Hànshàng Yìzhuàn 漢上易傳
Master Hànshàng’s Commentary on the Yì
by 朱震 Zhū Zhèn (zì Zǐfā 子發, conventionally Master Hànshàng 漢上先生, 1072–1138, of Jīngménjūn 荆門軍)
About the work
The most extensive Sòng-period xiàngshù 象數 commentary on the Yì, and the foundational text of the early Southern-Sòng Yìtú 易圖 transmission narrative. Composed over eighteen years (Zhènghé bǐngshēn = 1116 to Shàoxīng jiǎyín = 1134) by 朱震 Zhū Zhèn — Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士 (“Hànlín Academician”) under Gāozōng — and submitted to the throne in 1134 with the famous Hànshàng Yì zhuàn biǎo 漢上易傳表 (“Memorial Submitting Hànshàng Yì zhuàn”). The full work as registered in the WYG comprises three components: the main commentary Yì zhuàn in eleven juan (covering canonical text and Yì zhuàn / Ten Wings); the Guà tú 卦圖 (“Hexagram Charts”) in three juan; and the Cóng shuō 叢說 (“Cluster of Discussions”) in one juan. Total: fifteen juan.
The work is the principal Southern-Sòng systematic restatement of the entire Hàn xiàngshù tradition: it covers dòng yáo 動爻 (line-changes), guà biàn 卦變 (hexagram-changes), hù tǐ 互體 (interlocked-body trigrams), wǔ xíng 五行 (Five-Phases correlations), and nà jiǎ 納甲 (Ten-Stem correlations) — the five techniques Zhū Zhèn identifies in his preface as “the divisions of motion-and-change,” with a sixth meta-level (variation-within-hexagram-change). The doctrinal ambition is to retrieve the Hàn xiàngshù apparatus against the 王弼 Wáng Bì–Lǎo-Zhuāng line, while integrating Sòng-period Yìtú developments and a moral-cosmological reading of the Wings.
The work’s most consequential single passage — historiographically — is the genealogical narrative of Sòng Yìtú transmission given in Zhū Zhèn’s submission memorial: 陳摶 Chén Tuán transmitted Xiāntiān tú 先天圖 to 种放 Chōng Fàng, who through three further transmissions reached 邵雍 Shào Yōng; Chōng Fàng transmitted the Hétú and Luòshū via Lǐ Gài 李漑, through three transmissions to 劉牧 Liú Mù; 穆修 Mù Xiū transmitted the Tàijí tú 太極圖 to 周敦頤 Zhōu Dūnyí, through one further transmission to the Chéng brothers; and so the corpus produced was Shào Yōng’s Huángjí jīng shì 皇極經世, Liú Mù’s Yìshù gōuyǐn tú 易數鉤隱圖 (KR1a0011), Zhōu Dūnyí’s Tàijí tú shuō and Tōng shū, and Chéng Yí’s Yīchuān Yìzhuàn 伊川易傳 (KR1a0016). The Sòngshǐ canonized this genealogy in its standard treatment of Sòng Yì-thought; the Sìkù tiyao registers it as “much doubted by later men.” (Modern scholarship — Li Shen, Robinet, Wyatt — accepts the Mù Xiū → Zhōu Dūnyí node as well-documented; the Chén Tuán node is the most legendary element.)
On the Hé-Luò numerical assignments, Zhū Zhèn follows Liú Mù’s heterodox 9-as-Hétú / 10-as-Luòshū against the eventual Cài-Zhū canonization of the reverse — a position that drew critical commentary in the Sòng (晁公武 Cháo Gōngwǔ, 馮椅 Féng Yǐ, Máo Bóyù) and was the proximate target of 惠棟 Huì Dòng’s Zēngbǔ Zhèng shì Zhōuyì 增補鄭氏周易 (KR1a0004) yáochén charts.
