Wéngōng Yì shuō 文公易說
Master Wéngōng [Zhū Xī]‘s Yì-Discussions
compiled by 朱鑑 Zhū Jiàn (編) — zì Zǐmíng 子明, 1190–1258, of Wùyuán 婺源 / Jiànyáng 建陽; eldest grandson of 朱熹 Zhū Xī, son of Zhū Xī’s eldest son 朱塾 Zhū Shú.
About the work
A twenty-two-juan (catalog: 23 juan) compilation of Zhū Xī’s Yì-discussions extracted from his Yǔlù 語錄 (recorded conversations) and from his correspondence-debates with friends and disciples — assembled by Zhū Xī’s eldest grandson Zhū Jiàn 朱鑑 to supplement Zhū Xī’s five formal Yì-works that had circulated as independent volumes.
The Sìkù tiyao enumerates Zhū Xī’s five formal Yì compositions:
- Yì zhuàn 易傳 in 11 juan (using the Wáng Bì recension; Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì records it but it is now lost).
- Yì běnyì 易本義 in 12 juan (the canonical Běnyì, using Lǚ Zǔqiān’s gǔyì recension KR1a0043).
- Yì xué qǐméng 易學啟蒙 in 3 juan (with Cài Yuándìng 蔡元定).
- Gǔ Yì yīnxùn 古易音訓 in 2 juan (phonetic-and-glossarial work on the gǔyì).
- Shīguà kǎowù 蓍卦考悞 in 1 juan (study of yarrow-stalk-and-hexagram errors).
These five “all have completed volumes”; the disciple-and-friend Q&A and debate-discussions, by contrast, “were scattered through the Yǔlù.” Zhū Jiàn’s compilation gathered these latter materials and “pieced them together to make this compilation.” The Sìkù editors compare the genre to Zhèng Xuán’s Zhèng zhì 鄭志 — the parallel post-Hàn assembly of Zhèng Xuán’s disciple-Q&A by his grandson Zhèng Xiǎotóng 鄭小同.
A bibliographically intriguing observation: Zhū Xī’s earlier Yì zhuàn (11 juan, using Wáng Bì’s recension) — recorded in Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì and presumably substantively complete — is no longer extant. The Sìkù editors note: “From Lǐzōng on, Master Zhū’s learning greatly circulated, and his remaining-words and partial-volumes were all received as jade-and-ball-treasure. It should not be that a completed-volume work would conversely come to no transmission. Perhaps because, as an unfinalized exposition, [Zhū Xī] himself deleted his draft, and therefore it was no longer circulated.” The conjecture: Zhū Xī, having superseded his own Yì zhuàn with the Běnyì, suppressed the earlier work himself.
The Sìkù editors apply the same standard with caution to Zhū Jiàn’s compilation: “[Zhū Jiàn’s] book entirely takes the Yǔlù text to supplement the Běnyì’s lacks. Of these — perhaps the disciple-records may not all conform with the master’s exposition, and [some are] occasional Q&A that may not have been settled-to-firm-discussion. How could one know that [some material] is not of the type that, like the Yì zhuàn, Zhū Xī himself wanted to delete?” — but conclude: “Yet to gather-up the scattered to make available for evidential studies, [Zhū Jiàn] may be said able to inherit the family-line learning.”
The work’s importance: it preserves substantive Zhū Xī material on the Yì that does not appear in any of the five formal Yì compositions and that is not consistently preserved in the transmitted Zhūzǐ Yǔlèi 朱子語類. Modern scholarship on Zhū Xī’s Yì-thought (Joseph A. Adler, Hoyt Cleveland Tillman) draws on this compilation alongside the Yǔlèi and Wén jí.
The composition window 1230–1258 reflects Zhū Jiàn’s mature scholarly years (he was 40 in 1230 and died in 1258) — the period during which the family-line preservation of Zhū-school material was systematically undertaken.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Zhū Wéngōng Yì shuō in twenty-two juan was edited by Zhū Jiàn of the Sòng. We note: per Zhūzǐ’s family genealogy: Zhūzǐ had three sons; the eldest was Zhū Shú; [Zhū] Shú had two sons, the eldest was Zhū Jiàn — so [Zhū] Jiàn is Zhūzǐ’s direct-line eldest grandson. [Zhū] Jiàn, zì Zǐmíng — by yīn-privilege supplemented as Dígōng láng; rose in office to HúGuǎng zǒnglǐng.
Zhūzǐ’s gloss-of-Yì books are five: Yì zhuàn in 11 juan; Yì běnyì in 12 juan; Yì xué qǐméng in 3 juan; Gǔ Yì yīnxùn in 2 juan; Shīguà kǎowù in 1 juan. All have completed volumes. As to friend-debate and disciple-distinction discussions, [these] scatter in the Yǔlù. [Zhū] Jiàn gathered and pieced them to make this compilation. Formerly, Zhèng Yuán [Zhèng Xuán] glossed-and-annotated the various canons; his grandson, Wèi shìzhōng (Wèi-period Attendant Gentleman) Xiǎotóng, again gathered his disciples’ question-and-answer language to make Zhèng zhì in 11 juan. [Zhū] Jiàn’s compiling-of-relict-words is also of this same example.
