Zhōuyì kǒujué yì 周易口訣義
The Mnemonic-Verse Meaning of the Zhōuyì
by 史徵 Shǐ Zhēng (of Hénán 河南, Táng)
About the work
A six-juàn Táng Yì commentary by 史徵 Shǐ Zhēng of Hénán, presented in the form of explanatory expansions of mnemonic verses (kǒujué 口訣) — short summary formulae used in classroom-style oral instruction. The author’s preface frames the project as a deliberate simplification: “Taking 王弼 Wáng’s note as primary and condensing 孔穎達 Kǒng’s sub-commentary as governing principle” (xiān yǐ Wáng zhù wéi zōng, hòu yuē Kǒng shū wéi lǐ 先以王注為宗，後約孔疏為理). The hexagram-statements (tuàn 彖) and line-statements (yáo) are commented in full; the Tuàn zhuàn commentary on hexagrams is in some places cut short. The work is divided into upper and lower canon, and named “kǒujué” — “mnemonic verse” — because the yì jué 義決 (“decisive meaning”) is treated as its operative idiom.
Eight hexagrams are missing in transmission — 豫 Yù, 隨 Suí, 无妄 Wúwàng, 大壯 Dàzhuàng, 晉 Jìn, 睽 Kuí, 蹇 Jiǎn, 解 Xiè, and 中孚 Zhōngfú (the Sìkù tiyao’s tally of “eight” appears slightly miscounted; nine hexagrams are listed) — but the Sìkù editors decided to retain the original six-juàn division.
The catalog dynasty is Táng. The Sìkù editors’ adjudication, against Sòng-period confusions that recorded the author variously as 史證 / 史文徽 / 史之徴 (taboo-avoidance and graphic-confusion variants), follows the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 and 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo in fixing the form 史徴 and the dynasty as Táng. The composition window 700–900 reflects the broad Táng span that the present evidence supports; tighter dating is not currently defensible (the work cites 李鼎祚 Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s pool of pre-Táng commentators but is not securely placed within the Táng century).
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Zhōuyì kǒujué yì in six juàn was composed by 史徵 Shǐ Zhēng of the Táng. The Chóngwén zǒngmù says: “Shǐ Zhēng of Hénán; what dynasty he belongs to is unclear.” 晁公武 Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì says: “The Tián clan attribute it to Wèi Zhènggōng 魏鄭公 [the Táng founding statesman 魏徵 Wèi Zhēng] — this is wrong.” 陳振孫 Chén Zhènsūn says: “The histories of three reign-periods record this book; the author is Táng, or otherwise of the Five Dynasties; he writes 證 in place of 徴 by taboo-avoidance.” The Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì further writes him “Shǐ Wénhuī” 史文徽 — confusing the graphs 徽 and 徴, which look similar; another version writes “Shǐ Zhīzhēng” 史之徴, again confusing 之 with 文. We now fix the form as 史徴 [following the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn] and his dynasty as Táng (following 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo).
