM*Rf ;VX, Wen-hsien iiii 35 (1988.1): 220-29, 36 (1988.2): 229-43. Fang's study supplements P'an Mei-yuieh and earlier works. Pre-Sung figures for private collections are tabulated in Liu Ju- lin WIJr, "Sui T'ang Wu-tai shih-ch'i te ssu-jen ts'ang-shu" T'u-shu-kuan, Mar. 1962, no. 1: 52-55, and "Wei Chin Nan-pei-ch'ao shih-ch'i te ssu-jen ts'ang-shu" : T'u-shu-kuan, Sept. 1961, no. 3: 57-59. Additional bibliography on studies of private and government collections is given in Ts'ang-shu lun-chu tu- pen, pp. 27-53. For reports on sundry Sung private library buildings, see P'an Ming-shen, "Ssu-jen ts'ang-shu k'ao," pp. 233-35, and Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih 1.49-51.

139 Described in Lu Yu, "Shu-ch'ao chi" 2 (dated 1184), Wei-nan wen-chi XWX1Z$


Sung thinkers to deny the primacy of written texts in a world increasingly crowded with books.

Revisions of directorate imprints and the problem of textual authority. Printing helped undermine textual authority by replacing familiar manuscript-texts with an ever-increasing plethora of printed texts of doubtful or impermanent authority. In terms of prestige, imprints issued by the Directorate of Education ranked highest, followed by those coming from local government, private, and commercial printers (these latter led the field in terms of quantity by the twelfth century). But the presumptive authority of Directorate editions was undercut by imprints of canonical works that, when exposed to public scrutiny, were found to be wanting in accuracy. This public failure helped to weaken the imperial claim to monopoly on the transmission of perfected texts.

The trouble began at the beginning of the Sung when the central government embarked, without prior experience, on an ambitious program of printing projects. The Northern Sung capital K'ai-feng had been the site of the engraving of the Five Dynasties Directorate Nine Classics and other works, but when the Sung dynasty opened, the main printing centers were located in Southern China, in Ch'eng-tu and Mei-shan W1 I (in Shu), and Hang-chou (in the Wu- Yiieh MS area). It was Southern printing that had provided the inspiration for the earlier Nine Classics project. Even though K'ai-feng subsequently developed into a major printing center, the Northern Sung Directorate continued to rely on Ch'eng-tu and Hang-chou engravers for many projects requiring both quantity and quality."40

(SPTK ed.; 1st ser.), 18.9a-IOa; quoted in Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih 1.40. 140 Ch'eng-tu was the site for the engraving of the Tripitaka of 971-83 and Wang An-shih's

Hsin-hsiu cheng-i. Hang-chou engravers produced Directorate subcommentaries on the classics (the traditional Ch 'i-ching shu-i - , [see n. 149] and later Wang's Hsin-hsiu cheng-i), most of the dynastic histories (the Three Histories, the Seven Histories covering the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and also Hsin Tang shu; the venues of San-kuo chih and Chin shu are unknown.), Tzu-chih t'ung-chien, and a medical book, Wai-t'aipi-yaofang ' urgent- ly needed to curb malaria among troops in the South; for details, see Wang Kuo-wei, Liang Che ku k'an-pen k'ao, 1.144-46; summary table in Poon, "Books," pp. 18. In the Southern Sung, Ch'eng-tu's relative importance faded; Hang-chou and the Liang-Che Circuit domi-

58 SUSAN CHERNIACK

However, print technology was to introduce a dynamic of error and revision into the publication of canonical texts that the imperial government did not anticipate. The result is seen in the eventful publication histories of K'ung Ying-ta's Wu-ching cheng-i KiENS (compiled 630-33, revised 651-53) and the Three Histories.

The Wu-ching cheng-i (in 180 chuan) was published as a companion to the Directorate imprints of the Classics. It provided subcommentaries on the Chou I, Shang shu, Mao Shih, Li-chi, and the Ch'un-ch 'iu Tso chuan. By most measures, the thirteen-year process of getting the Wu-ching cheng-i into print was painful.141 K'ung Wei EL (d. 991; Director of Studies, i.e., Vice Chancellor of the Directorate of Education), was put in charge of the project in 988. Soon after the work started, T'ai-tsung was informed by another party that the Five Dynasties Directorate edition of the Classics, which the Sung Directorate had been reprinting, contained numerous textual changes interpolated by the original editor, T'ien Min fft. This was a matter of direct concern to K'ung Wei and his group, because

nated printing, together with the adjoining Fu-chien and Chiang-nan Circuits; see statistics in Poon, "Books," p. 11, tab. 1.

14' The account that follows is based on YH: "1-wen," "Tuan-kung chiao Wu-ching cheng- i" 43.15a-16a, Hsii ch'ang-pien 43.1b-2a (Hsien-p'ing l/l/chia-hsii), additional details in SS 431.20b-21a (K'ung Wei), 431.28b-29a (T'ien Min), 266.13b (Li Chih) and 431.31a-b (Ts'ui 1-cheng W-iE, for information on Li Chih and Liu K'o-ming), 287.15a (Chao An- jen 1i82), 431.6a (Hsing Ping), and 431.30b (Li Chuieh). Most documents are collected in Chien-pen k'ao 2.13-28, which includes dispatch notes preserved in colophons to later Southern Sung exemplars of the Mao Shih and Ch 'un-ch 'iu Tso chuan editions (2.20-24); also Ching-i k'ao 293.2b-3a. Elements of the sequence are reconstructed and discussed in Chiang Yuian-ch'ing, Chiao-ch 'ou hsiieh shih, pp. 93-94; Nait6 Torajir6 FSig,2kP,, "Ei'in hifu sonz6 S6kan tanhon Shoshoseigi kaidai" W i#g' 495 V MrFEA , SG 5.3 (1929), reprinted in NaitoKonan zenshu PSMX ! , vol. 7 (Chikuma shob6, 1970), pp. 203-5, and translated by Ch'ien Tao-sun Xg? as "Ying-yin Sung-k'an tan-pen Shang shu cheng-i chieh- t'i" WFP5kftV-M: -'EEF3EAN , Kuo-li Pei-p'ing t'u-shu-kuan kuan-k'an giG *ffiI 4.4 (1930): 23-24. See also Pelliot, Les Debuts, p. 86, for corrections on Carter, Invention, pp. 83, and 96 n. 3, on this subject.

The original request for the authorization of the imprint is given in a memorial of 988 (Tuan-kung 1/3), preserved in a Southern Sung exemplar of Shang shu cheng-i (Shao-hsi period [1190-94] or earlier); see Shang shu cheng-i (facsimile reprint of the edition held in the Imperial Household Library [Kunaish6, Osaka: Mainichi Press, 1929; facsimile reprint, SPTK, 3d ser.), la-b. This edition is discussed in Edgren, "Southern Song Printing," p. 26; Abe Ryu-ichi KIM3-, "Nihonkoku kenzai S6-Gen hanponshi (keibu)" Fl Jgk4cit

, Shido bunko ronshi . 18 (1981): 17-20; and Thompson, Shen Tzu, pp. 70- 72.


the Directorate Classics provided the lemmas (the citation texts) for the cheng-i. K'ung Wei was ordered to work with another project editor, Li Chiieh * (d. 993; Erudite of the Directorate of Education), to correct these texts, while work proceded on the cheng-i. '42 Between 988 and 994, the texts of the cheng-i were one by one collated and corrected (chiao-k'an ;Kfi) by different teams of specialists, the revisions were reviewed through a recollation (hsiang-chiao #4M), the recollation was proofed (tsai-chiao 41K), and the definitive texts thus established (chiao-ting Rt) were engraved.'43 The finished work was

142 On textual problems in the Five Dynasties Classics, see Sung-pen Ts'e-fu yiian-kuei, "Ch'ou-chi, " 608.23a (criticized upon publication); SS 431.28b-29a (examples of errors); SS 431.3la-b (990, problem reported by Li Chiieh and revision ordered); and comments by Ch'ao Kung-wu, n. 67. Yang I reports that after the revision was ordered, an argument en- sued at court between K'ung Wei (a Northerner) and Tu Kao tLA, (938-1013) (a Southerner) over whether Southern texts should be considered authoritative in making the corrections, in which Tu Kao prevailed; quoted in Ching-i k'ao 293.3b; unattributed in Chiang Shao-yui MPL?P (d. after 1145), comp., Huang-ch'ao shih-shih lei-yuan QAJ$t)fi; see Hsin-tiao Huang-ch'ao lei-yuian ffirffiJtZ (Sung-fen shih ts'ung-kan edition, 1st ser., 1911), "Chiang-nan shu-chi, " 30. 10a.

143 The dates of completion for the editions (known as the "Ch'un-hua editions") are: Chou I 988 (Tuan-kung 1/10), Shang shu 989 (Tuan-kung 2/10), Ch 'un-ch'iu Tso chuan 990 (Ch'un-hua 1/10), Mao Shih 992 (Ch'un-hua 3/4), Li-chi 994 (Ch'un-hua 5/5); YH: "1-wen, "

43.15a. The phrase used in each case is pan ch'eng IRA. I yield to the traditional interpretation of this phrase as referring to the completion of the wood-block engraving. Yet I suspect that pan ch 'eng may refer instead to the completion of the copy-text to be used for the engraving. This is suggested by a comparison of phrases used to describe the collation and engraving of texts in other sources. One example is found in Lin-t'ai ku-shih: "In Ta-chung hsiang-fu, year 1 [1008], month 6, Examining Editor of the Academy for the Veneration of Literature Tu Kao et al., verified the collation of Nan-hua chen-ching (MMWAM), the engraving of the block-text was completed ( and a copy was bestowed on each Grand Coun- cilor. In year 5, month 4, the Academy for the Veneration of Literature presented the newly printed Lieh-tzu ch'ung-hsu chih-te chen-ching BIJ+ f . . . In the Ching-te period the officials had been ordered to collate and correct their copies. At this time [1012], the engraved text was completed (iQ1:J)EHW), and gifts of gold and silk were bestowed on the collators, according to rank"; "Chiao-ch'ou," 2.12a. A second example is given by the wording in a dispatch note appended to the 1011 Directorate imprint of the Li Shan a (d. 689) commentary edition of Hsiao T'ung's & (501-3 1) Wen-hsiian hI_; "[The Directorate requests] after the Directorate Lecturers have verified the collation of the fair [i.e., final] copy transcribed the copy-text (4PA, 4C), and then carefully proofed (94M) it, that it [i.e., the 7 4c be sent to the Three Institutes to be engraved"; quoted in Chien-pen k'ao 2.124. In this sequence, pan-pen can only refer to the copy-text.

The collation terms given in the description of the Wu-ching cheng-i project are all included in the list of duty titles and descriptions of this project. Additional titles occur in dispatch notes to other Directorate editions, collected in Chien-pen k'ao and tabulated in Poon, "Books," p. 91, tab. 5. Texts intended for print distribution normally underwent a three-stage process of

60 SUSAN CHERNIACK

presented to the throne in 994 with a posthumous memorial, which K'ung Wei dictated on his deathbed.'44

A second project editor, Li Chih W? (Supervisor of the Direc- torate of Education), then reported that the presented texts were still full of errors. A recollation was ordered the same year (994), to be conducted by new personnel with broader knowledge of the canon."45 When the job was finished in 996, another group was ordered to review the revised edition.'46 After this was done, incredibly, in 998, new reports of numerous errors in the print Classics and textual problems in the revised Mao Shih and Shang shu subcommentaries led to an order for further corrections. The order now came from Chen- tsung, who inherited the problem upon his accession to the throne that year.'47 The next year (999), the work was turned over to Hsing Ping and the Directorate printing staff, who brought the project to completion in 1001 . 148

Yet, soon after publication, the cycle of revisions began again. In 1005, after completing a complementary series of subcommentaries on the rernaining seven classics, the Ch 'i-ching shu-i -Ef -which had been edited between 994 and 1001, and engraved between 1001 and 1005-the Directorate began to correct mistakes reported in certain texts and to recut blocks that were either faulty or damaged.'49

initial collation, review of the same, and a final inspection. In the case of this project, a few individuals participated in more than one stage.

144 K'ung Wei succumbed to an illness, after the public exposure of his embezzlement of more than 300,000 cash from the project funds. K'ung had repaid the money and been pardoned by the Emperor before he died. His one regret was that he would not see the project completed; SS 431.20b-2 1a.

145 YH: "I-wen, " 43.15b, Hsu ch'ang-pien 43.lb-2a, SS 431.31a-b. 146 YH: "I-wen, " 43.15b. 147 The errors were reported by one Liu K'o-ming I a Single-Classic Specialist

(hsiieh-chliu) from Ts'ai-chou :)h, otherwise unknown; YH: "I-wen," 43.15b; Hsu ch'ang- pien 43.2a (Hsien-p'ing 1/1/ting-ch'ou); SS 431.3la-b. Ninety-four characters were subsequently changed.

148 YH: "I-wen," 43.15b-16a, SS 287.15a. 149 The Ch'i-ching shu-i project was initiated in 994 at Li Chih's request, as a sequel to the

supposedly concluded Wu-ching cheng-i project; YH: " 1-wen, " 43. 15b, SS 266. 13b, 287. 15a. It included subcommentaries to the I-li, Chou-li, Kung-yang chuan, Ku-liang chuan, Lun-yii, Hsiao ching, and Erh-ya. Hsing Ping, who was one of the principals in this project, was ordered to correct the blocks after problems were reported in a review conducted by two other project editors, Tu Kao and Sun Shih * (962-1033); for details, see Lin-t'ai ku-shih, "Chiao- ch'ou," 2.10b-i la (Hsien-p'ing 4/9, banquet to celebrate completion of editing; Ching-te


This project was expanded in 1014 to include a general retraction of all blocks of the classics and canonical subcommentaries found to contain errors. Revised imprints were then published from corrected blocks. From this time on, whenever errors were discovered in the printed canon, the texts would be recollated and the blocks corrected.'50 Then in 1021, because mounting damage and age made further repairs on the blocks unwise, the classics were completely reengraved.'5'

It is unlikely that these revisions and corrections would have been undertaken or published had the possibility for easy retraction not been provided by the print medium. In the T'ang, projects to establish definitive texts of the classics had culminated in texts that were fixed on stone stelae with monumental finality.'52 Once the texts were engraved on stone, the subject of revisions was, for all practical purposes, closed. The medium, stone, signified (as one T'ang writer put it) "an inerasable authority," which proclaimed that "a hundred ages hence no adjustments [in the texts] need be made'";153 the idea of permanence was inseparable from the meaning of the classics themselves. In taking advantage of the capabilities of printing to improve texts, however, the Sung Directorate showed that, for better or worse, definitive editions established on woodblocks did not possess the finality of those engraved in stone. The association of government printing with impermanent and endlessly revis- able canonical texts was a new idea with productive consequences for classical scholarship, which throve on the freedom afforded by fluid imprints.

2/9, corrections ordered), quoted in Chien-pen k'ao 2.27; also YH: "I-wen," "Hsien- p'ing chiao-ting Ch'i-ching shu-i," 43.17a-b, and "Ching-te ch'iin-shu t'ien pan, K'an-cheng Ssu-ching," 43. 18a-b (Ching-te 2/9/hsin-hai); SS 266. 13b (Li Chih). As Weng Fang-kang W7b' (1733-1818) has pointed out, the Hsu ch'ang-pien entry on this subject is defective.

Some titles are left out; see Ching-i k'ao pu-cheng MaE (Yiieh-ya t'ang ts'ung-shu edition, 6th ser., 1850), 12.18b; cf. Hsu ch'ang-pien 49.9b (Hsien-p'ing 4/9/ting-hai; date of presentation).

150 YH: "I-wen," 43.18b (Hsiang-fu 7/9). 151 YH: "I-wen," 43.18b (T'ien-hsi 5/5/hsin-ch'ou). 152 See McMullen, State and Scholars, pp. 97-100. 153 From a letter by the calligrapher Li Yang-ping :I C (fl. c. 765-80) proposing the en-

graving of a set of T'ang stone classics, "Shang Li ta-fu lun ku-chiian shu" : -, in T'ang-wen ts'ui AF-7X, comp. Yao Hsiian ttZ (968-1020) (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), 81.7b; as translated in McMullen, State and Scholars, p. 99, with additions in brackets.

62 SUSAN CHERNIACK

The case of the Three Histories project is equally instructive.'54 In 994 T'ai-tsung also ordered the collation of the Shih-chi (130 chuan), Han shu (120 chuan), and Hou Han shu (90 chian)."55 When the work was finished, the copy was sent to Hang-chou where the blocks were engraved, and in 998 the newly enthroned Chen-tsung was able to bestow copies of the "newly printed Three Histories" on Princes and Grand Councilors. 56 Only then was it was reported that the imprints were riddled with collation and printing errors, and during the Hsien-p'ing period, a recollation was ordered, starting with the Shih-chi.157 This resulted in a revised edition in 1004, accompanied by an embarrassing five-chuan corrigenda and a memorial blaming the errors on the earlier production staff. " The disclosure prompted an order for the recollation of the two Han histories, which was completed the following year. For the Han shu, the outcome was a six- chuan corrigenda concerning 349 entries and correcting more than 3,000 textual errors (about one error per leaf, on average), presented to the throne with the revised editions.'59 The printing blocks

154 The account that follows is based on Lin-t'ai ku-shih, "Chiao-ch'ou" 2.9b-lOa, 1 la-b, 14b-15a; YH: "I-wen," "Ch'un-hua chiao San-shih, Chia-yu chiao Ch'i-shih" 43.16a-17a, "Hsi-ning Shih-cheng wen-tzu" 43.21b, "Ching-yu Han shu k'an-wu" 49.21b-22a, "Chia-yu ch'ung-chiao Han shu" 49.22b; SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 55, 4.1a-b (Ch'un-hua 5/7, Hsien- p'ing, Ching-te 1), 4.1Oa (Hsi-ning 2/8/6); Shih-liieh 2.13b-14b, 18b; Chien-pen k'ao 2.48-55. Most documents are quoted and discussed in Ozaki Yasushi, Seishi So-Genban, pp. 9-11, 45- 61, see also pp. 161-3 10 on later Sung publication history; Kuratajunnosuke , WtJM1, "Kanjo hanpoko" j%%7A5C, Toho gakuho 30/** 27 (Mar. 1957): 256, 263-71, and Chao T'ieh-han j "Pei Sung k'an Shih-chi wu-chung pan-pen pien-cheng" 1L5kt1TJK4_ 2>H1k4~IZiE, Ta-lu tsa-chih 23.2 (July 1961): 35-40, 23.3 (Aug. 1961): 91-94. Note that editions of the Hou Han shu did not include the "Treatises" by Ssu-ma Piao Iti (d. 305) found in editions since the Southern Sung. These were first engraved separately in 1024; SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 55, 4.7a (Ch'ing-hsing 1/11); Jung-chaissu-pi, "Fan Yeh Han chih," 1.Ollb-12a; discussed in Ozaki Yasushi, p. 277.

155 YH: "I-wen," 43.17a (Hsien-p'ing 1/7/chia-shen). These imprints, which are known as the "Ch'un-hua editions," were presented to the throne in 997 by Grand Councilor (tsai- hsiang) Lu Tuan MM5 (935-1000), according to a dispatch note once preserved in a Southern Sung exemplar of Han shu, cited in T'ien-lu lin-lang shu-mu 2. lb.

156 YH: "I-wen," 43.17a (Hsien-p'ing 1/7/chia-shen). 157 Chen-tsung considered the matter of the textual problems in the Ch'un-hua imprinits

serious enough to discuss with his Grand Councilors; Lin-t'ai ku-shih 2. 1 la. The revised editions that followed are known as the "Ching-te editions."

158 A "fu-chiao Shih-chi k'an-wu wen-tzu," presented by Jen Sui f3{ et al. (Ching-te/l/ ping-wu); YH: "1-wen, " 43.16a, Lin-t'ai ku-shih 2.1 lb.

159 Presented by Tiao K'an 3 {U (945-1013) (Ching-te 2/7/Jen-hsii), identified as a "fu- chiao Ch'ien Han shu pan-pen k'an-cheng san-ch'ien-yii wen-tzu lu" in YH: "I-wen,"


were rectified, but the matter did not rest here. In 1034, Yu Ching petitioned Jen-tsung for a comprehensive recollation of the Three Histories to correct these imprints, as noted earlier.'60 Revised editions were submitted of the Han shu and Hou Han shu in 1035, and of the Shih-chi, probably around the same time. 16' These were based on a battery of alternative editions and collateral sources in the Imperi- al Archives and other libraries in the Academy for the Veneration of Literature; Yu Ching compiled a record of his contributions in corrigenda totalling 45 chuan, including 30 chuan alone on the Han shu.162 The blocks were again recut. Even then, concerns about the

43.16a; cf. Lin-t'ai ku-shih 2.1 lb quoting an excerpt from the accompanying memorial, summarized in SHY: "Chih-kuan," 4. lb. The average is derived from calculating each half-leaf as containing ten lines, with nineteen characters per line, and a total of about 800,000 characters in Han shu, after Chao T'ieh-han, "Pei Sung k'an Shih-chi, " p. 36. The average is similar for corrections in the Ching-yu editions, as calculated by Chao. Chao concludes such an average would not have warranted a complete reengraving of the work, but rather recuttings of affected blocks.

160 Yii Ching first petitioned for a recollation of the Han shu, then the project was expanded to include Shih-chi and Hou Han shu in consideration that "in the future there would not longer be any old editions to correct [the imprints];" according to Lin-t'ai ku-shih 2.14b; Hsu ch'ang-pien 117.10a (Ching-yu 2/9/jen-ch'en), YH: "I-wen," 43.19a, SS, 320.10b. (Shih- liieh 2.14b-15a credits Yu with proposing revisions of the two Han dynastic histories only.) Chang Kuan was assigned to verify the corrections (k'an-ting). For other project staff, see n. 106.

161 The revised imprints are known as the "Ching-yu editions." The Han shu revision is also cited as "Ching-yu k'an-wu" edition, after Yii Ching's corrigenda. Yii's memorials accompanying the Han shu and Hou Han shu have survived; both are dated Ching-yu 2/9, but no dated record exists for the sister imprint of the Shih-chi. The two memorials are preserved respectively at the end of the PNPS edition of Han shu, "CCh'ien Han mo," la-4b; and at the end of the Jen-shou pen erh-shih-wu-shih fgt -+EI;t edition of Hou Han shu (facsimile reprint, Taipei: Erh-shih-wu-shih pien-k'an kuan, 1955-56), 'Wu-yiuan chuan," 120.17a-18b. The Hou Han shu memorial is translated in Edouard Chavannes, "Trois generaux chinois de la dy- nastie des Han orientaux," TP, ser. 2, 7 (1906): 211-15.

162 YU Ching's corrigenda, San-shih k'an-wu, 45 chujan, is noted in YH: "I-wen," 43.17a and described in the catalogue entry in Ch'ung-wen tsung-mu cited in n. 106. The laudatory description in Ch'ung-wen tsung-mu says that Yu consulted "several hundred" sources. The San-shih k'an-wu probably included his Han shu k'an-wu, 30 chujan, cited in YH: "I-wen," 49.22a (from Kuo-shih chih SJii*:) and 22b; Hsii ch'ang-pien 117.10a; also Lin-t'ai ku-shih 2.15a, quoted in Chien-pen k'ao 2.53. Curiously, Kuo-shih chih states that Yiu's Han shu k'an-wu was criticized for omissions and errors, and the same is implied in the Lin-t'ai ku-shih account. Figures for corrections in the two Han histories are preserved in Yiu's accompanying memorials (see n. 161). For the Han shu: 741 characters were added, 212 deleted, 1,303 changed. For minor discrepancies between this and other sources concerning the last figure, variously given as 1,339 and 1,309, see Kuratajunnosuke, "Kanio hanpok6," p. 267, and Shih-liieh 2.14b. For the Hou Han shu: 512 characters were added, 143 deleted, and 411 changed.

64 SUSAN CHERNIACK

accuracy of the Han history imprints persisted. In the 1060s, the two Han histories were again recollated and corrected. A revised imprint of the Han shu was presented to Shen-tsung 4' in 1069.163 A corrigenda on the Hou Han shu was also submitted by Liu Pin to Ying-tsung J (r. 1064-67)-this project reportedly having been launched in 1062 after Jen-tsung found an error in Yii Ching's im-

print. 164

That improved versions of the histories were initiated by four successive rulers suggests that establishing a correct print-text had come to be regarded as a generational duty. Compiling or rectifying a history had previously been considered a one-time dynastic responsibility. However, the treatment of the histories fits the pattern of revisions seen in other early Directorate works. For example, the engraving of the Penal Code (Hsing t'ung RJ) in 963 was followed in 966 by a request from the Court of Judicial Review (Ta-li ssu) for recuts to correct various print errors.165 The completion of Ch 'i- ching shu-i in 1001 was followed four years later by an order to correct errors in three of the subcommentaries (those on the Lun- yii, Hsiao ching, and Erh-ya), and the Shang shu cheng-i.166 A rhyme dictionary, Yiin-liieh A (engraved in 1007, with a supplement distributed in 1011), compiled to assist examination candidates, was criticized for causing confusion. The Directorate was obliged to produce a new version, Li-puyfin-lfieh -M (1037), making its earlier

163 A Hsin-chiao Han shu imprint, 50 ts'e, presented by Chao Pien iltt (1008-84) (Hsi-ning 2/8/6), collated by Ch'en Shih 1W (Assistant Director of the Palace Library), and recollated by Ou-yang Hsiu between 1061 and 1069; YH: "I-wen, " 49.22b, 43.16b; SS 329.20a (Ch'en was ordered to collate the work at home while observing mourning for his mother). The revised edition was accompanied by Ch'en's corrigenda, Shih-cheng wen-tzu, 7 chiian; YH: "I- wen," 43.21b. This edition is known as the "Hsi-ning" or "Chia-yu edition."

