Zhōuyì wán cí 周易玩辭
Savoring the Wording of the Zhōuyì
by 項安世 Xiàng Ānshì (zì Píngfǔ 平甫, hào Píngān 平菴, 1146–1208, of Sōngyáng 松陽 in Zhèjiāng — jìnshì Chúnxī 2 / 1175, finally Tàifǔ qīng 太府卿; demoted to Jiānglíng 江陵 during the Qìngyuán dǎngjìn / “False Learning Proscription” of 1196, where he wrote his commentaries on the Classics)
About the work
A sixteen-juan exposition of the Zhōuyì in the xiàng-and-cí (imagery-and-wording) double-aspect framework, by 項安世 Xiàng Ānshì — a Southern-Sòng scholar-official whose intellectual life was decisively reshaped by the Qìngyuán dǎngjìn 慶元黨禁 (“False Learning” proscription) of 1196. Xiàng Ānshì was jìnshì of Chúnxī 2 (1175); served as Xiàoshū láng 校書郎 in Shàoxī 5 (1194) and as Tōngpàn 通判 of Chízhōu in Qìngyuán 1 (1195); rose finally to Tàifǔ qīng 太府卿. With the proscription of Dàoxué in 1196 he was removed and demoted to Jiānglíng 江陵 (modern Húběi), where he “shut his door and did not go out” (陳振孫 Chén Zhènsūn) and turned his disgrace into a sustained cycle of canonical scholarship — “for all the Classics he composed expositions, and the Yì alone he made into a complete book.” The Wán cí is the surviving fruit of this Jiānglíng period.
The work’s organization is given in the auto-preface: Zhōuyì shàng piān upper-half six juan; Zhōuyì xià piān lower-half six juan; Xìcí in two juan; Shuō guà in one juan; Xù guà and Zá guà together in one juan — sixteen juan total. The auto-preface is dated Qìngyuán 4 wùwǔ ninth month (1198), and the work was substantially revised by autumn of Jiātài 2 rénxū (1202). The composition window 1198–1202 reflects this initial-to-revised arc.
Methodologically the Wán cí is one of the most carefully formulated xiàng-and-yìlǐ synthesizers of the Southern Sòng. Xiàng Ānshì’s signature claim, on which the title turns, is from the Xìcí’s opening jūnzǐ jū zé guān qí xiàng ér wán qí cí, dòng zé guān qí biàn ér wán qí zhān (“the gentleman, when at rest, observes the imagery and savors the wording; when in motion, observes the transformation and savors the divination”): “The Way of the Yì has four [aspects], but in fact they are two: imagery and wording. Transformation is just the advance-and-retreat of imagery; divination is just the auspicious-and-inauspicious of wording. The sages, taking imagery, set down wording; later students, taking wording, sound out imagery. Therefore for the student of the Yì, what could there be other than wording?” The book accordingly takes cí (the wording, i.e. the guàcí and yáocí and zhuàn-passages) as the working surface, and through close attention to wording recovers imagery — and from imagery, transformation; and from transformation, divinatory judgment.
Xiàng Ānshì’s auto-positioning relative to Chéng Yí is candid: “What I have studied is the books of Master Yīchuān [Chéng Yí]; for thirty years I have received and read his Yì zhuàn. Now I take what I have got from the Yì zhuàn and write it out in this book — but my wording does not coincide with the Yì zhuàn anywhere it would be coincident, since where they coincide there is no use writing this book.” That is: the Wán cí is a deliberate, systematic supplement to Chéng Yí — Chéng Yí had treated only yìlǐ, leaving xiàngshù unattended; Xiàng Ānshì restores the xiàngshù dimension while staying inside the Chéng-school yìlǐ mainline.
His relationship with 朱熹 Zhū Xī was substantial: the surviving correspondence runs to “six or seven letters and not stopping there” (虞集 Yú Jí’s preface). Zhū Xī communicated to Xiàng Ānshì the famous Chéngzǐ Hányǎng xū yòng jìng, jìn xué zé zài zhì zhī 涵養須用敬，進學則在致知 dictum (“self-cultivation must use jìng / reverent attentiveness; advancement in learning lies in zhìzhī / extending knowledge”); Xiàng Ānshì’s intellectual location is described in Yú Jí’s preface as: “above, not extravagant in dwelling on the high-and-vacuous; below, not sunk into utility-and-profit.” Xiàng Ānshì also had close relations with the Yǒngjiā school’s exponents and consulted them on canonical questions.
馬端臨 Mǎ Duānlín (in his preface) records the timing: Xiàng Ānshì’s Wán cí was completed roughly twenty years after Zhū Xī’s Zhōuyì běnyì (i.e. the Běnyì completed late 1170s / early 1180s; the Wán cí completed 1198–1202). Zhū Xī did not live to see the Wán cí: Zhū Xī died in 1200, between Xiàng Ānshì’s first composition (1198) and final revision (1202).