The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserves Zhēng’s self-preface, which says: “I will simply lay out the major frame and edit its essential points: first taking Wáng’s note as the master, and afterward condensing Kǒng’s sub-commentary as the governing principle.” Hence the Chóngwén zǒngmù and Cháo’s Dúshū zhì judge it a mere extract from the standard zhùshū, useful only as an aid to learners. But examination shows this is not quite the case. To take examples: at Qián 乾 Tuàn, he quotes Master Zhōu 周氏; at the Dàxiàng of Qián, he quotes 宋衷 Sòng Zhōng; at Tún 屯 Tuàn he quotes Master Lǐ 李氏; at Sòng 訟 Tuàn he quotes Master Zhōu; at Shī 師 Tuàn he quotes 陸績 Lù Jì; at Shī 6-5 he quotes Master Zhuāng 莊氏; at Qiān 謙 6-5 he quotes Master Zhāng 張氏; at the Dàxiàng of Guān 觀 he quotes 鄭眾 Zhèng Zhòng; at the Dàxiàng of Bì 賁 he quotes 王廙 Wáng Yì; at the Dàxiàng of Yí 頤 he quotes 荀爽 Xún Shuǎng; at the Dàxiàng of Kǎn 坎 he quotes Master Zhuāng; at Kǎn upper-six he quotes Master Yú [Yú Fān 虞氏]; at the Dàxiàng of Xián 咸 he quotes 何妥 Hé Tuǒ; at Cuì 萃 Tuàn he quotes 周弘正 Zhōu Hóngzhèng; at Shēng 升 Tuàn he quotes Master Chǔ 褚氏; at the Dàxiàng of Jǐng 井 he quotes Hé Tuǒ; at Gé 革 Tuàn he quotes Sòng Zhōng; at Dǐng 鼎 Tuàn he quotes Hé Tuǒ; at Zhèn 震 9-4 he quotes Zhèng Zhòng; at Jiàn 漸 Tuàn he quotes Master Chǔ; at Jiàn’s Dàxiàng he quotes 侯果 Hóu Guǒ; at the Dàxiàng of Kùn 困 he quotes Zhōu Hóngzhèng; at the Dàxiàng of Duì 兊 he quotes Zhèng Zhòng; at Jiàn 漸 9-5 he quotes Lù Jì.
The original works of these masters are now wholly lost; only Kǒng’s sub-commentary and 李鼎祚 Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s Zhōuyì jíjiě preserve scattered citations. What this book quotes goes substantially beyond what those two collections preserve. Furthermore: at the Dàxiàng of Bì, the Wáng-clan reading he quotes, and at the Dàxiàng of Yí, the Xún Shuǎng reading he quotes — though both are also in the Jíjiě — show divergent wording from the Jíjiě witness; at Kǎn upper-six the 虞翻 Yú Fān reading is cut to a bare summary in the Jíjiě, while the present text preserves it in detail. The Táng was not far from the Six Dynasties; the works the Suí jīngjí zhì recorded were largely still extant; so Zhēng was able to comb and quote broadly. But several centuries have now passed; many old books have perished; what remains here is therefore every line a stray feather of the auspicious goose.
In recent times 惠棟 Huì Dòng in compiling his Jiǔjīng gǔyì 九經古義, and 余蕭客 Yú Xiāokè in compiling his Gǔ jīng jiě gōuchén 古經解鈎沈 — both rooting out canonical materials of pre-Táng date down to single phrases and isolated characters with the utmost thoroughness — have nevertheless missed everything in this book. It is reliably a hard-to-find rare witness. Although its phrasing is here and there clumsy and constipated, and copyist errors and lacunae have not been wholly avoided, in the matter of pre-Táng Yì commentaries:
— the Zǐxià zhuàn is itself a forgery KR1a0002; — what 王應麟 Wáng Yīnglín assembled as Zhèng Kāngchéng’s note KR1a0003, and what 姚士粦 Yáo Shìlín assembled as Lù Jì’s KR1a0005 and 干寶 Gān Bǎo’s notes, are likewise no complete books.
In real terms, what survives intact today is: 京房 Jīng Fáng [the Jīng shì Yìzhuàn 京氏易傳, KR1a0166], 王弼 Wáng Bì KR1a0006, 孔穎達 Kǒng Yǐngdá KR1a0007, 李鼎祚 Lǐ Dǐngzuò KR1a0008 — four works — and this present book, making five in all. A man who values antiquity will rightly prize it.
The self-preface gives six juàn, and all the bibliographic accounts agree. The present text simply lacks the eight hexagrams Yù, Suí, Wúwàng, Dàzhuàng, Jìn, Kuí, Jiǎn, Xiè, and Zhōngfú; what is missing is small in extent, and we still register it in six juàn, preserving the original arrangement.
Respectfully revised and submitted, second 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
史徵 Shǐ Zhēng of Hénán 河南 (the Tang superior prefecture corresponding to modern Luòyáng) is a poorly documented mid-to-late Táng Yì scholar — present in the bibliographic record but not in the Tángshū liè zhuàn, with no surviving inscription. The graph of his given name (zhēng 徴 / 證 / 徽) was unstable in transmission; the Sìkù editors, following the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn, fix the form 史徴 and the dynasty as Táng (against 陳振孫 Chén Zhènsūn’s “Táng or Five Dynasties”).