164 Descriptions of Liu Pin's work are found in the catalogue entry on his Tung Han k'an-wu in Chiin-chai tu-shu chih chiao-cheng 7.304; YH: "I-wen," "Ching-yu Han shu k'an-wu," 49.22a; Shih-lueh 2.18b, 19b-20a. The sources disagree about whether the collation was authorized toward the end of the Chia-yu period, in 1062, byJen-tsung, after the Emperor discovered an error in Yu Ching's imprint, or the beginning of the Chih-p'ing period, in 1064, by Ying- tsung. Liu Pin was one of seven editors assigned to the project, but when the others were transferred to new posts in the early Chih-p'ing period, he was left with sole responsibility for completing the work. He expressed the unpopular opinion that all versions of the Han shu, both in palace and private collections, were unreliable save his; Shih-luieh 2.19b-20a.

165 SHY: "Hsing-fa," 1.1a-b (Chien-lung 4/2/5, 4/8/2; Ch'ien-te 4/3/18). 166 See n. 149.


imprint obsolete.167 Print publication, by its public nature, evoked public criticism.

The government was thereby exposed to unprecedented scrutiny of its scholarly standards, and the editors, whose names were published with the accompanying dispatch notes; were subjected to the judgment of their peers at large. The Directorate was sensitive to this situation, as seen in its readiness to acknowledge errors and correct them in future imprints. Scholars who now found their reputa- tions indelibly linked to their performance in print also took pains to distance themselves from compromised projects, or to disown unauthorized publications. While it is true that printing could help create stars-wood-block portraits of Ssu-ma Kuang were sold for display in Sung homes along with copies of his Tzu-chih t'ung-chien168- the Five Dynasties statesman T'ien Min was remembered unkindly in Sung sources as the editor who first introduced interpolations into the texts of the Directorate Classics and then disgraced himself by embezzling ten million cash from the subsequent book sales;169 and in the Crow Terrace poetry case, Su Shih was convicted of allowing seditious poems to be printed commercially.170 Other authors therefore took pains to control and monitor the publication of their writings. Thus Chu Hsi thought it a worthwhile investment, despite his chronically troubled finances, to attempt to squelch an unauthorized imprint of some of his works by an academy official in Wu- chou Wf1, by offering to buy up the entire stock of copies from the printer. 171

167 On the problems with the original edition, see colophon quoted in Chien-pen k'ao 2.36- 38; SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 55, 4.4a.

168 See Chu Hsi, comp., San-ch'ao ming-ch'en yen-hsing lu P > (SPCK edition, 1st ser.), 7.40b. Chu reports that some of the engravers became wealthy from the sales. Buy- ers came to K'ai-feng from all parts of the country to purchase them. People hung them in their homes and made offerings to the portrait at mealtimes.

169 See Sung-pen Ts'e-fu yiian-kuei, "Ch'ou-chi, " 608.23a; SS 431.28b-29a. 170 See Charles Hartman, "Poetry and Politics in 1079: The Crow Terrace Poetry Case of

Su Shih, " Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, 12 (1990): 15-44. The imprints were included among the case exhibits, and the deposition, indictment, and final notice of conviction all mention the fact that the works were printed for sale; ibid., p. 20 n. 17. Hartman con- tinues his discussion of the case in "The Inquisition Against Su Shih: His Sentence as an Ex- ample of Sung Legal Practice," JAOS 113.2 (1993) 228-43.

171 See Chu Hsi, 'Ta Yang chiao-shou" :%$ftt, Hui-an chi, 26.5b-7b. The imprints included Hsi-ming fi0t, among other works.

66 SUSAN CHERNIACK

Sometimes individual scholars did not wait for the Directorate to correct its work. Chang Pi CC Liu Pin-independently and in col- laboration with Liu Ch'ang and Liu Feng-shih-and Sung Ch'i were among those who compiled their own corrections on the Han history imprints. Portions of their work were incorporated into later editions.172 Collation notes and corrigenda were also compiled for other Directorate productions, and toward the end of the century some of these began to make their way into print through private publishers. Editors from the last decades of the eleventh century identify a range of problems in early Directorate publishing. Wu Chen - in his Hsin Tang shu chiu-miu r (which was privately printed between 1091 and 1094, and presented to the throne in 1094) lists eight sources of error in the 1060 Directorate imprint of the new History of the T'ang, which had been compiled over a six- teen-year period, under the direction of several editors, concluding with Sung Ch'i and Ou-yang Hsiu.'73 Wu Chen cites the following

172 Chang Pi's work took the form of a commentary on a corrigenda to the Han shu, composed during the Ch'un-hua period when he was a Compiler in the Historiography Institute; some of Chang's notes are found at the end of chiian 30, 40, 49, and 65, in the PNPS Han shu. The Han history specialist Liu Pin collaborated with Liu Ch'ang and Liu Feng-shih in a work known as San Liu Han shu piao-chu _ 6 chiian; notes from this work are cited in the Huang-Liu edition (see n. 108). Liu Pin also compiled a corrigenda on the Hou Han shu, entitled Tung Han k'an-wu, 1 or 4 chuian, in the course of his authorized revision during the Chia-yu and Chih-p'ing periods; see n. 164. A corrigenda on the Han shu, entitled Hsi Han k'an-wu, 1 chiian, is also attributed to him. Sung Ch'i compiled collation notes on the Han shu during the Ching-yu period; see n. 108. Notes credited to this work are also cited in the Huang-Liu edition.

Important bibliographic records on the corrigenda include descriptions in the imperial library catalogue, Chung-hsing kuan-ko shu-mu (comp. 1178), comp. Ch'en K'uei et al., quoted in YH: "I-wen," 49.22a, and in the reconstituted Chung-hsing Kuan-ko shu-mu chi-k'ao V^, MIM 4i comp. Chao Shih-wei i Ku-i shu-lu ts'ung-chi, no. 4 (Peiping: Kuo-li Pei-p'ing t'u-shu-kuan, 1933), 2.4a-b; in Chuin-chai tu-shu chih chiao-cheng 7.303-4 (cf. WHTK: "Ching-chi k'ao" 27, 200.1675c-6a); and in Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i 4.101 (the three Lius' work only, here titled San Liu Han shu); also listings in SS "I-wen chih," 203.2a (Chang here identified as Chang Pi 2X); and a notice of Liu Pin's Tung Han k'an-wu in Wang Ch'eng ]Eif (d. ca. 1200), comp., Tung-tu shih-liieh VM$M (comp. 1186), ed. Miao Ch'uan-sun (Huai-nan shu-chiu, 1883), 76.3b. Useful discussions are found in Kuratajun- nosuke, "Kanjo hanpok6," p. 274; Loewe, "Editions of the Ch'ien-Han-shu," pp. 166-67; and entries by Ueda Sanae and Rafe de Crespigny in A Sung Bibliography (Bibliographie des Sung), initiated by Etienne Balazs and ed. Yves Hervouet (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. 1978), pp. 64-66.

173 Sung Ch'i had served as an editor from the beginning. Ou-yang Hsiu joined in 1054. For a detailed list of editorial staff, see Ch'ien Ta-hsi 7kHk (1728-1804), "Hsiu T'ang shu


problems: no single editor was given full responsibility for the entire work; no schedule was set to complete the work in a timely manner, with the result that staff came and went as the project dragged on; editorial principles and procedures were not spelled out in advance, and the work was not properly reviewed at the end; editors relied too heavily on unreliable sources such as hsiao-shuo 'JM; old T'ang sources were used uncritically; the contributing editors did not understand the essentials of good historiography and each simply did as he saw fit; collators lacked a sense of professional ethics and never scrutinized the accuracy of the sources cited but merely rubber- stamped the editors' work.174 As Wu Chen indicates, project organization was a basic problem. The use of a large staff and the lack of well-developed editorial procedures uniformly enforced, appears to have been a common combination.

Other problems were caused by the uneven quality, training, and use of staff members assigned to editorial work. Most staff members in the Academies and Institutes (Kuan-ko, which after 1082 were absorbed into the Palace Library) who were assigned to collation posts were selected, screened, and appointed by the Ministry of Per- sonnel (Li-pu). They came to such positions variously, through recommendations, seniority, or through their performance in the civil service examinations.175 Additional officers were appointed on an ad hoc basis for specific projects. The duty assignments for collators began to be systematized after the great palace fire of 1015, which destroyed the libraries of the Academy for the Veneration of

shih-ch'en piao" I I, ff ., included in the prefatory matter of Ch'ien's edition of Hsin T'ang shu chiu-miu (Chih-pu-tsu chai ts'ung-shu, 15th ser., ca. 1792; facsimile reprint, 1921).

174 See "Hsin T'ang shu chiu-miu hsui," Hsin T'ang shu chiu-miu, 2a-5b. Wu Chen also compiled a corrigenda on the Directorate imprint of the History of the Five Dynasties, entitled Wu-tai shih tsuan-chi ; According to Wang Ming-ch'ing, Wu Chen composed the critiques because he had been disappointed at having been excluded from the Tang shu project by Ou- yang Hsiu on account of his youth and embittered by a provincial career which followed. He printed both privately in the Yuan-yu period; Hui-chu lu, 2.35a-b. See entries for both corrigenda in WHTK: "Ching-chi k'ao," 27, 200.1676a-b (Hsin Tang shu chiu-miu here titled T'ang shu pien-cheng), 1677a-b; Chuin-chai tu-shu chih chiao-cheng 7.305-6 (Tang shu pien-cheng); Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i 4.101-2; and entry by Tonami M.amoru in Sung Bibliography, p. 67.

175 See Ou-yang Hsiu, "Yu lun kuan-ko ch'ii shih cha-tzu" R&Mrli:3:llf (1065), in Tsou-i chi 18, Ou-yang kung chi 114.8b-1 lb; and the related exchange between Ou-yang Hsiu and Ying-tsung on this matter in SS 164.6b, interlinear note. For a discussion of general staffing and behavioral problems, see Chiang Yiuan-ch'ing, Chiao-ch'ou hsiieh shih, pp. 156-58.

68 SUSAN CHERNIACK

Literature and most of the Imperial Archives. During the next ten years, numerous staff members were recruited to reconstitute these collections by collating and copying works that had survived in other palace holdings or been solicited from local government authorities and private collectors.176 The performance of collators was judged largely by their ability to meet daily quotas. Though the quotas fluctuated, the Sung norm was twenty-one full sheets (chih A) of codex leaves a day-that is, as much as double the T'ang average."77 Such a pace did not allow for thoroughgoing compari-

176 See Lin-t'ai ku-shih "Shu-chi," 2.5b-6b, and "Chiao-ch'ou," 2.13a-b. (chuian 2 of this work provides the most informative account of the development of the editorial bureaucracy in the imperial library); Hui-chu lu 1. 14a-15a.

177 See Huang-ch'ao lei-yuian 31.7b, no. 21. Twenty-one chih a day was the old Northern Sung quota. This is confirmed by quotas cited in SHY: "Chih-kuan" (ts'e 70) for the Yuan- yu period: 21 full chih a day; 18.8b (Yulan-yu 2, cited as the "the old system"; A "month" here is a copyist error for l "day"); 18.la (Yiian-yu 5/12/18), 18.12a (Yiian-yu 6/6); also 10 pan ji a day for part-time collators, that is, about half the full-time quota; 18.1 lb (Yulan- yu 6/2/17). (SS 164.7a reports that the Ministry of Rites set collation quotas in Yulan-yu 3/12, but gives no details.) The work was presented at the end of the month. A refinement of this system is seen in the work schedule for a project in 1132 to collate new acquisitions from a private library. Palace Library collators were expected to prepare 21 chih a day; a record was kept of daily performance; every ten days a report was sent to the library director; and every month a sealed report was also submitted to the director, probably for transmission to the Department of State Affairs; SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 55, 4.13a-b (Shao-hsing 2/4/14); Nan Sung kuan-ko lu, "Chu-ts'ang," 3.la-b; see Winkelman, "Imperial Library," pp. 32-33.

T'ang quotas for Palace Library collators were both lower and more flexible. For the initial collation (ch'u-chiao 03J) of "old texts with many errors," the base quota was 8, 9, or 10 chih a day, depending on the number of daylight hours at that time of year (8 chih during months 10-1; 9 during months 2-3 and 8-9; and 10 during months 4-7). Adjustments were then made as follows: for texts "with few errors," add 2 more chih a day; for texts with no interlinear annotations, add 2 more chih a day; for recollation (tsai-chiao NR, i.e. proofing) add 3 more chih a day; for correcting orthography, [add] 3 [more] chih a day (the character In "add" is missing here); SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 70, 18.1 a-b.

On the measures chih and pan: Chih refers to a standard sheet of paper. The pre-Sung size is estimated by Tsien to be about 24 (width) x 41-48.5 cm (length); Bamboo and Silk, pp. 153- 54. Dimensions of Tun-huang sheets in the Pelliot collection range from 26 x 39 cm (third century) to 30 X 45 cm (T'ang). Annotations were often written on the back. For details, see Jean-Pierre Drege, "Papiers de Dunhuang: essaie d'analyse morphologique des manuscrits chinois dates," TP, ser. 2, 67.3-5 (1981): 305-60. Zurcher estimates that the average "standard sheet" used in setting requirements for T'ang Buddhist clerical examinations contained about 500 characters; "Buddhism and Education," p. 43 n. 54. Chih is used in this sense as a copying unit for the Five Dynasties Directorate imprint of the Classics in Wu-tai hui-yao 8.2b, quoted in Ching-i k'ao 293. la. This term was still used in the Sung, but often as a measure for codex leaves, as in the above quotas. A further example of this Sung usage is given by the im- poverished scholar Yuan Chiun . who set himself a quota of copying 50 chih a day from


sons of multiple versions of an entire work. As Sung Min-ch'iu reported in a memorial of 1071, the most that collators could be expected to achieve was to compare the document against one other text. If the document was a transcription, that meant proofing it against the original. (If the document was a unicus, the sole witness of a work, that meant collating the work against itself, that is, revising it to correct internal inconsistencies and other apparent errors.) As a result, Sung said, the repeated collation and copying of books in the palace libraries had resulted in expanded collections of texts of ever lower quality.178 In the Chia-yu period, attempts were made to improve the system: better supervision of collators was proposed;'79 a new echelon of officers, Compiler-Collators (pien-chiao kuan 3Wf),

borrowed books; Ch'i Ch'eng-han JW*N (1565-1628), Tan-sheng t'ang ts'ang-shuyiieh 4.M i~*9 (comp. 1613) (Ou-hsiang ling shih edition), 1Ob.

In the context of collation quotas, pan refers to a leaf of two pages. In Han times, pan meant a wooden writing-board or slip. From this use, it also came to mean "a piece of writing." Fi- nally, the term was used for a wooden printing-block, which consisted of such a one-leaf unit. In the Sung, pan was used as a measure for both manuscript leaves and printed leaves in this format. The number of characters on a leaf varies according to the number of lines per page and the number of characters (large main-text and small interlinear-annotation characters) per line, but an amply spaced large-character imprint with 19-20 main-text characters per line and 10-13 lines per half-leaf could carry 380-520 characters, or more if with interlinear annotations. Actual character counts for individual leaves and total character counts for the work are sometimes recorded in Sung imprints, the former on the top of the center column (pan hsin &4i) of the leaf, and the latter (less frequently) in a colophon at the end of the work. For an inventory of such counts in different leaf formats, see Chiang Piao a_a, (1860-99), Sung Yuan pen hang-ko piao 5kTC*f4 (Hunan, 1897). For a tabulation of counts in works from the Ting T family Shan-pen shu-shih A*-4 collection, see Chao Hung-ch'ien i "Sung Yuan pen hang-ko piao," Chung-yang ta-hsiieh kuo-hsiieh t'u-shu-kuan nien-k'an 4 k: gff* 4 I4 (1928): 1-34. For Sung imprints preserved inJapan, see Nagasawa Kikuya, "(Honpo shoken) S6hon gy6kakuhy6 shok6" ; Nagasawa Kikuya chosakushut, 3:298-314.

178 See memorial quoted in SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 70, 18.3b-4a (Hsi-ning 4/10/29); WHTK: "Ching-chi k'ao" 1, 174.1509a-b, paraphrased in Lin-t'ai ku-shih, "Shu-chi," 2.9a. Sung Min-ch'iu called for reform of this practice. He proposed comprehensive comparative collation of all source texts in the libraries, working up from extant pre-Han texts listed in the Han shu "Treatise on Bibliography." This would have been a huge undertaking. The proposal was not accepted. A proposal in 1132 by the Assistant Director of the Palace Li- brary, Wang Ang -EjM (b. 1090), for the collation of 2,678 chiian of works acquired from Tseng Min's R library seeks permission to allow collators to revise and restore badly damaged or error-ridden texts by consulting one or more other versions. The proposal implies that such a measure was reserved for problem cases. It was accepted; see n. 177.

179 See Ou-yang Hsiu, "Ch'i hsieh Pi-ko shu ling kuan-chih chiao-ch'ou cha-tzu" t;4 fi t: (1057), in Tsou-i chi 15, Ou-yang kung chi 111.6b-7b.

70 SUSAN CHERNIACK

was created to take over certain collation tasks, while the old quota for rank-and-file staff was temporarily suspended;'80 and to raise the quality of editing, a seven-year program for developing and promot- ing senior collators was implemented."8' But during the Yiian-yu period, in late 1090, the quota of 21 chih a day was reinstituted. This measure was intended to restore discipline among the huge collation staff in the Palace Library.'82 Although exceptions were granted, this quota remained the norm in the Southern Sung.'83

Thus in the Southern Sung, rushed collation work is also cited in complaints about Directorate editions. A good example is criticism of textual incoherencies in the early Sung literary encyclopedia, Wen- yuan ying-hua @fp,* 1,000 chuan, compiled by Li Fang et al. between 982 and 987, and subsequently enlarged, rectified, and re- edited in 1007, and then corrected and re-edited twice more in 1009.184 The work was never printed, but it survived both the palace

180 Huang-ch'ao lei-yuian 31.7b, no, 21 (quota discontinued with the institution of the Compiler-Collator Service); Ou-yang Hsiu, "Yu lun Kuan-ko ch'u shih cha-tzu" 7_j-4m WTh? 1IJf (1065), in Tsou-i chi 18, Ou-yang kung chi 114. 1Ob-I la (eight full-time Compiler- Collators in the Academies and Institutes). Compiler-Collators are first mentioned in connec- tion with a project in 1059-60 to edit and restore fragmentary works listed in the Ch'ung- wen tsung-mu catalog. Four were appointed. Just prior to this, four full-time senior editors had been appointed to restore books that had suffered from the depredations of borrowers (many books were not returned or returned incomplete); Lin-t'ai ku-shih, "Shu-chi," 2.7b. This number probably makes up the eight referred to by Ou-yang Hsiu. Note that the office of Compiler-Collators is listed in SS 164. lOa-b only under the Historiography and Veritable Records Institute (Kuo-shih shih-lu yuian).

181 The terms of service were two years as pien-chiao (Compiler-Collator), then four years as chiao-k'an 1KJJ (Collator-Corrector), and one year as a scheduled chiao-li . (Collator- Orderer) before being released to another position; Ou-yang Hsiu, "Yu lun Kuan-ko ch'u shih cha-tzu, " Ou-yang kung chi 114. 1Ob-1 la. Four years had been the normal term for chiao- k 'an assignments before promotion to the rank of chiao-li, see Lin-t 'ai ku-shih, "Chiao-ch'ou," 2.13a-b (Ch'ao Tsung-ch'ueh A7I3 precedent).

182 As proposed by Ts'en Hsiang-ch'iu t (fl. 1086-94) (Palace Censor); see SHY "Chih-kuan, " ts'e 70. 18.1 la (Yuan-yu 5/12/18).

183 Exceptions are noted in SHY "Chih-kuan," ts'e 70, 18.12a (Yiian-yu 6/6) and SS 164.7a (approval of a request by Su Shih to reduce the collation quota in the Palace Library by half during the hottest season of the summer, 1091); also Huang-ch'ao lei-yuan 31.7b-8a, no. 21 (the Department of State Affairs [Shang-shu sheng] may follow its own regulations, 1096). For the Southern Sung, see n. 177.

184 The original Northern Sung compilation is documented in YH: "I-wen," "Yung-hsi Wen-yuanying-hua," 54.16b-18a; SHY: "Chih-kuan, " ts'e 55, 4.3b-4a (Ching-te 4/8), 5. lb, and discussed in detail in Hanabusa Hideki tFR*#t, "Bun 'en eiga no hensan" t3*#O rm, Tohogakuho 19 (Nov. 1950): 116-35. Large groups of editors were involved, as was the case with the three other encyclopedias (T'ai-p'ingyu-lan, T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi t+WC [981],


fire of 1015 and the Jurchen confiscation of the Palace Library at the fall of the Northern Sung. The copy that was preserved in the Southern Sung Imperial Archives was condemned by Chou Pi-ta FM, &90t (1126-1204) as being so flawed as to be "unreadable."185 Dur- ing the reign of Hsiao-tsung Wg (r. 1163-89), palace collators were assigned to correct it. Chou Pi-ta was not satisfied with the results. Upon retiring from court, he decided to re-edit the text privately, recruiting P'eng Shu-hsia 3AY (fl. 1192-1205) as his collaborator. In his preface to the new edition, engraved between 1201 and 1204, Chou charged that the earlier palace project had been compromised by work quotas and unqualified staff:

At that time, there were ten to twenty staff members assigned as palace Collator- Correctors, all of them apprentice copyists with limited training in letters. They were paid monthly meal allowances (i.e., wages rather than official salaries), and after several years were to be promoted to the rank of Military Commandant. They were posted to this [project] to fulfill their work quota. Very often, they recklessly erased [characters] and added annotations [giving the "corrected" reading] to make a show of having done collation. Then they handed in the work to the Imperi- al Archives. Yet later generations will accept this as a definitive text.186

and Ts'e-fuyzan-kuei), compiled around the same time; seeJohn Winthrop Haeger, "The Sig- nificance of Confusion: The Origins of the T'ai-pingyii-lan, " JA OS 88.3 (1968): 401-10. SHY: "Chih-kuan," 4.3b-4a reports that the corrected edition was destroyed in the palace fire of 1015, but the work was not lost. It survived in some form or other in one or more copies, which were likely to have been deposited in the Lung-t'u ko AgtM and T'ai-ch'ing lou library collections, in compliance with a copying policy established in 999; see Lin-t'ai ku- shih, "Shu-chi," 2.4a; YH: "I-wen," "Ching-te T'ai-ch'ing lou ssu-pu shu-mu," 52.34a; Hui-chu lu 1.14b.

185 See Chou Pi-ta, " Wen-yiianying-hua hsui," P'ing-yuan hsui-kao +N3OA (Lu-ling Chou I- kuo Wen-chung-kung chi edition, 1st ser., 1848) 15.5b-7a, esp. 6a-b. The same work is quoted from Chung-hsing kuan-ko shu-mu in the introductory matter of the Ming edition of Wen-yuan ying-hua (1566-67; facsimile reprint of a Wan-li [1573-1619] edition, Peking: Chung-hua shu-chiu, 1966), 2a-4a (in Chung-hsing kuan-ko shu-mu chi-k'ao, 5.12a); also SHY: "Chih- kuan," ts'e 56, 5.2a-3b. Hanabusa Hideki believes that Chou's palace manuscript was a conflation edition combining distinctly different texts descended from the earlier revisions. The magnitude and nature of the textual problems cannot be not satisfactorily attributed to faulty collation work or errors in the original source texts; "Bun'en eiga," pp. 130-31. On collation problems, see also Kuo Po-kung JI{JtAt, Sung ssu-ta-shu k'ao ; (1940; reprint, Taipei: T'ai-wan Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1967), pp. 90-4; and entry by Chan Hing-ho in Sung Bibliography, pp. 442-43.

186 " Wen-yuanying-hua hsui," P'ing-yiian hsu-kao 15.6a; Wen-yuanying-hua 3b; SHY: "Chih- kuan," 5.2a-b. Chou's criticisms are echoed in the preface to P'eng Shu-hsia's Wen-yuan ying-hua pien-cheng (Dec. 1204), see (facsimile reprint of Wu-ying tien chu-chen pan shu edition) in Wen-yiianying-hua, p. 5255.