The work circulated in manuscript and was first cut to woodblocks in Xiánchún yǐchǒu (1265) by the Lǐbù gòngyuàn 禮部貢院 (Ministry of Rites Examination Bureau). The Yuán-period reprinting at Qíān 齊安 prefectural school, on the basis of 馬公考 Mǎ Gōngkǎo’s family-held copy, is dated Dàdé dīngwèi (1307); the three Yuán prefaces — by 虞集 Yú Jí, 馬端臨 Mǎ Duānlín, and 徐之祥 Xú Zhīxiáng — are all written for this 1307 print and are preserved at the head of the Sìkù base-text.
The Sìkù tiyao takes a position against the recent (Qīng) critic 王懋竑 Wáng Màohóng of Báitián 白田, whose Báitián zázhù contains a sharply hostile colophon to the Wán cí — “alone among the Yuán-and-after readers, [Wáng Màohóng] arranges and rejects [Xiàng Ānshì] with much vigor, even saying that Mǎ Duānlín and the rest had not [really] looked at his book.” The Sìkù editors counter: “[Wáng] is perhaps among those whom Xiàng Ānshì himself referred to in his auto-statement: ‘those who look at my book through the wording of the Yì zhuàn’ [i.e. those who measure Xiàng’s xiàng-supplement by the standard of the yìlǐ-only Chéng Yì zhuàn].” On the tiyao’s judgment, Xiàng Ānshì’s “canonical scholarship is profound; how could one lightly disparage him?”
A companion work — Xiàngshì jiāshuō 項氏家説 (“Master Xiàng’s Family Discussions”), whose first juan also discusses the Yì, was praised by 董真卿 Dǒng Zhēnqīng (Yuán) — was lost in independent transmission and has been recovered in the Sìkù from Yǒnglè dàdiǎn citations and is registered separately. Read together with the Wán cí it gives the full range of Xiàng Ānshì’s Yì-thought.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Zhōuyì wán cí in sixteen juan was composed by 項安世 Xiàng Ānshì of the Sòng. Ānshì, zì Píngfǔ, a man of Sōngyáng. The Guǎngé xùlù records his tóng jìnshì chūshēn in Chúnxī 2 [1175], his appointment as Xiàoshū láng in Shàoxī 5 [1194], and his being assigned as supplementary Tōngpàn of Chízhōu in Qìngyuán 1 [1195]. 陳振孫 Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí refers to him as Tàifǔ qīng — that is the office he ended in. His career-record is given in his biography in the Sòngshǐ.
[Chén] Zhènsūn further says: “When the Qìngyuán [proscription] came, Ānshì was demoted to live in Jiānglíng. He shut his door and did not go out; for all the Classics he composed expositions; and the Yì he completed as a whole book.” But on his own statement [the work] was completed in the autumn of Jiātài rénxū [1202]. The auto-preface says: “The Way of the Yì has four [aspects], but in reality they are two: imagery and wording. Transformation is just the advance-and-retreat of imagery; divination is just the fortune-and-misfortune of wording. Without recognizing the imagery, how to know the transformation? Without sounding out the wording, how to decide the divination?”
He further self-stated: “What Ānshì has studied are the books of Master Yīchuān-Chéng. Now, taking what I have obtained from his Yì zhuàn, I write this book — and my wording is not the same as the Yì zhuàn’s anywhere; where it coincides, there would be no use in writing this book.”
For Yīchuān’s Yì zhuàn opens up only yìlǐ; Ānshì pursues both xiàng and shù. His intent was to supplement, beyond Chéng’s zhuàn, what it did not cover — what is meant by “each one clarifying one aspect of the meaning.”
馬端臨 Mǎ Duānlín and 虞集 Yú Jí, in their prefaces, both extolled and supported him; but recent times’ 王懋竑 Wáng Màohóng of Báitián, in the colophons of his Báitián zázhù, alone arranges and rejects [Xiàng Ānshì] with much vigor, saying even that [Mǎ] Duānlín and the rest had not seen the book. Such a judgment is perhaps just what Ānshì himself, in his auto-statement, called “looking at me through the Yì zhuàn’s wording.” Ānshì also has a Xiàngshì jiāshuō, whose first juan also expounds the Yì. 董真卿 Dǒng Zhēnqīng once praised it, but no transmission-copy survives in the world. We have now [reconstructed it] from materials in Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and gathered them into a separate edition. Looked at together, the two books show: Ānshì’s canonical learning is profound — how can one lightly disparage him?
Respectfully revised and submitted, second month of the forty-second year of Qiánlóng [1777].
