Dú Yì jǔ yào 讀易舉要
Reading-the-Yì Selected Essentials
by 俞琰 (Yú Yǎn, zì Yùwú 玉吾, hào Línwū shānrén 林屋山人, 1245–1314 [CBDB]; per catalog 1258–1314)
About the work
A four-juan methodologically-articulated Yì-handbook by Yú Yǎn — the companion-piece to his vast Zhōuyì jí shuō (KR1a0064). Where the Jí shuō is a running synthesis-commentary across the canonical text, the Dú Yì jǔ yào is a thematic-organized handbook assembling Yú Yǎn’s positions on twenty-eight major Yì-pedagogical topics, supplemented by chart-and-table apparatus and concluding with substantial bibliographic-historical chapters.
Bibliographic state: the work was recorded in the Míng Wényuāngé shūmù 文淵閣書目, Jiāo Hóng’s Jīngjí zhì 經籍志, and Zhū Mùyùn 朱睦㮮’s Shòujīng tú 授經圖, but transmission-copies became extremely rare; Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo notes “not seen.” The Sìkù editors recovered the work from Yǒnglè dàdiǎn citations and reorganized into 4 juan.
The work’s table-of-contents is preserved at the head of the Sìkù base, giving a clear methodological overview:
Juan 1 (foundational topics):
- Yì wéi bǔshì zhī shū 易為卜筮之書 (the Yì is a divination book)
- Guàhuà qǔ xiàng 卦畫取象 (hexagram-drawing takes imagery)
- Zhān yòng yīnyáng lǎoshǎo 占用隂陽老少 (divination uses yīnyáng old-and-young)
- Zhān yòng zhēnhuǐ 占用貞悔 (divination uses zhēnhuǐ)
- Guà yáo zhī zhān cí 卦爻之占辭 (hexagram-and-line divinatory wording)
- Xiàng zhān suǒ chēng 象占所稱 (what imagery-and-divination call)
- Xiàng cí zhān cí zhī yì 象辭占辭之異 (imagery-wording vs. divination-wording differences)
- Guàbiàn 卦變 (hexagram-transformation)
- Gāng lái róu lái shàngxià tú 剛來柔來上下圖 (firm-and-soft coming-and-going chart)
Juan 2 (compositional topics):
- Yì zhōng zá lì 易中雜例 (miscellaneous examples in the Yì)
- Guà yì 卦義 (hexagram-meaning)
- Bā guà zhǔyáo tú 八卦主爻圖 (eight-trigram master-line chart)
- Shíèr guà zhǔyáo tú 十二卦主爻圖 (twelve-hexagram master-line chart)
- Guà zhī zhǔyáo 卦之主爻 (hexagram’s master-line)
- Chéngchéngbǐyìng 乘承比應 (riding-bearing-near-responding)
- Cí yùn zhī xié 辭韻之叶 (rhyme-harmonizing of the wording)
Juan 3 (numerological-and-cosmological topics):
- Lùn xiàngshù zhī xué 論象數之學 (discussing the imagery-and-numerology study)
- Lùn Yì shù zhī shìfēi 論易數之是非 (discussing the right-and-wrong of Yì-numbers)
- Hétú Luòshū zhī fùhuì 河圖洛書之附會 (HétúLuòshū’s forced-correspondence; with 3 charts)
- Guàqì zhī fùhuì 卦氣之附會 (hexagram-qì forced-correspondence)
- Nàjiǎ zhī fùhuì 納甲之附會 (nàjiǎ forced-correspondence)
- Sān Yì 三易 (the three Yì’s)
- Yì zì yì 易字義 (the character “Yì“‘s meaning)
- Guàxiàngtuànyáo zì yì 卦象彖爻字義 (the meanings of “guà”, “xiàng”, “tuàn”, “yáo”)
- Chóng guà zhī rén 重卦之人 (the person who doubled the hexagrams)
- Míng guà zhī rén 名卦之人 (the person who named the hexagrams)
- Zuò Tuàncí, yáocí zhī rén 作彖辭爻辭之人 (the persons who composed the Tuàncí and yáocí)
Juan 4 (canonical-and-bibliographic topics):
- Jīng fēn shàngxià èr piān 經分上下二篇 (canon divided into upper-and-lower two piān; with 3 charts)
- Shí Yì zhī mù 十翼之目 (the Ten Wings’ titles)
- Gǔwén Zhōuyì shíèr piān 古文周易十二篇 (the ancient-text Zhōuyì’s twelve piān)
- Hànrú xiāngchuán zhī Yì 漢儒相傳之易 (Hàn ru’s mutually-transmitted Yì)
- WèiJìn yǐhòu, TángSòng yǐlái zhūjiā zhùshù 魏晉以後唐宋以來諸家著述 (Wèi-Jìn-and-after, Táng-Sòng-and-onward various schools’ authored works)
Methodological positions of note:
-
Hexagram-transformation reading (juan 1, guàbiàn topic). Yú Yǎn’s exposition of gāngróu wǎnglái 剛柔往來 (firm-soft coming-and-going) “takes two-hexagrams fǎnduì (180-rotation pairing) to display the meaning-example” — using Tài and Pǐ hexagrams’ Tuàn-wording as the test-case. The Sìkù tiyao notes this is “more close to natural [reading] than Master Zhū’s guàbiàn exposition” — a methodologically clean simplification.