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The mistakes that Chou Pi-ta and P'eng Shu-hsia discovered in the course of re-editing the work were presented by P'eng in his Wen- yuianying-hua pien-cheng MM, 10 chuian, a study of twenty categories of errors in the Wen-yiuan ying-hua, printed privately after Chou's death. 187 P'eng has been much admired for his rejection of conjectural emendations, his practice of emending texts on the basis of evidence provided by source documents, and his policy of documenting his collations fully, so as to preserve a record of the earlier state of the text. These qualities were later to be associated with Ch'ing evidential scholarship.

The works by Wu Chen, Chou Pi-ta and P'eng Shu-hsia exempli- fy the higher standards of textual criticism and text production that were evolving outside the court. That the court fell short in this regard may seem puzzling, given its great resources, but a difference in editorial values accounts for some of the disparity. The aim of imperial editing was to present a model text, not to provide a reader with the means to construct his own. This editorial stance left little leeway for doubt or indecision in treating textual discrepancies. The editor's job was to present the single correct text, selected from a set of mistaken alternatives. To record and weigh the excluded alternatives in the form of scholarly annotations was irrelevant and even contrary to this purpose: recording illegitimate readings in a model text could well help to legitimize them, opening up the prospect that at some future date the errors might be reargued or miscopied back into the work. Private editors could, of course, adopt the same orientation toward a model text, but they were not compelled to do so. Rather, since private productions lacked the authority of court-sponsored works, private editors had cause to develop compensating strategies of documentation. To justify their chosen readings and, at the same time, display their personal erudition, they could cite and refute alternative proposals. Private editors, unencumbered by imperial editing conventions, could afford to do what court editors could not, namely, to register doubts, advance nuanced arguments, or leave textual uncertainties prudently unresolved, presenting the reader with the alternatives and inviting

187 In Wen-yuanying-hua, pp. 5255-301; see entry by Donald Holzman in Sung Bibliography, pp. 443-44.


him to judge according to the shallowness or depth of his own scholarship. These were editorial policies better suited to an age of skepticism. Thus, the colophon to a late twelfth-century commercial imprint of the Han shu invites readers who discover errors to send in letters of correction to the editor, who pledges to remedy any deficiencies in the next reprint-an option unthinkable for his Direc- torate counterpart. 188

Print errors. One of the vexations of the new book culture was the hazard of errors in print texts. Manuscript texts were not, of course, free from errors, but since each manuscript was unique, the impact of errors occurring in any single manuscript was limited to a comparatively small circle of readers: the owner, other readers who might obtain access to it, and, among these, the even fewer number of readers who might go to the trouble of copying it and thereby propagate some or all of the earlier mistakes-while, in all likeli- hood, adding new ones. Printing ensured that textual innovations, both accidental and deliberate, would be disseminated more quickly and widely than ever imaginable in manuscript transmission. In the early Sung, a proposal to switch from hand-copying to printing for government calendars thus met with the objection, "If one copy is wrong, then one hundred thousand will be wrong. 189 With print publication, lapses in transmission that were beyond the power of any single individual to forestall or remedy were suddenly exposed to the public. Moreover, the complexity of print production meant that the source of the error was often obscure. The mistake might be the fault of the author, of an editor, collator, or block engraver, or of the printer. Blame was likely to be ascribed to the production staff, the newcomers to the tradition, upon whom print-oriented literati increasingly depended for the transmission of their culture. The phenomenon of print errors must have sensitized Sung scholars to

188 From Huang Shan-fu's colophon to an exemplar of the Huang-Liu edition (Ching- yiuan period, Chien-an), held in the Matsuyama Municipal Library. For a facsimile reproduction of the colophon leaf with a transcription, see Ozaki Yasushi, Seishi So-Genban, pp. 261- 62.

189 See Hsui ch'ang-pien 102.18b (T'ien-sheng 21101/hsin-ssu), interlinear note appended to report of a similar objection to a request for the printing of pardons (she-shu k). Both requests were granted on the condition that not a single print-error be made.

74 SUSAN CHERNIACK

the ever-present possibility of fallibility in transmission, encouraging them to reason out new relationships with texts, which could be rationalized in philosophical stances, and encouraging new devotion to the sciences of epigraphy and philology, in support of the quest for "true texts" that would be more reliable than Directorate imprints. The print problem was not the sole cause of these developments, but it is part of the matrix from which they spring.

The assurances of textual accuracy found in prefaces and colophons to local government, private, and commercial imprints testify to the concerns of readers on this point. Such claims as "meticulously collated, absolutely no textual errors" (ching chia chiao-cheng ping wu o-miu M1MKIEtL-4, and "not a single wrong character" (wu i wu-tzu ch'a-o I .4W-fAR) occur frequently enough in printer's colophons to arouse suspicions that they are but a promise of an ideal all too rarely achieved."90 They also tell us that textual accuracy in imprints was by no means taken for granted. As Poon says, despite the most conscientious efforts by editors and printers, the "unlikelihood of absolute accuracy in printed texts" was generally recognized. "Errors are common in print texts," Chou Hui says resignedly, paraphrasing Sung Shou, and then explains, "This is probably because collating books is like sweeping dust: it springs up even as you sweep. ''l92 Once in circulation, moreover, the errors gained a public

190 See colophons to the Southern Sung imprints Tsuan-t 'u hu-chu Liu-tzu ch 'ian-shu * W , +@ *, in T'ien-lu lin-lang shu-mu hou-pien 5. lb-2a; Hsin-tsuan men-mu Wu-ch'enyin-chu fi

g g B &, in T'ien-lu lin-lang shu-mu hou-pien 5.7a; Tsuan-t'u hu-chu Yang-tzu Fayen G-# , in P'ing-chin-kuan chien-ts'ang chi shu-chi 1.4b; and facsimile reproductions of colophon

leaves in Chung-kuo pan-k'o t'u-lu from Pao-p'u Tzu, pl. 12; Hou Han shu chu, pl. 161, Hsin chiao- cheng Lao-ch'uan hsien-sheng wen-chi f pl. 174. The Chung-kuo pan-k'o t'u-lu examples are shown and translated in Ming-sun Poon, "The Printer's Colophon in Sung Chi- na, 960-1279," Library Quarterly 43.1 (Jan. 1973): 39-52, trans. as [P'an], "Sung k'o-shu k'o-chi chih yen-chiu" 9 J"dJ.Rf, Ch'ung-chi hsiao-k'an bt43.fIJ 56 (June 1974): 35-42.

191 Poon, "Books," p. 76. While Poon's discussion (pp. 76-77) does emphasize the care taken to collate texts in printing and the quality achieved in non-commercial imprints, the textual accuracy of Sung imprints is a common target of Ch'ing critics opposed to the antiquari- an idealization of Sung editions; see representative comments in Shu-lin ch'ing-hua, "Sung k'o-shu tzu-chu pu chin t'ung ku-pen" and "Sung k'o-shu te o-chiu," 6.157-59. Chang Hsiu-min's assessment of the accuracy of Sung imprints quotes most of the standard documents adduced in the debate; see Chung-kuoyin-shua shih, pp. 182-88.

192 Ch'ing-po tsa-chih it, i (Pai-hai edition, 6th ser.), 2.44b-45a. Chou Hui is one of many who cite commercial editions from Ma-sha J#l?', an important printing center near


acceptance which made them difficult to root out.193 That erroneous texts were being printed far faster than they could be corrected led Lu Yu (who sponsored imprints himself) to pronounce that "it were better they had not been printed at all."l194

Sung scholars commenting on this phenomenon saw it as a moral rather than a technological problem. If individual editors were more responsible, if printers were less greedy, if block engravers were more conscientious, if readers were less gullible, then the quality of imprints could be improved. Viewed in these terms, the elusiveness of textual accuracy in even repeatedly collated imprints remained a vexing mystery. A candid report by the Ming bibliophile and publisher Ch'en Chi-ju MRS (1558-1639) is worth considering here: "I obtained an old text. After collating it, I had it copied. After the copying, I recollated it. After the recollation, I had it engraved. Af- ter the engraving, I collated it again. After the recollation, I printed it. After the printing, I collated it once more. And still I found errors of the 'Lu/fish and emperor/tiger' kinds-two to three characters wrong in every hundred. 195

Print-texts were collated at least three times: after the block copy was written out (and again if any corrections were made in the copy), after a proof-print was pulled from the engraved block, and once after corrections were entered on the blocks. But, as Chou Hui and Ch'en Chi-ju's comments indicate, these operations were not always effective. In the colophon to a commercial Southern Sung Ch'un-chiu edition, one printer sought to assure his readers: "We have carefully followed the Directorate edition, and collated and corrected the text three times, so that [you, the reader] will feel as if you are strolling down an open highway, without any rooms [sic] to hinder you" * IT but the error in the last phrase, which should read "obstacles" (chih V) rather than

Chien-yang *, Fukien, as especially unreliable. The ubiquitous Ma-sha imprints were notorious for their poor quality.

193 See Lu Yu, "Pa T'ang Lu Chao chi" W fft,* (1200), Wei-nan wen-chi, 28.15a; Hung Mai, Jung-chai ssu-pi, "Ch'ao-ch'uan wen-shu chih wu," 2.08b-9a; and additional comments in Chang Hsiu-min, Chung-kuo yin-shua shih, pp. 184-86.

19 "Pa Li-tai ling-ming" ifl; ft,, Wei-nan wen-chi, 26.7b. 195 T'ai-p'ing ch'ing-hua 7;1'Ui (Pao-yen t'ang pi-chi edition, pi ser., 1606) 2.31b-32a;

quoted in Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih 3.170-71.

76 SUSAN CHERNIACK

"rooms," probably led prospective buyers to think otherwise."96 Such problems may have contributed to Chou Pi-ta's worries, when he saw his contemporaries using print texts to "correct" earlier manuscripts. He says: "At the beginning of our dynasty, although writings were available only in manuscript copies, they were collated meticulously. Later, shallow scholars changed the texts, des- troying their original meaning. Today, everyone uses print editions to correct old works, so that determinations of textual accuracy are quite confused. I

, 197

A basic problem was that developments in printing technology and printing capacity, and the enthusiasm for utilizing both, far out- stripped the practical adaptions required to ensure reliable productions. Not only did the new medium interpose three additional stages of preparing block copy, block engraving, and printing, each of which multiplied the possibilities for error, but also the division of labor sometimes failed to supply adequate checks and balances. This appears to be true of central government printing. As a printer, the Directorate operated independently from the Academy for the Veneration of Literature (and later, the Palace Library), the staff of whose affiliated scholarly agencies bore the chief responsibility for compiling and editing texts."98 The Directorate's job was to produce the print texts from approved copy, regardless of the point of origin.'99 Once copy was forwarded to the Directorate's Book

196 Ch 'un-ch 'iu ching-chuan chi-chieh tflMY1#* (imprint of Mr. Juan's Chung-te t'ang E

PAS,, 1176), as quoted in Chang Hsiu-min, Chung-kuo yin-shua shih, p. 174. 197 " Wen-yuian ying-hua hsii, " see n. 186. 198 On the editorial responsibilities of staff in the Academy for the Veneration of Litera-

ture, see P'an T'ien-chen *W& "Pei Sung Ch'ung-wen-yiian te chien-yiian mu-ti ho ts'ang-shu li-yung" ;|M-8URW H I T'u-shu-kuan 1963, no. 1: 61. P'an's discussion includes references to rare cases where the roles of the Directorate and Academy were reversed. A general overview of bibliographic activities in the imperial libraries is also given in Hsiao Lu-yang ASM, "Pei Sung kuan-shu cheng-li shih-yeh te t'e- tien" IL'%t$: J" !, Shang-hai shih-fan hsueh-yuian hsuieh-pao (she-hui k'o-hsiieh pan)

Fi?i;XRsF (ttLt4t) 11.1 (1988): 73-77. 199 On the Directorate's role as a printer, see n. 70. Poon's statement ("Books," pp. 115)

that the Directorate "did not compile or otherwise contribute to the intellectual content" of the books which it printed, bound, and distributed, refers to the operations of its printing department, the Book Treasury, since Directorate personnel are named as supervisors, collators, and proofreaders in dispatch notes to Directorate editions. These notes are collected in Chien-pen k'ao, chuian 2-3, and analyzed by Poon in "Books," pp. 87-92, see esp. p. 88, tab. 4, tabulating staff assignment lists recorded in twelve Northern Sung Directorate imprints from


Treasury, the text passed out of the hands of the editors, and the proof-texts apparently were not circulated back to them. Therefore, editors were often unable to tell until publication whether their work had been followed as submitted. The results of this arrangement can be seen in the revised Directorate imprint of the Nine Clas- sics and the Three Commentaries, authorized in 1123. The respected scholar Mao Chii-cheng -=iJfE was recruited to take charge of the project. He was, according to the following contemporary account, a meticulous editor:

[He] compared the different editions of the Six Classics and Three Commentaries, consulted the Philosophers and Histories, made selections from the collected works of various writers, and studied textual variations. As for the semantic explanations and fan-ch'ieh reading, he made a point of collating even the minutest detail; the scholar-officials (of the National Academy) [i.e., of the Directorate] fell into admira- tion, none of them ever expressing any difference of opinion. Within a year, four of the classics were printed.200

When Mao Chii-cheng picked up a copy of the imprint, he must have been dismayed to discover that the printed version retained twenty to thirty percent of the textual errors that he had previously corrected in his copy. The block engravers, impatient with the number of corrections ordered, had changed his draft rather than the characters in the blocks. At this time, preparations were underway to print the Li-chi and Three Commentaries next. Pleading eye trouble,

twenty such lists collected in Chien-pen k'ao. It should be noted that Directorate staff played a significant editorial role in only four of the works, serving as compilers of the rhyme-book, Chi yun (1043); collators of Ching-tien shih-wen (969); and collators and proofreaders of the Mao Shih cheng-i (992) and Ch 'un-ch 'iu Tso chuan cheng-i (990). For these works, the total Directorate staff contribution (including 3-4 official presenters for each work) averages about 30 percent. But as Poon points out, it is difficult to get a true picture of the total Directorate involvement since low-ranking contributors are not included on such lists. For Edgren's interpretation of Poon's data, see "Southern Song Printing," p. 25.

200 Wei Liao-weng 7a (1178-1237), "Liu-ching cheng-wu hsui" VTEXiFf (Dec. 31, 1225), in Liu-ching cheng-wu, comp. Mao Chu-cheng M)giE (fl. 1123-25) (T'ung-chih t'ang ching-chieh edition, tsung ching-chieh ser.), 2a; quoted in Chien-pen k'ao 3.127-28 and Wang Kuo- wei, Liang Che ku k'an-pen k'ao, 1.149. The translation is from Achilles Fang, "On the Author- ship of the Chiu-ching san-chuan yen-ko-li," MS 11 (1946): 74-75, with additions in brackets, and a reworded final sentence. Fang is translating a segment of the yen-ko-li copied verbatim from Wei Liao-weng's preface; see [Hsiang-t'ai shu-shu] K'an-cheng Chiu-ching San-chuanyen-ko- li fimJit:f1J, attr. Yiieh K'o &fiJ (1183-1240) (Tse-shih chu ts'ung-shu ch'u-chi edition, 1926), "Shu-pen," 2b.

78 SUSAN CHERNIACK

Mao resigned his appointment and, retiring from court, he compiled a corrigenda, Liu-ching cheng-wu ,WEN, in 6 chuian, thus preserving his scholarly reputation.201 It was immediately printed privately. 202

No wonder that, for reliable texts of the canon, Sung scholars turned increasingly to private scholarly printing, where editors might exercise direct control of the quality of the product. An out- standing example is the privately printed late Sung edition of the Nine Classics and Three Commentaries, attributed to Yiieh K'o -&4f (1183-1240) and published in 1270 by Liao Ying-chung's *MV1 (1200?-75) scholarly printing house, Shih-ts'ai t'ang -taV (in Shao-wu ,R, Fukien). It was reprinted in 1300 with the famous collation manual, K'an-cheng chziu-ching san-chuanyen-ko-li fIiEJfUX fW4 WikII, 1 chuian, attributed to Yiieh K'o but probably compiled by Liao Ying-chung for his edition.203 The manual cites twenty-three other editions consulted in collating the text. It also describes the standards of orthography for the edition and the principles employed in the construction of the scholarly apparatus, including provisions for commentary, phonetic glosses, punctuation, lacunae, and textual variants. This edition has been recognized as a milestone in the

201 This narrative is drawn from Wei Liao-weng, "Liu-ching cheng-wu hsi, " copied in K'an- cheng Chiu-ching San-chuanyen-ko-li; see references in n. 200. Note Chu Hsi's instructions to a pupil on the handling of a corrected copy-text intended for printing: "Do not give this copy directly to the carver, for fear he might want to save labor, lift off the pasted [correction] sheet[s], leave uncorrected what should be corrected, and thus do harm in the long run"; "Yii Chan Shuai shu" XKVWRMX Hui-an chi, 27.32b, as translated in Chan, Chu Hsi, p. 79, with additions in brackets.

202 The publisher was Wei Liao-weng, see Liu-ching cheng-wu entry in WHTK: "Ching-chi k'ao" 12, 185.1688c (in Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i, 3.79), quoted in Ching-i k'ao 293.5a. Wei is identified here by his hao, Ho-shan 1[U.

203 Liao Ying-chung, who had a reputation as a fine printer, is said to have engaged a staff of more than a hundred collator-correctors to assist him in comparing dozens of alternative source-texts for this project; Chou Mi, Kuei-hsin tsa-chih hou-chi M (Pai-hai edition, ser. 15), 27b-28a. Liao is identified here by his tzu, Ch'iin-yii 4#3E.

Fang thinks that most of the K'an-cheng Chiu-ching San-chuan yen-ko-li (from "Shu-pen" 2a through "K'ao-i" 26a) comes from a lost statement on methodology composed by Liao for his 1270 edition, and that Yiieh K'o's contribution was limited to preliminary remarks (la-b) and three short appendices on the Ch'un-ch'iu (26a-29b). He points out that portions of the yen-ko-li are copied verbatim from Liao's preface; see "Authorship," pp. 65-86. Other modern scholars believe that the 1300 edition was printed by Yuieh Chiin & (ca. 1264-ca. 1330); see references in Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin's entry in Sung Bibliography, p. 53, repeated in Paper, p. 167.


transmission of the classics. But we should remember that it comes very late in the Sung, its sophistication the fruit of hard experience.

Competition among printers as a contributor to textual destabilization. Not only did printing guarantee that textual errors would be disseminated quickly; it also created a market for textual innovations. In the Sung, most texts were printed to be sold. This is true of the academy as well as the trade press. Local government academies did not print only to supply textbooks. They counted on printing as the chief source of income to supplement their inadequate government pensions, especially in the late Southern Sung.204 Also engaged in printing for profit were local government offices, including regional agencies of the central government (notably the Fiscal Com- missions and Tea and Salt Supervisorates) and the Prefectural Treasuries (kung-shih k'u 2,)g).2o5 The line between private and commercial printing was often thin. Although government, private, and commercial printing are sometimes treated as separate systems, government, quasi-official, private, and commercial presses all competed for sales at the local level. Pirating of works was common, even though it was illegal for non-government publications after the mid-Southern Sung, with commercial printers usually blamed as the main culprits.206 The commercialization of printing, which

204 Poon, "Books," p. 95. For statistics on the geographical distribution of government

academy printers, see ibid., p. 134, tab., 11. For examples of such imprints, see Li Chih-

chung, Li-tai k'o-shu k'ao shu, pp. 81-82.

205 See general discussions of local government publications in Poon, "Books," pp. 127-

44; also Li Chih-chung, Li-tai k'o-shu k'ao shu, pp. 63-80, esp. pp. 76-78 for examples of

regional agency and Prefectural Treasury imprints. Among regional agency printers, Fiscal

Commissions ranked first in number of imprints, followed by Tea and Salt Supervisorates in

distant second-place; see statistics in Poon, "Books," p. 133, tab. 9. For details on printing

by Prefectural Treasuries, see the standard study, Lin T'ien-wei : "Sung-tai kung-

shih-k'u, kung-shih-ch'ien yui kung-yung-ch'ien chien-te kuan-hsi" ; ,FRtlgX, CYYY45.1 (1973): 129-56, esp. 149, 152.

206 On copyright, see Shu-lin ch'ing-hua, "Fan-pan yu li-chin shih yiu Sung-jen," 2.36-42; and Poon, "Books," pp. 63-66, translated with supplements as [P'an,] "Chung-kuo

yin-shua pan-ch'uan te ch'i-yiian" @ IIiIJgD , Han-hsueh yen-chiu M* 7.1 (June 1989): 215-22. Poon brings out the interesting fact that copyright protections were

local (circuit-level only). Other legal restrictions on Sung printing are presented in Poon,

"Books," pp. 36-62; Chang Hsiu-min, Chung-kuoyin-shua shih, pp. 188-201. For a more discur-

sive treatment, see Tuan Hsuian-wu &AR, Sung-tai pan-k'o fa-chih yen-chiu IMAOIJ

&%Iff (Taipei: Shih-shih ch'u-pan-she, 1976).

80 SUSAN CHERNIACK

transformed books into commodities, gave new ideas tangible worth. It encouraged their production.

Competition among printers made textual novelty economically valuable. New texts and new editions of old texts sold-books with titles such as "New Edition" (hsin tiao VW, hsin k'an OffiJ), "New Definitively Collated Edition" (hsin-k'an chiao-ting fi tO), "Ex- panded Edition" (tseng-kuang P), "Revised Edition" (ch 'ung-hsiu

SO), and "Expanded Revised Edition" (tseng-hsiu Wt)-whether or not they actually offered anything new.207 The effects are apparent in two areas in which competition for book sales was especially keen: literary collections, which the Directorate rarely printed, and examination cribs.208 Examination materials advertised improvements of all kinds, as exemplified by a single Southern Sung commercial imprint entitled: The Mao Shih in 20 chuian: The Directorate Edition, Illustrated [with drawings and tables], Cross-referencedfor Syno- nyms [occurring in the same context elsewhere in the work], Cross- referencedfor Words Repeated [elsewhere in this work], Cross-referenced for Citations [of this text in other works], Punctuated, and Collated (Chien-pen tsuan-t'u ch'ung-i ch'ung-yen hu-chu tien-chiao Mao Shih erh- shih-chuan . This imprint offered an additional feature often advertised in the titles of such editions: With Pronunciation Glosses (fu shih-yin f from Lu Te-ming's Ching-tien shih-wen).209 Familiar literary collections were also presented in novel forms. The Works of Tu Fu, for example, was made availa-

207 For details on competition as a spur to real and imaginary improvements, see Poon, "Books," pp. 175-78, translated with supplements as [P'an,] "Shu-yeh o-feng shih yii Nan Sung k'ao" , Hsiang-kang Chung-wen ta-hsiieh Chung-kuo wen-huayen-chiu- so hsiieh-pao 4Lft,ttW 12 (1981): 271-81.

208 The competition in these two categories is assumed from Poon's statistics on the subject categories of local government and commercial imprints. These subjects top both lists; see "Books," pp. 135 tab. 12; 171, tab. 14.

209 See T'ien-lu lin-lang shu-mu 1. lb-2a Many commercial editions bear such titles; see listings in Shu-lin ch'ing hua, "Sung-k'o tsuan-t'u hu-chu ching-tzu," 6.148-49. The meanings of the title phrases are explained in T'ien-lu lin-lang shu-mu 1. lb-2a, also T'ien-lu lin-lang shu- mu hou-pien 2.9a-b (Tsuan-t'u hu-chu Shang shu); cf. Flug, "Chinese Book Publishing," pp. 84- 85; Poon, "Books," pp. 103-4, tab. 7. Such types of annotations are illustrated in facsimile reproductions of leaves in Kuo-li ku-kung po-wu-ytuan Sung-pen t'u-lu Fg&f* 5t*J 0 (Taipei: Ku-kung po-wu-yiian, 1977), pl. 3 (Tsuan-t'u hu-chu Mao Shih; hu-chu commentary); Kuo-li chung-yang t'u-shu-kuan Sung-pen t'u-lu fflAr iJA f,M5 F$X (Taipei: Chung-hua ts'ung-shu wei-yuian-hui, 1958), pl. 1 (Tsuan-t'u hu-chu Chou I; ch'ung-i and ch'ung-yen commentary).


ble With Commentaries by Nine Authorities, or Enlarged, with Commenta- ries by Ten Authorities, With Collected Commentaries by One Hundred Authorities, or With Collected Commentaries by One Thousand Authori- ties, or with Collected Commentaries by One Thousand Authorities in en- hanced editions Arranged Topically (frn-lei 3Ni), or Supplemented with Lost Works (pu-i MA).210 A popular genre of books, the sole purpose of which was to correct errors in previously published books, also flourished, with promising titles such as "Falsifications Analyzed" (pien-o MR), "Ridiculous Mistakes Analyzed" (pien-wang " "Absurdities Rectified" (chiu-miu *41), "Errors Identified" (shih- wu AW), "Errors Listed" (tsuan-wu -SX), "Errors Corrected" (k'an-wu 1J, cheng-wu ES.), and "Corrections Cited" (chli-cheng $ iE), together with the increasingly pertinent "Textual Variants Examined" (k'ao-i .

