Yìxué biànhuò 易學辨惑
Disambiguating the Confusions of Yì Learning
by 邵伯溫 Shào Bówēn (zì Zǐwén 子文, 1057–1134, of Luòyáng) — son of 邵雍 Shào Yōng
About the work
A short polemical defence, in one juan, of 邵雍 Shào Yōng’s xiāntiān 先天 Yì-numerology lineage against the Northern-Sòng appropriator 鄭夬 Zhèng Guài (zì Yángtíng 揚庭) of Jiāngnán. 邵伯溫 Shào Bówēn — son of Shào Yōng (1011–1077) and the principal posthumous editor of his father’s corpus — relays the locus classicus of the lineage’s transmission story (陳摶 Chén Tuán → 穆修 Mù Xiū → 李之才 Lǐ Zhīcái → Shào Yōng) and tells, on his father’s own report, the dramatic tale of Zhèng Guài’s pirated transmission: Zhèng was refused study under Shào Yōng (as was his colleague 秦玠 Qín Jiè of the Bīngbù 兵部); 王天悅 Wáng Tiānyuè of Dàmíng (one of Shào’s two student-confidants, with 張子望 Zhāng Zǐwàng of Yíngyáng) fell mortally ill; Zhèng bribed Wáng’s manservant and stole his bedroom-stored manuscript copy; and from this stolen base Zhèng built up his own corpus of Yì-and-divinatory works (Yì zhuàn 易傳, Yì cè 易測, Míng fàn 明範, Wǔjīng míng yòng shù shū 五經明用數書) — works the Sòng bibliographies record but which are all now lost. Bówēn writes the Biàn huò to refute them.
The Sìkù editors, examining the matter dispassionately, give a measured evaluation: 司馬光 Sīmǎ Guāng’s Jí contains a memorial Jìn Zhèng Guài Yì cè zhāzǐ 進鄭夬易測劄子 (“Memorial Submitting Zhèng Guài’s Yì cè”), in which Sīmǎ praises Zhèng’s Yì cè as “not stuck to yīnyáng, not entering supernatural fancy, focused purely on human affairs, with each yáo lucidly indicated” — the very opposite of Bówēn’s denunciation. As both men were knowledgeable on the Yì, the editors infer that Zhèng Guài actually wrote two distinct kinds of works: an Yì cè on yáo-meaning and human affairs (which Sīmǎ Guāng justly praised), and a Shíyòng shū / Míng yòng shū on divinatory technique (which Bówēn justly attacked). Bówēn’s polemical lumping-them-all-together is excessive.
The text is preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn — 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo records “not seen” — and was recovered for the Sìkù from that source. The composition window 1100–1134 covers Bówēn’s mature career (after his father’s death in 1077, Bówēn worked through several decades on the corpus); precise dating within that span is not currently established. The Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì records the title as Biàn huò without the Yìxué prefix; the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and 陳振孫 Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí both have Yìxué biànhuò; the Sìkù follows the longer form.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yìxué biànhuò in one juan was composed by 邵伯溫 Shào Bówēn of the Sòng. Bówēn, zì Zǐwén, was a son of Master Shào. After the southern crossing he rose in office to Lìlù zhuǎnyùn fùshǐ 利路轉運副使 (“Associate Fiscal Commissioner of the Lì circuit”). His record stands in the Sòngshǐ Rúlín zhuàn.
According to 沈括 Shěn Kuò’s Mèngxī bǐtán: there was 鄭夬 Zhèng Guài of Jiāngnán, zì Yángtíng, who once produced a book talking the Yì. Later 秦玠 Qín Jiè, Yuánwài láng in the Bīngbù, on hearing of what Guài talked, was startled, and said: “Where did you get such a method? I once met a strange man who imparted to me this number-system; investigating ancient histories of rise and decline, every reckoning held true. Master Shào Yōng of the western capital also knew the substance of it.” — At the time, because Master Shào could foreknow, [people] adduced him to give weight to the technique.
Bówēn says: Master Shào received the Yì from 李之才 Lǐ Zhīcái; Zhīcái received it from 穆修 Mù Xiū; Mù Xiū received it from 陳摶 Chén Tuán. In ordinary times he never carelessly spoke it to anyone. Only 王天悅 Wáng Tiānyuè of Dàmíng and 張子望 Zhāng Zǐwàng of Yíngyáng once studied with him, and both died young. Qín Jiè and Zhèng Guài both wished to study with him, but neither was permitted. Tiānyuè caught a sickness and was at the point of death; Guài bribed his manservant, slipped into his bedroom, and stole [the manuscript]. He took this as his learning, composed Yì zhuàn, Yì cè, Míng fàn, and Wǔjīng míng yòng shù shū — books all in fragments, fanciful, twisted, without root. So [Bówēn] composed the present book to disambiguate them.
The Sòngshǐ biography of Master Shào draws considerably from this account. Examining the Shūlù jiětí, there is a Zhèng Guài Yì zhuàn in thirteen juan; the Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì has Zhèng Guài’s Shíyòng shū in twenty juan, Míng yòng shū in nine juan, Yì zhuàn cí in three juan, Yì zhuàn cí hòuyǔ in one juan — all are now lost. But Sīmǎ Guāng’s Jí contains a memorial submitting Zhèng Guài’s Yì cè, characterizing it as “not stuck to yīnyáng, not entering supernatural fancy, purely employing human affairs, indicating each yáo lucidly; men of his class are truly hard to come by” — the praise wholly different from Bówēn’s denunciation. Guāng was likewise an Yì-knowing man; he would not so divergently veer from the truth. By rational inference: Guài stole Master Shào’s book and altered the doctrine, secretly seeking to mount over [his teacher]; the Yì cè he composed must have followed yáo-by-yáo in elaborating meaning without entering numerical-divinatory technique — hence Guāng’s recommendation that “it does not stick to yīnyáng, does not enter supernatural fancy.” As to his Shíyòng shū and the like — those are works purely on the methods of bǔ shì divination, and so Bówēn lays them out and refutes them. That he comprehensively included also the Yì cè in his attack is no more than the resentment-and-extension-of-the-stable-and-storehouse [meaning: a magnanimous defendant’s resentment overflowing onto the entire enemy program].
朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo records this book with a note: “not seen.” The present text is recovered from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. Apparently, in the early Míng it still survived. The Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì simply titles the book Biàn huò in one juan, without the Yìxué prefix; the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recension does have it, agreeing with the Shūlù jiětí. We accordingly register it as Yìxué biànhuò.
Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].
General Compilers: 紀昀 Jǐ Yún, 陸錫熊 Lù Xīxióng, 孫士毅 Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: 陸費墀 Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
邵伯溫 Shào Bówēn (1057–1134), of Hénánfǔ (Luòyáng), is the principal posthumous editor of his father 邵雍 Shào Yōng’s corpus. His own surviving works include the Yìxué biànhuò, the Wénjiàn qián lù 聞見前錄 (“Earlier Record of Things Seen and Heard”), the Wénjiàn hòu lù 聞見後錄 (“Later Record of Things Seen and Heard,” continued by his son 邵博 Shào Bó), and substantial prose-and-verse pieces in the Hénán Shào shì wénjí 河南邵氏文集. The Wénjiàn records are major informational sources for the early Northern-Sòng intellectual milieu and for the early-Sòng scholarly circle of his father, including the 周敦頤 Zhōu Dūnyí–Chéng brothers–張載 Zhāng Zài interaction. After the Jingkang fall and the southern crossing in 1127, Bówēn served the Southern Sòng court as Lìlù zhuǎnyùn fùshǐ 利路轉運副使 in the Sìchuān region. The Sòngshǐ Rúlín zhuàn (juan 433) gives his biography.
The Yìxué biànhuò is a defensive document of the xiāntiān 先天 transmission lineage rather than a substantive Yì-commentary. It does, however, do important historical work: it is the principal source for the canonical Sòng-period transmission narrative — Chén Tuán → Mù Xiū → Lǐ Zhīcái → Shào Yōng — that the Sòngshǐ incorporated, and through the Sòngshǐ became the standard genealogy of the Sòng Yì-chart tradition (parallel to 劉牧 Liú Mù’s KR1a0011 line). Bówēn’s account is, by his own avowal, his father’s account; modern scholars (Li Shen 李申, Isabelle Robinet) generally accept the lineage as historically defensible at least back to Mù Xiū, with the Chén Tuán node being the most legendary element.
The Sìkù editors’ careful refusal to accept Bówēn’s polemic at face value — adducing Sīmǎ Guāng’s positive evaluation of the Yì cè against Bówēn’s blanket denunciation, and inferring two distinct kinds of work in Zhèng Guài’s lost corpus — is a small monument of philological even-handedness on a Sòng polemical text. Zhèng Guài’s actual work is now lost, so the Sìkù judgment cannot be tested directly; but the structural inference (a serious yáo-and-affairs commentary alongside divinatory-numerical handbooks) is plausible on the model of how mid-Northern-Sòng Yì scholars actually wrote.
The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery is one of the standard Sìkù-period operations on small Sòng polemics; the work is one of about a dozen short Sòng Yì-section pieces preserved this way.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. Specialist literature.
- Anne D. Birdwhistell, Transition to Neo-Confucianism: Shao Yung on Knowledge and Symbols of Reality (Stanford, 1989) — standard English-language monograph on Shào Yōng; treats Bówēn’s role in transmission.
- Don J. Wyatt, The Recluse of Loyang: Shao Yung and the Moral Evolution of Early Sung Thought (Univ. of Hawaii, 1996) — standard English-language biography of Shào Yōng; substantive on Bówēn.
- Li Shen 李申, Yìtú kǎo 易圖考 (Běijīng dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2001) — historical-critical assessment of the Chén Tuán → Shào Yōng chart lineage.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ (Huáxià, rev. 1995) — chapter on the early xiāntiān tradition.
- Modern punctuated edition of Wénjiàn qián / hòu lù (Zhōnghuá shūjú “Tángsòng shǐliào bǐjì cóngkān”) — the principal contemporary Sinophone access to Bówēn’s prose witness on the Northern-Sòng intellectual scene.
Other points of interest
The dramatic narrative of the bedroom theft of a dying student’s manuscript — Wáng Tiānyuè’s deathbed, the bribed manservant, the stolen Yì-system — is one of the most theatrical texts in the Sòng Yì-polemical literature; it has remained the locus classicus for narrating the Shào-Zhèng controversy in modern textbooks of Sòng intellectual history.
The Sìkù editors’ philological move — invoking Sīmǎ Guāng’s positive memorial against Bówēn’s blanket attack — is methodologically the same move they make against 朱熹 Zhū Xī’s Záxué biàn attack on 蘇軾 Sū Shì in KR1a0015: invoking a single contrary voice from the original critic’s own circle to soften an over-strong polemic. The Sìkù line is consistently yìlǐ-pluralist and consistently uses textual cross-checking to discipline overheated Sòng-Yuán polemics.