-
Methodological skepticism on Northern-Sòng numerology (juan 3). Yú Yǎn’s HétúLuòshū discussion criticizes the post-Liú-Mù HétúLuòshū tradition as fùhuì 附會 (forced-correspondence) — refuting Zhāng Xíngchéng 張行成 in particular for taking yuánhēnglìzhēn as “evidence of the Zhōuyì starting numbers from four.” The Sìkù tiyao: “Evidently [Yú Yǎn] is not one to lightly agree.” The guàqì (hexagram-qì) and nàjiǎ (matching-stems) topics receive the same fùhuì deflationary treatment.
-
Hyper-correspondences accepted from earlier scholars. Yú Yǎn does accept certain other forced-correspondences that the Sìkù editors find specious:
- Tián Chóu 田疇’s reading: accumulating the cè (yarrow-stalks) of Qián, Kūn, Tún, Méng, Xū, Sòng up to Shī gives the complete six-army number.
- Shǐ Xuán 史璿’s reading: Gé hexagram (49) corresponds to the dà yǎn number 49, hence “Heaven-and-Earth transform and the four-seasons complete”; Jié hexagram (60) corresponds to the jiǎzǐ sexagenary cycle, hence “Heaven-and-Earth restrain and the four-seasons complete.” The Sìkù tiyao: “all are by accidental-correspondence-views peering at the sage’s Yì-making intent. Yú Yǎn unfortunately took them — particularly not the original-intent.”
The closing chapter of juan 4, WèiJìn yǐhòu, TángSòng yǐlái zhūjiā zhùshù, is one of the more substantial Sòng/Yuán-period catalog-bibliographic surveys of the Yì-corpus. The Sìkù tiyao notes: “the various-schools’ authored writings, although mostly rooted in [Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武 and Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫]‘s two families [i.e. Jùnzhāi dúshūzhì 郡齋讀書志 and Shūlù jiětí], the names-and-zì and rank-and-place-of-origin sometimes have differences-and-agreements [from the standard works], also can serve as evidential-research material.” The work is thus also a documentary supplement to the standard Sòng Yì-bibliography.
The Sìkù tiyao’s overall verdict: “Yú Yǎn on the Yì — bitter-thinking and forceful-searching, accumulating his lifetime’s effort to make [the work]; the meanings he uniquely fastened-on also often surpass the previous people. The various-schools’ authored writings he listed… can serve as evidential research; should circulate together with his composed Jí shuō.”
A bibliographic puzzle: Yú Yǎn separately authored Liùshísì guà tú 六十四卦圖, Yì tú hé bì 易圖合璧, Lián zhū 連珠 (= Lián zhū Yì wài zhuàn 連珠易外傳), and Yì tú zuǎn yào 易圖纂要 — old print-bases combined these with the Dú Yì jǔ yào in a single edition. When the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn editors compiled materials, they “split-and-broke them in the most-mixed way, confused their thread-and-end; only the eight-divided-into-sixteen and sixteen-divided-into-thirty-two two charts still bore the title ‘Yú Yǎn assembled-charts’; the rest of the various charts were all coverable under the Dú Yì jǔ yào title and combined into one — exceptionally confused.” The Sìkù editors verified-and-pruned to restore the original Dú Yì jǔ yào’s independent text.