Commercial printers clearly understood that novelty was important in selling books. They advertised this in their colophons, which functioned in part as book blurbs.2"' Prefaces and postscripts attached to other types of imprints also directed the discriminating reader to qualities that distinguished the new book from whatever other (invariably deficient) editions were then circulating. The competitive book market provided scholar-editors with both the

210 The number of commentators cited in the One Hundred and the One Thousand Com- mentators editions of Tu Fu is always vastly overstated. Both actually quote from fifty-odd sources, and only about ten with any frequency, though the One Thousand Commentators editions may carry lists naming some 149 to 156 authorities, including duplicate names; see the following bibliographic entries: Huang-shihpu-chu Tu shih X.FMait4L (a One Thousand Commentators edition), in Chi Yiin CRfj (1724-1805) et al., comp., Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu tsung- mu E (1782) (Kuang-tung, 1868 edition; facsimile reprint, 2 vols., Peking Chung-hua shu-chii, 1965), 150.1281a-c; Chi ch'ien-chia chu Tu shih : Ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu tsung-mu 150.1281a-c; Wang Chuang-yiian chi pai-chia chu pien-nien Tu-ling shih-shih EL

,<Ltg&St8:R t in Chou Ts'ai-ch'uian M,I;K%, comp., Tu chi ishu-mu t'i-yao #L A H VW, 2 vols. (Tsinan: Ch'i Lu shu-she, 1986), p. 652; and Fen-men chi-chu Tu Kung-pu shih 5 r ?*a IE g (a One Thousand Commentators edition), in Chou Ts'ai-ch'uian, pp. 653-54; Cherniack, "Three Great Poems by Du Fu" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1988), p. 92 n. 234. A similar situation obtains in the Five Hundred Commentators edition of Han Yii's works: a figure of 368 authorities is advertised in the preface, 148 names are listed, and less than forty are actually quoted; Ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu tsung-mu 150.1288b. The Five Hun- dred commentators edition of Liu Tsung-yuian's VMq1N5E (773-819) works actually quotes about ten commentators; Ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu tsung-mu 150.2289c.

211 See Poon, "Printer's Colophon," pp. 39-52, summarized in "Books," pp. 193-95; Chang Hsiu-min, Chung-kuoyin-shua shih, pp. 170-75.

82 SUSAN CHERNIACK

opportunity and incentive to compose new texts and revise old ones. Private printing, which became a vogue in the Southern Sung, provided additional opportunities for publishing their personal discoveries about texts. If Sung scholars appeared to have more ideas for redesigning books, it was perhaps because the chances of seeing their work in print were good.

Print culture and collation methods. Another factor contributing to Sung textual innovation is the interesting but complex interaction between printing and those collation procedures inherited from pre- print book culture.

Collation as a procedure of textual criticism-called ch 'ou-chiao a Ki and chiao-ch'ou in the Han, and chiao-k'an tM beginning in the Six Dynasties and most commonly since the Sung-generally took two forms in China. A text could be collated by scrutinizing it alone, to locate lapses in sense or style, or to discover internal inconsistencies indicative of textual errors. Or a text could be collated by comparing its readings against one or more other versions. Both procedures are said to have been used by Liu Hsiang, the great Han scholar who, together with his son, Liu Hsin, is recognized as the founder of the broader field of "collation scholarship" (chiao-ch'ou- hsueh). This field is similar to Western textual studies in its embrace of textual criticism and bibliography, but includes bibliography as the far more prestigious partner.212 The traditional valuation is

212 According to a widely-accepted modern definition, chiao-ch'ou hsiieh includes pan-pen hsuieh JX*W (evaluation of the physical characteristics and history and quality of editions, including problems of authenticity), mu-lu hsuieh g 0 (bibliographic cataloguing, the analysis of bibliographic records, and the classification of books), and chiao-k'an hsiieh (collation and correction of texts, or textual criticism, including elements of "textual analysis" as defined by Dearing in Manual and Principles and Practice, both pp. 1-3); see representative comments in Chang Shun-hui, Kuang chiao-ch'ou liieh W;KU (1945; reprint with supplements, Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1963), p. 2; Ch'eng Ch'ien-fan HIJT, Chiao-ch'ou kuang-i (pan-pen pien) K'UWi (JX*4C) (Tsinan: Ch'i Lu shu-she, 1991), pp. 1-9. The three begin to emerge as distinct disciplines in the first half of the eighteenth century, in reaction to the predominance of textual criticism in evidential scholarship. The focus on piece-meal textual problems is felt to represent a "narrowing" of the traditional scope of collation studies; see account in Chiang Yuian-ch'ing, Chiao-ch'ou hsiieh shih, pp. 177-83, and the cases made for bibliography in collation studies in Wang Ming-sheng IED!9, (1722-98), Shih-ch'i-shih shang-ch'iueh tLi (Kuang-ya shu-chui ts'ung shu edition, 5th ser.), "Shih-chi chi-chieh fen pa-shih-chuian," 1. la-2b; and Chang Hsuieh-ch'eng T (1738-1801), Hsin chih {tfj, in Chang-shih i-shu wai-pien F (Chang-shih i-shu edition, 1922), 1.8b-9a, and Chiao-ch'ou t'ung-i K:.j (Chang-shih i-shu edition), "Chiao-ch'ou t'iao-li" 7, 1.14a-16a.


reflected in Cheng Ch'iao's 9*I; (1104-62) Chiao-ch'ou liieh / , the earliest Chinese monograph on the principles of collation scholarship, which treats bibliographic matters only.213 The same emphasis is defended by Ch'ing evidential scholars, who typically approach texts as historical products, rather than as ideal forms. Bibliographic studies come first for them, because the historically oriented textual critic cannot utilize comparative collation to judge the accuracy of readings presented in different textual sources without first knowing a great deal about their provenance.

Liu Hsiang is credited with explaining ch 'ou-chiao as a compound composed of the names of the two types of collation. The source for this attribution is the seventh-century Li Shan commentary to the literary anthology, Wen hsuan. As a gloss on the word ch'ou-chiao in Tso Ssu's AET, (ca. 253-ca. 307) "Wei Capital Rhapsody" (Wei-tu fu ) the commentary cites the following passage from Ying Shao's YN-M (A.D. 140-ca. 208) Feng-su t'ung-i AffX:

The Feng-su t'ung says: "According to Liu Hsiang's Pieh-lu, 'ch'ou-chiao' means: When one person reads the transcription and compares what comes before and after [in that text] to find errors, this is called 'chiao.' When one person holds the text and a second person reads out the transcription, like a pair of adversaries facing off against each another, [this is called 'chIou'].")214

213 Monograph 16 in Cheng Ch'iao's T'ung chih , The same emphasis is pointedly maintained by Chang Hsuieh-ch'eng in Chiao-ch'ou t'ung-i. For comparisons of their news, see Ch'ien Ya-hsin Mf, Cheng Ch'iao Chiao-ch'ou luieh yen-chiu (Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu- kuan, 1948), pp. 97-106. Cheng Ch'iao did produce collation studies but these have not survived. These include Shu pien-o I-{t (on the Shang shu, with sections entitled "Absurdities Corrected" [Chiu-miu], "Doubtful Passages" [Ch'ieh-i], and "Restoring the Old Text" [Fu- ku]; see entry in WHTK: "Ching-chi k'ao" 4, 177.1534b [in Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i, 2.291); also Shih pien-o (on the Mao Shih), and Shu-mu pien-o (on bibliographies; a portion of this work may have been incorporated into his Chiao-ch'ou lueh.). For details, see Cheng To-p'eng g J, Cheng Ch'iao te chiao-ch'ou mu-lu hsiieh (Taipei: Hsiieh-hai ch'u-pan-she, 1976), pp. 34, 37- 40, 67.

214 Hsiao T'ung, comp., Wen hsuian, ed. Hu K'o-chia (1809; with Hu's Wen hsiian k'ao-i; Sao-yeh shan-fang edition, Shanghai, n.d.), 6.22b. The bracketed characters are not found in Li's commentary. They are supplied by Hu in Wen hsuian k'ao-i, 1.47a. The commentary be- longs with 1. 595 in David R. Knechtges' translation of the "Wei Capital Rhapsody," see Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 463. The definition of ch'ou is also quoted in T'ai-p'ingyui-lan 618.3b, where it is attributed to Pieh chuan AIJU (f1 is a copyist's error for f influenced by the head title AE41 occurring in the next line over, noted in Wang Shu-min, Chiao-ch 'ou hsiieh, 2a). This version has tu hsi ,f "read and analyze" in place of tu shu ,3 "read the transcription."

84 SUSAN CHERNIACK

According to this punning definition, which plays on basic meanings of chiao as "compare (amd reconcile)" and ch'ou as "match, mate; enemy," chiao and ch'ou appear to be posed as alternative or complementary methods of proofing texts. A representation of the latter method is thought to be given on a Ch'ang-sha pottery piece from the Western Chin period (265-316), showing two scribes with writing tablets in hand, facing one another, locked in argument, their noses inches apart.215 As Ch'ien Mu _ has noted, it is possible to construe the opening phrases alternatively as: "The Feng-su t'ung says: 'In our opinion, the meaning of the phrase 'ch'ou-chiao' in Liu Hsiang's Pieh-lu is," and in this case, the definition may be giving Ying Shao's gloss on ch'ou-chiao rather than a direct quote from the Pieh-lu.216 Nevertheless, it is clear from early records of Liu Hsiang's work as editor and redactor of texts for the palace library, that comparative collation was basic to his method.217

215 See Hsin Chung-kuo ch'u-t'u wen-wu PtFg?+?4CJ [Historical Relics Unearthed in New China] (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1972), pl. 119; reproduction in Tsien, Paper, p. 375, fig. 1232. A Sung iconographic equivalent, a handscroll in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, depicting a collation session, also shows paired figures, facing each other across a table. The scholar or the right holds up a butterfly book; his partner on the left has a scroll placed before him; see Ku-kung shu-hua t'u-lu & `gU , vol. 3 (Taipei: Kuo-li Ku- kung po-wu-yuian, 1989), pl. 85: Sung-jen chiao-k'an t'u 5A;K^bR.

216 Ch'ien Mu believes that the definition must, judging from its style, be Ying Shao's gloss; see "Liu Hsiang Hsin fu-tzu nien-p'u WIJ01#4I+, YCHP 7 (June 1930): 1216- 7. Other scholars do not raise this possibility. But support for Ch'ien's opinion is found in glosses on ch'ou-chiao . (K' is a popular variant for K) in Hui-lin NX (737-820), I-ch'ieh chingyin-i !JE . Hui-lin cites Liu Hsiang's Pieh lu as saying: "To 'ch 'ou-chiao' the classics means to examine and compare them" | This is followed by a citation from Feng-su t 'ung-i, reminiscent of the Wen hsian commentary gloss: 'When two persons match and compare [texts], this is called 'ch'ou-chiao' " cf. the citation following this, from Chi-hsin *311: 'When two persons match texts and compare transcriptions, this is called 'ch'ou' El A; Taisho shinshui daizyokyo, no. 2128, 54:81 la.

217 In 26. B.C., during the reign of Emperor Ch'eng i1Q (32-7 B.C.), Liu Hsiang was given the task of collating texts in these categories, to establish editions for the inner palace library; Han shu, "I-wen chih," 30.1b; Wei Zheng ft (580-643), comp., Sui shu P (PNPS edition), "I-wen chih," 27.2b. After his death, his son Liu Hsin completed the work. Liu Hsiang's observations on textual discrepancies are noted in Han shu 30.3b (on the Chou I), 4a (on the Shang shu); see Ch'ien Mu, "Liu Hsiang nien-p'u," pp. 1215-7. The Pieh-lu (20 chuian) provided summaries of the contents of the texts collated, together with such notes; for the extant entries on Chan-kuo ts'e, Kuan Tzu, Yen Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Teng Hsi Tzu, Sun Ch 'ing hsin


Collation by a single witness and comparative collation are both included in the modern scholar Ch'en Yuan's Wf analysis of the four methods of collation used in traditional textual criticism: (1) "comparative collation" (tui-chiao 9M), comparing different versions of the same work to discover discrepancies; (2) "collation of the self-same text" (pen-chiao *aK-), scrutinizing a text for objective internal inconsistencies, such as differences between the table of contents and the body of the text; (3) "collation of other sources" (t'o- chiao {tK-), comparing quotations of the text in other works, and treatments of the same subjects in other contemporary sources; and (4) "rational collation" (li-chiao W-R), conjectural emendation of a single witness, used to discover and resolve textual problems that cannot be addressed by other means.218 All four would be included in what Yeh Te-hui calls "live collation" (huo-chiao AR), which aims to produce an improved text-as distinguished from "dead collation" (ssu-chiao ~EtK), which aims to produce a diplomatic edition (a replica in all details).219

All four procedures were used by Sung textual scholars, and often by the same individuals. Later, Ch'ing evidential scholars utilized the same procedures, but applied them differently.220 The difference

shu, and Han Fei Tzu, see Chang Shun-hui, Wen-hsien hsiieh lun-chu chi-yao, pp. 1-17; see also the discussion in P. Van der Loon, "On the Transmission of Kuan-tzu," TP 41.4-5 (1952): 358-65. Good analyses of Liu's work are offered in Yao Ming-ta t-tg (1842-1906), Chung- kuo mu-lu hsiieh shih r:PM H W t (1936; reprint, Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1957), pp. 36-48, and Chiang Yiian-ch'ing, Chiao-ch'ou hsueh shih, pp. 29-36; for a more traditional treatment, see Sun Te-ch'ien , (1869-1935), Liu Hsiang chiao-chou hsiieh tsuan-wei WIJq J

;X|WgZ (Sun Ai-k'an so-chu shu edition, 1923). 218 See Chiao-k'an hsueh shih-li, K W@r J (first published as " Yuan tien-chang chiao-pu shih-

li" ; in Ch'ing-chu Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei hsien-sheng liu-shih-wu-sui lun-wen-chi Wffi E?EM/o+ERSTS:, pt. 1, CYYYwai-pien, no. 1 [Peiping, 1933], pp. 189-278; collected in Ch'en's Li-yun shu-wu ts'ung-k'o 04E,110 A, 1934; reprint, Peking: Chung-hua shu- chu, 1959), "Chiao-fa ssu-li," 6.144-50. For a detailed analysis of Ch'en Yuan's categories with many illustrations, see Ts'ui Wen-yin t&! 0i, "Shuo 'Chiao-k'an ssu-fa' Shih-hsiieh shihyen-chiu Arf 3 (1990): 15-36. Ch'en's terms have been adopted by a number of modern critics.

219 These terms are introduced in Ts'ang-shu shih-yiieh, 1Oa; trans. Fang, "Bookman's Deca- logue," pp. 150-51; see discussion in Elman, From Philosophy to Philology, pp. 69-70. Note that they are not used by earlier Ch'ing critics.

220 For a survey of Ch'ing collation scholarship, see Chiang Yuian-ch'ing, Chiao-ch 'ou hsueh shih, pp. 161-312, esp. 162-63 (general comments on methods), 272ff (criteria for emendation); for less detailed treatments in the other Republican-period standards, see Hu P'u-an -M

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defines an important characteristic of Sung collation, namely the preference for "rational collation." We see that Ch'en's sequence presents a hierarchy of procedures in which critical judgment plays an increasingly important role, as shown in the progress from "comparative collation" -this, according to Ch'en, results in a vario- rum but does not necessarily involve editorial determinations about the respective values of the variants collected-to "rational collation," where scholarly ingenuity is summoned to propose readings better than those provided by any known text. "Rational collation" operates independently of the authority of textual precedents. Ch'en describes it as the most wonderful and dangerous method of collation, to be used only as a last resort; the two Ch'ing scholars whom Ch'en cites as exemplars of this method (Tuan Yii-ts'ai and Ku Kuang-ch'i )MM* [1776-1835]) would probably have con- curred.22' Ch'en also accepts the convention first established as an axiom in Ch'ing evidential scholarship (but one, unfortunately, that is not always followed in Ch'ing editorial practice) that all changes resulting from collation should be reported in the scholarly apparatus. A record of the prior state of the text is thereby preserved, regardless of what combination of strategies may be used in the editing.

For Sung editors, however, "rational collation" was often a first recourse, a testimony to what Winston Lo has described as the Sung faith in reason as a "principle of legitimation, independent of, and often in opposition to, truths sanctioned by divine revelation or tradition. "222 Lo finds this credo reflected in Sung philology (hsiao-hsiieh /JN1). In textual criticism, it is reflected in the characteristic practice of conjectural emendation, which may appear reckless or fantastical to Ch'ing evidential scholars. But the same practice appears more

M and Hu Tao-ching, Chiao-ch'ou hsueh (Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1934), pp. 40-53; and Chang Shun-hui, Kuang chiao-ch'ou ljeh, pp. 128-36. A discussion of the characteristics of Ch'ing textual criticism is beyond the scope of the present essay, but we may note that in Ch'ing textual criticism, it is scholarly documentation (including, importantly, documentation of usage precedents) that provides the necessary sanction for textual innovation. For this reason, unindicated emendations are a primary focus of animus.

221 Chiao-k'an hsueh shih-li, 6.148-49. 222 "Philology, An Aspect of Sung Rationalism," Chinese Culture 17.4 (Dec. 1976): 2, and

see 1-26.


reasonable from the Sung perspective. Sung conjectural emendation is undergirt with a basic confidence in the competence of individuals to discern verbal truth. For Sung editors, verbal truth is fundamentally ahistorical: conjectural emendation is credible because cultivated scholar-editors can know the constant norms of human nature, can tap into the same universal sources of inspiration as did the authors whose works they edit, and can thus recognize textual falsifications with unerring accuracy. The critic's ability to ap- prehend the i-li A3-, the meaning or inherent principle in a work, remains the surest guide in determining textual authenticity; comparisons of textual variants can help substantiate this knowledge, but they cannot replace it.223

For many Sung textual critics, it was therefore enough to explain in a general way that changes were made because the text "did not conform with human nature" (pu chin jen-ch 'ing T-AAJ1W) or because the text "was unreasonable" (wu li i!30). Individual emendations were often made without special remark. Readers did not demand and many editors did not feel the need to justify editorial changes by reference to a prior textual authority. And there was as yet no scholarly consensus about the desirability of documenting prior states in a scholarly apparatus. Some editors did so, especially when doubts lingered about the correct reading. Then alternative readings might be preserved, in annotations of the liang-ts'un fiW4 ("we preserve both") type. But many other editors did not do this, for they saw no value in keeping old mistakes alive when new errors were proliferating daily.

The practice of "rational collation," coupled with the habit of unindicated emendation, has been recognized as one of the most problematic aspects of Sung textual scholarship. It is also the telltale sign of the absence of a systematized textual methodology. Scholars, lacking the critical tools necessary to sort out the often complicated historical relations between different versions of a work and to judge the relative authority of received texts with any real objectivity, must trust their instincts, and individual talent will count for more than methodology. In such circumstances, ingenuity

223 This is Chu Hsi's view; see "Ta Yuan Chi-chung" 4:i;{+, Hui-an chi 38.7b.

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typically has no rival as a strategy of textual criticism.224 The Mechanics of Sung Collation. Sung collation conventions

evolved from earlier practices. Traditionally, corrections were entered directly on the document under collation or on a working copy prepared for this purpose. Many different signs were used to indicate deletions, additions, inversions, and divisions in the text.225 Replacement characters, omitted characters, and other annotations were added between columns (to the right of the relevant text), sometimes between characters, and in the upper and lower margins of the paper, depending on the space available. For informal correc-

224 See the illuminating discussion of this subject in John F. D'Amico, Theory and Practice in Renaissance Textual Criticism: Beatus Rhenanus Between Conjecture and History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988).

225 A concise inventory of collation signs and punctuation marks found in Tun-huang manuscripts is given in Li Cheng-yui 4iE4 "Tun-huang i-shu chung-te piao-tien fu-hao" tQiR@bGl#, Vph, Wen-shih chih-shih t7,V 8 (1988): 98-100. Li finds that a variety of signs were used for the same purpose, and that some signs had multiple purposes. However, the apparent lack of standardization may be partly attributable to the long time- frame. Many useful details on medieval collation practices are found in a recent study by Kuo Tsai-i W E0 et al., "Tun-huang hsieh-pen shu-hsieh t'e-li fa-wei" #kw , * in Tun-huang T'u-lu-fan hsiieh yen-chiu lun-wen-chi . ed. Chung-kuo Tun-huang T'u-lu-fan hsuieh-hui =* (Shanghai: Han-yu ta tz'u-tien ch'u-pan-she, 1991), pp. 310-46. This work analyzes Tun-huang manuscript styles and errors made in modern retranscriptions, including those involving ambiguous signs.

A simple system of punctuation, intended for novice readers, is explained by a mid- to late seventh-century Tun-huang collator in his colophon to a copy of the Lotus Sutra (S.2577, Miao-fa lien-hua ching O TE, chuian 8). The collator marks in red ink only such reading phrases as do not consist of four-character units and also p'o-yin tzu (see n. 229), omitting other diacritics including those used demarcate sections in the text. The sentence-final marks (placed directly below the character) and p 'o-yin tzu marks (placed in the middle of the character) are visible in one segment from S.2577, exposed and discussed in Harumichi Ishizuka, "R6ran, Tonk6 no katenbon, " p. 23, pl. 16. Victor H. Mair's translation of the colophon in T'ang Transformation Texts (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1989), p. 138, may be supplemented in accordance with the above.

Some of the same signs are found in Han documents; see lists in Chung-kuo k'o-hsiieh- yuan k'ao-ku yen-chiu-so PPRn, 3T and Kan-su sheng po-wu-kuan #t J AtM, ed., Wu-wei Han chien R IA (Peking: Wen-wu ch'u-pan-she, 1964), pp. 70-7 1; and Lao Kan * "Ts'ung mu-chien tao chih te ying-yiin" t*%II i0ijX, trans. Ch'iao Yen-kuan j1, Chung-yang t'u-shu-kuan kuan-k'an rP-,LN fl, n.s., 1.1 (1967): 5-6.

For the Sung, signs found in imprints are listed in Chang Hsiu-min, Chung-kuo yin-shua shih, pp. 169-70. Different systems of collation signs are described in Shu-linya-hua 2.26, and exemplified by Fang Sung-ch'ing's )M, #i (1135-94) textual study of Han Yii's collection, Han chi chii-cheng "i; IE (1189); see Ssu-k'u ch 'aan-shu tsung-mu, 150.1287b-8a. The Southern Sung Palace Library system described in Nan Sung kuan-ko lu, "Chu-ts'ang, " 3.2b- 3b, will be treated below.


tions on drafts, black ink was used to blot out (tien %,!) errors (the corrections were then usually added to the right). For convenience, black ink was also used for other editing tasks, but colored inks were thought to be indispensable in formal collation.

In formal collation, yellowish orpiment (tz'u-huang) was used like liquid white-out to erase erroneous graphs; it matched the color of manuscript paper, which was dyed yellow when washed with an insecticide. 226 Even after white paper came to replace yellow paper for most ordinary uses in the Sung, orpiment continued to be used,227 later being replaced by a whitish substitute.228 Whitish lead powder (ch'ien-fen S*) was used for the same purpose as orpiment. Red ink-in the form of vermilion (chu *) and so-called cinnabar (tan Y) or cinnabar powder (tan-fen Yf*)-was employed to flag errors and to enter corrections, other collation notes, punctuation, and

226 A recipe for tz'u-huang and instructions for its application are found in Ch'i min yao-shu, "Tsa-shuo," 30, 3.16a; see explanatory notes in Meng-hsipi-t'an chiao-cheng, pp. 67-68, and Liao Ch'i-yii V,T ed., Ch'i-minyao-shu chiao-shih RR (Peking: Nung-yeh ch'u-pan-she, 1982), pp. 173-74. Like writing ink, tz'u-huang was prepared in a solid lump, then ground with water to the proper consistency, and applied with a brush. By the late third century, tz'u- huang had become so common that Wang Yen's IET (256-311) habit of revising his arguments even as he spoke is described by contemporaries as "oral tz'u-huang"; Chin shu 43.8b. Tz'u-huang was also used for other purposes: to paint wooden tablets yellow to be used for imperial rescripts (see Sui shu 9.1 la-b, SS 154.16b), and sometimes to rule columns; and also as a cosmetic, and in medicine and gold-making, see Edward A. Schafer, "Orpiment and Real- gar in Chinese Technology and Tradition," JAOS 75.2 (1955): 73-78.

