Guweishu 古微書

Guweishu 古微書 "Ancient apocryphal texts" is a collection of ancient apocryphal classics compiled during the Ming period 明 (1368-1644) by Sun Jue 孫瑴 (also written Sun Jue 孫玨, 1585-1643), courtesy name Zishuang 子雙. About his life not much is known.

His collection with a length of 36 juan is of great importance for the study of Han-period 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) Confucianism. Besides the two larger and orthodox traditions of the old-text and the new-text schools, there was the tradition of apocryphal texts that interpreted the Confucian Classics as revelations of Heaven's will. These texts therefore concentrate on omina and portents.

Apart from books about the proper Classics (Shangshu 尚書, Chunqiu 春秋, Yijing 易經, Liji 禮記, Yue 樂, Shijing 詩經, Lunyu 論語 and Xiaojing 孝經), the apocryphal corpus also includes texts about the "River Chart" Hetu 河圖 and the "Scripture from the River Luo" Luoshu 洛書.

During the Sui period 隋 (581-618), the apocryphal tradition was forbidden by law, and many texts went lost thereafter. It was only during the Song period 宋 (960-1279) that Neo-Confucian scholars again became interested in these texts because cosmological speculations - important in Neo-Confucianism philosophy - played a crucial role in the apocryphal texts. In the course of time a lot of apocryphal texts came to light, so that Sun Jue was able to compile this considerably large collection.

He divided the corpus apocryphal texts into four parts, namely Fenwei 焚微 "Burnt apocryphals" (early texts that survived the imperial order of the First Emperor of Qin 秦始皇帝 to destroy "unnecessary" texts), Xianwei 線微 "Thread apocryphals" (commentaries written between the Han and Jin 晉 periods), Quewei 闕微 "Gate-tower apocryphals" (written in oldest times), and Shanwei 刪微 "Abridged apocryphals". Of Sun's collection Guweishu, only the last category has survived.

Sun Jue's sources were quotations in the standard commentaries to the Thirteen Classics, the Shisanjing zhushu 十三經注疏, quotations in the treatises of the official dynastic histories, as well as the encyclopaedias Taiping yulan 太平御覽, Yuhai 玉海 and the history books Tongdian 通典, Tongzhi 通志 and Wenxian tongkao 文獻通考.

These quotations differ widely in length and it is difficult to establish an order among them. Each chapter includes a short introduction into the theme, and each fragment is shortly commented because the obscure statements of this type of writings is not easy to understand. Although the apocryphal texts of ancient China are thus only surviving in short quotations, Sun Jue's collection is of greatest help to at least have an impression about the philosophy and the worldview of these writings.

Yet Sun Jue also made some clear mistakes (like the interpretation of the chapter Hongfan wuxing zhuan 洪範五行傳 in the book Shangshu dazhuan 尚書大傳 as an apocryphal writing by Yu the Great 大禹), and he also omitted some important fragments to be found in the texts Kaiyuan zhanjing 開元占經 or Wuxing dayi 五行大義. Yet the greatest shortcoming of Sun Jue's collection is that he did not indicate his sources, which makes it nearly impossible to trace a lot of quotations in the original texts.

The Guweishu was printed during the Chongzhen reign-period 崇禎 (1628-1644), and there is also a manuscript version produced during the Qing period.