Zēngbǔ Zhèng shì Zhōuyì 增補鄭氏周易
The Augmented Zhèng-Family Zhōuyì
original commentary by 鄭玄 Zhèng Xuán (zì Kāngchéng 康成, 127–200, Hàn); recompiled by 王應麟 Wáng Yīnglín (1223–1296, Sòng); augmented and corrected by 惠棟 Huì Dòng (zì Dìngyǔ 定宇, 1697–1758, Qīng)
About the work
A Qīng kǎozhèng 考證 augmentation, in three juàn, of 王應麟 Wáng Yīnglín’s late-Sòng one-juàn reconstruction of 鄭玄 Zhèng Xuán’s lost Zhōuyì zhù 周易註 (= KR1a0003). Where Wáng had assembled the surviving fragments without consistent source-citation and not always in canonical sequence, 惠棟 Huì Dòng of Chángzhōu 長洲 (Sūzhōu) traced each Wáng-recorded passage back to its specific source text, reordered everything to follow the received Zhōuyì, and combed further sources to add 92 new fragments — 28 for the upper canon, 16 for the lower canon, 14 for the Xìcí zhuàn 繫辭傳, 22 for the Shuōguà zhuàn 說卦傳, 7 for the Xùguà zhuàn 序卦傳, and 5 for the Záguà zhuàn 雜卦傳. He moved Wáng’s prefatory Zhèng shì Zhōuyì zàn 鄭氏周易贊 to the head of the work, deleted the eight illustrative hùtǐ 互體 citations Wáng had appended, and added at the end two diagrams reconstructed from Zhèng’s lost commentaries on the Zhōulǐ Tàishī 周禮太師 (a twelve-month yáochén 爻辰 chart) and the Yuè lìng 月令 (a yáochén-and-twenty-eight-mansions chart). The added diagrams are aimed explicitly against 朱震 Zhū Zhèn’s Hànshàng Yìzhuàn 漢上易傳 (KR1a0024).
This is the canonical Qīng-evidential reconstruction of Hàn-Yì Zhèng Yì; it is the form in which Zhèng Xuán’s Yì fragments are normally cited in modern scholarship. The WYG tiyao and the Kanripo source file KR1a0004_000.txt print the work under the Sìkù-imposed title Xīnběn Zhèng shì Zhōuyì 新本鄭氏周易 (“New Edition Zhèng-Family Zhōuyì”); the Kanripo catalog and most secondary literature use Huì Dòng’s own title Zēngbǔ Zhèng shì Zhōuyì 增補鄭氏周易 (“Augmented…”). The dating window 1730–1758 reflects the assumed mature-period composition span of Huì Dòng’s reconstruction. The catalog dynasty field is 漢 by the Sìkù convention recorded in the tiyao of KR1a0003 (recompiled lost works are filed under the original author’s dynasty).
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Xīnběn Zhèng shì Zhōuyì in three juàn was edited by 惠棟 Huì Dòng of the present dynasty. Dòng (zì Dìngyǔ 定宇, native of Chángzhōu 長洲): 王應麟 Wáng Yīnglín had originally recompiled Zhèng Yuán’s [Zhèng Xuán’s] Yì commentary in one juàn, and his descendants printed it as an appendix to the Yùhǎi 玉海. Although it was made of broken passages and stray phrases, it still gave a fair outline of Hàn learning and rendered considerable service to the canon. However, none of the entries was attributed to a source-text; the order, head-to-tail, did not always match the canonical sequence; and there were omissions.
Dòng, taking that older edition as base, has thoroughly reset and corrected it. For every entry already in Yīnglín’s compilation he has consulted the original source and noted under each one the specific book it comes from, making it clear where the evidence stands and verified — extremely meticulous in detail. The order, front to back, has likewise been reset to follow the canonical text in full. He has further searched broadly through the various corpora and supplementarily added: twenty-eight items for the upper canon, sixteen for the lower canon, fourteen for the Xìcí zhuàn, twenty-two for the Shuōguà zhuàn, seven for the Xùguà zhuàn, and five for the Záguà zhuàn. He has moved Yīnglín’s appended Yì Zàn 易贊 to the head of the volume; he has cut out the eight passages, drawn from the various canonical zhèngyì commentaries on hùtǐ, that Yīnglín had quoted; and, working separately from Zhèng Yuán’s [lost] Zhōulǐ Tàishī commentary, he has constructed a twelve-month yáochén 爻辰 chart, and from Zhèng Yuán’s [lost] Yuè lìng commentary a yáochén-and-twenty-eight-mansions chart, appending both at the end of the volume — the express purpose being to refute the errors of 朱震 Zhū Zhèn’s Hànshàng Yìzhuàn. Although his work proceeds upon another man’s foundation, in research-and-collation precision it is in fact superior to the original. Yīnglín may justly be called a meritorious servant to Zhèng’s school; this edition by Dòng may equally be called a meritorious servant to Wáng’s edition.