The yellowing insecticide dye was made from the bark of the Amur cork tree (huang-po/pi It X, Phellodendron amurense). A recipe and instructions are also found in Ch 'i-minyao-shu 3. lOb- 1 la. These are translated and the subject of dyeing is discussed in R. H. van Gulik, Chinese Pictorial Art As Viewed by the Connoisseur, Serie Orientale Roma, no. 19 (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1958), pp. 136-37; also Tsien, Bamboo and Silk, p. 152, and Paper, pp. 74-76ff (but note that Ch 'i-minyao-shu provides no evidence that tz'u-huang was used as an insecticide to protect paper; tz'u-huang is treated under a separate heading, chih-shufa, which follows an entry [15b] on the preparation of errata and note slips). The common use of the dye is reflected in the old terms for books, huang-chiian , and huang-pen X*.

227 This is reported by Sung Ch'i, who regards the continued use of tz'u-huang on white paper by enthusiasts as illogical. Yellow paper, he notes, continued to be used for Buddhist and Taoist writings; Sung Ching-wen pi-chi 51Z 1m"-)M4 (Pai-ch'uan hsiieh-hai edition, 8th ser., 1930), 1.2a; quoted in Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih 1.12. Yellow paper was generally reserved for imperial edicts, and also for editions of manuscript and print books intended for imperial use (whether produced at court or submitted from other regions in the country).

228 The preferred later substitute, a fluid made from pale steatite stone from Ch'ing-t'ien H'R (in Chekiang), is noted in Ts'ang-shu chi-yao 8a; trans. Fang, "Bookman's Manual," pp. 234-35.

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diacritic and tone marks.239 Colored inks were commonly used in tandem. In T'ang times, phrases such as chu- tan- huang-pi * (vermilion, cinnabar, or orpiment brush), chu huang (vermilion and orip- ment), tan huang (cinnabar and orpiment), tan ch'ien f (cinnabar and lead powder), and ch'ien huang (lead powder and orpiment), came to be used as kennings for collation-so the poet Han Yu reflects upon the frustration of his political ambitions:

I would be better off poring over texts Occupying myself by making marks and corrections with cinna-

bar and lead.230

One of the best known devotees of colored inks is the histori- ographer Liu Chih-chi JqU (661-72). He designed his essay, "On Marking Verbiage" (Tien fan 1 in Shih t'ung 93 (preface 710), using vermilion and orpiment to designate those passages in classics of philosophy and history that he thought should be chopped. He compares the instant clarity given by color to that of a battlefield map.23' Sung Ch'i followed this practice in revising his

229 Vermilion was used for such purposes from early times. Detailed examples of the use of vermilion for sentence-end punctuation (chiu-tien 'I%,,), section divisions (k'o-tuan Hf), and pronunciation marks (tien-fa MR) in third- to tenth-century manuscripts are given in Ishizu- ka Harumichi, "R6ran, Tonk6 no katenbon," pp. 1-38. Red dots for reading pauses were entered at the bottom right of a character, or sometimes between characters. Red dots were also used diacritically, first to mark characters that are now called po'-yin tzu X ~r, when the character was used with what was considered the less-basic sense (a "derivative meaning," in Ishizuka's term). The dots were usually placed in the middle of the character, or sometimes to the right. When this system was refined in the T'ang, red dots were placed on one of the four corners of thep 'o-yin tzu to indicate a specific tone. Later, the system was adopted to mark tones on any character; on the evolution, see ibid., pp. 4-5, 20-27; also Harumichi Ishizuka, "Some Marks and Commentaries on Old Chinese and Japanese Docu- ments," Actes du 20, Congres international des Orientalistes, Section Chine ancienne (Paris: L'Asia- theque, 1977), pp. 175-80, which summarizes and supplements his earlier article. Red circles began to replace dots in the T'ang, becoming popularized in the Sung and Yuian; see Chu Sheng-ch'i %, "Ku-shu te chii-tu chi ch'i fu-hao" - Nan-ching shih- yuan hsuieh-pao (she-hui k'o-hsiieh pan) iI p R (tf14J) 1 (1981): 66-67.

230 "Ch'iu-huai shih-i-shou" Wk+-4, no. 7, Chu Wen-kung chiao Ch'ang-li hsien-sheng chi ; V*I* -* (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), 1.23b. For a translation and discussion, see Stephen Owen, The Poetry of Meng Chiao and Han Yu (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), pp. 262-63.

231 See Shih t'ung hsin chiao-chu _PA1 ia, ed. Chao Lii-fu i,TR (Chungking: Ch'ung-


draft of the Hsin T'ang shu (chuian 176), leaving an editing trail that a later observer, Chao Yen-wei MSA (d. 1206), was able to trace:

He used draft paper ruled in vermilion. Close to the column line, he transcribed his former text in black. Beside it, he entered his corrections in vermilion. I saw that at the end of his draft for Han Yii's biography he had first written: "Scholars look up to him as if he were Mount T'ai or the Northern Dipper." He marked that out (tien) and changed it to: "as if he were a bright star or a phoenix." Then he marked that out and changed it back to: "Mount T'ai or the Northern Dipper. "232

That is how Sung's well-known appraisal (tsan T) came to end: "Af- ter his death, his views were put into wide use. Scholars look up to him as if he were Mount T'ai or the Northern Dipper."

Vermilion was also used regularly in the design of books with interlinear commentary, first in Eastern Han editions of classics to distinguish the text proper from a black commentary, or conversely, to set off the annotations from a black text.233 In other works vermilion

ch'ing ch'u-pan-she, 1990): "Wai-p'ien," pp. 865-66. According to an "original note," Liu Chih-chi used both vermilion and tz'u-huang diacritic marks in his text; p. 886 nn. 8-9. In the course of monochrome print transmission, the marked and unmarked portions of the text became completely confused. Chao's version of the chapter draws on two widely divergent modern restorations: Hung Yeh A [William Hung], " Shih t'ung Tien-fan p 'ien i-bu" t

%,fM,jVV, Shih-hsaeh nien-pao f 2.2 (1935): 149-60, reprinted in Hung Yeh lun-hsaeh- chi = (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1981), pp. 140-49; and Lu Ssu-mien Shih t'ung p'ing - (Kuo-hsaeh hsiao ts'ung-shu edition, 1934), pp. 111-25.

232 Yun-lu man-ch'ao , (preface 1206) (She-wen tzu-chiu edition, 1856; reprint, 1924; facsimile reprint in Ts'ung-shu chi-ch 'eng), 4.93-94. The use of vermilion for ruling columns is already seen in Ma-wang-tui manuscripts; see color reproductions in Ch'ien Hao et al., Out of China's Earth: Archaeological Discoveries in the People's Republic of China (New York: Abrams, 1981), pp. 116, pl. 175 (Chou I); 119, pl. 176 (Lao Tzu A). Later uses are discussed in in Shimada Kan ,%Eil, Kobun kyusho ko/ Ku-wen chiu-shu k'ao -i7XA4# (Tokyo: 1905; reprint, Peking: Ts'ao-yii t'ang, 1935), "Shu-ts'e chuang-huang k'ao," 19b. Tun-huang manuscripts provide a number of examples of vermilion corrections of student writing, e.g., P.3305, noted in Drege, "La Lecture et l'ecriture," p. 84.

233 Early third-century use is confirmed by a report in Yii Huan's (third century) Wei lueh IMM that the annotator Tung Yu M (fl. 194-237) produced a vermilion-and-black commentary edition of the Tso chuan, with red for the text of the classic, and black for commentary; see P'ei Sung-chih's ?2f?L (372-451) commentary to Ch'en Shou 1Xg (233-97), comp., San-kuo chih J,i> (PNPS edition), "Wei Lang chuan," 13.30a. A much earlier, Western Han origin is postulated by the Sui classical scholar, Liu Hsiian %Q, who credits K'ung An-kuo with the development of vermilion-and-black editions of the classics, treating this as an innovation accompanying the creation of interlinear commentary editions of the classics (see n. 264), which Liu also attributes to K'ung. Liu further says that since the East- ern Han, all commentators had adopted the practice. These claims appear to be unfounded, but Liu's comments do provide evidence of the popularity of color editions in his own time.

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was used to set off important strata in the text proper. For example, T'ao Hung-ching's tA15 (452?-536?) Shen-nung pen-ts'ao ching chi-chu t*AV,* employed vermilion for recording medicines listed in the original entries attributed to Shen-nung (ca. 28th-27th century B.C.), and black for supplements by later commentators.234 The early T'ang scholar Lu Te-ming also planned his Ching-tien shih-wen as a two-color work: black for citations from the texts of the classics, and vermilion for his phonological glosses, so that his readers could "find them at a glance."235

When these works and many others like them were converted to monochrome print-texts in the Sung, the advantage of color-coding was lost, opening up further possibilities for confusion between text and commentary. Compensation for the loss of color was sometimes made by engraving vermilion characters (and also commentary titles) intaglio, until the early fourteenth century, when further developments in printing technology permitted the use of red for text and punctuation.236

See Nait6 Torajir6, "Shoshoseigi kaidai," p. 198, quoting and discussing Liu's commentary to the Pseudo-K'ung Preface to Ku-wen Hsiao ching 1 (Yamamoto Taichui's IIIt imprint, 1814, of an edition held in the Ashikaga Confucian School [Ashikaga Gakk6] library).

234 See [K'ai-yuan hsieh-pen] Pen-ts'ao chi-chu hsu ts'an-chuan J (Tun- huang ms., British Museum; facsimile reprint in Chi-shih an ts'ung-shu), leaf 2, verso; quoted in Okanishi Tameto, Sung i-ch'ien i-chik'ao, pp. 1251-2. The manuscript copy-text submitted to the Directorate retained the color scheme as part of an elaborate system of annotations designed to prevent confusion among different strata of the work. The design is described in the preface to the Directorate edition of Pu-chu Pen-ts'ao ;N$g, 20 chuan (1061-62), quoted in Chien-pen k'ao 2.108-9. The imprint, however, was monochrome, and by the Ming, the vermilion and black segments had become confused; see entry on Liao Hsi-yung , comp., Shen-nung pen-ts'ao ching shu I * f,, in Ssu-k'u ch'ian-shu tsung-mu 104.876b.

235 See Ching-tien shih-wen (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), "T'iao-li" {yFlJ, 2b. Another T'ang example is Chang Ts'an's use of vermilion in Wu-ching wen-tzu for marking variant forms of characters, to prevent confusion; see (Chih-pu-tsu chai ts'ung-shu edition), "Hsui-li" J+fiJ, 2a. (This distinction was probably lost when this work was engraved on stelae, between 776 and 880, at the National University, Ch'ang-an.) Chang Shou-chieh's 4Kiqj Shih-chi cheng-i 4 9iLiE (preface 736) is also sometimes cited for its use of vermilion for marking pronunciation, although this is not explicitly stated in the relevant section of the "Lun-li" ;&J.

236 For examples of the conversion of vermilion to intaglio in imprints, see entry on Han chi chii-cheng in Ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu tsung-mu 150.1287c, citing this work and also a Cheng-ho period (1111-17) pharmacopia, both with vermilion characters converted to intaglio. The earliest known example of a vermilion-and-black imprint of a book is the Diamond Sutra (Chin-kang pan -jo-po-lo-mi ching !& JIJMEMP) (Tzu-fu Temple , Chung-hsing Circuit, 1341;


Sung scholars nonetheless continued to use red and other colors in manuscript books, both within and without the court. Prominent eleventh- and twelfth-century examples include the two revisions of Shen-tsung shih-lu tI2E undertaken in the Shao-sheng (1094-97) and early Shao-hsing periods, and also Fang Sung-ch'ing's textual study of the works of Han Yu (1189). In the Shih-lu revisions, black was used for transcriptions from the original Yiian-yu period text, yellow for deletions, and vermilion for additions.237 In his original study, Fang wrote the character corrections in vermilion.238 Mastery of collation signs and colored inks employed in collation and in analytical annotations (p'i-tien M%) seems to have been a normal part of Sung educational curricula. The widely used Yuan educational primer composed by Ch'eng Tuan-li ;WX, (1271-1345), Ch'eng-shih chia-shu tu-shu frn nien-jih ch'eng HW (1315), which applies Chu Hsi's program as outlined in Chu-tzu tu- shufa, provides detailed instructions for training students in sophisti- cated systems of collating and annotating texts employing colored inks (red, yellow, and blue) as well as black.239 Such systems must

held in the National Central Library, Taipei); it employs red for illustrations and prayers, and black for other text, including commentary; see Chang Hsiu-min, Chung-kuoyin-shua shih, p. 326, and frontispiece plate; Tsien, Paper, p. 282, fig. 1189. As S6ren Edgren has observed, the high level of craftsmanship indicates a long period of prior development in color book printing (pers. com.).

237 The Shao-sheng revision, popularly known as the "History in Vermilion and Black"

*65p-, was undertaken by Ts'ai Pien #t (1058-1117), Lin Hsi *t (chin-shih 1057), and Tseng Pu #f!fi (1036-1107). The Shao-hsing revision was done by Fan Ch'ung -p (1067- 1141) and Chao Ting Wir (1084-1147). Both projects are chronicled in YH: "I-wen," "Shao-hsing ch'ung-hsiu Che-tsung shih-lu," 48.16a-17a, and Chien-yeh i-lai chao-yeh tsa-chi, ser. 1, "Chih-tso": "Shen-tsung Che-tsung hsin shih-lu," 4.7a. For a description of the Shao- sheng revision, see entry entitled Shen-tsung chu-mo shih in WHTK: "Ching-chi k'ao" 21, 194.1644a-b; also Chih-chai shu-lu chieh t'i 4.124 and Chiin-chai tu-shu chih chiao-cheng 6.231-2 (under Shen-tsung shih-lu and Shen-tsung chu-mo shih). For the Shao-hsing revision, see entry for Shen-tsung shih-lu kao-i in WHTK "Ching-chi ka'o" 21, 194.1644b; Chih-chai shu-lu chieh t'i 4.125.

The precedent for the Shao-sheng "History in Vermilion and Black" is said to have been the Annals of Tai-tsu (Tai-tsu chi tkA ), 1 chuian, compiled by Chang Chi 21t (933-96) (Hanlin Scholar) et al. in 994. In this work, vermilion was used for quotations of T'ai-tsu and records from the Historiography Institute; see Lu Yu, Lao-hsiieh an pi-chi Fg r;d (Pai-hai edition, 5th ser.), 10.7b-8a; Ch'ing-po tsa-chih 3.3.

238 See entry on Han chi chui-cheng in Ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu tsung-mu 150.1287c. 239 See Cheng-shih chia-shu tu-shufen nien-jih cheng (SPTK ed., 2d ser.) 1.18a-25a, 2.20a-

30a; cf. other Yuian systems described in Ch'ien T'ai-chi X (1791-1863), P'u-shu tsa-chi

94 SUSAN CHERNIACK

have had their origins in Sung practices. The collation procedures inherited from pre-print culture sur-

vived well into the Southern Sung. These are codified in a set of detailed instructions, Chiao-ch'ou shih 1AR, compiled in 1136, and posted outside the offices of collators in the Palace Library:

Wherever you find a wrong character, erase it with orpiment and [in its place], write in the [correct] character. If you find interpolated characters, circle them with orpiment. If you find that characters are missing, add them beside the [appropriate] character. If there is not enough room beside the character for your annotations, use a vermilion circle [to mark the place where the annotation should be added]; then in the margin above or below that line, write it in. If you find an inversion, draw an i-shaped character [Z, i.e., a check-mark] between the two [inverted] characters.

The proper place for punctuation marks [for the end of a sentence] is to the side [of the character]. Where you find groups of [characters composed of a series of] names of people, places, or objects, separate each [name] by inserting fine punctuation marks in between them [directly below the appropriate character].240

With regard to tone marks, if a character is followed by a pronunciation gloss, blot out [the gloss] with vermilion, then enter the tone mark [at one of four corners of the character. ]241 Also supply tone marks for other characters with certain pronunciations that are attested by the Classics, Canonical Commentaries, Philosophies, or Histories. Also, if you find a character that has distinctly different pronunciations [when it occurs in different words]242 . . . but has no pronunciation gloss following, you should add a tone mark.

If you find a mistake in a [punctuation or tone] mark, you should correct it by applying orpiment over the vermilion. The mark should be made yellow, so that the place where the mark had been shall appear to be unmarked.

!W V=3 NE (Shih-hsiin tang ts'ung-shu edition, 1st ser.), "Yuian-jen Ssu-shu Wu-ching piao-tien," 2. 14a-15a.

240 The distinction here, between the tien % used to mark the end of a sentence (chiu 13J), and the tien (called a tou-hao 3 r) used to mark the end of a reading phrase (tou a), is explained in a reference to these instructions, cited as the "Chiao-shu shih K".tA of the Acade- mies and Institutes," in Mao Huang , Tseng-hsiu hu-chu Li-puyiin-lieh "6 E1r V 1I (Ssu-ku ch'iian-shu edition), 4.120b. His son, Mao Chii-cheng, adopted this system for his edition of the Classics; see Kan-cheng Chiu-ching San-chuan yen-ko-li, "Chii-tou," 24b. The same conventions were employed in the Yuian Palace Library; see Cheng-shih chia-shu tu-shu fen nien-jih cheng, "Kuan-ko chiao-k'an fa," 2.20.

241 The appropriate tone was marked by placing a dot at one corner of the graph: the SE corner for p 'ing, SW for shang, NW for ch 'ii, and NE forju. This arrangement is first seen in Tun-huang manuscripts dating from the late seventh and eighth centuries, replacing earlier arrangements; for details, see Ishizuka Harumichi, "R6ran, Tonk6 to katenbon," pp. 4-5, and "Some Marks and Commentaries," p. 178.

242 I.e., a po-yin tzu; see n. 229.


At the end of every volume you finish marking and collating, write: "Collated and Corrected by Your Servant So-and-so." After you have finished collating the entire work, submit it to the Department of State Affairs.243

The use of orpiment in collation is of particular interest, because it may lead to silent and irreversible changes in a work. Orpiment was used not only for preparing corrected transcriptions of texts, including final copies-or "fair copies" (ching-pen **)-but also for making changes directly on the earlier texts (just as black ink was used). Orpiment was the preferred medium for erasing errors in the Sung. Shen Kua explains why this was so, reviewing the other options:

When [staff] in the Academies and Institutes are writing out a fair copy (ching-pen) and errors are made, they erase them with orpiment. This is the regular method to be used in collating and changing characters. If you shave [off the ink]244 and rinse [the paper to remove the debris], then you may damage the paper. If you paste [a slip of] paper over it, it may easily fall off.245 If you try to erase it with powder, the character will not disappear; you may have to use several applications before you

243 Nan Sung kuan-ko lu, "Chu-ts'ang," 3.2b-3b. The Chiao-chou shih (Shao-hsing 6/6) was compiled by Fan Ch'ung (Senior Compiler in the Historiography Institute), and edited by Wu Piao-ch'en NM (chin-shih 1109) (Vice Director of the Palace Library). Winkelman comments that the fact that the instructions were publicly displayed "suggests that they were actually followed"; "Imperial Library," p. 32.

244 Shaving to remove errors goes back to pre-Han times, when book-knives were used to erase errors from bamboo and wood writing-tablets; see Ch'ien Ts'un-hsiin, "Han-tai shu- tao k'ao f*147-}2J#, in Ch'ing-chu Tung Tso-pin hsien-sheng liu-shih-wu-sui lun-wen-chi W ttto1ffi gSi5f:t, pt. 2, CYYYwai-pien, no. 4 (1961), pp. 997-1007, rpt. in Chung- kuo shu-chi lun-wen-chi, pp. 43-56; trans. John H. Winkelman, "A Study of the Book-knife in the Han Dynasty," Chinese Culture 12.1 (1971): 87-101. Errors in texts written on waxed paper could also be removed by shaving off the layer of ink. For example, block-copy, which was written on such paper, was traditionally corrected by this means; see Ch'ien, "Chung- kuo tiao-pan yin-shua chi-shu tsa-t'an," Chung-kuo shu-chi lun-wen-chi, p. 141.

Note that the usage of kan fii to mean "to correct (a text)" is derived from the earlier practice of shaving off errors from writing tablets, then smoothing over the spot for retranscription; hence the Shuo-wen chieh-tzu definitions: k'an = t'o dJJ, and t'o = shan MIJ ("cut out"); see Shuo-wen chieh-tzu chu 4B.45b. In Han texts, kan is used in different contexts to mean "scrape off (errors)" and alternatively "cut (a text in stone)". It is from the latter usage that kan also comes to mean "engrave (a woodblock, for printing)."

245 The use of pasted errata slips originates in the Six Dynasties, or earlier; such red silk and paper slips are described in Ch 'i min yao-shu 3.15b. The Sung bibliophile Tu Ting-sheng 7tL (fl. 998-1003) is often cited for his use of errata slips for making corrections on borrowed books (correcting errors in loan-books was an old tradition); see Huang Hsiu-fu AbK 2 (d. after 1006), Mao-t'ing ko-hua ; (Chin-tai pi-shu edition, 15th ser.), 10.4b-5a; quoted in Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih 1.15; Pan Mei-yuieh, Ts'ang-shu chia kao, p. 62.

96 SUSAN CHERNIACK

succeed in totally obliterating it.246 But with orpiment, one stroke and it's gone, and it will never fade or flake off, even after a long time. The people of former times called it ch'ien-huang *.247 So there seems to be a tradition behind its use.248

Orpiment was prized for its ability to make unwanted characters disappear permanently. The use of orpiment in collating documents reflects the traditional emphasis on improving texts in transmission. It also indicates a lack of concern for preserving or documenting previous textual states, exhibited in the alternative practice of black- ing out errors. In this respect, Sung practices clearly differ from Ch'ing practices, which reflect a differently balanced set of priori- ties, where improvement and preservation are more equal concerns.

The potential for abuse in undocumented emendation was, of course, recognized. Shen Kua himself reports that in the imperial libraries "many former collation officials lacked a sense of professional ethics. They merely took an old document and blotted out a character with ink, then wrote in the same character in an annotation to the side, so that they would meet their quota for the day. " 1249

Sometimes such revisions went too far. In 1025, one Ch'en Ts'ung- i WWRw (Collator of the Academies and Institutes, assigned to the In- stitute for the Glorification of Literature) was dismissed from his post (together with his colleagues) for having made "reckless erasures and interpolations" in the text of Shih-tai hsing-wang lun t ftW 4. This was one of the works in the T'ai-ch'ing lou collection, which, having survived the palace fire, was fated to be recollated by

246 The powder is ch'ien-fen (lead powder). Its use goes back to the Han. An additional problem with lead powder was that it faded or darkened after a long time, making the correction illegible; see Ch'eng-shih chia-shu tu-shufen nien-jih ch'eng 2.26a for recipes, instructions, and warnings on use (Ch'eng Tuan-li recommends errata slips instead); also Ts'ang-shu chi-yao 8a; trans. Fang, "Bookman's Manual," p. 234.

247 Schafer says that Shen Kua has confused orpiment (tz'u-huang) with massicot (chi'en- huang) here; "Orpiment," p. 78 n. 84. But the phrase ch'ien huang probably refers to ch'ien- fen (lead powder) and tz'u-huang, or some combination of the two employed in making corrections, as well as ruling columns. This usage is seen in Yuian Chen's JE# (779-831) poem, "Ch'ou Han-lin Po Hsiueh-shih tai-shu i-pai-yiin" ffIt - AA: "The fish-Lu errors aren't hard to discern / But I'm too lazy to take up the lead and orpiment" AWNV

t n ff; Yuan-shih Ch'ang-ch'ing chi jE;FA** (SPTK edition, 1st ser.), 10.43b. 248 Meng-hsipi-t'an chiao-cheng 1.67, no. 18; quoted in Huang-ch'ao lei-yuian, "Tz'u-huang t'u

tzu," 31.10b. 249 Meng-hsipi-t'an chiao-cheng 11.411, no. 193; quoted in Huang-ch'ao lei-yiuan, " Chih pien-

hsiu chi, " 31. 10a-b.


Ch'en, thereafter to be reproduced in multiple copies to restock the imperial library.250 As students of T'ang poetry will recall, the same individual is remembered affectionately by Ou-yang Hsiu as a true scholar and lover of ancient scholarship and the host of a famous collation party, during which guests were invited to fill a lacuna in a line from Tu Fu by guessing at the original character. Ch'en later discovered that all the conjectures were wrong.25"

A different editorial disposition developed in the later Sung. It is evidenced by increasing numbers of scrupulously researched and documented textual studies of classical, literary, and historical works by private collators. These include-in addition to the previously cited influential works by P'eng Shu-hsia (1192), Mao Chui- cheng (1225), Liao Ying-chung (1270), and Fang Sung-ch'ing (1 189)-Hung Hsing-tsu's AH. (1090-1155) study of the Songs of the South (Ch 'u-tz'u k'ao-i i Ts'ai Meng-pi's 3fi critical edition of Tu Fu's poetry (Ts'ao-t'ang shih chien VMP; 1204), and Wang Ying-lin's notes in his Reports of Hard-won Knowledge (K'un hsueh chi-wen).252

The editorial orientation displayed in such textual studies sometimes carries over into other types of editing projects. But it need not do so, and in this regard, Chu Hsi's work is exemplary because it expresses the full range of options: as the editor of a textual study of Han Yii's collection, which builds on Fang Sung-ch'ing's work, Chu follows the genre conventions in methodically documenting all proposed changes. As the editor of the Lun-yu and Mao Shih, he confines his textual arguments to interlinear annotations, following

250 Accounts of this episode are given in SHY: "Chih-kuan," ts'e 55, 4.6b (Ch'ien-hsing 3/ 6); Yuan Chiung AR (ca. 1102-1204), Feng-ch'uang hsiao-tu J*oJ' (Shuo-fu edition, 32d ser.), 2.6a; and YH: "I-wen," "Ching-te T'ai-ch'ing lou ssu-pu shu mu" 52.35a (T'ien- sheng 3/6/ping-ch'en). The dismissals occurred after the project ended.

