Zhōuyì jīngzhuàn jí jiě 周易經傳集解
Collected Explanations of the Zhōuyì Canon-and-Commentary
by 林栗 Lín Lì (zì Huángzhōng 黃中, posthumous title Jiǎnsù 簡肅, of Fúqīng 福清)
About the work
A thirty-six-juan integrated Yì commentary by 林栗 Lín Lì — a Southern-Sòng Bīngbù shìláng 兵部侍郎 (“Vice Minister of War”) best known for the celebrated quarrel he picked with 朱熹 Zhū Xī in 1188 (Chúnxī 15), in which he submitted a court memorial impeaching Zhū Xī over disagreements on the Yì and on 張載 Zhāng Zài’s Xī míng. The dispute became a major court-political affair: the Tàicháng bóshì 葉適 Yè Shì and the Censor 胡晉臣 Hú Jìnchén sided with Zhū Xī and impeached Lín; Lín was demoted to prefect of Quánzhōu 泉州, transferred to Míngzhōu 明州, and died in office.
The work was substantively complete and submitted to court in 1185 (Chúnxī 12) — three years before the open quarrel with Zhū Xī. Lín’s self-preface and the imperial zhāhuáng 貼黃 attached to the submission are preserved at the head of the WYG. Composition window 1170–1185 covers Lín’s mature scholarly career.
The original title was Zhōuyì yáoxiàngxùzá zhǐ jiě 周易爻象序雜指解 (“Pointing-out Explanations of the Yì Lines, Imagery, Xù, and Záguà”); Lín later renamed the work because it does not adequately cover the Tuàn cí, Xìcí, Wényán, and Shuōguà. 王應麟 Wáng Yīnglín’s Yùhǎi records the structure: the canon-and-commentary in 32 juan, Xìcí upper-and-lower in 2 juan, Wényán-Shuōguà-Xùguà-Záguà base-text in 1 juan, and Hétú Luòshū bā guà jiǔ chóu Dàyǎn zǒnghuì tú + Liùshísì guà lìchéng tú + Dàyǎn dié shī jiě together in 1 juan = 36 juan total. This matches the present recension exactly.
Methodologically, the work is a synthetic xiàngshù-and-yìlǐ reading, deploying hùtǐ 互體 (interlocked-body), yuēxiàng 約象 (abbreviated imagery), and fùguà 覆卦 (overturned hexagram) techniques systematically. 董真卿 Dǒng Zhēnqīng (cited in 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo) judged this approach “too constrained” (tài nì 太泥). The single doctrinal disagreement with Zhū Xī preserved in Zhū’s Yǔlèi is over the Xìcí “Tàijí generates liǎngyí…” passage: Lín reads it as “Tàijí generating liǎngyí which contains sì xiàng which contains bā guà” — a containment-relation reading; Zhū Xī insists the sage means “generation” simpliciter. The Xī míng disagreement turned on the same containment-vs-generation logic.
The Sìkù tiyao — drawing on 陳振孫 Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí — corrects the standard Sòng-Yuán-Míng reading of the affair: the underlying cause of the Zhū-Lín conflict was not the Yì but court-rank-and-protocol friction. Lín’s jìnshì of 1142 placed him seven years senior to Zhū Xī’s 1148; Lín considered himself the senior in age, while Zhū Xī had just been made Bīngbù lángzhōng and Lín was Bīngbù shìláng — i.e., Zhū Xī was now Lín’s direct subordinate at court. Friction over precedence escalated into mutual impeachment, with the Yì dispute as occasion. Zhū Xī himself, the Yǔlèi records, declared that “actually it is [Lín’s contemporary] Yáng Jìngzhòng’s (楊簡 Yáng Jiǎn) text that should be destroyed” — i.e., Zhū did not want Lín’s Yì jiě suppressed. The post-Zhū Dàoxué tradition’s neglect of Lín’s commentary therefore “seems contrary to Zhū’s actual wish.”
The Sìkù editors further note 黃榦 Huáng Gàn (Miǎnzhāi 勉齋) — Zhū Xī’s chief disciple and son-in-law — composed a sacrificial essay for Lín on his death, characterizing Lín as “born of Heaven’s vigorous qì, a frank servant of his time, … close to rén”; this is the testimony of a senior Zhū-school figure that Lín’s work should not be lost.
