Lùshì Yìjiě 陸氏易解
Master Lù’s Explanations of the Yì
original commentary by 陸績 Lù Jì (zì Gōngjì 公紀, ca. 188–219, Wú); recompiled by 姚士粦 Yáo Shìlín (zì Shūxiáng 叔祥, fl. ca. 1590–1620, Míng)
About the work
A Míng-period reconstruction of the lost Yì commentary of 陸績 Lù Jì of Wú, in one juàn, by 姚士粦 Yáo Shìlín of Hǎiyán 海鹽 (modern northern Zhèjiāng). The original of Lù Jì’s Yì commentary is recorded variously in the early bibliographies — Sānguó zhì · Wúzhì lists it as Yì shì xuán 易釋玄, the Suíshū jīngjí zhì as Zhōuyì zhù 周易注 in fifteen juàn, and 陸德明 Lù Démíng’s Jīngdiǎn shìwén xùlù 經典釋文序錄 (with the Xīn / Jiù Tángshū concurring) as Zhōuyì shù 周易述 in thirteen juàn plus a Huìtōng 會通 in one juàn — and was wholly lost in transmission. Yáo Shìlín gathered 150 fragments, and the work was first printed in the late-Míng Yányì zhì lín 鹽邑志林 collection (Hǎiyán’s local scholarly anthology). The Sìkù tiyao corrects 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo 經義考, which had alleged that Yáo merely scissored together passages from Lù Démíng’s Shìwén and 李鼎祚 Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s Jíjiě: in fact a substantial proportion of Yáo’s fragments come from the Jīng shì Yì zhuàn zhù 京氏易傳注 of 京房 Jīng Fáng, a source Zhū had overlooked.
This is the third of the Sìkù trio of opening-section jíyì recompilations, in deliberate parallel to KR1a0003 and KR1a0004. The catalog dynasty is 吳 by the Sìkù convention that recompilations of lost works are filed under the original author’s dynasty; the actual composition window of the surviving recension is the late Wànlì 萬曆 era of the late Míng (ca. 1590–1620), notBefore being a rough lower bound for Yáo Shìlín’s mature scholarly activity in Hǎiyán under Yáo’s literary-circle patron 胡震亨 Hú Zhènhēng, notAfter the conventional terminus for the Yányì zhì lín compilation.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Lùshì Yìjiě in one juàn was compiled by 姚士粦 Yáo Shìlín of the Míng. It is the Zhōuyì zhù of 陸績 Lù Jì of Wú [recovered from quotations]. The Wú zhì records that what Jì wrote includes Yì shì xuán; the Suí jīngjí zhì has Jì’s Zhōuyì zhù in fifteen juàn; the Jīngdiǎn shìwén xùlù gives “Lù Jì Zhōuyì shù in thirteen juàn, Huìtōng in one juàn”; the Xīn and Jiù Tángshū records agree with the Shìwén. The original perished long ago, and we cannot now determine which of these is correct.
The present text is the one carried in Yányì zhì lín 鹽邑志林, comprising 150 entries. 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn supposed that this was put together by extracting from Lù [Démíng]‘s [Jīngdiǎn] shìwén and Lǐ [Dǐngzuò]‘s Jíjiě — but the present text in fact draws extensively also from the Jīng [Fáng] shì Yìzhuàn zhù 京氏易傳注, which Yízūn did not notice. Zhū further claims that of the canonical-text variants from other versions —
lǚ dì wèi ér bú jiù 履帝位而不疚 (Lǚ 履 hexagram, yáo statement: “He treads upon the place of the Sovereign and is not afflicted”) — jiù 疚 written as jí 疾; míng biàn zhé yě 明辨晢也 (Wényán) — zhé 晢 written as shì 逝; nà yuē zì yǒu 納約自牖 (Kǎn 坎 hexagram, line 6) — yǒu 牖 written as yòu 誘; sānnián kè zhī, bèi yě 三年克之憊也 (Jì jì 既濟, line 9-3) — bèi 憊 written as bèi 備
— [in some Lù Jì version Zhū had seen] — but the present text does not preserve any of these variants. Whether copyists have produced further divergences, we cannot say. Zhū further reports that 曹溶 Cáo Róng had once seen a three-juàn version, so different recompilations of Lù’s Yì commentary have circulated at different lengths and levels of detail — this also is unverifiable.
In old times 王應麟 Wáng Yīnglín of the Sòng compiled Zhèng’s Yì commentary KR1a0003, a work much esteemed by scholars. The present compilation of Shìlín, although it does not match Yīnglín’s breadth of investigation, by gleaning broken remains and preserving “ten parts in a thousand and a hundred” still gives us the rough measure of Lù’s Yì commentary.