251 See [Liu-i] shih-hua A-Si4, Ou-yang kung chi 128.3b-4a. The anecdote is translated by Jonathan Chaves in Mei Yao-ch 'en and the Development of Early Sung Poetry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), p. 99; see also discussion in Cherniack, "Three Great Poems," pp. 159-60.

252 On Fang Sung-ch'ing, Han chi chi-cheng, see discussion in Charles Hartman, "Prelimi- nary Bibliographical Notes on the Sung Editions of Han Yu's Collected Works," in Critical Essays on Chinese Literature, ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1976), pp. 92-95. For other works, see Chiang Yiian-ch'ing, Chiao-ch'ou hsueh shih, pp. 132-48; Chang Shun-hui, Kuang chiao-ch'ou liieh, pp. 126-27; Hu P'u-an and Hu Tao-ching, Chiao-ch 'ou hsuieh, pp. 26-36.

98 SUSAN CHERNIACK

the example set by Cheng Hsiian, leaving the received text intact. But as the editor of the Hsiao ching, he presents a revised "model text" that ignores the traditional state and organization or the classic.253 Yet the popularity of textual studies, especially noticeable after the mid-Southern Sung, tells us of increased public interest in textual histories and growing awareness of the utility of preserving such material more carefully.

This shift may be behind a change in correction procedures, noted by Chao Yen-wei: "When the people of former times found a mistake in the transcription of a character, they would blot it out. But most people today do not erase. They add the annotation pu I- beside the character. The common expression for this sign is pu-sha

JR, but no one knows what it means."254 Chao compares the sign F to the sign p used for the same purpose in a holograph by Ssu-ma

Kuang. He interprets 0 as the right half of the character fei 4r (wrong), similar in meaning to the deletion sign (san-tien). Although these signs antedate the Sung,255 Chao's observation that his contemporaries are erasing and blotting less suggests some change in habits by the early thirteenth century. Shen Kua (1031-95), who personally recommends orpiment for expunging errors in a final collation, reports that in his time rank-and-file collators were no longer permitted to erase errors directly on the documents they were reviewing. They were permitted only to circle the errors in vermilion. The documents were then referred to editors in the Compiler-Collator

253 For details on Chu Hsi's editing practices, see references cited in n. 50. Chu Hsi divided the Hsiao ching into one section of canonical text (ching) and fourteen sections of commentary (chuan), and excised some 233 characters. His handling of the text was much criticized in the Ch'ing as a baneful influence on textual scholarship; see comments in Chiang Yuian- ch'ing, Chiao-ch'ou hsueh shih, pp. 150-53.

254 Yun-lu man-ch'ao 3.7. Compare the detailed description of textual changes made by Su Shih in drafts of two memorials, which were carved on stelae in Shu, in Fei Kun R X (chin- shih 1205), Liang-hsi man-chih B* (1192) (Chih-pu-tsu chai ts'ung-shu edition, 2d ser., 1776), "Shu-chung shih-k'o Tung-p'o wen-tzu kao" 6.1a-2a, quoted in Shu-linyi-hua 1.5. Many of Su's writings found their way into such unauthorized stone engravings; see Chu Ch'uan-yui *%4W, Chung-kuo hsin-wen shih FTOfi P (Taipei: T'ai-wan shang-wu yin-shu- kuan, 1967), pp. 8, 161; cited and discussed in Stuart Sargent, "Contexts of the Song Lyric. "

255 On Tun-huang usages of these three signs and others employed for the same purpose, see Li Cheng-yii, "Tun-huang i-shu," p. 98; Kuo-Tsai-i, "Tun-huang hsieh-pen," pp. 315-16.


Service who determined what changes to make.256 In the Yuan, clear strictures were set on the liberty of palace copyists and collators to make changes in texts, according to rules handed down in 1287 by the Censorate (Yii-shih t'ai) to the Department of State Affairs. The Yuan rules explicitly prohibits those practices sanctioned previously in the preparation of fair copies:

Henceforth everyone engaged in transcribing documents must transcribe them carefully. Supervisors will instruct Clerks to be conscientious in collating texts, and will see to it that there is no dereliction in proofing the work....

Do not shave off, restore, add, change, or erase anything, make any annotations, or use the signs [to flag an error] or Z [to correct an inversion, on the document you are transcribing or on the original document from which you are working] 257

If there is a taboo character, the supervisor in charge will determine how to resolve the matter.258

The Yuan injunctions imply sharp distinctions among officials in al- locating authority for introducing textual changes. According to the anecdotal evidence reviewed above, Sung editorial roles seemed to have overlapped more, indicating a greater tolerance for shared textual improvements.

That traditional tolerance was certainly exploited and taxed to the limit by the spread of printing.

The potential for textual anarchy inherent in earlier collation procedures was significantly controlled in pre-print days by conditions that restricted collation activities to a relatively small group of individuals-collators and scholars attached to the court, and private book collectors, who were perforce usually very wealthy individuals. The medium itself-manuscript transmission-helped to

256 Meng-hsipi-t'an chiao-cheng 11.411, no. 193; quoted in Huang-ch'ao lei-yiian, "Chih pien- hsiu chi!" 31.10a (the text here reads chien m "in the middle" in place of ts'e IWJ "to the side"). Shen Kua dates this change to the institution of the Compiler-Collator Service. It it not clear from the context whether Shen is referring to procedures in the Historiography In- stitute or those of the Palace Library in general.

257 This interpretation is based on supplementary details in the accompanying desk sheet; see [Ying-yin Yuan-pen] Ta Yuan sheng-cheng kuo-ch'ao tien-chang J (ca. 1321, supplemented in the Chih-chih period [1321-23]) (facsimile reprint, 16 ts'e, Taipei: Ku-kung po-wu-yiian, 1972; reprint, 3 vols., 1976): "Li-pu" t , "An-tu" W 14.6a.

238 Ta Yuan sheng-cheng kuo-ch'ao tien-chang: "Li-pu" 8, "Pu te kua-pu tzu-yang," 14.9b.

100 SUSAN CHERNIACK

confine the problem of textual disorder to single copies and their limited posterity. The explosion in the book supply during the Sung changed this, putting books within the reach of almost all intellectuals, providing an outlet for the expression of new ideas on old texts, offering everyone a chance to play the game. At the very least, printing made the consequences of the earlier habits spectacularly visible. But it is likely that expanding print-publication also contributed to a real acceleration in the rate of textual shape-shifting, as the forceful dynamics of print-transmission converged with a realignment of the balance of power in matters of textual authority, favoring the individual scholar-editor.

As we have said, collation had traditionally played an important role in private book-collecting. Great collectors were often learned bibliophiles who took pride in collating their acquisitions, rather than hiring others to tend to the task. Their notes were felt to enhance the value of the original texts. The T'ang historian Wei Shu i'AN (d. 757), longtime Curator of the Palace Library, is said to have amassed 20,000 chaan of scrolls, all of which he collated and verified himself. His entries "in yellow and black" were said to be detailed and careful, unsurpassed by editions in the palace collection.259 This tradition continued into the Sung. References to incessant collation activities by book collectors are so common as to constitute a cliche in biographical notices, grave memoirs (mu-chih ming AlZI), and descriptions of conduct (hsing-chuang fThk), and they crop up often in literary notes and gazetteers.260 Thus Wang Ming-ch'ing reminisces

259 Hsin Tang shu (PNPS edition), 132.5b. 260 For an overview of collation activities by Sung book collectors, see P'an Mei-yuieh,

Ts'ang-shu chia k'ao, pp. 9-10. On the southern tradition, see Chiao-shih pi-sheng hsii-chi 4.12b- 13a. For details on collectors who were noted collators, see entries in Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih [here TSS ], P'an Mei-yiieh, and Fang Chien-hsin, "Sung-tai ssu-chia ts'ang-shu pu-lu," on

the following persons: Kao Ti iE%M (902-85), TSS 1.15; Sun Kuang-hsien * (d. 968), TSS 1.2, P'an, pp. 32-33; Pi Shih-an i (938 or 940-1005), TSS 1.10-11, P'an, pp. 57- 59; Chao Kan fi: (982-1003), Fang, 36:233; Li Chung-yen -{+f+M (982-1058), Fang,35:234; P'eng Ch'eng 3 (985-1049), Fang, 36: 240; Tu Ting-sheng, TSS 1.15, P'an, p. 62; Sung Shou, TSS 1.12-13, P'an, pp. 67-70; Kuo Yu-chih I:&A (1008-71), Fang, 36: 237; Sung Min-ch'iu, P'an, pp. 89-92; Liu Chih % q (1030-97), P'an, pp. 112- 13; K'ung Wen-chung TLZf+ (1037-87), Fang, 35: 225; Wang Ju-chou ki4i3 (chin-shih 1053), Fang, 35: 223; Kuo Feng-yiian WARq (1040-99), Fang, 36: 238; Chang Fu '

(1045-1106), Fang, 36: 240; Ch'en Ching-yuian |Wj (d. after 1100), P'an, pp. 124-25; Ch'ao Yueh-chih ,ML (1059-1129), P'an, pp. 129-30; Chang Yui MA (d. 1105), TSS


about his grandfather whose book collection grew, as he traveled through the empire, to many tens of thousands of chiuan, all of which he collated personally.26' And Lu Yu describes the poet Ho Ghu RX

(1052-1205) as an inveterate collector who loved to collate books: "The vermilion and yellow never left his hand" tt1t.262

Printing eventually made it possible for most Sung scholars to become book collectors and practice collation. Judging from the sheer abundance of collation notes that swell shih-hua and pi-chi mis- cellanies and the number of titles composed and published on this subject in the Sung, collation was, notwithstanding Yeh Meng-te's gloomy assessment, one of the most durable enthusiasms of Sung literati. The vermilion and yellow brushes never left their hands. Yet it would be wrong to discount this as a mere pastime. The significance of such activities may be seen when we reflect on the sanc- tification of acts of textual transmission in Confucian culture and the understanding of transmission as an opportunity to improve

1.24, P'an, pp. 132-33; Huang Po-ssu IJUT. (1079-1118), P'an, pp. 145-46; Chu Cho 9

f* (1086-1163), Fang, 35: 227; Li Ch'ing-chao and Chao Ming-ch'eng, TSS 1.30-32, P'an, pp. 148-49 (both quoting "Chin-shih lu hou-hsiu"); Lin T'ing t1;, TSS 1.36-37, P'an, pp. 153-54; Mr. Chu * (grandfather of Chu Hsiian *f), TSS 1.34-35; Fang Chien 7bj$i (chin-shih 1118), TSS 1.34, P'an, pp. 155-56; Chao Lin "i, Fang, 36: 234; Ch'ao Kung- wu, P'an, pp. 164-70; Tuan Ch'ung R4 (fl. 1111-18), Fang, 36: 234-35; Liu I-feng lwIx (1110-75), TSS 1.39-40, P'an, pp. 171-78; Fang Yui-pao i1TV (fl. 1146), Fang, 35:224; Hu Ch'ang-ling J (1113-92), Fang, 36:233; Li T'ao, Fang, 35:233; Ch'ien Wu a (1119-78), Fang, 36: 236; Fang Sung-ch'ing, Fang, 35: 224-25; Wang Po-ch'u IITU (I132-1201), Fang, 35: 223; Ts'ao Chung f (1135-1202), Fang, 36: 239; Kao Yiian-chih iM5dt (1142-97), Fang, 36: 238; Kuo Shu-i gtZ (1155-1233), Fang, 36: 237-38; Yang T'ai-chih AC? (1169-1230), Fang, 35: 231-32; Ch'en Chin-chai | R (1215-98), Fang, 35: 237; Wen I Z: (1215-56), Fang, 35: 224. One collector who cannot be listed with the above company is Wu Fei J%T (1104-83). His embarrassment at being too busy to collate his collection personally is the subject of an anecdote in Hui-chu lu 1. 15a revealing the social norms observed by collector-collators.

261 Hui-chu hou-lu fIWfi (Chin-tai pi-shu edition, 14th ser.), 7.15a; quoted in Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih, 1.27; P'an Mei-yuieh, Ts'ang-shu chia k'ao, p. 136. His grandfather was Wang Hsin IF_.

262 Lao-hsueih an pi-chi 8.8b; quoted in Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih 1.25. Lu Yu describes his own affection for collation in "Yui-hou chi-liang liao chien-ch'ieh-chung ku-shu yu kan shih" 1i f1

;gg"gg@ Wt" (After the rain, the weather is extremely refreshing. I arrange the old books in the cases and am moved to compose a poem): "The old man from Li-tse-just over his illness- / Happily sets about getting his West Studio library in order / Ten years before the lamp, collated with his own hand / Between the lines and in the margins, top and bottom-all yellow and vermilion"; quoted in Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih 1.41.

102 SUSAN CHERNIACK

texts. For the first time in Chinese history, book-collecting literati in the Sung, partly as the result of printing, broadly realized the old cultural dream of approaching Confucius in becoming active col- laborators in textual transmission. If scholar-editors were to turn to contemporary textual scholarship on the Confucian classics for guidance in this matter-as well they might, since classical scholarship had traditionally set the standards for scholarship on non- canonical texts-in the late Sung they might encounter Wang Po's exhortation in his revision of the Mao Shih: "In reading a text, you must be skeptical. If you suspect an error but have no means of investigating it, the deficiency is excusable. But if you fail to doubt when doubt is called for, the error lies in your carelessness. " X263

Consensus on what constituted objective grounds for emendation, and codification of principles of collation would not come until some centuries later, in the evidential scholarship of the Ch'ing. In the meantime, the question of authority in texts remained ambiguous, while opportunities and incentives for textual innovation were abundant and everywhere at hand. What needs to be understood with far greater clarity than exists at present is how these conditions shaped the texts that passed through Sung transmission and through which we have come to see the features of the pre-print Chinese world.

Appendix

COMMON TYPES OF SIMPLE TEXTUAL ERRORS

This Appendix provides a list of common types of simple textual errors, organized under six categories: (1) substitutions, (2) omissions, (3) additions, (4) transpositions, (5) confusions between the text proper and annotations, and (6) errors resulting from signs or faulty punctuation. By "common types of errors," I mean errors that are not genre-specific, but tend to occur generally in Chinese textual transmission due to the nature of the Chinese writing system, the traditional method of transcription (writing in vertical columns, from right to left, with little or no punctuation), or the rela-

263 Shih i, "Feng-hsiu pien," 2.13a.


tive arrangement of text and commentary in standard book formats set by the treatment of canonical works.264 By "simple textual errors," I mean one-step or single-stage errors. For the sake of clarity, I have restricted most of my examples to those of this type. Single- stage errors serve as the building blocks for more complex types of errors also found in Chinese texts. In reality, Chinese textual errors, like Western textual errors, often involve more than one kind of change. They are compound, multi-stage affairs. For instance, a change in a single character due to inadvertent mistranscription, editorial emendation, or damage to a document, may create a problem prompting a variety of subsequent changes by later editors or copyists, all aimed at improving the intelligibility of the passage in which that character appears-one or more characters may be substituted, a word or phrase may be excised, and individual characters or larger segments may be transposed.

264 For pre-Han and Han documents, the formats include: (1) text and commentary not combined in the same work, but circulated independently, and (2) text and commentary combined in the same work but separated, with either (a) the chapter text presented first as an distinct unit and the commentary afterwards as a distinct unit, or (b) a line of text presented as a unit, alternating with commentary starting on the following line. Another arrangement, introduced in the later Eastern Han and popularized since the Wei-Chin period (third-fourth centuries), is (3) text and commentary combined in the same work, in a continuous format, with commentary interspersed in the text in the form of interlinear notes, and subcommentary circulated independently. An additional format, popularized since the mid-Southern Sung, with earliest known examples from the Ch'un-hsi period (1174-90), is (4) text, coin- mentary, and subcommentary combined in the same work, in a continuous format, with the subcommentary appended to the commentary in expanded interlinear notes.

On formats 1-3, see Ch'ien Hsiuan O;, "Ku-shu cheng-wen yu chieh-shuo t'i-li k'ao" ! 9:E;S<g&KfIJ*, Nan-ching shih-yuan hsueh-pao (she-hui k'o-hsuieh pan) 2 (1981): 38-41; Nait6 Torajir6, "Shoshoseigi kaidai," pp. 109-11, reprinted in Naito Konan zenshu 7:197-98, trans. Ch'ien Tao-sun, "Shang shu cheng-i chieh-t'i," pp. 31-32. Format 3 is traditionally regarded as an innovation by the commentator MaJung .%Th (79-166), first used in his edition of the Chou Ii. K'ung Ying-ta is responsible for the attribution; see Mao Shih cheng-i 1.1.269b. Tu Yu used the same format in his edition of the Tso chuan; see Ch/'un-ch/'iu Tso chuan cheng-i, in Shih-san-ching chu-shu, 1.5c.

The printing of editions of the classics in format 4 is an innovation claimed by the Eastern Liang Che Circuit Tea and Salt Supervisorate, as attested by the printer Huang T'ang's Ik )M colophon to Li-chi cheng-i (dated 1192); see Chung-kuo pan-k'o t'u-lu, pl. 72. Details on these editions are given in Shu-lin ch'ing-hua, "Sung k'o ching chu-shu fen-ho chih pieh, " 6.146-47; Nait6 Torajiro, p. 125 (in Naito Konan zenshu, 7: 207-8; trans. Ch'ien Tao-sun, pp. 38-39); Nagasawa Kikuya, "Jusankyo chuso eifu" t it (1942), in Nagasawa Kikuya chosakushiui 3:341-42; Abe Ryulichi "So-Gen hanponshi," p. 18; and Edgren, "Southern Song Printing," pp. 26, 28-29.

104 SUSAN CHERNIACK

In the list, each category is divided into several subcategories, designated as 1.1, 1.2, etc. To qualify, a subcategory has to meet the criterion of "being a common error" by appearing in all three of these taxonomies:

1. Wang Shu-min, "T'ung li," in Chiao-ch'ou hsiieh.265 In his extensive study of errors occurring at various stages in the manuscript and print transmission of the Confucian classics, pre-Han philosophical works, and the Shih-chi, Wang carefully evaluates earlier opinions by textual authorities and offers many original contributions.

2. Wang Li-ch'i fEilff, "Tu chi chiao-wen shih-li" ftLVWZ"Wl, in Wang Li-ch'i lun-hsiieh tsa-chu Tf1JMAW* (Peking: Pei- ching shih-fan hsiieh-yiian ch'u-ban-she, 1990), pp. 117- 47.266 This study analyzes errors found in Sung and Yuan imprints of Tu Fu's poems. Tu Fu was popularly canonized as China's greatest poet in the Sung, at a time when his collection was in a relatively inchoate state. Definitive texts had not yet been established. Individual readers were compelled to scruti- nize the texts for themselves, a task for which most felt prepared by their rhetorical training as scholar-poets. Given the status of Tu Fu's poetry, the pressures to achieve textual perfection were substantial. The texts were particularly susceptible to change in regional print transmission. These circumstances contributed to widespread variations which have long been the focus of scholarly concern.267

3. Ch'en Yuan, Chiao-k'an hsiieh shih-li.268 This study analyzes tex-

265 See nn. 14, 21. 266 Wang's study was originally serialized in Hsi-pei ta-hsuieh hsuieh-pao , 3

(1980): 39-46, 4 (1980): 15-21, 59. 267 I have taken up some of the variant issues in "Three Great Poems," pp. 71-91, and

"Towards a Methodology for Establishing a Text for Du Fu: Evaluating Textual Varia- tion," paper delivered at the 202d Meeting of the American Oriental Society, Cambridge, Mass., March 1992. For bibliographic details on the editions cited by Wang Li-ch'i, see Cheng Ch'ing-tu 0 , et al., comp., Tu chi shu-mu t'i-yao ft- U E; (Tsinan: Ch'i Lu shu-she, 1986), and Chou Ts'ai-ch'iuan, Tu chi shu-lu; and Cherniack, "Three Great Poems," pp. 304-8.

268 See n. 218. Ch'en's work is a companion to his early textual study of the 1908 edition, Yiian tien-chang chiao-pu i (in Li-yun shu-wu ts'ung-k'o, 1931; facsimile reprint, Taipei: Wen-hai ch'u-pan-she, 1967).


tual errors occurring in the transmission of the Yuan institution- al compendium, Ta Yuan sheng-cheng kuo-ch'ao tien-chang (ca. 1321, supplemented in the Chih-chih period [1321-23]), at the time the work was reengraved in 1908 (at Fa-hsiieh t'ang &*, Peiping) under the direction of Tung Shou-chin Wj*.269 The new edition, popularly known as Shen-k'o Yuan tien-chang tMAI to, after Shen Chia-pen t&* (1840-1913), who provided a colophon, was prepared from a problematic Yuan manuscript in the Ting family library (Hang-chou).270 As Ch'en observes in his afterword to Chiao-k 'an hsiieh shih-li, virtually everything that can go wrong in transmission went wrong with this edition, making the Yuan tien-chang a useful casebook for the study of textual error.

In my list, subcategories that comprise noticeably distinct varie- ties of errors are further divided into sub-subcategories and their components, designated as 1.1.1. and 1.1.1.1, etc. These subdivisions are for the sake of convenience and are not meant to be exhaustive.

The examples cited in the subcategories and their subdivisions are drawn from the above works by Wang Shu-min, Wang Li-ch'i, and Ch'en Yuan; also Yuan Chiang-ch'ing, Chiao-ch'ou hsuieh shih,271 and other sources as appropriate. These include specialized studies by Ch'en Yuan (on taboos),272 Yang Shu-ta (on punctuation errors),273 and Kuo Tsai-i (on the characteristics of Tun-huang transcriptions and errors committed in modern retranscriptions published in Tun- huang pien-wen chi #MWM, ed. Wang Chung-min IE- et al., 2 vols. [1957, reprint; Peking: Jen-min wen-hsiieh ch'u-pan-she,

269 Collected in Tung's Sung-fen shih ts'ung-k'an, 1st ser., 1908; facsimile reprint, 2 vols., Taipei: Wen-hai ch'u-pan-she, 1964.

270 See Ting Ping TPi (1832-99), comp., Shan-pen shu-shih ts'ang-shu chih r= FE$

(privately printed, 1901; facsimile reprint, Ch'ing-jen shu-mu t'i-pa ts'ung-k'an, no. 2), 13.1 1b- 12a. The Yuan tien-chang text may be compared with a facsimile reprint of a Yuan edition, [Ying-yinj Yuan-pen Ta Yuan sheng-cheng kuo-ch'ao tien-chang; see n. 257.

271 See n. 22. 272 Shih hui chui-li 4ffi4ilJ (1928; in Li-yun shu-wu ts'ung-k'an, 1933; revised edition,

Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1962). 273 Ku-shu chui-tou skihF-li rJ.wsilJ (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chui, 1954), reprinted in

Ku-shu i-i chu-li teng ch'i-chung.

106 SUSAN CHERNIACK

1984], and elsewhere).274 The treatment of taboo characters (hui-tzu St) in this list (see

10. 1) requires a word of explanation, since taboo observances neces- sitate textual changes that may not involve textual errors. Generally speaking, certain characters were considered taboo because they occurred in the names of respected persons or conversely, in names that were abhorrent. Such characters were therefore avoided (hui-pi URE) in writing. Homophones of taboo characters (hsien-ming Ot), and characters with phonetic components having the same shape as the taboo character were also avoided (regularly, since the T'ang). Private taboos were observed by single individuals. But state-wide taboos applied to everyone. The scope of the taboos and the severity of their enforcement varied from period to period. The use of taboos, although evident in pre-Han and Han texts, became pronounced beginning in the T'ang. After periods of expansion and stringent enforcement in the Sung and Chin, taboos were abandoned in the Yuan, resumed in the Ming, then elaborated and strongly enforced in the Ch'ing. Enforcement was always strictest in official writings, where government control was strongest.

