Yì xué qǐméng tōng shì 易學啟蒙通釋
Comprehensive Glosses on the Yì-Studies Beginner’s Primer
by 胡方平 (Hú Fāngpíng, zì Shīlǔ 師魯, hào Yùzhāi 玉齋, fl. late thirteenth century, of Wùyuán 婺源 in Huīzhōu 徽州 — modern Wùyuán county, Jiāngxī; father of 胡一桂 / Hú Yīguì 1247–1314, the major Yuán-period Yì scholar)
About the work
A two-juan running gloss on Zhū Xī’s Yì xué qǐméng 易學啟蒙 (the foundational ZhūCài work on the xiàngshù basis of the Yì), by Hú Fāngpíng 胡方平 — third-generation Zhū-Xī-school transmission figure (Zhū Xī → Huáng Gàn → Dǒng Mèngchéng → Shěn Guībǎo → Hú Fāngpíng, per CBDB; the Sìkù tiyao gives the slightly elided lineage Zhū Xī → Huáng Gàn → Dǒng Mèngchéng → Hú Fāngpíng).
The work explicates Zhū Xī’s Qǐméng by drawing systematically on the Yì-discussions of Zhū Xī’s six direct disciples plus three second-generation Cài-school disciples:
First-generation ZhūXī disciples:
- Huáng Gàn 黃榦 (Miǎnzhāi 勉齋, Zhū Xī’s son-in-law) — Yǔlù.
- Dǒng Zhū 董銖 (Pánjiàn 盤澗) — Yǔlù.
- Liú Yuè 劉爚 (Yúnzhuāng 雲莊) — Jīng shuō 經說.
- Chén Zhí 陳植 (Qiánshì 潜室) — Mùzhōng jí 木鍾集 and Yǔlù.
- Cài Yuān 蔡淵 (蔡淵, Jiézhāi 節齋) — Yì xùnjiě 易訓解 and Xiàngshù yú lùn 象數餘論.
- Cài Shěn 蔡沈 (蔡沈, Jiǔfēng 九峯) — Huángjí nèi piān 皇極內篇.
Second-generation Cài-school disciples: 7. Cài Mò 蔡模 (Juéxuān 覺軒, son of Cài Yuān) — Héluò tàn zé 河洛探賾. 8. Xú Jǐ 徐幾 (Jìnzhāi 進齋, Cài Yuān disciple) — Jí jiǎng huánzhōng yì 輯講環中意. 9. Wēng Yǒng 翁泳 (Sīzhāi 思齋, Cài Yuān disciple) — Kǒu yì 口義.
The Sìkù tiyao’s methodological judgment is approving: “Hú Fāngpíng’s book also concentrates on expounding the numerology — but rooted in Master Zhū’s book, repeatedly glossing it; the books drawn upon are six families — all are Master Zhū’s disciples — plus three families… so what is amplified does not come to the extent of, like other schools, completely-departing-from-its-own-canon. This is what readers of the Qǐméng should consider.”
The tiyao’s framing places Hú Fāngpíng within a larger argument about xiàngshù tradition. Zhū Xī’s Qǐméng preface had explained that the Qǐméng was composed because contemporary expositors “specially-on yáo-meaning are scattered-and-without-rooted-attachment; those who touch on imagery-and-numerology bring-it-together-and-fasten and some take it as having come from the sage’s heart-and-thought-and-knowledge-and-deliberation”; Zhū Xī therefore composed the Qǐméng to balance Chéng Yí’s pure-yìlǐ tradition with the Shào-Yōng-line xiàngshù tradition. But — the Sìkù editors note — “later people set aside the Běnyì and do not speak of it; only borrowing this book to roll-and-extend back-and-forth, even reaching the splintered-vague-and-confused-and-unstoppable. Could this be Master Zhū’s original intent?” Hú Fāngpíng’s work, by contrast, “although also concentrating on expounding the numerology, is rooted in Master Zhū’s book, repeatedly glossing it” — staying within the discipline of the Qǐméng’s actual text, drawing only on the Zhū-Xī-school disciple-and-second-generation lineage.