Lù Jì (zì Gōngjì 公紀) was a man of Wú prefecture, in the kingdom of Wú; he rose to be Grand Administrator of Yùlín 鬱林 with concurrent Lieutenant General (piān jiāngjūn 偏將軍). His record stands in the Wú zhì. Yáo Shìlín (zì Shūxiáng 叔祥) was a man of Hǎiyán 海鹽. 周亮工 Zhōu Liànggōng in his Shū yǐng 書影 records that Shìlín was orphaned at thirteen and at twenty was still illiterate; he lived as a dependent in the Jiāng family in Déqīng 德清; the Jiāng [tutor] taught him to read, and only late in life did he establish himself in scholarship — a man of remarkable trajectory.
Respectfully revised and submitted, third month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng [1778].
General Compilers: 紀昀 Jǐ Yún, 陸錫熊 Lù Xīxióng, 孫士毅 Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: 陸費墀 Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
陸績 Lù Jì (ca. 188–219), of Wú prefecture (modern Sūzhōu), was a child prodigy of the Wú-Hàn period (the xiào jǐn 孝謹 anecdote of his hiding three oranges in his sleeve at age six to take home to his mother is widely circulated in pre-modern moralising literature). He served the Sūn 孫 court as Grand Administrator of Yùlín 鬱林 commandery (in modern Guǎngxī) with concurrent appointment as Lieutenant General; the Sānguó zhì · Wúzhì (juan 57) gives him a brief but laudatory biography. He was a leading representative of the Hàn-style Yì current at Wú: his commentary belonged squarely to the xiàngshù 象數 line and was extensively cited by 李鼎祚 Lǐ Dǐngzuò (KR1a0008) and 陸德明 Lù Démíng. The early bibliographic record shows the original at variable length — fifteen juàn in the Suíshū, thirteen plus a Huìtōng of one juàn in the Jīngdiǎn shìwén and the Tang histories — but the work was lost between the Táng and the Sòng.
姚士粦 Yáo Shìlín (zì Shūxiáng 叔祥, fl. late Wànlì), of Hǎiyán 海鹽, was a member of the literary circle of 胡震亨 Hú Zhènhēng and contributed several reconstructions of pre-Hàn and Hàn texts to the Yányì zhì lín anthology compiled there. The biographical anecdote — orphaned at thirteen, illiterate at twenty, taught reading by his Jiāng-family hosts in Déqīng, eventually a self-taught scholar of consequence — is reported in 周亮工 Zhōu Liànggōng’s Shū yǐng and was sufficiently striking that the Sìkù editors retell it in the tiyao. His other notable jíyì contributions in Yányì zhì lín include the Hàn shì shàngshū 韓氏尚書 (韓嬰 Hán Yīng Shū) reconstructions and a number of pre-Hàn philosophical fragments.
The Sìkù tiyao explicitly weighs Yáo’s compilation against Wáng Yīnglín’s, judges it less thorough than Wáng’s Zhèng KR1a0003 but still useful as a witness to Lù Jì’s Yì, and notes (against Zhū Yízūn) that Yáo’s principal under-credited source is the Jīng shì Yìzhuàn zhù — making this also a useful indirect witness to Jīng Fáng’s Yì.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. The text is normally consulted via the Sìkù recension or via Mǎ Guóhàn’s later, fuller reconstruction in the Yùhán shānfáng jíyì shū 玉函山房輯佚書 (Qīng), which absorbs Yáo Shìlín’s material and supplements it.
- Mǎ Guóhàn 馬國翰, Yùhán shānfáng jíyì shū 玉函山房輯佚書, Yì lèi, “Lù Jì Zhōuyì shù” — the standard fuller reconstruction.
- Zhāng Huìyán 張惠言, Yú shì Yì lǐ 虞氏易禮 (preface 1808) and surrounding works — the standard Qīng kǎozhèng assessment of Wú-school Hàn Yì (Yú Fān, Lù Jì, Yú Fān 虞翻’s school) into which Yáo’s text feeds.
- Lín Zhōngjūn 林忠軍, Xiàngshù Yìxué fāzhǎn shǐ 象數易學發展史, vol. 1 (Qí Lǔ shūshè, 1994) — chapter on Lù Jì within Wú-school Hàn-Yì.
- Bent Nielsen, A Companion to Yi jing Numerology and Cosmology (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003) — entries on Lù Jì and Wú-school Yì.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ explicit defence of Yáo Shìlín against Zhū Yízūn (the Jīng shì Yìzhuàn zhù citation point) is a small but interesting moment of editorial counter-argument against the Jīngyì kǎo — itself the eighteenth century’s standard bibliographic register of the canon — and shows the Sìkù staff’s willingness to correct it when source-checking allowed.