Yángshì Yì zhuàn 楊氏易傳
Master Yáng’s Tradition on the Yì
by 楊簡 Yáng Jiǎn (zì Jìngzhòng 敬仲, hào Cíhú 慈湖, 1141–1226, of Cíxī 慈谿 in Míngzhōu, Zhèjiāng — the principal disciple of 陸九淵 Lù Jiǔyuān, Xiàngshān 象山)
About the work
A twenty-juan Yì commentary by 楊簡 Yáng Jiǎn — the leading disciple of 陸九淵 Lù Jiǔyuān (Xiàngshān, 1139–1193), and the principal Sòng exponent of a frankly xīnxué 心學 (mind-doctrine) reading of the Yì. The work is arranged in twenty fascicles: juan 1–19 give canonical exposition by passage, juan 20 collects free Yì-discussions (“pulse-thoughts on Yì-learning”), some of which overlap with the work’s own preface — the Sìkù editors flag this as suggesting Míng-period editorial reorganization rather than pristine Sòng-period structure.
Yáng Jiǎn was jìnshì of Qiándào 5 (1169), under Xiàozōng. He held a sequence of provincial and capital posts, ending as Bǎomógé xuéshì 寶謨閣學士 and Tàizhōng dàfū 太中大夫. His enlightenment-anecdote — the shànbǐng 扇柄 (“fan-handle”) encounter with Lù Jiǔyuān, where Lù pointed at Yáng’s hand holding a fan and said: “This — what is it that distinguishes ‘this’ from ‘not-this’?” — is one of the most famous transmission-stories of the Sòng xīnxué. From that point Yáng Jiǎn’s xīn 心 (mind) became the operative principle of all his Yì-readings.
The Sìkù tiyao situates him historically with unusual precision: “Using LǎoZhuāng to explain the Yì begins with 王弼 Wáng Bì in Wèi; using xīnxìng to explain the Yì begins with 王宗傳 Wáng Zōngchuán (KR1a0047) and Yáng Jiǎn.” Wáng Zōngchuán is Chúnxī jìnshì, Yáng Jiǎn is Qiándào jìnshì — both Xiàozōng-era figures. But Wáng Zōngchuán “was a man whose station was modest and whose word was light, and his book barely survived”; Yáng Jiǎn, by contrast, “was the head of Xiàngshān’s disciples — like 黃榦 Huáng Gàn of Zhū Xī’s gate — moreover serving distinguished posts in capital and provinces with notable administrative record, a celebrated Southern-Sòng minister, more than capable of dominating his age.” So in the Míng his views “spread widely; 蘇濬 Sū Jùn of Zǐxī 紫溪 in his Yì commentary then took Míngmíngpiān 冥冥篇 (‘chapter of the deep dark’) as his title — and the Yì fully passed into Chán.”
The Sìkù editors level a series of pointed criticisms:
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Yáng Jiǎn’s interpretation focuses on rénxīn 人心 (the human mind) “as master, while xiàngshù and shìwù (imagery-numerology and concrete affairs) are entirely passed over.”
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He goes so far as to declare the Xìcí’s “Jìn qǔ zhū shēn 近取諸身” (fetching imagery from the human body) passage “fabricated by ones who do not know the Way — not the words of Confucius.”
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楊時喬 Yáng Shíqiáo (Míng, jìnshì 1571) in his Zhuànyì kǎo 傳易考 declared Yáng Jiǎn outright heterodox (yìduān 異端).
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董真卿 Dǒng Zhēnqīng (Yuán) in discussing 林栗 Lín Lì’s Yì jiě cited Zhū Xī’s Yǔlèi directly: “Yáng Jìngzhòng’s writings kě huǐ 可毁 — can be destroyed.”
The editors close on a methodological note that locates the inclusion of Yáng Jiǎn (and 王宗傳 Wáng Zōngchuán KR1a0038) in the Sìkù: “The Yì as a book is broad and complete, comprehensively encompassing; the sage’s teaching covers refined and rough, root and branch — the principle of mind-and-nature has never failed to be implicit in the Yì. It is only that Jiǎn and his fellows alone made this their explicit and exclusive doctrine, and so drifted into the dim-and-vacuous. Formerly Zhūzǐ in his Yílǐ jīngzhuàn tōngjiě did not delete the chènwěi (apocrypha) 鄭玄 Zhèng Kāngchéng cited — saying ‘preserving them is just so as to abolish them; their fame being already weighty, if their views were not preserved no one would be able to tell where they erred.’ We now record Jiǎn and Zōngchuán’s Yì in this same spirit.” The editors are recording the work as a negative exemplar, not endorsing it.
The transmission state of the work in the Sìkù base-text is also problematic. The Míng-dynasty editors 劉日升 Liú Rìshēng and 陳道亨 Chén Dàohēng handled the print-edition that became the Sìkù base. 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo records two distinct Yáng Jiǎn Yì writings: Cíhú Yì jiě 慈湖易解 in ten juan, and Yǐ Yì 已易 in one juan — title and juan-count both differing from the present twenty-juan recension. The auto-preface in the Jīngyì kǎo matches the present text’s chapter-head announcement, but lacks several opening lines. The Sìkù editors infer Míng-period editorial intervention: “Míng men, in printing ancient books, invariably tampered with them by private fancy; from Wànlì onward this was especially severe; this is perhaps Liú Rìshēng et al.’s wanton revision.”