The reception is mixed. Critics — Chén Shàn (in Mén shī xīn huà), Cháo Gōngwǔ, Máo Bóyù via Féng Yǐ — flag the over-tight pairings, the muddled prose, and the Yìtú fabrication suspicions. Defenders include 朱熹 Zhū Xī himself (acknowledging that hù tǐ “has principle” and is Zuǒzhuàn-attested, even though “today’s pushings-out are mostly inappropriate”), 魏了翁 Wèi Liǎowēng (“the Hànshàng Yì is too cumbersome but cannot be discarded”), and 胡一桂 Hú Yīguì (“biàn / hù / fú / fǎn / nàjiǎ schemes all cannot be discarded; xiàng-readings have many fine spots; the only failing is the over-tight matchings and the muddled prose — this is just bad prose-writing”). The Sìkù tiyao concludes the question is settled.
The composition window 1116–1134 follows Zhū Zhèn’s own biǎo: notBefore is 1116 (Zhènghé 6, the start of his Yì-project at age forty-five) and notAfter 1134 (Shàoxīng 4, presentation to court).
The Kanripo source file KR1a0024_000.txt is from the SBCK base edition, not the WYG; the digital text bundled here therefore preserves the authorial biǎo (memorial) and Yuán xù (original preface) — the methodological core of the work — alongside the WYG-derived Sìkù tiyao. The catalog extent: 11 卷 reflects only the main commentary; the Guà tú (3 juan) and Cóng shuō (1 juan) are nominally separate but are universally counted as part of the work in the early bibliographic record and in the WYG itself.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Hànshàng Yìzhuàn in eleven juan, Guà tú in three juan, and Cóng shuō in one juan, was composed by 朱震 Zhū Zhèn of the Sòng. Zhèn, zì Zǐfā, was a man of Jīngménjūn. Jìnshì in the Zhènghé era. After the southern crossing, recommended by 趙鼎 Zhào Dǐng he became Cíbù yuánwài láng; rose in office to Hànlín xuéshì. His record stands in his own Sòngshǐ biography. The book is titled Hànshàng from the place of his residence. At the head is Zhèn’s Memorial Submitting the Book (jìnshūbiǎo), which says that the work was begun in Zhènghé bǐngshēn and completed in Shàoxīng jiǎyín — eighteen years to make.
His doctrine takes xiàngshù as primary, tracing source-and-stream, embracing divergent and concordant views, in order to remedy the failures of the Lǎo-Zhuāng empty-and-vain. Chén Shàn’s Mén shī xīn huà attacks his fabrication, by way of Shuōguà division, of an “Yì-chart by Confucius” derived from the reverse-and-opposite Záguà — supposedly retrieved from “Fú Xī’s and King Wén’s Yì.” 晁公武 Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì takes him to “draw extensively on earlier Confucians” but with not infrequent error. 馮椅 Féng Yǐ’s Hòuzhāi Yìxué cites Máo Bóyù’s word complaining of the failures of his guàbiàn, hùtǐ, fúguà (hidden hexagram), and fǎnguà (reversed hexagram).
But Master Zhū says: “王弼 Wáng Bì broke hùtǐ; Zhū Zǐfā uses hùtǐ — hùtǐ is already attested in the Zuǒzhuàn, and does have principle: only that today’s pushing-out has many ill-fitting cases.” 魏了翁 Wèi Liǎowēng says: “The Hànshàng Yì is too cumbersome — but cannot be discarded.” 胡一桂 Hú Yīguì says: “Variation, hùtǐ, fúguà, fǎnguà, nàjiǎ and the like — none can be discarded; how can one entirely deride them as failures? Looking at his readings of the imagery, there are many fine spots; only the over-tight matchings are many, and the wording is muddled, leaving the reader at sea — this comes from being simply not a good prose-writer.” The strengths and weaknesses appear together; the older Confucians have already given a fair public verdict.
Only as for the genealogy of Túshū transmission Zhū Zhèn presents — that “陳摶 Chén Tuán transmitted the Xiāntiān tú to 种放 Chōng Fàng, through three further transmissions reaching 邵雍 Shào Yōng; Chōng Fàng transmitted the Hétú and Luòshū via Lǐ Gài, through three transmissions reaching 劉牧 Liú Mù; 穆修 Mù Xiū transmitted the Tàijí tú to 周敦頤 Zhōu Dūnyí, through one further transmission to 程顥 Chéng Hào and 程頤 Chéng Yí; and so afterwards [Shào] Yōng got it and composed Huángjí jīng shì, [Liú] Mù got it and composed Yìshù gōuyǐn tú, [Zhōu] Dūnyí got it and composed Tàijí tú shuō and Tōng shū, [Chéng] Yí got it and composed Yì zhuàn” — this account has been much doubted by later men.
