Zǐxià Yìzhuàn 子夏易傳
Zǐxià’s Commentary on the Changes
attributed to 卜商 Bǔ Shāng (style name Zǐxià 子夏, trad. ca. 507–ca. 400 BCE)
About the work
A commentary in 11 juàn on the Zhōuyì 周易 (KR1a0001), traditionally ascribed to 卜商 Bǔ Shāng (Zǐxià), one of 孔丘 Confucius’s senior disciples. The received text is a layered pseudepigraph: not a Hàn-era survival, but a Táng-period fabrication associated with 張弧 Zhāng Hú, further altered after the Southern Sòng. The Sìkù 四庫 editors retained it in the canon only as a textual specimen. The frontmatter dating window (618–1279, Táng through Southern Sòng) reflects the assumed actual composition and recompilation history of the received recension, not the lifedates of the attributed author.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Zǐxià Yìzhuàn in eleven juan, the old version attributed to Bǔ Zǐxià, is at once the most ancient of works expounding the Yì and — among such works — the one in which forgery has been compounded upon forgery without end.
The Táng huìyào 唐會要 records that in the seventh year of Kāiyuán 開元 [719 CE] an edict was issued: “Few now study the Zǐxià Yìzhuàn; let the Confucian officers examine and settle the text.” 劉知幾 Liú Zhījī argued: “The Hàn Yìwénzhì 漢藝文志 lists thirteen Yì houses, none with a ‘commentary’ by Zǐxià. Only with the Qīlù 七錄 of 阮孝緒 Ruǎn Xiàoxù of the Liáng does a Zǐxià Yì in six juàn first appear, ascribed alternately to 韓嬰 Hán Yīng and to 丁寬 Dīng Kuān; yet according to the Hànshū 漢書, Hán’s Yì has twelve piān and Dīng’s eight, so the figures cannot be reconciled — the case is broken, and to make use of the work would be deeply doubtful.” 司馬貞 Sīmǎ Zhēn likewise argued: “劉向 Liú Xiàng’s Qīlüè 七略 does record a Zǐxià Yìzhuàn, but the work has long ceased to circulate; what survives today has largely lost the genuine original. 荀勖 Xún Xù’s Zhōngjīng bù 中經簿 has ‘Zǐxià Zhuàn in four juàn, sometimes ascribed to Dīng Kuān’ — earlier scholars already doubted it was Zǐxià’s. Further, the Suíshū Jīngjí zhì 隋書經籍志 records a Zǐxià Zhuàn as fragmentary, six juàn in the Liáng but only two by its own day — its corruption is plain. 王儉 Wáng Jiǎn’s Qīzhì 七志 quotes Liú Xiàng’s Qīlüè as saying ‘The Yìzhuàn Zǐxià is the work of Hán Yīng’; yet today the title omits Hán’s name and instead carries notes by 薛虞 Xuē Yú; its character is coarse and superficial, its purport unprofound, of no benefit to later students.” This shows that already before the Táng the so-called Zǐxià Zhuàn was a forgery.
晁說之 Cháo Yuèzhī’s Zhuàn yì táng jì 傳易堂記 states further that what is called Zǐxià Zhuàn today is in fact the Yì of Zhāng Hú of the Táng. (Note: Zhāng Hú of the Táng held the post of Dàlǐsì píngshì 大理寺評事; his Sùlǚzǐ 素履子 is separately catalogued.) So in the Táng there was yet another forgery in circulation. For this reason the Sòng Guóshǐ zhì 國史志 listed the spurious and the genuine Zǐxià Yìzhuàn as separate entries in its bibliography, and the Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目 likewise observes that the chapter divisions of this book follow 王弼 Wáng Bì in outline and are decidedly not the writing of Bǔ Zǐxià. 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo 經義考 demonstrates that what is quoted by 陸德明 Lù Démíng’s Jīngdiǎn shìwén 經典釋文, 李鼎祚 Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s Zhōuyì jíjiě 周易集解, and 王應麟 Wáng Yīnglín’s Kùnxué jìwén 困學紀聞 does not appear in the present text. Démíng and Dǐngzuò may be said to predate Zhāng Hú, but Yīnglín is a man of the late Southern Sòng — how is it that what he saw in his day differs from the present text? In that case the present text is forgery once again: not only is it not Bǔ Zǐxià’s book, it is not Zhāng Hú’s book either. Since it has long been transmitted, we preserve it provisionally as one school’s witness.
Respectfully revised and submitted, second month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng [1780].
General Compilers (zǒngzuǎnguān 總纂官): 紀昀 Jǐ Yún, 陸錫熊 Lù Xīxióng, 孫士毅 Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser (zǒngjiàoguān 總校官): 陸費墀 Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The work is attributed to Bǔ Shāng (Zǐxià), a senior disciple of Confucius. There is no contemporary or early-Hàn evidence that the historical Zǐxià composed a Yì commentary: the Hànshū Yìwénzhì 漢書藝文志 lists no such work, and 劉向 Liú Xiàng’s Qīlüè (extant only in fragments and quotations) is the earliest source even to mention one. A six-juàn Zǐxià Yì first appears as a discrete catalogue entry in 阮孝緒 Ruǎn Xiàoxù’s Qīlù (Liáng dynasty); the Suíshū Jīngjí zhì notes that even this had shrunk from six juàn to two by its time, and that the attribution drifted between Zǐxià, 韓嬰 Hán Yīng, and 丁寬 Dīng Kuān. The Tang state already regarded the text as problematic enough to commission editorial work in 719 CE.