We examine: Zhūzǐ initially composed Yì zhuàn using the Wáng Bì base; later composed Yì běnyì, beginning to use Lǚ Zǔqiān’s base. The Yì zhuàn is recorded in Sòngzhì; today already scattered. From Lǐzōng on, Zhūzǐ’s learning greatly circulated, and his remaining-words and partial-volumes were all received as jade-and-ball-treasure; it should not be that a hand-completed great-volume conversely comes to no transmission. Perhaps because, as an unfinalized exposition, [Zhū Xī] himself deleted his draft, and therefore it no longer circulated.
[Zhū] Jiàn’s book entirely takes the Yǔlù text to supplement the Běnyì’s lacks. Of these — perhaps the disciple-records may not all conform with the master’s exposition, and [some are] occasional Q&A that may not have been settled to firm discussion. How could one know that [some material] is not of the type that, like the Yì zhuàn, Zhūzǐ himself wanted to delete? Yet to gather-up the scattered to make available for evidential studies — [Zhū Jiàn] may be said able to inherit the family-line learning.
Respectfully revised and submitted, second month of the forty-second year of Qiánlóng [1777].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Zhū Jiàn (朱鑑, 1190–1258), zì Zǐmíng 子明, eldest grandson of 朱熹 Zhū Xī (1130–1200). Son of Zhū Xī’s eldest son 朱塾 Zhū Shú (1153–1191), who predeceased Zhū Xī by nine years. The catalog gives 1190–1258; CBDB has him with no birth/death year recorded but registered as Sòng.
Zhū Jiàn entered office by yīn 廕 (hereditary privilege) — a privilege available to descendants of distinguished officials — as Dígōng láng 迪功郎 (Sub-officer of Merit-Service). Rose to HúGuǎng zǒnglǐng 湖廣總領 (Hu-Guang Total Director, a senior fiscal-administrative post coordinating the Hu-Guang circuits’ tax revenues). His career was substantially built on the Zhū-school ascendancy under Lǐzōng, which made Zhū Xī’s grandsons natural beneficiaries of the yīn-system.
The Wéngōng Yì shuō is the principal Zhū Jiàn contribution to Zhū-school scholarship. Its function within the post-Zhū-Xī Zhū-school transmission is significant: when supplementary materials by Zhū Xī’s own hand became scarce, the disciple-Q&A and friend-debate fragments preserved in this compilation took on canonical-supplementary status. The work was widely consulted in the late-Sòng and Yuán Zhū-school Yì-pedagogy.
Methodological framing: the Wéngōng Yì shuō operates as the Yǔlèi-extracted-but-organized-by-canonical-passage companion to the Běnyì. Where the Zhūzǐ Yǔlèi 朱子語類 organizes Zhū Xī’s discussions topically, the Wéngōng Yì shuō re-organizes the Yì-relevant material by canonical passage (hexagram-by-hexagram), so that a student reading the Běnyì on a particular guàcí or yáocí can immediately find Zhū Xī’s discursive elaboration. This format-design reflects the Běnyì’s status as the canonical Zhū-school Yì commentary requiring supplementary explication.
The Sìkù editors’ caution about unsettled disciples’-Q&A possibly contradicting the master’s settled view is methodologically interesting: it raises the standard problem of the Yǔlèi genre’s authority. Modern ZhūXī scholarship (Adler, Tillman, Wing-tsit Chan) generally accepts the Yǔlèi-derived material as substantively reliable but treats it with greater hermeneutic caution than the Wén jí or the formal works.
The composition window 1230–1258 reflects Zhū Jiàn’s mature scholarly years.
Translations and research
The work is principally consulted in the secondary literature on Zhū Xī’s Yì-thought.
- Joseph A. Adler, Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi’s Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi (SUNY, 2014) — uses the Wéngōng Yì shuō in conjunction with the Yǔlèi.
- Joseph A. Adler, “Chu Hsi and Divination” in Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching (Princeton, 1990) — divination-related material from the Wéngōng Yì shuō.
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Univ. of Hawaii, 1992) — context for Zhū Xī’s Yì-circle.
- Modern punctuated editions on the Sìkù base.
Other points of interest
The implied loss of Zhū Xī’s Yì zhuàn in 11 juan — through self-suppression once the Běnyì superseded it — is one of the cleaner Sòng-period instances of self-redaction. Modern scholarship has not been able to recover the Yì zhuàn from independent witnesses; some material is presumed to survive in Wéngōng Yì shuō extracts but not in identifiably reconstructable form.
The 鄭玄 Zhèng Xuán’s-grandson-鄭小同-Zhèng-Xiǎotóng comparison the Sìkù editors invoke is methodologically apt: both Zhèng zhì (KR1g0002) and Wéngōng Yì shuō are grand-disciple-or-grandson assemblies of disciple-debate material preserved against scattering and oblivion. The genre is one of the more important Chinese scholarly genres for canon-supplementary preservation.