Dà Yì cuì yán 大易粹言
Distilled Words on the Great Yì
compiled by 方聞一 Fāng Wényī (編), fl. Chúnxī-era 1170s, of Shūzhōu 舒州, at the order of 曾穜 Zēng Tóng (zì unrecorded), of Wēnlíng 溫陵 / Quánzhōu — then governor of Shūzhōu
About the work
A massive seventy-three-juan compilation of Yì-doctrine, gathering the Yì-relevant passages of seven Northern-Sòng masters of the Chéng-school transmission: the two Chéng brothers (程顥 Chéng Hào / Míngdào 明道, 程頤 Chéng Yí / Yīchuān 伊川), 張載 Zhāng Zài (Héngqú 横渠), 游酢 Yóu Zuò (Dìngfū 定夫 / Guǎngpíng 廣平), 楊時 Yáng Shí (Guīshān 龜山), 郭忠孝 Guō Zhōngxiào (Jiānshān 兼山), and 郭雍 Guō Yōng (Báiyún 白雲). The compilation was undertaken by Fāng Wényī, jùnbóshì 郡博士 (prefectural professor) at Shūzhōu, on the commission of the Shūzhōu governor Zēng Tóng of Wēnlíng (Quánzhōu, modern Quánzhōu, Fújiàn).
The auto-preface by Zēng Tóng is dated Chúnxī 2 (yǐwèi), ninth month (1175). A second preface, also by Zēng Tóng, gives the book’s structure: 70 juan of organized Yì-doctrine plus 3 juan of general discussion (zǒng lùn 總論). Zēng Tóng’s master had been Guō Yōng (Báiyún), whose father Guō Zhōngxiào (Jiānshān) had been a direct disciple of Chéng Yí — so the lineage frame is intentional: Chéng-school Yì-doctrine through the Jiānshān / Báiyún family transmission. Zēng Tóng makes the methodological commitment explicit: the seven masters’ Yì-Way is “the Yì of before-the-stroke” (huà qián zhī Yì 畫前之易) — i.e. the Yì prior to its inscription as drawn lines, the Yì-as-Way that grounds the Yì-as-text. This is the late-Northern-Sòng Dàoxué hermeneutic at its most theoretically articulated.
The compilation is an extraordinary documentary resource. Guō Zhōngxiào’s Jiānshān Yì jiě 兼山易解 — lost in independent transmission after the Jīngkāng catastrophe (cf. Guō shì chuánjiā Yì shuō 郭氏傳家易說 (KR1a0033), which is Guō Yōng’s reconstruction-and-extension) — survives, in significant part, only through citation in the Cuì yán. The tiyao singles this out as the work’s most important conservation function.
Bibliographic confusion: 朱彝尊 Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo, following an error in the Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì, attributed the compilation to Zēng Tóng himself. The Sìkù editors correct this on the strength of the auto-preface, which clearly distinguishes Zēng Tóng’s commissioning role from Fāng Wényī’s compilatory role. The catalog meta correctly registers Fāng Wényī as compiler.
The work was first cut at the Shūzhōu prefectural school in 1175. The original blocks, after some years’ use, became blurred and worn; 張嗣古 Zhāng Sìgǔ and 陳造 Chén Zào — successively — supplemented and repaired the cutting. The Sìkù base-text is the version held by 蔣曾瑩 Jiǎng Céngyíng of Sūzhōu, which is the Jiādìng guǐyǒu (1213) supplement-cutting prepared by Zhāng Sìgǔ. In that print Zēng Tóng’s two prefaces had been lost and Zhāng Sìgǔ’s colophon (which originally closed the work) had been moved to the head. The Sìkù editors restored Zēng Tóng’s prefaces from the Jīngyì kǎo’s preserved copies and returned Zhāng Sìgǔ’s colophon to its original position at the end.
The composition window 1175–1175 reflects the auto-preface date and the simultaneous first cutting at Shūzhōu — the work was assembled and printed in a single year.
The opening juan (juàn shǒu 卷首) presents the seven masters’ Yì-pedagogical material under thematic headings: xué Yì 學易 (“studying the Yì”), lùn Yì 論易 (“discussing the Yì”), míng guà 明卦 (“clarifying the hexagrams”), míng yáo 明爻 (“clarifying the lines”), míng shí yì 明十翼 (“clarifying the Ten Wings”). This functions as a methodological prolegomenon to the seventy juan of canonical exposition that follows.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Dà Yì cuì yán in seventy-three juan was edited and assembled by Fāng Wényī of the Sòng. [Fāng] Wényī, a man of Shūzhōu, in the Chúnxī era served as jùnbóshì (prefectural professor); at that time Zēng Tóng of Wēnlíng was governing Shūzhōu. He commanded [Fāng] Wényī to compile and assemble [the materials into] this book. The old preface is fully clear on this. Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo followed the Sòng[-shǐ Yìwén]-zhì’s error and took it as having been composed by [Zēng] Tóng — this is wrong.