The received eleven-juàn recension descends from a separate Táng fabrication associated with 張弧 Zhāng Hú (a píngshì 評事 in the Dàlǐsì), as 晁說之 Cháo Yuèzhī first argued and as the Sòng Guóshǐ zhì and Chóngwén zǒngmù effectively confirm by listing genuine and spurious Zǐxià Yì in parallel. 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo showed that even this Táng text was further altered after the Southern Sòng: passages cited as Zǐxià by 陸德明 Lù Démíng, 李鼎祚 Lǐ Dǐngzuò, and 王應麟 Wáng Yīnglín are absent from the present text, so the received recension is not even Zhāng Hú’s intact. Internal evidence supports the picture: the chapter division follows 王弼 Wáng Bì’s arrangement, an arrangement that postdates the historical Zǐxià by some seven centuries. 馬國翰 Mǎ Guóhàn’s Yùhán shānfáng jíyì shū 玉函山房輯佚書 (Qīng) reconstructs a separate two-juàn fragmentary text from these earlier citations, conventionally treated as the closest available witness to whatever pre-Táng Zǐxià Yì tradition existed.
The eleven-juàn text printed in the Sìkù quánshū (Wényuāngé edition, V7.1, p1) is the version preserved in the catalogue as a “specimen of one school” (姑存以備一家); the editorial tiyao of 1780, signed by 紀昀 Jǐ Yún and his colleagues, sets out the case for layered pseudepigraphy at length and remains the locus classicus for the textual problem.
Translations and research
No complete or substantial partial English translation of the Zǐxià Yìzhuàn exists; the work is absent from the major English Yì-jīng translation tradition (Wilhelm/Baynes, Lynn, Rutt, Adler).
Substantive scholarship is almost entirely Sinophone and concentrated on the textual-history problem:
- Jǐ Yún 紀昀 et al., Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, “Zǐxià Yìzhuàn” entry (1780) — the locus classicus for the layered-pseudepigraphy argument summarized above.
- Mǎ Guóhàn 馬國翰, Yùhán shānfáng jíyì shū 玉函山房輯佚書 (Qīng) — reconstructed two-juan recension assembled from quotations in Jīngdiǎn shìwén, Zhōuyì jíjiě, Kùnxué jìwén etc.; the standard fragmentary edition.
- Liú Dàjūn 劉大鈞, “Jīn, gǔwén Yìxué liúbiàn shùlüè — jiān lùn ‘Zǐxià Yìzhuàn’ zhēnwěi” 今、古文易學流變述略——兼論《子夏易傳》真偽, Zhōuyì yánjiū 周易研究 (2006) — situates the authenticity debate within the Hàn jīn/gǔwén Yì-school history.
- Chén Wěiwén 陳偉文, “Jīnběn ‘Zǐxià Yìzhuàn’ jí Táng Zhāng Hú wěiběn lùn” 今本《子夏易傳》即唐張弧偽本論, Zhōuyì yánjiū (2010) — argues the received eleven-juan text is specifically Zhāng Hú’s Táng forgery (rather than a still-later compilation).
- Sīmǎ Cháojūn 司馬朝軍, Wénxiàn biànwěi 文獻辨偽 series (Wǔhàn Univ. Press, 2010s) — includes a dedicated entry “Zǐxià Yìzhuàn wú zhēnběn” 《子夏易傳》無真本.
- Lǚ Xiāngguó 呂相國, Zǐxià Yìzhuàn dǎodú 子夏易傳導讀, in the series Lìdài Yìxué míngzhù zhěnglǐ yǔ yánjiū cóngshū 歷代易學名著整理與研究叢書 — modern guidebook (dǎodú, not a strict critical edition).
No modern Zhōnghuá Shūjú 中華書局 critical edition has been located; the standard scholarly base text remains the Sìkù eleven-juan recension supplemented by Mǎ Guóhàn’s fragments. Bent Nielsen’s A Companion to Yi jing Numerology and Cosmology (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003) and Richard J. Smith’s Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World (Univ. of Virginia Press, 2008) treat the text only in passing.
Other points of interest
The Zǐxià Yìzhuàn is a textbook case in Chinese bibliographic studies of multi-layered pseudepigraphy (wěi zhōng shēng wěi 偽中生偽 — “forgery generating further forgery”): a possibly-genuine early tradition replaced by a Liáng-era compilation, in turn replaced by a Táng fabrication, in turn altered after the Southern Sòng. The 1780 tiyao is itself often cited as a model of Qīng evidential (kǎozhèng 考證) bibliographic argument.
The current text is a commentary on the Zhōuyì 周易 (KR1a0001); it organises its glosses according to 王弼 Wáng Bì’s chapter arrangement, which is one of the strongest internal arguments against attribution to Zǐxià.