Bibliographic puzzle: Dǒng Zhēnqīng’s Zhōuyì huìtōng records the work has Hú Fāngpíng’s auto-preface dated Zhìyuán jǐchǒu 至元己丑 (1289) — implying composition under the Yuán dynasty (14 years post-Sòng-fall). But examining the surviving back-colophons: Xióng Hé 熊禾’s colophon says “In jǐchǒu spring [I] read books in Wǔyí mountain; [Hú Fāngpíng’s son] Hú Tíngfāng 胡庭芳 of Xīnān came to visit, brought out his father’s book — the Yì xué qǐméng tōng shì.” Liú Jīng 劉涇’s colophon also records Hú Tíngfāng’s same visit. Therefore jǐchǒu (1289) is the year Xióng Hé and Liú Jīng cut and made colophons, not Hú Fāngpíng’s auto-preface year. Dǒng Zhēnqīng was wrong. Hú Fāngpíng was likely already deceased by 1289 — his son Hú Tíngfāng (= Hú Yīguì 胡一桂, 1247–1314) brought the book around for Wǔ-yí-Mountain colophons and printing.
A second bibliographic confusion: the present base lacks Hú Fāngpíng’s auto-preface (which Dǒng Zhēnqīng saw); only one back-preface (hòu xù) survives. Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo mistakenly took Zhū Xī’s own original preface to the Qǐméng — dated Chúnxī bǐngwǔ (1186), signed Yúntái zhēnyì shǒu jì 雲臺真逸手記 (a Zhū Xī alias) — as if it were Hú Fāngpíng’s preface to his own Tōng shì. The Xúshì 徐氏 Tōngzhìtáng 通志堂 print perpetuated the confusion by labeling this same ZhūXī preface as “Yì xué qǐméng tōng shì xù” — clearly absurd, since “[from] Chúnxī bǐngwǔ down to Zhìyuán jǐchǒu is 113 years; how could Master Zhū have known of the Tōng shì?” The Sìkù editors correct this by re-attributing the preface back to Zhū Xī.
The composition window 1280–1289 reflects Hú Fāngpíng’s late-Sòng / early-Yuán scholarly maturity. The 1289 colophon-and-printing year sets the firm terminus; the work itself was composed earlier, likely during the 1280s, with the late-Sòng 1276 fall of Línān as the upper context.
The catalog meta places the work in dynasty: 宋, reflecting Hú Fāngpíng’s primary Sòng-period intellectual formation and the late-Sòng-to-early-Yuán composition arc.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yì xué qǐméng tōng shì in two juan was composed by Hú Fāngpíng of the Sòng. [Hú] Fāngpíng, zì Shīlǔ, hào Yùzhāi, a man of Wùyuán. According to Dǒng Zhēnqīng’s Zhōuyì huìtōng — this book has [Hú] Fāngpíng’s Zhìyuán jǐchǒu auto-preface, [making the work] entered already 14 years into [the Yuán]. But examining: Xióng Hé’s colophon says: “In jǐchǒu spring I was reading books in Wǔyí mountain; Mr. Hú Tíngfāng of Xīnān came to visit, brought out his father’s compiled book — the Yì xué qǐméng tōng shì.” Liú Jīng’s colophon also says: “One day I went with Tuìzhāi Mr. Xióng visiting Yúngǔ remains; just then Mr. Hú Tíngfāng of Xīnān came to visit, brought out the Yì xué qǐméng tōng shì — said his father’s Yùzhāi’s lifelong refined-effort was all in this book; we therefore cut [the woodblocks] and placed [them] in the study,” etc. So jǐchǒu is the year [Xióng] Hé and [Liú] Jīng cut the book and made colophons, not [Hú] Fāngpíng’s auto-preface year. [Dǒng] Zhēnqīng erred.