Respectfully revised and submitted, third month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng [1780].
General Compilers: 紀昀 Jǐ Yún, 陸錫熊 Lù Xīxióng, 孫士毅 Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: 陸費墀 Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
惠棟 Huì Dòng (1697–1758), of Yuánhé 元和 / Chángzhōu 長洲 (Sūzhōu), the founding figure of the Wú-school 吳派 of Qīng Hàn xué 漢學 and the most rigorous of the early evidentialists on the Yì. The recompilation here was part of his programmatic project to recover the Hàn Yì (孟喜 Mèng Xǐ, 京房 Jīng Fáng, 虞翻 Yú Fān, 鄭玄 Zhèng Xuán) against the Wáng Bì–Chéng Yí–Zhū Xī line that had dominated since the Northern Sòng. His other principal Yì monographs are Zhōuyì shù 周易述 (= KR1a0105) and Yì Hàn xué 易漢學 (= KR1a0106), with related material in Yì lì 易例 (= KR1a0107) — all of them pendants to the present source-collection.
The text-critical method is exact: every Wáng-Yīnglín fragment is verified back against its source (notably 李鼎祚 Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s Zhōuyì jíjiě KR1a0008, 陸德明 Lù Démíng’s Jīngdiǎn shìwén, the zhèngyì of Shī, Sānlǐ, Chūnqiū, and the Hòu Hànshū and Wénxuǎn commentaries), and the source is cited inline — a methodological standard not seen in Yīnglín’s original. Huì Dòng’s 92 newly added fragments are mostly drawn from Sòng lèishū 類書 and from the early Qīng’s improving access to Hòu Hànshū and Sānlǐ sub-commentaries. The two appended yáochén diagrams are reconstructions from extant fragments of Zhèng’s lost Sānlǐ sub-commentaries: they reify Zhèng’s correlative-cosmological method in graphic form and are the basis on which Huì Dòng adjudicates the Hàn-versus-Sòng dispute over Hàn Yì diagrams (esp. against Zhū Zhèn’s reduction of yáochén to a Hé-Luò 河洛 numerology).
The work was complete by Huì Dòng’s death in 1758, well before the Sìkù 四庫 commission was constituted (1772). The Sìkù tiyao retitled it Xīnběn Zhèng shì Zhōuyì (the title it bears in the WYG print) in order to distinguish it editorially from Wáng Yīnglín’s original “old edition”; secondary literature follows Huì Dòng’s own title Zēngbǔ Zhèng shì Zhōuyì. The two are the same work.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. The work is a research instrument rather than a primary text.
- Lín Zhōngjūn 林忠軍, Zhōuyì Zhèng shì xué chǎnwēi 周易鄭氏學闡微 (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2005) — uses Huì Dòng’s recompilation as base text and assesses its corrections of Wáng Yīnglín.
- Wú Pèi 吳沛 et al. (eds.), Huì Dòng Yìxué jí 惠棟易學集 (multivolume modern reprint with collation) — gathers all of Huì Dòng’s Yì writings together; the modern reference set.
- Benjamin A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Harvard, 1984; rev. 2001) — chapter on the Wú school positions Huì Dòng’s Yì recompilations within the broader kǎozhèng turn.
- Hú Wéigé 胡渭 Yìtú míng biàn 易圖明辨 (1706, KR1a0150) — historical predecessor; Huì Dòng silently builds on Hú’s anti-tú argument while restoring Hàn yáochén diagrams.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ 易學哲學史, vol. 4 (Huáxià, rev. ed. 1995) — substantive treatment of Huì Dòng within the Qīng Hàn-Yì revival.
Other points of interest
The two appended yáochén charts are the most contested element of the work: Huì Dòng presents them as Zhèng Xuán’s own diagrams reconstructed from his lost Sānlǐ commentaries, but the inferential leap from prose-fragment to chart is non-trivial, and several Qīng evidential successors (notably 張惠言 Zhāng Huìyán in his Yú shì Yì 虞氏易) treat the charts as Huì Dòng’s own expansion rather than as attested Zhèng Xuán material. Modern scholarship generally agrees with Zhāng.
The work is the second of the Sìkù trio of jíyì titles for Hàn Yì placed in immediate sequence (KR1a0003 Wáng Yīnglín’s Zhèng, KR1a0004 Huì Dòng’s Zhèng, KR1a0005 Yáo Shìlín’s Lù Jì); the editorial pairing dramatizes the Sòng-versus-Qīng comparison in jíyì method.