Further: in the Sòng all took the nine-number scheme as the Luòshū and the ten-number scheme as the Hétú; only Liú Mù took the ten as Luòshū and the nine as Hétú. The present book of Zhèn’s also follows Mù’s reading, divergently from the various Confucians. But anciently there were Hétú and Luòshū without [the texts] saying “ten numbers” or “nine numbers.” The Dàyǎn has the ten-number scheme — that is from the Xìcí; the Tàiyǐ jiǔgōng — that is from the Qián záodù — neither says “Hétú” or “Luòshū.” Black-white odd-even, the eight trigrams and the five phases — these all come of later interpolated learning. Chǔ’s loss is Qí’s gain (Chǔ shī Qí dé 楚失齊得) — the proverb has it that this is not worth probing too deeply.
Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth 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
朱震 Zhū Zhèn (1072–1138), of Jīngménjūn 荆門軍 (modern Jīngmén, Húběi), is the principal early-Southern-Sòng xiàngshù commentator on the Yì. Jìnshì of the Zhènghé era; held a series of provincial appointments under Huīzōng. After the southern crossing in 1127, recommended by 趙鼎 Zhào Dǐng (the great early-Southern-Sòng anti-Jurchen statesman) to Cíbù yuánwài láng 祠部員外郎 (“Vice Director of the Bureau of Sacrifices”); rose under Gāozōng to Hànlín xuéshì and Hébù shàngshū 戶部尚書 (“Minister of Revenue”). The Sòngshǐ (juan 435) gives him a substantial biography in the Rúlín section.
Studied the Yì under the late-Northern-Sòng Chéng-school disciple 謝良佐 Xiè Liángzuǒ (the same teacher who recovered the Yīchuān Yìzhuàn (KR1a0016) manuscript) — but synthesized Xiè’s Chéng-line yìlǐ with the 劉牧 Liú Mù (KR1a0011) / Chén Tuán Yìtú tradition and the Hàn xiàngshù corpus (孟喜 Mèng Xǐ, 京房 Jīng Fáng, 虞翻 Yú Fān, 鄭玄 Zhèng Xuán). The result is the most synthetic and ambitious Sòng-period Yì-commentary, and one of the rare non-Chéng-Zhū canonical works that retains its place in the imperial-examination corpus through Yuán-Míng-Qīng.
The Hànshàng Yì zhuàn biǎo 漢上易傳表 (the submission memorial preserved at the head of the present recension) is itself a major historiographic document: in articulating the transmission lineage of Sòng Yìtú learning, it canonized for the Sòngshǐ the now-standard view that Sòng Yìtú derives ultimately from the Daoist patriarch Chén Tuán of Mt. Huá. The lineage as presented:
| Line | Transmission | Final scholar | Canonical work |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chén Tuán → Chōng Fàng → … → Shào Yōng | Shào Yōng | Huángjí jīng shì |
| 2 | Chōng Fàng → Lǐ Gài → … → Liú Mù | Liú Mù | Yìshù gōuyǐn tú KR1a0011 |
| 3 | Mù Xiū → Zhōu Dūnyí → the Chéngs | Chéng Yí | Yì zhuàn KR1a0016 |
Modern scholarship (Li Shen 李申, Yìtú kǎo; Isabelle Robinet, Histoire du taoïsme) accepts the Mù Xiū → Zhōu Dūnyí node and the Lǐ Zhīcái → Shào Yōng node as well-documented; the Chén Tuán node is more legendary, but the Sòng Yìtú tradition’s Daoist provenance is supported by independent evidence (the Dàozàng recensions of Shào Yōng’s and Liú Mù’s chart-corpora — see KR5a0160).