[Hú] Fāngpíng’s learning came out of Dǒng Mèngchéng; [Dǒng] Mèngchéng’s learning came out of Huáng Gàn; [Huáng] Gàn is Master Zhū’s son-in-law. Therefore [Hú] Fāngpíng and his son [Hú] Yīguì both firmly hold to Master Zhū’s exposition.
This book clarifies the meaning of Master Zhū’s Yì xué qǐméng. We note Master Zhū’s Yì xué qǐméng preface says: “Recent-period scholars all delight in talking the Yì. Those specially-on yáo-meaning are scattered-and-without-root; those touching imagery-and-numerology are bring-together-and-fasten — sometimes treating [the Yì] as out-of-the-sage’s heart-and-thought-and-knowledge-and-deliberation. As to such, I privately ill-with [it]. Therefore with my fellows I gather old-hearings to make a book of four piān to display to beginners, that they not be confused about its exposition.”
Evidently the Yì’s being-the-Way: principle and number coexist, cannot be limited to one exposition. Master Zhū, because Chéng’s zhuàn specifically masters clarifying-the-principle, therefore concurrently takes Master Shào’s number to supplement its partiality — not deserting the Yì-principle, only authoring this book to discuss number. Later people set aside the Běnyì and do not speak of it; only borrowing this book to roll-and-extend back-and-forth, even reaching the splintered-and-tangled-and-unstoppable. Could this be Master Zhū’s original intent?
[Hú] Fāngpíng’s book — although also concentrating on expounding the numerology — is rooted in Master Zhū’s book, repeatedly glossing it. The books drawn upon are: Huáng Gàn, Dǒng Zhū, Liú Yuè, Chén Zhí, Cài Yuān, Cài Shěn — six families; all are Master Zhū’s disciples. Plus Cài Mò, Xú Jǐ, Wēng Yǒng — three families: [Cài] Mò is Cài Yuān’s son; [Xú] Jǐ and [Wēng] Yǒng are both [Cài] Yuān’s disciples. So what is amplified does not come to the extent of, like other schools, completely-departing-from-its-own-canon. This is what readers of the Qǐméng should also consider.
What [Dǒng] Zhēnqīng called [Hú] Fāngpíng’s auto-preface — today’s base has lost it; only the post-preface in one piān survives. Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo even took Master Zhū’s original preface as [Hú] Fāngpíng’s preface — which can be called a thousand-thoughts’-one-loss. The Xúshì Tōngzhìtáng cut-base, at the end of this preface, dates Chúnxī bǐngwǔ mùchūn jìwàng, Yúntāi zhēnyì shǒu jì — clearly displaying Master Zhū’s biéhào. Yet its title-line says Yì xué qǐméng tōng shì xù. Chúnxī bǐngwǔ down to Zhìyuán jǐchǒu is 113 years — how could Master Zhū have known of the Tōng shì? We now revise-and-correct it, lest it propagate later doubt.
Respectfully revised and submitted, eleventh month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
胡方平 Hú Fāngpíng (lifedates not securely recorded; fl. late thirteenth century), zì Shīlǔ 師魯, hào Yùzhāi 玉齋, of Wùyuán 婺源 in Huīzhōu 徽州 (modern Wùyuán county, Jiāngxī). Father of 胡一桂 Hú Yīguì (1247–1314) — the major Yuán-period Yì scholar.
Pedagogical lineage (per CBDB, which corrects the Sìkù tiyao’s slightly elided account): Zhū Xī → Huáng Gàn → Dǒng Mèngchéng 董夢程 → Shěn Guībǎo 沈貴宝 → Hú Fāngpíng — fourth-generation Zhū-Xī-school transmission. The Sìkù tiyao compresses this to “Hú Fāngpíng’s learning came from Dǒng Mèngchéng,” skipping the Shěn Guībǎo intermediary.
Methodologically Hú Fāngpíng is a strictly-disciplined Zhū-school xiàngshù compiler. The work Tōng shì is methodologically self-restrained: it draws only on ZhūXī’s six direct disciples and three Cài-school second-generation figures, deliberately avoiding the broader xiàngshù literature (Liú Mù KR1a0011, Zhū Zhèn KR1a0024, etc.) that the Zhū-school did not endorse. The result is a methodologically clean, doctrinally orthodox companion-volume to the Qǐméng.