The book draws on the doctrines of seven masters: the two Master Chéng, Zhāng Zài, Yáng Shí, Yóu Zuò, Guō Zhōngxiào, and Zēng Tóng’s teacher Guō Yōng. Today Zhōngxiào’s book is no longer transmitted; only by virtue of this book is it preserved. [Zēng] Tóng first had blocks cut and placed at the prefectural studio; later the woodblock-prints faded and grew blurred, and Zhāng Sìgǔ and Chén Zào successively repaired them. The present base-text comes from the family of Jiǎng Céngyíng of Sūzhōu — that is, [Zhāng] Sìgǔ’s Jiādìng guǐyǒu [1213] supplement-cutting. The two auto-prefaces by [Zēng] Tóng have been lost, and [Zhāng] Sìgǔ’s colophon has been moved to the head. We have now followed the Jīngyì kǎo in supplementarily restoring the [Zēng] Tóng prefaces, and have moved his colophon back to the end of the volume.
Respectfully revised and submitted, eleventh month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng [1780].
General Compilers: 紀昀 Jǐ Yún, 陸錫熊 Lù Xīxióng, 孫士毅 Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: 陸費墀 Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Dà Yì cuì yán is the most extensive Northern-Sòng Yì-doctrine compilation ever assembled by a single Sòng-period editor, and the principal documentary witness to the Jiānshān-Báiyún family-line transmission of Chéng-school Yì-thought. Its position in the Sòng-Yuán Yì-corpus is comparable to Lǐ Héng’s Zhōuyì yì hǎi cuō yào (KR1a0034) for the post-Hàn / pre-Sòng material — but where the Cuō yào is a redaction-of-a-redaction, the Cuì yán is direct quotation from the seven masters’ own writings and yǔlù.
Zēng Tóng’s prefatorial frame — that all seven masters teach the Yì-of-before-the-stroke (huà qián zhī Yì 畫前之易) — locates the compilation in the central Northern-Sòng Dàoxué methodology. The huà qián zhī Yì concept is from Yáng Shí, who reports it from a poem of 邵雍 Shào Yōng (Yáofū 堯夫). The motto holds that the Yì-Way (Yì dào) precedes any inscription of it in lines, hexagrams, or words; the canonical text is the sage’s transcription of an underlying ontological-cosmological reality. Reading the Yì therefore requires retrieving the underlying Way through and beyond the inscribed words. This is the central commitment of the Chéng-school yìlǐ tradition.
The compilation’s discriminating selection-criterion: only material directly addressing the Yì — not all incidental references in the seven masters’ yǔlù and writings, but a winnowed corpus organized hexagram-by-hexagram and line-by-line. This makes the Cuì yán a running commentary in the seven masters’ own voices — a “polyphonic” Yì zhuàn — and was the methodological model for the much larger Yuán and Míng compilation projects (Hú Yīguì’s Yì běnyì fùlù zuǎnshū, the Sìshū wǔjīng dàquán).
Compiler Fāng Wényī (CBDB id 38942, no lifedates) is otherwise undistinguished in the historical record beyond his commission of this work; the principal patron was Zēng Tóng (CBDB id 21691, dismissed as Jīnghúběi tíjǔ in 1180), of Wēnlíng / Quánzhōu. Zēng Tóng’s master in the Yì was Guō Yōng (Báiyún) — confirming that the compilation is from within the Báiyún school’s intellectual perimeter, not a neutral or external compilation.
The composition window is fixed at 1175 (Zēng Tóng’s auto-preface date and first cutting at Shūzhōu prefectural school). The 1213 Zhāng Sìgǔ supplement-cutting and the 1213-onward repairs are textual transmission events, not composition events.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. The Cuì yán is principally read as a documentary source for the seven masters’ Yì-thought.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ, vol. 2 — uses the Cuì yán extensively for the Chéng-school transmission.
- Wáng Tiějūn 王鐵均, Sòngdài Yìxué shǐ — chapter on the Cuì yán compilation.
- Liào Mínghuó 廖名活, articles on the Chéng-Zhū Yì lineage in Zhōuyì yánjiū.
- Modern punctuated reissues (Zhōnghuá shūjú, Shànghǎi gǔjí) on the Sìkù base.
Other points of interest
The Cuì yán’s preservation function for Guō Zhōngxiào (Jiānshān)‘s Yì jiě — fragments of which survive only in this compilation — makes the Cuì yán indispensable for reconstructing the Jiānshān / Báiyún (Guō Zhōngxiào → Guō Yōng) transmission line, which is itself a key direct-disciple-of-Chéng-Yí lineage that bypassed the Yáng Shí → 李侗 Lǐ Tóng → 朱熹 Zhū Xī mainstream. The Cuì yán therefore preserves a doctrinally distinct branch of the Chéng-school Yì-tradition.
The compilation’s organization — xué Yì / lùn Yì / míng guà / míng yáo / míng shí yì in the opening juan, then hexagram-by-hexagram canonical exposition — became the model for later large-scale Yì-school anthologies. The category-then-canon structure is repeated in 胡一桂 Hú Yīguì’s Yuán compilation and in the Yì portion of the Sìshū wǔjīng dàquán (1415).