A commentary to Xingtong fu (see previous entry). Shen Jiaben’s recension in Zhenbi lou congshu, his collectanea of rare mss., was based on a ms. originally transcribed by a certain Xu Xingbo 徐星伯 from Daxing from a copy belonging to Ye Runchen 葉潤臣 from Hanyang; the Xu ms. was in turn transcribed by Shen Jiaben’s disciple Dong Kang, who completed certain lacunae using the text quoted in Xingshu juhui (q.v.). Shen and Dong tried in their edition to distinguish between the different strata of the text and commentaries. Fu Lin’s verses are followed by three different sorts of commentary, clearly distinguished: (1) “Explanations” (解), which according to Dong Kang are Fu Lin’s original notes, though Shen Jiaben is not so sure; (2) “Songs” (歌), a mnemonic paraphrase of the “Explanation” in four-syllable verse, by Mr. Xi; (3) “Supplementary notes” (增注) by Wang Liang, possibly of a date later than the first two. Only this last element is an addition to the Yuan ed. of Xingtong fu, the rest being identical. According to Zhu Yizun’s postf., Mr. Xi was a Song author and Wang Liang a Yuan author; but other prefaces claim that Xi was also a Yuan author, which indeed seems more likely. (Xue Meiqing [see below], 262, tends to agree that Xi was from the Song and Wang Liang from the Yuan but probably flourishing after the time of Zhao Mengfu’s pref., which does not mention him.) In his postf., Shen Jiaben highlights many inconsistencies between these commentaries and what he himself reconstructed from Song law in his Lidai xingfa kao 歷代刑法考.

Three further commentaries to Xingtong fu have been collected by Shen Jiaben in his Zhenbi lou congshu, the first two based on a ms. owned by a Mr. Wu from Huangchuan 璜川吳氏: (1) Cujie 粗解 Xingtong fu (1 j.), commentary by Meng Kui 孟奎, from Zou county 鄒縣 (Shandong), with prefs. by Meng Kui (1340) and Shen Weishi 沈維時 (1352), description extracted from Tieqin tongjian lou cangshu mulu, said to be indeed “crude” and fraught with errors. (BN has a ms. copy of Cujie Xingtong fu, with the same pref., which belonged to the Wu 吳 library at Huangchuan 璜川, and mentioned in Dong Kang’s pref.; Zhongyang also has a ms. copy.) (2) Bieben 別本 Xingtong fu jie (1 j.), with 1911 postf. by Shen Jiaben, an anonymous and incomplete recension that corresponds to rhymes no. 3-8 in Fu Lin’s original work (the Zhenbi lou congshu Zhongguo shudian reprint (n.d.) and the Lüxue wenxian reprint also have a postf. by Yifeng 藝風 [1909] and a note entitled “Cujie Xingtong fu jiaoyu 校語”). (3) Xingtong fushu (q.v.). The various commentaries insist on the importance of understanding the true meaning of the law, as opposed to its letter, if one is to take account of circumstances and show flexibility and restraint in applying punishments. All four commentaries are reproduced in Lüxue wenxian, ser. 1, vol. 1.