As a rule, taboos applied to all contemporary compositions and most contemporary transcriptions of earlier works. Although certain works were exempted in different periods, when earlier works were retranscribed or printed, they normally underwent some type of textual transformation owing to observances of taboos. Charac- ters occurring in the personal name of the reigning ruler (yui-min ,

were tabooed in every period since the Ch'in. The personal names of the ruler's immediate ancestors (including the names of de- ceased former rulers, proscribed as miao-hui MU, "ancestral temple taboos"), and the personal name of Confucius were tabooed since the Han (observance of the latter varies). Depending on the period, taboos were also applied to the personal names of various members of the imperial household (the empress, a favored consort, the heir-apparent, for example), and additional characters repugnant to the reigning dynasty (for example, the character an %, removed from place-names by the T'ang Emperor Su-tsung A [r. 756-62] after the onset of the rebellion led by An Lu-shan 91aI, and the

274 See n. 225.


characters hu, lu, i, and ti MFtk, all derogatory names for barbari- an peoples, tabooed during the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty). Individ- ual authors might also observe taboos on characters that occurred in the personal names of their father and grandfather. In the Shih-chi, for example, Ssu-ma Ch'ien replaced t'an Mf (his father's name) with t 'ung rpJ, "same. " Characters offensive to the author might also be tabooed. Thus, after the conquest of Northern China by the Chin Ijurchens], Sung loyalists avoided the character chin *, and during the Yuan dynasty, Chinese loyalists shunned the character yuan ic.

Taboo characters could be replaced by substitute characters, omitted entirely, or handled by other means. A tabooed character could be replaced variously: (1) by a synonym (normally a one-character word, but sometimes a two-character word); (2) by a near homophone (an alliterative or [loosely] rhyming character); (3) by a character that looked similar, in which case the phonetic component was changed, a radical was added or deleted to change the sound, or the same character was written minus one stroke. (This last practice began in the T'ang. All such incomplete [ch'ueh-pi O*] characters are conventionally pronounced as "mou" X, "so-and-so" or "such-and-such"); (4) by an unrelated character; or (5) by an all- purpose substitute, such as the character hui X ("taboo") or the character mou X. A tabooed character could also be omitted, in which case (1) the omission was marked by a sign for a lacuna, LI (see 6.1); (2) the space was closed up and otherwise unmarked (the character was simply left out); or (3) the space was closed up, but the omission was marked by an interlinear note. (In the Sung, the note typically included such phrases as yu-ming OL ["imperial name"], yu-ming t 'ung-yin Wt 1r1 ["homophone of the imperial name"], or miao-hui S ["ancestral temple taboo"].) Also, in imprints, a tabooed character could be handled by engraving it intaglio (mo-wei -M, also yin-wen WZ;). In rare Sung imprints, the taboo was alternatively treated by substituting an etymological gloss that "spelled out" the shape of the component parts of the character (ts 'ung X, ts 'ung Y OAO).

No textual changes made in observance of taboos are included in my list of textual errors; only errors committed after-the-fact, when the taboo was no longer in force and the original character was

108 SUSAN CHERNIACK

supposed to be restored in retranscription. Then an editor or copyist might overlook the substitution and neglect to restore the original character; or, imagining that a substitution had been made when it had not, he might change the character; or he might misinterpret the taboo and restore the wrong character.275

Abbreviations used in the list: B Yumiko F. Blanford. "A Textual Approach to Zhang-

guo zonghengjia shu. " See n. 25. CYl Ch'en Yuan. Chiao-k'an hsueh shih-li. CY2 Ch'en Yuan. Shih hui chu-li. CYC Chiang Yiian-ch'ing. Chiao-cho'u hsiieh shih. G A. C. Graham. Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science.

Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, The Chi- nese University of Hong Kong; London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1978.

KTI Kuo Tsai-i et al. "Tun-huang hsieh-pen shu-hsieh t'e-li fa-wei." See n. 225.

LY Wen-wu ch'u-pan-she 0A:tJR?. "T'ang hsieh-pen Lun-yu Cheng-shih chu shuo-ming" )tKS*GWMk"JRi -)JM. WW 189.2 (1972): 12-20.

MC Middle Chinese. MWT1 Chung-kuo k'o-hsiieh-yiian k'ao-ku yen-chiu-so Hu-nan

sheng po-wu-kuan hsieh-tso hsiao-tsu @1S14 * tt1Wj i7rYA'tAf1i;FJIil. "Ma-wang-tui erh-san-hao Han- mu fa-chiieh te chu-yao shou-huo" %, T* -/-t,gRA

StAl ll KK 136.1 (1975): 47-57. MWT2 Ma-wang-tuiHan-mu po-shu ,3T-M gt. Ed. Ma-wang-

tui Han-mu po-shu cheng-li hsiao-tsu 3Ji* Peking: Wen-wu ch'u-pan-she, 1983.

OC Old Chinese. P. Pelliot. S. Stein.

275 For a historical survey of taboo observances, see Ch'en Yuian, Shih hui chu-li. On the treatment of taboo characters in imprints, see Chang Hsiu-min, Chung-kuo yin-shua shih, pp. 163-68 (Sung), 266 (Chin), 509-10 (Ming), 633-37 (Ch'ing). For further discussion of Sung taboos, see Niida Noberu fIjEIB1, "Sokaiy5 to S6dai no shuppanho" * L 5MC; ll

it, Shoshigaku , 10.5 (1938): 1-28.


WLC Wang Li-ch'i. "Tu chi chiao-wen shih-li." WSM Wang Shu-min. Chiao-ch'ou hsaeh. YST Yang Shu-ta. Ku-shu cha-tou shih-li.

1. SUBSTITUTIONS OF CHARACTERS (KAI TZU t4)

Due to confusions of similarly-shaped characters (1.1), loan forms (1.2), or characters that sound alike (1.3); miscopying of obscure characters (1.4); the influence of nearby radicals (1.5) and characters (1.6); fusions (1.7) and fissions (1.8) of characters; mental associations (1.9); replacements of taboo characters (1.10), and attempts to improve the sense or structure (1.11).

1.1. Confusions of similargraphicforms (hsing chin erh wu IRAiff, hsing ssu erh wu liRJii). These may occur at any time, but often when a text written in a less familiar script is being transcribed.

1.1.1. In ancient script (ku-wen !r?): ,i (A "make") is copied as ffi (a connective, "and") in Huai-nan Tzu d -, "Jen-chien" A

MIl A2Aja,,-: VWMM (WSM, 1 37b). 1.1.2. In great seal script (chou-wen WC?): t[ (A, an attributive

pronoun, 'his, its") is copied as Z& ("also") more than eighty times in Mo Tzu M+, including the occurrence marked here in "Ching, hsia" MT 41: URXJt , Q1X. j, 7li'K-, , 'f', 1,Iif. (G, pp. 384, 510). This substitution was probably influenced by the occurrences of ZY in the phrases z1 and i>i\J", preceding and following. (See 1.6).

1.1.3. In [small] seal script (chuan-wen -i?t): XR ($0 "regulate") is copied as M (AlJ "benefit") in Kuan Tzu Wf, "K'uei tu" Rqg: $k _T h, , --1) 4 A 4 )U , 7J S14 L . dEE 14, ft 11

- A F _ _ (W SM,

138b-39a). 1.1 4. In clerical script (li-shu M4): A (t0 "wood frame for a

silkworm feeding tray") is copied as4 (M, "unadorned [wood]") in Huai-nan Tzu, "Shih-tse" RUPIJ: ARAM. (CYC, p. 5, no. 1B).

1.1.5. In regular script (k'ai-shu ef): IL ("north," used as a loan for JbB "turn one's back") is copied as Xk ("fire") in Chuang Tzu

A,"T'ien-ti" it: )M*4ffiWRF. )t_E40fiAkf. (WSM, 141b). 1.1.6. In cursive script (ts'ao-shu I9): d (i& "reason") is

copied as b (i "get"), resulting in d ("without getting anything") as an error for 1Et ("for no reason") in Yen-tzu ch'un-ch'iu Q++tgk, " Nei-p'ien" pF : "Tsa, shang" * ?: 04MfWfQ ,

110 SUSAN CHERNIACK

tEI: p:+:Af-^R, >1% ffi2r-Aff. AXPJ-f? (WSM, 140a-b). 1.1.7. Confusions of variant forms (alternative, or alternative

and non-standard characters (pieh-tzu PIji); popular characters (su- tzu f6j4); simplified characters (chien-tzu M@).

1.1.7.1. 1 ("gate, close") is written with the variant form 1 , then confused with 1X, the common variant form for X ("open"), resulting in the T'ai-p'ingyui- Ian L+AzW (SPTK edition) 58.6b citation of Huai-nan Tzu, "Yuan tao" fq5: $iX -X . . . t?^iPE, nammP ("opens the gate for the Tao"). The last phrase should read .aimm ("serves as the gateway to the Tao"). (WSM, 141a-b).

1.1.7.2. e ("belt") is written with the Six Dynasties and T'ang variant ,

then confused with ,t ("mat"), resulting in the variant reading cited in Sung-pen Tu Kung-pu chi 5*#TI St (composite of twelth-century recensions of a 1059 edition; Hsu ku-i ts'ung-shu , no. 47; Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1957), 16.16a, "Tzu Nang-hsi ching-fei ch'ieh i chu Tung-t'un mao-wu ssu-shou"

~'lltEAXHbJtV;MbE!3t" no. 3: #lV (-ft) X (WLC, p. 126, no. 27; see also WSM, lib).

1.1.7.3. A ("person") is written with the new character $ promulgated by Empress Wu %, 695-705, then confused with I ("life") in Sung-pen Tu Kung-pu chi 15.28b, "Chieh men shih-erh-shou" F no. 12: Yff IE/ *11A

Ti. (WLC, p. 125, no. 25). 1.1.7.4. A ("money") is written with the Yuan simplified character *<, then

confused variously with X ("long time"), MZ ("name"), ?' ("inferior"), and T, ("not"), in Yuan tien-chang, "Li" t 5.35: OltXft; "Hsing" Al] 5.9a: t?vA##fi X1sZt; "Hsing" 8.22a: ti ?T ; and "Hu" P 6.4b: TITIE0tXiM. (CYI, pp. 63-64).

1.2. Confusions due to use of loan forms (chia-chieh {RX). F is borrowed to write ill ("large turtles and large water lizards"), then changed to kLt' ("snakes and eels") in Huai-nan Tzu, "Lan-ming" WR': C JK ?'1JJrP (CYC, p. 6, no. IE). Also, V is borrowed to write L ("grain"), then changed to the similarly-shaped graph X ("each") in Yuan tien-chang, "Ping" f 3.39a: JA0Vi4X. (CYI, p. 157).

1.3. Confusions due to similarities in sound (sheng chin erh wu gf& ftiX, sheng ssu erh wu lWfifiXS). Such errors occur when a text is being dictated to a copyist or collator; when the transcriber vocal- izes the text while copying; or when the transcriber is writing from memory. Dialect pronunciations are often involved.

1.3.1. t (OC *teg; MC dbi, "carry, bear") is transcribed as X

(OC *tad; MC tai, "belt, to girdle"), resulting in Huai-nan Tzu, "Ping-13ueh" (MC mirnask"), tistra. (WSM, 142b).

1.3.2. rpl (MC mion, "ask") is transcribed as 0 (MC my'l'n,


"sensitive"), and )01 (MC jiou, "Chou [dynasty]") is copied as 911 (MC jiou, "province, county") in a manuscript of the Lun-yu &., dated 710 A.D., from Astana, Turfan, Hsin-chiang (the copyist was twelve years old). (LY, p. 14).

1.3.3. Ik (Huang) is pronounced as EE (Wang), resulting in many replacements in Yuan tien-chang of the surname R with the surname SE being used as an abbreviated form, e.g., "Hsing" 4.1lb: FE-9. (CYI, p. 25).

1.4. Miscopyings of obscure characters (han-chien tzu More familiar characters are likely to be substituted, with different meanings. The rare character tR (meaning tW, "wisdom") is changed to X ("forgive") in Mo Tzu, "Ching, shang" Wt, 40 A, !M (CYC, p. 6, no. IF) Also, the rare character tIF (an old form for X, "dig up") is changed to 4H ("examine") in Lui-shih ch'un-ch'iu 9,F4,, "Ch'ui yu" A;t: WX:iA.(WSM, 144b).

1.5. Substitutzons znvolving radicals (she p'ien-p'ang erh wu 9 Hi;k. P'ien-p'ang [radical] here means a semantic component [a sig- nific] occurring on one side of a graph. The shape of a character may be assimilated to the shape of another character that immediately precedes or follows it (1.5.1-1.5.3) or that occurs in a neighboring context (1.5.4), through the addition of a nearby radical (1.5. 1), the replacement of the original radical by a nearby radical (1.5.2), or the complete replacement of the original character by a nearby radical that is itself a character (1.5.3).

1.5.1. A radical may be added to the character that immediately precedes or follows it: - is added to the character * ("assem- ble") due to the anticipation of -t (the "divinity" radical) occurring in the character e ("rites") following, in Chou li )k9, "Ta tsung-po #z'{M: UIMA1-1. (CYC, p. 9, no. 7).

1.5.2. A radical may replace another radical that occurs in the same position in the character that immediately precedes or follows it: 1 ("rice plants") changes to Wj (?) due to the preservation of * (the "rice" radical) occurring in the preceding character 3 ("non- glutinous rice"), in Sung-pen Tu Kung-pu chi 3.1Ia, "Hou ch'u-sai wu-shou" &MAEKA, no. 4: *V*V4. (WLC,p. 127, no. 31).

1.5.3. A radical that is itself a common character may replace another character that immediately precedes or follows it (1.5.3.1), or one nearby (1.5.3.2).

112 SUSAN CHIERNIACK

1.5.3.1. If ("ear") replaces Mf ("feather, fur") due to the preservation of IF (the "ear" radical) occurring in the preceding character X ("pull in, repress") in Lu-shih ch'un-ch'iu, "Liu-t'ao wu-t'ao" /-\CiC: )AW: , WI1T M. (WSM, 144a).

1.5.3.2. Xc ("water") replaces 4 ("middle") due to the anticipation of Xc (the "water" radical) occurring in the character iA ("ice") later in same phrase, in Lu- shih ch'un-ch'iu, "Ch'a-ling" &i: Q)1AH)?T. (WSM, 143b-44a).

1.6. Other substitutions of nearby characters (she shang-hsia wen erh wu L:rTZSff;) . A character may replace another character that occurs in the neighboring text proper (cheng-wen it.) (1.6.1) or in accompanying annotations (chu-wen 1) (1.6.2).

1.6.1. Influence from the neighboring text proper. I - H

("view its sounds") replaces MMfl ('listen to its sounds") due to the anticipation of V ("view") which occurs in the same head position in the parallel phrase following, in Lu-shih ch'un-ch'iu, "Shih yin" A': V-A'ffi 0-MP2Z (WSM 142b). Also, T ("peaceful") replaces eT ("implement") due to the preservation of the character +, which occurs twice in the preceding line, including one occurence in the same phrase-final position, in P.3808, Ch'ang- hsing ssu-nien Chung-hsing tienying sheng-chieh chiang ching-wen AX Eti4j

@XSg5gER: tEGGASIiF / tE XA- [T]. A collation note on the manuscript catches the error. (KTI, p. 341, and correct Oc,3{AZ to CAflie).

1.6.2. Influence from accompanying annotations. *t ("tree [-like] withering") replaces A?Li ("established his withering") in the text proper, due to the anticipation of the phrase *t;t ("a tree's withering") found in the Li Tsan 43: commentary following, in Han Fei Tzu 44FTf, "Pa-shuo" AN: 4:Mi*. +3it_A: i t? i*Lth. (WSM, 143a).

1.7. Fusions of characters. A pair of characters may be misinterpreted as a single character, or telescoped (ho wei i-tzu -4) as the result of an eye-skip.

1.7.1 Numbers. -A ("twenty-eight") is fused as ,' ("six"), in Han Fei Tzu, "Nei chu-shuo, hsia" PF'I1T: / J5I2

MPZ1*1S *Wta, * UVA, 1 PiU1, ffiAgLAi! (WSM, 165b). 1.7.2. Rare characters. AV- ("Lung said" or "Lung-yen," a

personal name) is fused as Vk (Che, a personal name) in Chan-kuo ts'e a11, "Chao ts'e" jX 4: tQ-KCf ("Commander of the Left Ch'u Che wished an audience with the Queen Dowager [to per-


suade her to send her son as hostage to Ch'i]"). In occurrences of this sentence in the Ma-wang-tui manuscript Chan-kuo tsung-heng chia shu 1 and in Shih-chi 43, the relevant phrase is given as SA- IF ("Ch'u Lung said that he wished" or "Ch'u Lung-yen wished"). (MWT1, p. 51; MWT2, pp. 60, 61 n. 4; YFB, pp. 192, 201).

1.7.3. Other two-character phrases. In the phrase 4f&R ("Branch Bureau of Military Affairs"), ffX1 (literally, "moving pivot") is fused as -1 (f, "moving") in Yuan tien-chang, "Hsing" 3.16b-17a: ; (CY1, p. 35). Also, Fii? ("white jade") is fused as A ("august, imperial") in the transcription of parallel lines from S.4571, Wei-mo-chieh ching chiang-ching wen ff* ,Xf:Z, in Tun-huang pien-wen chi, p. 553. The original manuscript reads: 0L t4 / R, but the second line is transcribed as !FIJM R with a sign for a lacuna (see 6.1) added to fill out the line. (KTI, pp. 242-43, no. 55).

1.8. Fissions of characters. A single character may be separated into two characters (fen wei liang-tzu 9AWT).

1.8.1. Numbers. FEt ("thirty") is split into - t ("ten to twenty") in Yuan tien-chang "Li" 7.8b: 1J4R-L H, 4 t3iEl, ;k-

ot. (CY1, p. 34). 1.8.2. Rare characters. , (, "neglect, forget") is split into jE

{? ("rectify one's heart") in the first of two occurrences in Meng Tzu &T, "Kung-sun Ch'ou, shang" Ofk, L: fitiLCO ftL0 , 9Jt

MbRtO (WSM, 164a). Also, FM, ("mix, see") is split into AMs'1 ("see a space"), in Li-chi 43, "Chi-i" Ai QrNIUsAK*; as noted in Cheng Hsuian's XA (127-200) commentary. (CYC, p. 7, no. 1H).

1.9. Substitutions due to mental associations (lien-hsiang JRAV). These involve characters often linked together in familiar names (1.9.1) and other common locutions (1.9.2).

1.9.1. Names. 1.9.1.1. Ti 9 (the personal name of Mo-tzu, founder of the Mohist school of

philosophy) replaces Mo M (the surname of Mo-tzu, and by extension, "Mohist") in Chuang Tzu, "Lieh Yii-k'ou" Y:6: . . ("The Confucian and Mohist [brothers] debated with each other. Their father took the side of Ti.") The last phrase should read: A 5JM "Their father took the side of the Mohist."

(WSM, 4b). 1.9.1.2. Pao Shu-ya ffig (Grandee of Ch'i, and close associate of Kuan-tzu

W-T) replaces the less familiar Tung-kuo Ya JWTI (Grand Remonstrator of Ch'i,

114 SUSAN CHERNIACK

rarely cited in the Kuan Tzu) in Kuan Tzu, "Hsiao-k'uang" 'Jil: 1 (WSM, 146a-b).

1.9.2. Antonyms. k ("fire") replaces Xc ("water") in Kuan Tzu, "Ch'ing-chung, chia" 4Ep: *i l ("Boil fire to make salt"; WSM, 4a). Also, A ("enter") is written instead of t ("go out") in P.2193, Mu-lien yuan ch'i FA a (from a description of Hell:) # 1ff, 9kX;fl, i nThiRS. The error is caught by the copyist (or a later collator) who adds the sign 1- (pu-sha, see 6.3., 6.3.1) beside A to indicate that the character should be deleted. (KTI, p. 315).

1.10. Confusions caused by earlier replacements of taboo characters (hui- tzu St) by other characters or signs. An earlier substitution may be un- recognized and left unchanged after the taboo has passed (even though other instances of the substitution are recognized and redressed elsewhere in the same work (1.10.1-2); in the process of restoration, the wrong character may be supplied (1.10.2); or the character may be lost (1. 10. 3). Also, if a character was commonly used as a substitute for a taboo character in an earlier period, other occurrences of that character may be misinterpreted as reflecting the observance of the taboo, and hence the character may be replaced (1.10.4). (See also 5.2.4.)

1.10.1. Replacement characters may be left unchanged. 1.10.1.1. In T'ang citations of pre-T'ang texts, the T'ang taboo character jfi

(MC djhia, dhjio, djhi; "regulate, order") occurring in the name of the T'ang ruler, Li Chih 4Fn-, Emperor Kao-tsung r (r. 650-84), is replaced variously by ("order") and . ("regulate") in Chuang Tzu, by IL ("transform") in Wen Tzu 14 T, by & ("govern") in Huai-nan Tzu, by % ("pacify") in Han Fei Tzu, by ; (MC jig, "this" in context) in Lao Tzu, and by )K ("hold, manage" in context) in Han- shih wai-chuan Ofk,,*4 (WSM, 182b-83a); also by Il (MC djhia, "hold") in office titles (e.g. i) occurring in the Hou Han shu *WX (CY2, p. 98). Preserved in later transcriptions.

1.10.1.2. In Sung bibliographic sources, the Sung taboo character iE (MC kiuang, "correct"), occurring in the names of two Sung rulers (Chao K'uang-yin k&EDL, Emperor T'ai-tsu )Vt, r. 960-76; amd Chao K'uang-i 9A, Emperor T'ai-tsung t', r. 976-98), is replaced variously by 1:l ("correct"), F4 ("correct"), Y (MC guang, "radiant"), and 1E ("correct"). The Yuan compilers of the Sung shih 5fr "I-wen chih" gi:,>, not recognizing the replacements, provide multiple entries for the same work or author. Thus, K'uang-miu cheng-su 92Efif, 8 chaan, comp. Yen Shih-ku S1IiW (581-645), is listed as two different works: as K'an-miu cheng-su 1 (in the "Ching-chieh" ON section) and as Chiu-miu cheng-su F (in "Ju- lin" fMM). Also, collected poems by Liao K'uang-t'u M1T1 are listed twice (in


"Pieh-chi" IJ1) as works by different authors, namely, Liao Kuang-t'u 5'X and Liao Cheng-t'u !EL1 (CY2, p. 67).

1.10.1.3. In the early Sung compendium Ts'e-fu yian-kuei lIJf5f r, an entry reporting changes in place-names due to a T'ang taboo on 4g (MC hang "always") (occurring in the name of Li Heng, Emperor Mu-tsung , r. 821-24), cites the taboo character as t (MC zhiang, "always") instead of f-, due to a Sung taboo on it (occurring in the name of Chao Heng, Emperor Chen-tsung A', r. 998-1022). In the 1642 re-engraving of the work, the editors overlook the Sung change, and rather than restoring the original T'ang %-, they replace the Sung t with ': (a homophone, "experience"), due to a taboo on ', occurring in the name of the Ming ruler, Chu Ch'ang-lo *T*, Emperor Kuang-tsung tg, r. 1620; see (facsimile reprint of the 1642 edition, Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1960), 3.13a (CY2,

pp. 70-71). 1.10.2. The wrong character may be restored. 1.10.2.1. The character A in the name of a Later T'ang (923-26) rebel, Li

Ts'ung-pin 4EAi, was tabooed in contemporary historical records because it occurred in the names of two Later T'ang rulers (Li Ts'ung-hou 4FIVE, Emperor Min ; and Li Ts'ung-k'o 1TQI, Emperor Mo *; both r. 934). It was omitted in a reference to Li Ts'ung-pin as "Li Pin" 4 - in Hsin Wu-tai shih VTEfet, chuan 40, "Han Hsun chuan" 04i14, restored correctly elsewhere in the same work (chuan 46, "K'ang Fu chuan" W1#4), but restored incorrectly as JE in editions of Tzu- chih t'ung-chien WfnAg (CY2, p. 62).

1.10.2.2. Due to T'ang taboos on A, and M (occurring respectively in the names of Emperor Kao-tsu's AM [r 618-27] grandfather, Li Hu, and father, Li Ping), the names of the Western Wei (535-56) general Li Hu At and the Northern Chou (557-81) general Li Ping ON are both written as "Li hui" '# ("Li taboo") in the C/hou shu MJ. In a later transcription (represented by the Chi-ku ko WMA edition), "Hu" A indiscriminately replaces "hui" X in every occurrence. (CY2, pp. 54-55).

1.10.3. The taboo character may be lost. The personal name of Confucius, Ch'iu fi, appears in the T'ai-p'ingyii-lan 3.b citation of Lieh Tzu A-#, "T'ang wen" Mrl: TLTT-*M W4'JX0Hi: hrVAk+ ?, in I-lin et4, and in other texts. Yet it is omitted in Lieh Tzu edi-

tions since the Sung. (WSM, 182a, but citing a T'ai-p'ingyii-lan edition that reads X in place of E:.).