The Sìkù verdict is positional. Three comparison cases: 劉安世 Liú Ānshì (who impeached 程頤 Chéng Yí but whose writings remain canonical); 耿南仲 Gěng Nánzhòng (KR1a0020) (the cession-faction Yì commentator, registered despite political-moral failings); 易祓 Yì Fú (a corrupt-faction commentator, also registered). Lín cannot be compared to Liú Ānshì but is also not the equivalent of Gěng or Yì. So the work is registered, with Zhū Yízūn’s hesitations preserved alongside.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Zhōuyì jīngzhuàn jí jiě in thirty-six juan was composed by 林栗 Lín Lì of the Sòng. Lì, zì Huángzhōng, a man of Fúqīng. Jìnshì of Shàoxīng 12 [1142]; rose in office to Bīngbù shìláng. With Master Zhū his discussions of the Yì and the Xī míng did not agree; he submitted a memorial impeaching Master Zhū. At the time the Tàicháng bóshì 葉適 Yè Shì and the Shìyùshǐ 胡晉臣 Hú Jìnchén both supported Master Zhū and impeached Lì in turn; Lì was therefore relieved and made prefect of Quánzhōu, then transferred to prefect of Míngzhōu, where he died. Canonized Jiǎnsù 簡肅. His record stands in his own Sòngshǐ biography.
The book was submitted to court in the fourth month of Chúnxī 12 [1185]. At the head are the submission memorial and the imperial-summary zhāhuáng and chìyù commendation, plus Lì’s self-preface — one each. The zhāhuáng says the original title was Zhōuyì yáoxiàngxùzá zhǐ jiě; later, since it could not adequately raise the Tuàncí, Xìcí, Wényán, and Shuōguà, the title was changed to the present.
王應麟 Wáng Yīnglín’s Yùhǎi says: “The whole work, canon-and-commentary in thirty-two juan, Xìcí upper-and-lower in two juan, Wényán-Shuōguà-Xùguà-Záguà base-text combined into one juan, Hétú Luòshū bā guà jiǔ chóu Dàyǎn zǒnghuì tú, Liùshísì guà lìchéng tú, Dàyǎn dié shī jiě combined into one juan.” This agrees with the present text.
The point on which Master Zhū took issue is no longer recoverable in detail. The Zhū Zǐ yǔlèi preserves only one Xìcí passage, where Lì reads “Tàijí generates liǎngyí containing sì xiàng, containing bā guà” — and Master Zhū holds the meaning differs from what the sage by “generating” intends. Otherwise there is no rejection.
朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo quotes 董真卿 Dǒng Zhēnqīng’s word that “his readings everywhere pair hùtǐ, yuēxiàng, and fùguà, and are too constrained. At the time, Yáng Jìngzhòng (楊簡 Yáng Jiǎn) had an Yì lùn; Huángzhōng had this Yì jiě. Someone said: ‘Huángzhōng’s text should be destroyed.’ Master Zhū said: ‘Actually it is Yáng Jìngzhòng’s text that should be destroyed.‘” — So Master Zhū did not at all want to discard the book.
Examining 陳振孫 Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí: “His and the Shìjiǎng Master [Zhū’s] words went off because of disagreement on the Yì.” We may now reason from the circumstances of the time. At that time Master Zhū bore great fame and was successively elevated and used; whereas Lì had taken his jìnshì seven years before Master Zhū. As an elder he set himself before; while Master Zhū had just been appointed Bīngbù lángzhōng and Lì was Bīngbù shìláng — exactly Master Zhū’s superior. Their countenances were in conflict, neither willing to be subordinate, and so the friction escalated into the impeachment-memorial. The opening of the rift was indeed the Yì-discussion; but the cause was not entirely the Yì-discussion. Hence Zhènsūn’s wording. To say later writers’ suppressing of Lì’s book on account of Master Zhū is to act contrary to Master Zhū’s intent.
The Jīngyì kǎo further says: “Both Lín Huángzhōng of Fúqīng and 唐仲友 Táng Yǔzhèng of Jīnhuá were broadly versed in classical learning; one impeached Master Zhū, one was impeached by Master Zhū. Their writings were therefore set aside by scholars and not asked after. Yǔzhèng’s book has not survived; Huángzhōng’s Yì jiě, although extant, has not been broadly transmitted — likely in danger of becoming lost.”
Yet at Huángzhōng’s death, Miǎnzhāi Master Huáng composed a sacrificial essay for him, an excerpt of which says: “Alas, our Master — born of Heaven’s vigorous qì, a frank servant of his time, played among the yáo-and-xiàng of Fú-Xī, plumbed the [Confucius’s] cutting at the huò lín. Standing at court with stern look, if it crossed his intent, even a great Confucian of the day might be set aside; if it differed from his pursuit, even a former worthy’s substantial discussion was not met with consent. To rule on the Master’s defect is one thing; that the Master is close to rén may also be seen. The judge will surely not let one defect cover the great purity.” Miǎnzhāi was Master [Zhū]‘s senior disciple, and his appraisal of his old teacher’s adversary went so far. Then Huángzhōng’s Yì jiě — surely it should not go un-transmitted! The argument is fair-and-balanced.