The methodological core — Zhū Zhèn’s Yuán xù preface — is one of the most articulate Sòng-period systematizations of the Hàn xiàngshù apparatus. The five-fold division (dòngyáo, guàbiàn, hùtǐ, wǔxíng, nàjiǎ) plus the meta-level “variation within hexagram-change” (deriving the sixty-four hexagrams from the eight trigrams) maps the entire xiàngshù technical machinery onto canonical-text glossing. Where 王弼 Wáng Bì had swept this aside in the third century, Zhū Zhèn restores it for the Southern Sòng.
The work’s reception is the textbook example of Sòng-period mixed verdict on a xiàngshù commentary: praised for system, tradition-preservation, and Yìtú genealogy; criticized for over-tight pairings, muddled prose, and Liú-Mù-affiliation. It is the principal predecessor of the major Yuán xiàngshù commentaries (胡一桂 Hú Yīguì’s Zhōuyì běnyì fù lù zuǎn shū 周易本義附錄纂疏 (KR1a0050), 吳澄 Wú Chéng’s Yì zuǎn yán 易纂言 (KR1a0058)) and the principal target of 蔡元定 Cài Yuándìng’s polemical reversal in the Cài-Zhū Yìxué qǐméng.
Translations and research
No complete European-language translation. Specialist literature is substantial.
- Kidder Smith, Peter K. Bol, Joseph A. Adler, Don J. Wyatt, Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching (Princeton, 1990) — chapters on Shào Yōng, Chéng Yí, and Zhū Xī provide the framework for understanding Zhū Zhèn’s intermediate position.
- Li Shen 李申, Yìtú kǎo 易圖考 (Běijīng dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2001) — the standard modern critical history of the Sòng Yì-tú tradition; substantial chapter on Zhū Zhèn’s transmission narrative.
- Isabelle Robinet, Histoire du taoïsme: des origines au XIVe siècle (Cerf, 1991) — context for the Daoist provenance of the lineage Zhū Zhèn canonized.
- Schipper-Verellen, The Taoist Canon (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004) — entries on the Dàozàng recensions of Shào Yōng’s and Liú Mù’s chart-corpora.
- Bent Nielsen, A Companion to Yi jing Numerology and Cosmology (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003) — entries on Zhū Zhèn, xiàngshù, guàbiàn, hùtǐ, nà-jiǎ.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ (Huáxià, rev. 1995) — comprehensive chapter on Zhū Zhèn.
- Zhāng Tāo 張濤 / Lín Zhōngjūn 林忠軍 et al. articles in Zhōuyì yánjiū.
- Modern punctuated editions of the WYG / Sìkù base.
Other points of interest
The transmission narrative Zhū Zhèn canonized in 1134 — Chén Tuán → Mù Xiū → Zhōu Dūnyí → Chéng brothers — is the genealogical backbone of the Sòngshǐ Dàoxué zhuàn synthesis, and is therefore one of the most consequential single pieces of intellectual-historical work in any Yì commentary. That the Sìkù editors register it as “much doubted by later men” without endorsing or rejecting it shows the Qīng-period awareness that the Sòngshǐ genealogy is itself a historical construction, not an unmediated transmission record.
The Sìkù editors’ final philological observation — that the canonical Hétú and Luòshū texts do not originally specify nine-versus-ten number assignments, and that the canonical Dàyǎn (in Xìcí) and Tàiyǐ jiǔgōng (in Qián záodù) treat the numbers without any HéLuò identification — is one of the more sophisticated Qīng-period dismantlings of the entire Sòng HéLuò numerological project. The proverb Chǔ shī Qí dé — “what Chǔ loses is gained by Qí” — is here used to register the editors’ philological conviction that this particular Sòng debate is moot at root.
Zhū Zhèn studied the Yì under 謝良佐 Xiè Liángzuǒ — the same Xiè who recovered the Yīchuān Yìzhuàn (KR1a0016) manuscript of 程頤 Chéng Yí. The Zhū Zhèn–Xiè Liángzuǒ–Chéng Yí connection makes Zhū Zhèn’s work simultaneously a xiàngshù restoration and a Chéng-line continuation — a position that has been variously weighted by Sòng-Yuán-Míng commentators and remains a subject of modern scholarly discussion.