The 蔡國珍 Cài Guózhēn preface (preserved in the yuánxù 原序 section) records that the printing of Yáng Jiǎn’s Yì zhuàn came in the same Míng-dynasty Wànlì-era publishing context as 蘇軾 Sū Shì’s Dōngpō Yì zhuàn (KR1a0019), the two works being explicitly framed as twin “wing-and-feather” extensions of the canonical Yì. Cài Guózhēn praises Yáng Jiǎn as one who “follows up the source so as to encompass the streams — like a citron that, once tasted, lets one infer the flavor of every citron-class fruit.”
The composition window 1190–1226 reflects Yáng Jiǎn’s mature scholarly years post-Lù-Jiǔyuān (Lù died 1193) through to Yáng’s own death in Bǎoqìng 2 (1226). No internal dating fixes a tighter terminus.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yángshì Yì zhuàn in twenty juan was composed by 楊簡 Yáng Jiǎn of the Sòng. Jiǎn, zì Jìngzhòng, a man of Cíxī. Jìnshì of Qiándào 5 [1169]; rose in office to Bǎomógé xuéshì and Tàizhōng dàfū. The book was collated and cut to woodblocks by 劉日升 Liú Rìshēng and 陳道亨 Chén Dàohēng of the Míng.
We note that 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo lists Cíhú Yì jiě in ten juan and a separate Yǐ Yì in one juan — both title and juan-count differ from the present base-copy. The auto-preface as printed there matches the present text’s chapter-head pronouncement-passage, but lacks several leading lines: also a slight divergence. Míng men, in printing ancient books, invariably tampered with them by private fancy; from Wànlì onward this was especially severe; this is perhaps the wanton revisions of [Liú] Rìshēng and the rest.
The book’s first nineteen juan all gloss the canonical text. The twentieth juan is all general talk on Yì-learning, and contains some passages overlapping the preface. We now do not see Jiǎn’s original-base, and so cannot precisely tell why this is so.
Jiǎn’s learning came from 陸九淵 Lù Jiǔyuān, hence his exposition of the Yì takes only the human-mind as master, and xiàngshù and the affairs of things are all passed over. He even held that the “jìn qǔ zhū shēn” passage in the Xìcí was fabricated by ones-who-do-not-know-the-Way, and not the words of Confucius. Hence 楊時喬 Yáng Shíqiáo of the Míng, in composing his Zhuànyì kǎo, simply rejected him as heterodox; and 董真卿 Dǒng Zhēnqīng of the Yuán, discussing 林栗 Lín Lì’s Yì jiě, also cited Zhūzǐ’s Yǔlèi, saying Yáng Jìngzhòng’s writings can be destroyed — was this not because Jiǎn galloped after talk of high-and-distant things, drawing this judgment upon himself?
We examine the matter: from the Hàn forward, using LǎoZhuāng to explain the Yì begins with 王弼 Wáng Bì of Wèi; using xīnxìng to explain the Yì begins with 王宗傳 Wáng Zōngchuán and Yáng Jiǎn. [Wáng] Zōngchuán was Chúnxī-era jìnshì; [Yáng] Jiǎn was Qiándào-era jìnshì — both men of Xiàozōng’s reign. But Zōngchuán was modest of station and light of word, his book barely survived, and was not recited or studied by scholars. Jiǎn, by contrast, was the chief of Xiàngshān’s disciples — comparable to what 黃榦 Huáng Gàn was at Zhū’s gate — and moreover served distinguished posts in capital and provinces with notable record; a celebrated Southern-Sòng minister, more than able to dominate his age. So coming down to the late Míng, his doctrine spread widely; 蘇濬 Sū Jùn of Zǐxī, in expounding the Yì, even named his work Míngmíngpiān — and the Yì fully passed into Chán.
Now the Yì as a book is broad and great and comprehensively complete; the sage’s teaching covers refined and rough, root and branch; the principle of mind-and-nature has never not been implicit within the Yì. It is only that Jiǎn and others made this alone their explicit doctrine, and so drifted into vague and vacuous talk. Formerly Zhūzǐ in composing his Yílǐ jīngzhuàn tōngjiě did not delete the chènwěi sayings cited by 鄭玄 Zhèng Kāngchéng — saying “preserving them is precisely so as to abolish them; their fame being already weighty, if their doctrines were not preserved no one would be able to discover where they err.” We now record Jiǎn’s and Zōngchuán’s Yì-works in this same spirit.
Respectfully revised and submitted, sixth month of the forty-fourth year of Qiánlóng [1779].