The work’s transmission through Hú Fāngpíng’s son Hú Tíngfāng (= Hú Yīguì) at Wǔyí Mountain in 1289 — bringing the manuscript to Xióng Hé and Liú Jīng for colophons-and-printing — is one of the more vivid documentary moments in late-Sòng / early-Yuán Dàoxué-circle book-printing history. Wǔyí Mountain (modern Fújiàn) was the principal Zhū-Xī-related sacred site (Zhū Xī’s Yúngǔ 雲谷 retreat); Xióng Hé (1247–1312) was a leading Wǔ-yí-school Dàoxué defender during the Mongol-conquest period. The 1289 visitation places the Tōng shì publication at the geographical-and-doctrinal heart of the Zhū-school refuge tradition.
The composition window 1280–1289 reflects Hú Fāngpíng’s late-life scholarly years. The work’s transmission across the SòngYuán transition makes it formally a Sòng Yì-commentary (per the catalog meta) but circulating only in Yuán-period printings.
The Hú-family transmission line continues through Hú Yīguì’s Yì běnyì fùlù zuǎnshū 易本義附錄纂疏 — the great Yuán-period Zhū-Xī-line Yì-compilation that systematically supersedes Dǒng Kǎi’s structural intervention (KR1a0061). Hú Yīguì cites the Tōng shì extensively. The father-son scholarly-dynasty pattern — paralleling the Cài Yuándìng → Cài Yuān / Cài Shěn pattern in Jiànyáng — is one of the more distinguished late-Sòng / early-Yuán Dàoxué family-line transmissions.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. The work is principally consulted in the secondary literature on the Zhū-school xiàng-shù tradition.
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Univ. of Hawaii, 1992) — context for Zhū-school transmission across the Sòng-Yuán transition.
- Thomas Hong-Chi Wilson, Genealogy of the Way: The Construction and Uses of the Confucian Tradition in Late Imperial China (Stanford, 1995) — context for the Zhū-school self-defining transmission.
- Joseph A. Adler, Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi’s Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi (SUNY, 2014) — Zhū Xī’s Qǐ-méng methodology and its disciple-elaborations.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ, vol. 2 — Hú Fāng-píng treated as a Zhū-school xiàng-shù compiler.
- Wáng Tiějūn 王鐵均, Sòngdài Yìxué shǐ — chapter on the late-Sòng / early-Yuán Zhū-school Yì-tradition.
- Modern punctuated editions on the Sìkù base.
Other points of interest
The 9-source citation discipline (6 first-generation ZhūXī disciples + 3 second-generation Cài-school disciples) is methodologically clean and represents one of the cleaner Sòng-period instances of self-conscious lineage-bounded scholarly compilation. The Sìkù editors’ praise — “not coming to the extent of completely-departing-from-its-own-canon” — is methodologically articulate: the discipline of citing only within-the-Zhū-school sources keeps the work from drifting into the broader speculative xiàngshù literature.
The HúTíngfāng / Wǔ-yí-Mountain / XióngHé / LiúJīng 1289 publication-and-colophon scene is one of the more vivid late-Sòng / early-Yuán Dàoxué-circle moments. Xióng Hé (Tuìzhāi 退齋) was a major Yuán-period Dàoxué refusenik who declined Yuán court summons and stayed at Wǔyí to teach; his colophon places the Tōng shì in the immediate post-Mongol-conquest Dàoxué-survival network.
The Sìkù editors’ care to correct (a) Dǒng Zhēnqīng’s Zhōuyì huìtōng misdating of Hú Fāngpíng’s preface, (b) Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo mistaking-Zhū-Xī’s-original-preface for Hú Fāngpíng’s, (c) the Xúshì Tōngzhìtáng perpetuation of (b) — is a methodologically articulate piece of Qīng evidential bibliographic-archeology, demonstrating the layered errors that compound across centuries of transmission.