1. 10.4. Characters wrongly presumed to represent taboo substitutions may be replaced. A Sung attempt to restore occurrences of the characters t: ("generation, age") and W; ("people") in the Hou Han shu, tabooed in T'ang transcriptions because they appear in the name of the T'ang ruler, Li Shih-min 4ftj (Emperor T'ai- tsung, r. 627-50), results in such substitutions as P,,r; ("the common people, populace") for e& ("menials, criminals"), and Et

116 SUSAN CHERNIACK

("three generations") for { ("The Three Ages" -the Hsia, Shang, and Chou dynasties). (CY2, pp. 104-5).

1.11. Substitutions due to efforts to improve the sense or rhetorical structure of texts.

1.11.1. Improvements for sense. 1.11.1.1. Attempts to cope with rare usages. Puzzlement over the meaning of

R (usually, "doubt"; rarely, k "plan") in Chuang Tzu, "Ta sheng" At: ,R,ATZ 5XfR t, prompts the replacement of R ("plan") by 0 ("congeal, fix") in editions by Sung times; first corrected by Su Shih. (WSM, 174b-75a).

1.11.1.2. Corrections of prior errors. Puzzlement over the meaning of f ("transmit"), occurring as an error for the similarly-shaped graph Z ("draw near") in Huai-nan Tzu "Ping-liieh": IfJ 4 T, 4I1z, prompts the replacement of f by Ts ("get") in the Mao K'un *J* (1512-1601) edition et al. (WSM, 1 76a-b).

1.11.2. Structural improvements, often carried out to create parallelisms. The last couplet in Tu Fu, "Ch'iu-hsing pa-shou" #

no. 8, is generated in different versions, reflecting varying stylistic preferences. Where Sung-pen Tu Kung-pu chi 15.23a has WE

f /lL_, for 'l ("in the past roamed"), 'Ne ("in the past once") is read in Sung and Yuan One Thousand Commen- tators -* (B* editions, also Tu shih hsiang-chu t?4fJ7 (1703; 2nd ed., 1713), ed. Ch'iu Chao-ao f#ML (1638-1717), 30; and for Pj ("chant and gaze"), +X ("today gaze") is read in Tu shih hsiang- chu. These options are combined eclectically by others. (WLC, p. 131, no. 40).

2. OMISSIONS

Losses (t'o f) due to physical damage to the document (loss or de- terioration of the writing medium) (2.1), eye skips (2.2), omission of sections when the text is being reproduced in a different format (2.3), and excisions (shan Ji) made to improve the sense or structure of a text (2.4).

2.1. Losses of writing units. In the old-script version of the Shang shu , segments of twenty-two and twenty-five characters in length, matching the number of characters that would have been written on single bamboo slips in two different formats, are reported missing from the chapters "Chiu-kao" MAK (one segment) and "Chao-kao" B- (two segments), by Liu Hsiang WqrriJ (79-8 B.C.).

(Han shu MI* [PNPS edition], "1-wen chih," 30.4b).


2.2. Eye skips, of any length. 2.2.1. Intermediary and concluding characters may be

skipped. >f ("not") is lost (as marked in angle-brackets) in Chuang Tzu, "Lieh Yiu-k'ou": #K>>QAI. The sense is reversed. (WSM, 153a-b). The concluding sequence 7hEMW ("They possess that which screens and hides it.") to a passage in Huai-nan Tzu is lost, as apparent from the commentary: "Yuian tao": kft*,,tR;2P

ffi_W94R#bbRf< >it- A'R: UWNkJ, &ihffXirg&(CYC, p. 7, no. H2).

2.2.2. Characters or phrases that should be repeated immediately may be skipped (haplography). The repetition of W5 ("give it full rein") is omitted in Lii-shih ch'un-ch'iu, "Shen wei" $A: 419n WRICL. <W;,>w> *0M 7i9> >! (WSM 160b, 208a-b).

2.2.3. In transcription, segments of any length may be skipped between two points in the text which end with the same character or phrase. This is seen in such omissions in Yuan tien-chang as (from a passage on rules for proofreading imprints) VANW11, <f7% O'lJ> *

-Y41, . . . ("T'ai-wang" AM 2.22a); and (from a passage on procedures for registering purchases of poisons for medicinal use) VP*fQ!. WI&Lk < IVlt?K and seventy-three characters following, ending with W A1iA> # ttt-LF. ("Hsing" 19.40a, 1. 10; CY1, pp. 26-27).

2.3. Losses of text in reformatting or retranscription. The contents of one fascicle (ts'e J), containing the last six of twelve sections in Ta Yuan sheng-cheng kuo-ch 'ao tien-chang, "Li" 3 (from "Ts'ang-k'u kuan" A1tW on) are omitted in Yuan tien-chang. (CY1, p. 9).

2.4. Excisions to improve sense or structure. 2.4.1. Improvements for sense. The character A is deleted

from the phrase ;(ErPV ("examine the interior") because 7FE ("examine") has been misconstrued as meaning "to be located at," the more common usage for ;E, in Huai-nan Tzu "Tao-ying" i-K: t

iXt , 7E <> S fiXt .(WSM, 1 91lb) . 2.4.2. Structural improvements. To create parallel lines, the

character IJ ("profit") is excised from citations of Han Fei Tzu "Pa- shuo": %t11 +tEtT tAfjAg<fIJ>. (WSM, 193b-94a).

3. ADDITIONS (YEN ifi)

Due to the repetition (tieh A, ch'ung A) of single characters or

118 SUSAN CHERNIACK

phrases from the immediate (3.1) or neighboring context (3.2), and other interpolations (ch 'an A) to improve the sense or structure of a text (3.3) (Also see 5.2, 6.4.3).

3.1. Immediate repetitions (dittography). These may occur any- where (3.1.1), but often at reading pauses induced by breaks in the syntax (3.1.2) or format (3.1.3). Or they may involve characters that are apt to occur doubled elsewhere in reduplicative binoms (3.1.4).

3.1.1. Random repetitions. The character - ("record") in the official title I+X ("Assistant Magistrate") is repeated in the transcription of a Tu Fu poem title in Sung-pen Tu Kung-pu chi 9. 2a (table of contents): ;4ff f (WLC, p. 134, no. 48).

3.1.2. Repetitions at syntax breaks. The sentence-final object ;E (a name) is repeated to become the subject of the sentence that follows in I Chou shu AM*, "Ta k'ai wu" JtlHAt: W1*f2 0&,

~, i~-4L. . . . The two sentences thus become parallel. (CYC, p. 7, no. 4). Also, the sentence-initial phrase AT ("her village") is repeated to supply an object for the preceding sentence twice in Chuang Tzu, "T'ien-yiin" &ifi. A,LffiRWIT t#.t'fliStt. ]y2X5tS, FCtAiffiT-. (WSM, 209b-10a, following the Ching-tien shih-wen ; punctuation).

3.1.3. Repetitions at format breaks. A character written at the foot of one column is mechanically repeated at the head of the next column: X repeated in Yuan tien-chang, "Ping" 1. 14a: -p5W-f / X

AR. (CY1, p. 29). 3.1.4. Associations with binoms. Familiar reduplicatives are

created by repetitions of i ("float in the wind") and , ("sudden") in Huai-nan Tzu, "Ping-liueh": i ut$?. R{1Vi, 99MA, uAPThT. (WSM, 160b).

3.2. Repetitionsfrom the neighboring context. Such repetitions may occur in adjoining phrases that share some of the same characters. Thus fIJf ("regulate with respect to") is preserved and repeated in the second reading phrase in Lii-shih ch'un-ch'iu, "Ch'ih-lo" ff#: $a Sj2d>, tIJ't>>g flIJ,W7tig. The sense is thus reversed (CYC, 0 0

p. 7, no. 3). 3.3. Other interpolations to improve the sense or structure. These often

produce parallelism. 3.3.1. Improvements for sense. a ("inferior person") is added


because ? (M, "to value") has been misconstrued as meaning "the person above, the superior," and 1T ("above-below") is a common combination, in Chuang Tzu, " Jang-wang" MIE: ?FThti1TEY, PIfThTiff;A. (WSM, 185b).

3.3.2. Structural improvements. Also, 1 and Jr are added to parallel lines to create more familiar locutions and retain balanced lines (overriding the original rhymes), in Huai-nan Tzu, "T'ai-tsu" *: iiM , &TTNf (r), & N ; (r) t1. ("Perfect gov- ernance is broadly nurturing / Therefore the inferiors do not rob one another [originally, &TT4N: Therefore the people do not do harm, rob] / Perfect centeredness restores purity / Therefore the people do not hide their feelings [originally, tff1, with 1 meaning ,J: Therefore the people are not evil-minded.) This may have occurred in more than one stage (WSM, 200a-b).

4. TRANSPOSITIONS (Ts'o-CHIENJON)

These include displacements of sections due to disarray or rear- rangement of the document-caused by decay of the original bind- ings, or occurring in later editing, transcription, or rebinding (4.1); inversions (i Z) of characters, reading phrases (4.2), and transpositions of other segments (4.3), due to eye skips or efforts to improve the sense or structure of the text.

4.1. Writing units may be jumbled. Mixing of slips results in the transposition in Mo Tzu, "Ching, hsia" 41, of seventy-four characters (segments B 14b-21 and 22-24a) between i:X (14a) and T7IMI (14b). (G, pp. 364-65, 368-84, 501-2).

4.2. Characters and reading phrases (sentences, lines) may be inverted, usually to improve the sense.

4.2.1. Characters. *W ("serve Heaven," with * [usually, "season, time"] used as a loan for 4 ["serve"]) is inverted to produce the more common locution W* ("Heaven's season[s]") in Chuang Tzu, "Ta Tsung-shih": W*, grW*t. (WSM, 195a).

4.2.2 Reading phrases. 4.2.2.1. Sentences. The order of the sentences tTffigikfl ("the attractions

of the world cannot debauch him") and WhTfIE! ("Debaters cannot persuade him") is inverted in Huai-nan Tzu, "Shu chen" iJA: (from a description of a Taoist True Man:) VTfIEN, WTSM1, St T I H9,T Bb t!l, XTeX t!l. The sequence should be XX Tffi X it! (twice), X XKffi X it! (four times). (CYC 9, no. 9).

120 SUSAN CHERNIACK

4.2.2.2. Lines. The order of lines in the Tu Fu couplet, _RRt1 /X I

("Li Ling and Su Wu [both Han dyn.] are my teachers / Master Meng's discourse on literature is even less to be doubted [as a model]"; "Chieh men shih- erh-shou," no. 5), is inverted in a twelfth-century edition to correct an apparent problem in the chronology of authors cited, because if is taken as a reference to

Mencius rather than to Tu Fu's contemporary, Meng Yiin-ch'ing iU-P (fl. c. 749); problem noted by Hu Tzu JMffJ (fl. 1147-67); cited as a Sung variant in Tu

Kung-pu chi chien-chu t?TXIgB* (1667), ed. Ch'ien Ch'ien-i 01 (1582-1664), 15. (WLC, p. 134, no. 47).

4.3. Segments may be displaced due to an eye skip or a belated attempt to remedy an omission in transcription. The contents of an original line of 23-characters in Ta YTan sheng-cheng kuo-ch 'ao tien-chang (reporting an edict) are moved to a later position on the page and copied in after the conclusion of an unrelated entry, in Yuan tien-chang, "Li" 4. 7a, edict beginning 4 moved from 1. 5 to 1. 8 and resuming after tg.

(CYl, p. 8).

5. CONFUSIONS (HUN-YAO Itt) BETWEEN THE TEXT

PROPER AND ANNOTATIONS

5.1. Part of the text proper may be consigned to the commentary. 5.1.1. Text may be miscopied as commentary. A final four-

character text phrase v, U Z4 ("shut his eyes, and let his hand move at will") drops into the Kuo Hsiang W (d. 312) commentary to Chuang Tzu, "Hsui Wu-kuei" &tX: V:AMlXAA, 0W1X, fWTiY3 A. ETiAFrS;,, W M W : K . The original commentary, if any, is lost (WSM, 168a-b).

5.1.2. To correct an omission discovered after the text has been transcribed or engraved, one or more characters may be removed at that spot and re-entered together with the missing characters in the small, double-column format used for interlinear commentary. Omitted text consisting of 46 characters is entered as a little more than one column of small characters in Yuan tien-chang, "Hu" 1O.4a, beginning with &f- ff (CYI, p. 15).

5.2. Commentary and other annotations (glosses and collation notes) may be copied into the text. Errors involving glosses are associated with interlinear-commentary formats (5.2.1). Errors involving collation notes occur because notes -whether they are providing replacement characters for errors or supplying characters omitted in the text- are usually written in the same position, to the right of the relevant


text character. Collation notes correcting omissions are also sometimes written between characters, where glosses may be expected; from this position, they may enter the text proper in later transcriptions (5.2.2).

5.2.1. Commentary. A long segment from a subcommentary by Ch'eng Hsiian-ying Stl; (fl. 630), enters the middle of Chuang Tzu, "T'ien-yuin" WAE: VF9E: &#A'A M ? -7- WLJJ, ffiLJJ, ff; J;-Ag, 9ALltiF. [The subcommentary begins, in double-column format: Y,: , Alt . . . ij: &Ar:t n tt. The single-column text format resumes, with the interpolated subcommentary: A X and thirty-one additional characters, ending with PM-IWV9iY, t&1

R V4*] E A9, A4 . . . . (WSM, 170a-b). 5.2.2. Marginalia.

5.2.2.1. A gloss written to the right of or under a character may be added to the text. Thus - (indicates comparative degree, "than"), once written as a gloss on An ("comparable to"), is copied into Han Fei Tzu, "Shou tao" qi: fIJ4kfir,n

R. (WSM, 171b). 5.2.2.2. A textual variant written to the right of or under a character may be

added to the text. Thus a ("want"), noted as a variant for X ("give gift, bribe"), is copied into Lu-shih ch'un-ch'iu "Shen chi" WE: R;LM W-1, UtfT. (WSM, 167b).

5.2.2.3. A correction character written to the right of a text character and intended as a replacement for that character, may instead be added to the text while the unwanted character is retained. Thus A ("person"), intended as a replacement for the T'ang taboo character f ("people") (see 1.10.4), appears together with the undeleted f in Shih-chi, "Li Sheng chuan" IFW *: 3EXKlAA3 , TfihT AUA k (CY2, p. 56). Also, NEi ("not have"), intended as a replacement for the erroneous character ?G ("origin;" a mistake for the similarly-shaped i [a variant form of P]), appears together with the uncorrected ?G in Yuan tien-chang, "Li" a 4.9b: P . RIVA121fW (CY1, p. 32).

6. ERRORS RESULTING FROM SIGNS (6.1, 6.2, 6.3.) OR

FAULTY PUNCTUATION (6.1.2, 6.4)

6.1. Errors involving signs for a lacuna. The lacuna is variously indicated by rII (k'ung-wei 9FM, also po-k'uang b/I1), and O or E

(mo-ting Mf/T, mo-teng MX, teng-tzu T-, also hei-k'uang 9/I). The sign is used to show that some character was missing from the original document or that the copyist or editor was uncertain about correct reading (because the character was illegible or obviously wrong) and has therefore omitted the character.

122 SUSAN CHERNIACK

6.1.1. The sign LI may be confused with the character n ("mouth"). Thus, LI1I ("? gives rise to shame") is transcribed as

QItr ("the mouth gives rise to shame") in Ta Tai Li-chi ';k "Wu-wang chien tso" AT_M5E?, &LAH: A&R, QnLC, nSn. (CYC, p. 8, no. 6A).

6.1.2. The sign LI may be added where no character has been lost, due to misunderstanding and faulty punctuation of the passage. The failure to recognize that 1NIJ ("that which lacks a regular principle") is an integral phrase, parallel with I ("those who lack usefulness, merit"), results in I Chou shu 'Wu ching" ' WR: 0*1,7 PIMVEW2 UT_TN. (CKC, p. 8, no. 6B).

6.2. Errors involving signsfor an immediate repetition or reprise. These may be grouped by shape in the following series: (1) =, , ' (er-hua

; also tieh-hua , hsiao-erh 'Yzi), (liang-tien ) These forms are written small under the character to be repeated, flush with the right edge, i.e., L. In use since pre-Han times; (2) ,' 7, '2, C, z.; (3) 7, ); (4) < . These forms also are seen on Tun-huang texts; (5) a small K. Also used in the Yuan. Ditto signs may be misinterpreted as characters in the text (6.2.2); or they may cause the wrong characters to be repeated, or, like other collation signs, they may be overlooked, so that characters are lost (6.2.3).

6.2.2. The sign may be misinterpreted as a character in the text.

6.2.2.1. The signs = etc. may be read as the character -= ("two"). Thus f,6 .?=V-+ ("Ch'ien-yiian, first year, spring") yields the variant line ii-_E

("Ch'ien-yuian, second year, spring"), cited in the commentary to Chi ch'ien-chia chu ftn-lei Tu Kung-pu shih i (1312; Yuan reprint), "Sung Li Chiao-shu erh-shih-liu-yiin" A 2.10b (WLC, p. 127, no. 33). Also, X A ("every person") produces -iA" ("every two people") in Yuian tien-chang, "Hu" 5.14b: IIAXMll=II (CY1, p. 33).

6.2.2.2. The signs 7? etc. may be read as the character ? (connects modifier to word modified). Thus, 5FPP5, written as 3M 7 ("household registry for couriers")>MP5? ("records of couriers") in Yuian tien-chang, "Hu" 3.5b (CY1, p. 34). Also, A(A( written as> A( J in P. 2621, Hsiao-tzu ching -TM! (describing a bub- bling spring:) *MTEA [.] J P4f{L1DDLFI. [.] V4t ("It tasted like River water. In the water, there was also [?some type of] fish, which [she now] could get to eat quite often")> E;A(?4kA@. )FI1DDi1M, W -. ("It tasted like the middle of the River. In addition, there was. . . ."], in the Tun-huang pien-wen chi transcription, p. 902. (KTI, p. 335, no. 38).

6.2.2.3. Other misinterpretations of signs as characters. X may be read as the


character X- ("again"). Thus, --("one by one") written as -S>-X- ("once again"), in Yuan tien-chang, "Li" t 5: - 7Z3tj1 (CYI, p. 34). Also, t may be read as the character kA, a simplified form for A; thus N ("a hundred places") arises as a variant for El El ("day after day") in Sung-pen Tu Kung-pu chi 15.22b, "Ch'iu-hsing pa-shou" (no. 3): El El (-f bf) :i?EWIW. The probable evolution was El El > El t > El H > kL (on the change El -+ see 1. 1). (WLC, p. 127, no. 33). Also, 7 may be read as the character 7t ("finish, in the end"); thus k (7is a popular variant for ) written as * 7 in S.6551, Fo shuoA-mi-t'o ching chiang-ching wen r=1iE0tt 0kt[]J* , JI [?]>rtl~RS [t], 7*L1i, ; [zz;;] 1f_J#?, in Tun-huangpien-wen chi, p. 473 (on , see 1.1.7; on z see 1.1.6). (KTI, pp. 334-35, no. 37).

6.2.3. The use of the signs = etc. may result in the wrong characters being repeated, because the sign is neglected or because the type of repetition indicated is misunderstood. Thus, in Mao Shih

no. 113, "Shih-shu" MSl: A k#I, AiO-1+, *::, f tfiY, the phrase *? ("happy land") in line 2 is repeated twice (one too many times) in line 3. Line 2 was probably transcribed earlier as A =- =*=j=, to indicate a reprise line (tieh-chii '&4ii) in line 3, preserved in the citation of this poem in Han-shih wai-chuan 2: AII#I

;t, siFtj:, jiSA-, fMa. (CYC, p. 7-8, no. H5). Also, the repetition indicated in S.3872, Wei-mo-chieh ching chiang-ching wen: Ai

f [fe] e rP4E*, viz. R [Xft ft?] ("Protector of the World, Protector of the World")' is transcribed as X21 (?) in Tun-huang pien-wen chi, p. 477 (KTI, pp. 336-37, no. 43).

6.3. Errors involving other collation signs. These include signs for a deletion: I- (pu-sha Fc), , , , (liang-tien PIA, san-tien ,XM etc.); M written small and to the right of a redundant character that should be deleted or an erroneous character that should replaced (6.3.1). Also, the sign for a transposition: v (an L-shaped sign); written small and to the right of a character that should be transposed, usually the one that should be moved from the second position to the first position in a two-character sequence; or sometimes to the right, between the two characters; or rarely, to the right of the character to be moved to the second position (6.3.2).

6.3.1. 1- may be misinterpreted as an annotation supplying the replacement character F ("to divine"). Thuis FJft ("conduct divination to locate an auspicious site") appears in the Tu Fu couplet, @t S F*_P / M EnW ("Ch'iu-jih chi t'i Cheng-chien hu-shang t'ing san-shou" & Fl VMOK- no. 2), in Chiu-chia chi-chu Tu shih

124 SUSAN CHERNIACK

A*V8HJ4I?-, ed. Kuo Chih-ta NU; (1181; Kuang-tung, 1225), 29.43a, and One Thousand Commentators editions, where Sung-pen Tu Kung-pu chi 15.13a correctly has ft! ("take a turn about the land"). (WLC, p. 127, no. 34).

6.3.2. The transposition indicated by v may be misinterpreted, Thus the small check-mark to the right of fAc0 (between them, but closer to fA) in S.3872, Wei-mo-chieh ching chiang-ching wen: VIf , -AW I R, shows that fX should be corrected to .fA (yielding the line, "Dancing butterflies and flying bees rest from hunting and searching"), but instead, AfAc is inverted as WA in Tun-huang pien-wen chi, p. 580 (yielding "Dancing butterflies rest from flying, bees hunt and search"). (KTI, p. 327, no. 29).

6.4. Errors involvingfaulty punctuation of reading phrases (chii-tou 'i =). Errors in parsing texts (traditionally, unpunctuated) may prompt substitutions (6.4.1), excisions (6.4.2), interpolations (6.4.3), or transpositions (6.4.4) to improve intelligibility.

6.4. 1. Substitutions. Han shu M 8, "Hsuian-ti chi" `M;C: ?

AXASfliE8At=StlittS, traditionally parsed: ?It+WSU. AATRAX. Reparsed by Wang Hsien-ch'ien iEdES (1842-1918) as: , l with e (phrase-final particle) changed to E (third person pronoun, "they themselves"). The sense changes from "[The officials] submit their account rosters, all filled in, but that is all [i.e., the receipts are not verified], while they concern themselves with cheating to avoid their duties," to "[The officials] submit their account rosters, all filled in. Yet they concern themselves with cheating to avoid their duties" (YST, p. 89, no. 126).

6.4.2. Excisions. Shih-chi 75, "Meng-ch'ang chiun chuan" i&

W: (From a speech by Feng Huan AM to the King of Ch'in, comparing the respective strengths of the rival states of Ch'i and Ch'in)

R - V j $ R traditionally parsed: i Th. b+i<AX. XXi1vM. Reparsed by Wang Hsien-ch'ien as >1+N?L. AXXiT, with the second X deleted. The sense changes from: "(These kingdoms form a male-female pair); the dynamics of the situation will not permit both to be established as the male, but the one who is the male [or, the one who is more male-like] will obtain the whole world" to: "The dynamics of the situation will not


permit both to be established. The one who acts as the male will obtain the whole world." (YST, p. 93, no. 131).

6.4.3. Interpolations. Han shu 78, "Hsiao Wang-chih chuan" jAtZ?: (From a memorial by Chang Ch'ang W1k on the hardships caused by military conscriptions earlier that year for a campaign against the Hsi-ch'iang A barbarians) 1f1#AwV1JRMUL%1 St1ffitR#e"ZEE $:ffi1#, traditionally parsed: V UAR. 0 _1JL9, 92L1f, tP*ONAM. EH*M40. Reparsed by Wang Hsien- ch'ien as: JI-r;EPQf3. ROJL11L, %0t1f, tJ<; , with

00 00

00 0 00 0

additions of Y (Ch'ung, a personal name) and N ("pass through [a period of time]"), and J1 ("in," when used to introduce time phrases) as meaning e ("already"). The sense changesfrom: "The imperial army is outside the border. The troops were raised in summer. From Lung-hsi northward, and An-ting westward, the people have been put in service and asked to supply transport. Farm work has been much disrupted" to: "[General Chao A] Ch'ung-kuo's army has already spent the summer stationed with the border troops. His army was raised from Lung-hsi northward and An-ting westward. The people have been put in service. .." (YST, pp. 98-99, no. 137).

6.4.4. Transpositions. Han Fei Tzu "Shuo-lin, shang" $ThL: 1MAMMtfi traditionally parsed: __NEU)iA-. iRZA H. El -b XX, Jt it. Reparsed by Wang Hsien-ch'ien as: -AJ fI?S, iA, with * ("house") and ?t (3d person pronoun, "it") inverted. The sense changesfrom: "(They looked in all four directions. On three sides, the prospect was open.) But when they looked south, the trees by Hsien-tzu's house closed off the view" to: "They looked south toward Hsien-tzu's house, but the trees hid it. (YST p. 103, no. 141).

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