The kǒujué 口訣 (“mnemonic verse”) format reflects a Táng didactic tradition of distillation-into-formulae for classroom recitation; the present work is the only example of the genre to survive in the Yì-commentary corpus, although analogous works existed for the Sānlǐ and Chūnqiū traditions in 陸德明 Lù Démíng’s bibliography. Shǐ Zhēng’s preface explicitly subordinates the project to 王弼 Wáng Bì’s note and 孔穎達 Kǒng Yǐngdá’s zhèngyì — but, as the Sìkù editors document at length, his actual commentary draws extensively on a pool of pre-Táng masters whose works were already lost in the Sòng (Master Zhōu 周氏, Master Lǐ 李氏, Master Zhuāng 莊氏, Master Zhāng 張氏, Master Chǔ 褚氏, 鄭眾 Zhèng Zhòng, 王廙 Wáng Yì, 宋衷 Sòng Zhōng, 何妥 Hé Tuǒ, 周弘正 Zhōu Hóngzhèng, 侯果 Hóu Guǒ, 虞翻 Yú Fān, 荀爽 Xún Shuǎng, 陸績 Lù Jì). For several of these, Shǐ Zhēng’s quotations are now the sole surviving witness; for others (Yú Fān at Kǎn upper-six, Xún Shuǎng at the Yí Dàxiàng, Wáng Yì at the Bì Dàxiàng) his text is substantively independent of and richer than the parallel 李鼎祚 Lǐ Dǐngzuò Jíjiě witness.
The Sìkù editors place Shǐ Zhēng’s book on a list of five surviving pre-Sòng Yì commentaries — 京房 Jīng Fáng’s Yìzhuàn KR1a0166, Wáng Bì KR1a0006, Kǒng Yǐngdá KR1a0007, Lǐ Dǐngzuò KR1a0008, and the present work — and explicitly note that the great Qīng evidential reconstructors (惠棟 Huì Dòng’s Jiǔjīng gǔyì, 余蕭客 Yú Xiāokè’s Gǔ jīng jiě gōuchén) had overlooked it. The discovery within the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn material brought it back into critical view in the Sìkù period.
The transmitted text in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn lacks eight hexagrams in their entirety (per the Sìkù tally; nine hexagrams are listed and the discrepancy is unresolved); the surviving fifty-six-or-fifty-five-hexagram text was issued in six juàn in the Sìkù WYG.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. Specialist literature is limited.
- Lín Zhōngjūn 林忠軍 et al., chapters in Xiàngshù Yìxué fāzhǎn shǐ 象數易學發展史 vol. 1 (Qí Lǔ shūshè, 1994) — situates Shǐ Zhēng among the late-Táng Yì scholars who continue Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s preservationist programme.
- Liú Bǎijù 劉百閔 / Cài Yìmíng 蔡一銘 et al. modern punctuated reissues of the WYG-base text.
- Selective citation in Bent Nielsen, A Companion to Yi jing Numerology and Cosmology (2003) — under the relevant pre-Táng entries (Yú Fān, Hóu Guǒ, etc.) where Shǐ Zhēng is the unique witness.
Other points of interest
The work is the principal Táng-period rival to Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s Jíjiě as a preserve of pre-Táng Yì citations, and its omission from Huì Dòng’s Jiǔjīng gǔyì and Yú Xiāokè’s Gǔ jīng jiě gōuchén — the two most ambitious pre-Sìkù jíyì projects on canonical fragments — is a textbook case of how Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery in the Sìkù period reset the Qīng evidential canon.
The Sìkù tiyao’s phrase “every line a stray feather of the auspicious goose” (jí guāng piàn yǔ 吉光片羽) — a topos derived from the Hàn shū yìwén zhì metaphor of a single feather of the jíguāng 吉光 mythical bird — is the canonical idiom for pre-Sòng evidential fragments and is here applied to Shǐ Zhēng’s quotations.