General Compilers: 紀昀 Jǐ Yún, 陸錫熊 Lù Xīxióng, 孫士毅 Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: 陸費墀 Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
項安世 Xiàng Ānshì (1146–1208), zì Píngfǔ 平甫, hào Píngān 平菴, of Sōngyáng 松陽 in Chùzhōu 處州 (modern Sōngyáng county, southern Zhèjiāng). Catalog gives 1146–1208; CBDB id 18449 confirms the death year 1208 but lacks an explicit birth year, and a separate Sōngyáng-jìnshì entry in the Zhèjiāng tōngzhì 126.12b corroborates the rough mid-twelfth-century birth-bracket. The catalog dates are followed.
His career arc is unusual in being decisively defined by the Qìngyuán dǎngjìn 慶元黨禁 of 1196, the most concentrated suppression of Zhū-Xī-line Dàoxué in the entire Southern Sòng. Xiàng Ānshì had been on a steady ascent through capital-government posts (the Xiàoshū láng of Shàoxī 5 [1194] is a Mìshūshěng 秘書省 / Imperial Library compilership of considerable prestige). His brief suspension to Jiānglíng — as a member-by-association of the Wěixué 偽學 (False-Learning) circle — became his scholarly opportunity, in the standard Dàoxué pattern (parallel: 呂祖謙 Lǚ Zǔqiān, 蔡元定 Cài Yuándìng, 真德秀 Zhēn Déxiù).
Methodologically the Wán cí is one of the most theoretically articulated of the Southern-Sòng xiàng-and-cí synthesizers — anticipating in many respects the post-Zhū-Xī mainline (Zhū Xī’s Zhōuyì běnyì, finished c. 1180s, also takes xiàng and zhān as the practical hermeneutic axis, and explicitly criticizes Chéng Yí’s purely yìlǐ reading on this point). Xiàng Ānshì’s articulation came twenty years later, after Zhū Xī’s death, but the convergence between their two reform-of-Chéng-Yí programs is striking; the auto-preface and the Yú Jí preface document the substantive intellectual exchange that led to it.
The composition window 1198–1202 reflects the auto-preface’s Qìngyuán 4 / wùwǔ 9th-month preface-date and the Jiātài 2 / rénxū autumn revision-completion date.
The Sìkù editors’ defense of Xiàng Ānshì against Wáng Màohóng’s late-Qīng Bái-tián-school criticism is itself notable: Wáng Màohóng was a fierce Qīng-period defender of the strict ChéngZhū yìlǐ line, and his hostile colophon attacked Xiàng Ānshì for diluting the yìlǐ purity by readmitting xiàngshù. The Sìkù editors’ defense — using Xiàng Ānshì’s own auto-statement — is one of the more interesting late-eighteenth-century philological-and-doctrinal arguments embedded in the Sìkù tíyào.
Translations and research
No European-language translation of the Wán cí.
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Univ. of Hawaii, 1992) — the Qìng-yuán proscription chapter and the late-1190s Dào-xué network.
- Conrad Schirokauer, “Neo-Confucians under Attack: The Condemnation of Wei-hsüeh,” in J. Haeger, ed., Crisis and Prosperity in Sung China (Univ. of Arizona, 1975) — context for Xiàng Ānshì’s demotion and Jiānglíng exile.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ, vol. 2 — Xiàng Ānshì as a major xiàng-and-yìlǐ synthesizer.
- Liào Mínghuó 廖名活, articles on Xiàng Ānshì’s correspondence with Zhū Xī in Zhōuyì yánjiū.
- Wáng Tiějūn 王鐵均, Sòngdài Yìxué shǐ 宋代易學史 — full chapter on Xiàng Ānshì.
- Modern punctuated reissues from the Sìkù base; a fully critical edition does not yet exist.
Other points of interest
The Wán cí’s programmatic identification — Yì-Way is four but really two: xiàng and cí — is one of the most theoretically clean Sòng-period reformulations of the Xìcí’s own four-fold scheme (cí, biàn, xiàng, zhān). The reduction by collapse (biàn into xiàng; zhān into cí) gives Xiàng Ānshì a hermeneutic with two axes rather than four, and is mathematically elegant in a way the Sòng Yì-tradition rarely managed.
The Yuán reception of Xiàng Ānshì — 虞集 Yú Jí, 馬端臨 Mǎ Duānlín, 徐之祥 Xú Zhīxiáng all writing prefaces for the 1307 Qíān reprint — places him at the center of the late-Yuán Yì-canonization that produced the Yì-half of the Sìshū wǔjīng dàquán 四書五經大全 (1415, Míng Yǒnglè). Mǎ Duānlín’s preface in particular gives valuable information about the chronology of the Wán cí relative to Zhū Xī’s Běnyì.
The companion work Xiàngshì jiāshuō (registered separately in the Sìkù) preserves Xiàng Ānshì’s Yì-thoughts that did not enter the Wán cí’s main exposition; together they form the most theoretically substantive Southern-Sòng Yì-corpus outside the Chéng–Zhū mainline proper.