General Compilers: 紀昀 Jǐ Yún, 陸錫熊 Lù Xīxióng, 孫士毅 Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: 陸費墀 Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
楊簡 Yáng Jiǎn (1141–1226), zì Jìngzhòng 敬仲, hào Cíhú 慈湖, of Cíxī 慈谿 (Míngzhōu, modern Níngbō, Zhèjiāng). The catalog gives 1140–1225 but CBDB id 15072 corroborates 1141–1226 against the Sòngshǐ (which records his birth in Shàoxīng 11 = 1141, death in Bǎoqìng 2 = 1226). The 1141–1226 dates are followed here. Jìnshì of Qiándào 5 (1169). His career took him through provincial magistracies in Fùyáng 富陽 and elsewhere, into the Censorate, briefly into capital service, and out again. He served late in life as Bǎomógé xuéshì 寶謨閣學士 and held the honorific Tàizhōng dàfū 太中大夫.
His intellectual life is dominated by the encounter with Lù Jiǔyuān (Xiàngshān). The famous shànbǐng 扇柄 awakening — Yáng holding a fan; Lù Jiǔyuān saying “This: what does this mean?” leading Yáng to a sudden recognition of xīn 心 (mind) as the encompassing principle — is told in Yáng’s Cíhú yíshū 慈湖遺書. After this, Yáng’s entire scholarship — Yì, Shī, Shū, Lǐ, the Lúnyǔ — was carried out under a single hermeneutic principle: that the canonical text is, finally, articulating the structure of the awakened mind itself.
The Yì commentary is the most thoroughgoing and most controversial application of this principle. Yáng Jiǎn’s xīnxué Yì drops xiàngshù almost entirely, treats guàcí and yáocí as figurative articulations of mind-states, and dismisses passages of the Xìcí (notably the jìn qǔ zhū shēn passage on bodily-imagery generation) as later fabrications. The work was the principal vehicle for the Sòng–Míng xīnxué line of Yì reading and is the direct ancestor of the Míng-period Yì-Chán synthesis (蘇濬 Sū Jùn’s Míngmíngpiān, 王畿 Wáng Jī’s Yì essays, 焦竑 Jiāo Hóng’s reading, etc.).
Catalog-vs-external dating discrepancy: the catalog meta gives 1140–1225, while CBDB and the Sòngshǐ give 1141–1226. Following CBDB / Sòngshǐ per the project rule. The catalog dates plausibly arise from a single-year suì / Western-year offset.
The Sìkù tiyao’s closing logic — “we record him in order to abolish him” — is one of the most explicit statements in the entire Sìkù tíyào of the editors’ policy of including heterodox works as negative exemplars, on the borrowed authority of Zhū Xī’s own preservation policy in the Yílǐ jīngzhuàn tōngjiě. The Cíhú Yì zhuàn is the principal test-case in the Yì division for this policy.
Translations and research
No European-language translation of the Yì zhuàn; an English-language analytical literature on Yáng Jiǎn as a xīn-xué thinker is nevertheless substantial.
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Univ. of Hawaii, 1992) — Yáng Jiǎn is one of the principal xīn-xué exponents discussed in the late chapters.
- Don J. Wyatt, The Recluse of Loyang: Shao Yung and the Moral Evolution of Early Sung Thought (Univ. of Hawaii, 1996) — context for the xiàngshù / xīn-xué alternative.
- Edward T. Ch’ien, Chiao Hung and the Restructuring of Neo-Confucianism in the Late Ming (Columbia, 1986) — for the Yáng-Jiǎn-via-Sū-Jùn line into Míng Yì-Chán.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ, vol. 2, full chapter on Yáng Jiǎn.
- Lín Yuésuì 林月惠, Yáng Jiǎn xīn-xué yánjiū 楊簡心學研究 — comprehensive monograph.
- Zhāng Wěi 張偉, articles in Zhōuyì yánjiū on Yáng Jiǎn’s Xìcí dismissals.
Other points of interest
The jìn qǔ zhū shēn passage of the Xìcí is the locus where Yáng Jiǎn’s hermeneutic does its most aggressive work: the passage explicitly grounds Yì-imagery in bodily analogy (“close at hand, taken from the body; far off, taken from things”), which sits very uneasily with a purely mind-internal reading of the Yì trigrams. Yáng Jiǎn’s response — declaring the passage a fabrication — is methodologically illuminating: rather than fitting the Xìcí to his hermeneutic, he excises the Xìcí where it resists. This procedure is the precedent for the much wider Míng-and-Qīng practice of Yì-text criticism and, in the late Míng, of full-blown gǔjīng / “ancient-text” reconstruction projects.
The 蔡國珍 Cài Guózhēn preface to the Míng print is itself a small documentary monument: it pairs Yáng Jiǎn’s Yì zhuàn with Sū Shì’s Dōngpō Yì zhuàn (KR1a0019) as the two heterodox-but-canonical “wing-feathers” of the Yì reception, and explicitly contrasts the two: “Sū comes at the principle by way of the affairs; Yáng goes back to the source so as to encompass the streams.” The framing endorses both as legitimate companions to (rather than competitors with) the Chéng–Zhū Yì zhuàn / běnyì mainstream — a generous Míng-Wànlì-era reading that the Qīng Sìkù editors find untenable.