In times past, 劉安世 Liú Ānshì and the Yīchuān Master Chéng were each great men of an age, and Ānshì’s Yuánchéng yǔlù and Jìn yán jí are not discarded for his having impeached Master Chéng. 耿南仲 Gěng Nánzhòng’s flattery of the enemy and ruination of the country (KR1a0020), 易祓 Yì Fú’s dependency on the corrupt powerful — their Yì jiě both also continue to circulate. Lì cannot be set on a level with Ānshì, but compared to Nánzhòng and Fú he stands rather apart. Hence we still record his book, and preserve Yízūn’s discussion alongside.
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
林栗 Lín Lì (zì Huángzhōng 黃中), of Fúqīng 福清 in Fújiàn, was a Southern-Sòng court-and-provincial official of mid-rank: jìnshì of 1142 (Shàoxīng 12), Bīngbù shìláng (Vice Minister of War) at the Zhū-Xī confrontation in 1188. His Sòngshǐ biography is in juan 394.
The historical interest of Lín’s career is dominated by the famous Zhū-Lín Yì-and-Xī míng dispute of 1188 — a court-political affair that became a major moment in the consolidation of Zhū Xī’s intellectual authority. The Sìkù tiyao’s analysis of the affair as a court-rank dispute with the Yì doctrinal disagreement as occasion-rather-than-cause is consistent with twentieth-century scholarship (Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy).
The work itself is a substantial xiàngshù-cum-yìlǐ commentary, methodologically close to 朱震 Zhū Zhèn’s Hànshàng Yìzhuàn (KR1a0024) but more programmatically hùtǐ / yuēxiàng / fùguà. The integration of these xiàngshù techniques with a yìlǐ exposition produces, at its best, lucid hexagram-by-hexagram readings comparable to 程頤 Chéng Yí’s Yīchuān Yìzhuàn (KR1a0016); at its worst, the over-tight matching that Dǒng Zhēnqīng flagged.
The structural appendix — Hétú Luòshū bā guà jiǔ chóu Dàyǎn zǒnghuì tú (a comprehensive integrative diagram), Liùshísì guà lìchéng tú (a sixty-four-hexagram-readymade-chart), and Dàyǎn dié shī jiě (an explanation of the divinatory milfoil-counting) — is a programmatic statement: Lín’s Yì-system is integrative, taking up the HéLuò numerology, the Hóng fàn’s “nine domains” (Jiǔchóu), the Dà yǎn counting, and the trigram-and-hexagram corpus together.
The 黃榦 Huáng Gàn sacrificial essay quoted at length in the tiyao — coming from Zhū Xī’s senior disciple and son-in-law — is the principal Dàoxué-internal voice acknowledging Lín’s worth; it is the basis of the Sìkù editors’ decision to register the work despite the post-Zhū neglect.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. Specialist literature.
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Univ. of Hawaii, 1992) — definitive treatment of the Zhū-Lín 1188 dispute and its place in the consolidation of Dào-xué.
- Conrad Schirokauer, “Neo-Confucians under Attack: The Condemnation of Wei-hsüeh,” in J. W. Haeger (ed.), Crisis and Prosperity in Sung China (Univ. of Arizona, 1975) — context for late-twelfth-century factional dynamics.
- Modern punctuated reissues on the WYG / Sìkù base.
- Liú Yùjiàn 劉玉建, Sòng dài Yìxué shǐ, chapter on the post-Zhū-Lín dispute Yì-historiography.
- Jiāng Hè 蔣赫 / Lín Yīpíng 林依平 articles in Zhōuyì yánjiū.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ careful unpicking of the underlying motivations of the Zhū-Lín dispute — not the Yì doctrinal disagreement but the court-rank friction — and their explicit rebuke of post-Zhū suppression of Lín’s book as “contrary to Master Zhū’s actual wish” is one of the more sophisticated performances of historical-pluralist editorial criticism in the Yì-section tiyao corpus. The pattern parallels the Sìkù treatment of 蘇軾 Sū Shì (KR1a0015) (defended against Zhū Xī’s Záxué biàn) and of 張浚 Zhāng Jùn (KR1a0021) (whose 劉牧 Liú Mù lineage Zhū Xī had silently elided in the xíngzhuàng).
The Huáng Gàn / Lín Lì sacrificial-essay relationship — the senior disciple of the impeached doctrinal-authority figure composing the eulogy of his master’s accuser — is one of the more striking moments of Dàoxué-internal pluralism. The Sìkù editors’ invoking it to defend Lín’s book is methodologically a strong move.
The Hétú Luòshū bā guà jiǔ chóu Dàyǎn zǒnghuì tú in the appendix is one of the more ambitious Sòng-period attempts at a single integrative cosmological-numerological diagram covering the Hétú, the Luòshū, the eight trigrams, the Hóng fàn nine domains, and the Dà yǎn number system — a comprehensive synthesis closer in spirit to 邵雍 Shào Yōng’s Huángjí jīng shì than to the Liú Mù tradition.