The composition window 1280–1310 brackets Yú Yǎn’s mature scholarly years post-Jí shuō completion (1296). The work has no internal dating but is methodologically a more-mature companion to the Jí shuō; the bibliographic-survey closing chapter implies post-Jí shuō composition with the comparative-bibliographic perspective that comes from having completed a major synthesis.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Dú Yì jǔ yào in four juan was composed by Yú Yǎn of the Sòng. This book — the Wényuāngé shūmù, Jiāo Hóng’s Jīngjí zhì, Zhū Mùyùn’s Shòujīng tú — all record [it]; yet outside-circulation transmission-copies are uniquely sparse. Hence Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo also says “not seen.” Today only the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn still scatters [the text] across each rhyme — admitting selecting-and-collecting. We respectfully gathered, combined, and edited [the work], still settling on four juan.
Examining: [Yú] Yǎn’s Jí shuō takes Master Zhū as canon; yet this book’s discussion of firm-soft-coming-and-going takes the two-hexagrams fǎnduì to display the meaning-example, using Tài-and-Pǐ two-hexagrams’ Tuàncí to compare with Master Zhū’s guàbiàn exposition — even more close to natural [reading]. His Yì-charts mostly root in Master Shào; yet this book’s discussion of imagery-and-numerology study refutes Zhāng Xíngchéng for taking yuánhēnglìzhēn as the Zhōuyì’s evidence-of-starting-numbers-from-four. Evidently [Yú Yǎn] is not one to lightly agree.
As to: Tián Chóu calling [the work] “accumulating Qián, Kūn, Tún, Méng, Xū, Sòng’s yarrow-stalks-up-to-Shī, the six-army’s number is complete”; Shǐ Xuán calling [it] “Gé sits at 49 corresponding to the dà yǎn number, hence saying ‘Heaven-and-Earth transform and the four-seasons complete’; Jié sits at 60, the jiǎzǐ one cycle, hence saying ‘Heaven-and-Earth restrain and the four-seasons complete’” — all by accidental-correspondence-views peering at the sage’s Yì-making intent. [Yú] Yǎn took them — particularly not the original-intent.
Yet [Yú] Yǎn on the Yì bitter-thought and forceful-searched, accumulating his lifetime’s effort to make [the work]; the meanings he uniquely fastened-on also often surpass the previous people. The various-schools’ authored writings he listed — although mostly rooted in Cháo Gōngwǔ and Chén Zhènsūn’s two families’ [bibliographies] — names-and-zì and rank-and-place-of-origin sometimes have differences-and-agreements; also can serve as evidential-research material. Indeed should circulate together with his composed Jí shuō.
[Yú] Yǎn separately has Liùshísì guà tú, Yì tú hé bì, Lián zhū, Yì tú zuǎn yào — these various books — old [print-bases] combined-and-cut with this book; when the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn was compiled, [they] split-and-broke and entered them, in great-mixed [way] confused-the-thread. Only the eight-divided-into-sixteen and sixteen-divided-into-thirty-two two charts still bore the title Yú Yǎn zuǎntú (Yú Yǎn assembled-charts). The rest of the various charts all cover-with the Dú Yì jǔ yào title, combined-into-one — exceptionally confused-and-disordered. We now exhaustively examined-and-corrected, tài chú (eliminated-and-pruned) to restore its original.
Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth 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
The Dú Yì jǔ yào is methodologically distinct from the Zhōuyì jí shuō (KR1a0064) in genre. Where the Jí shuō is a running canonical-text commentary, the Jǔ yào is a thematic handbook: 28 topics organized by methodological function (juan 1: foundational divinatory-and-imagery; juan 2: compositional structure; juan 3: numerological-cosmological; juan 4: canonical-bibliographic).
The work’s principal scholarly contributions:
-
Methodologically clean fǎnduì reading of guàbiàn. Where Zhū Xī’s guàbiàn tú in the Běnyì generates hexagram-transformations through complex line-position permutations, Yú Yǎn’s reading uses simple fǎnduì (180-rotation pairing) — a structurally cleaner and more naturally-readable approach.
-
Critical refutation of Northern-Sòng forced-correspondences. The fùhuì (forced-correspondence) deflationary readings of HétúLuòshū numerology, guàqì seasonal-correlations, and nàjiǎ stem-matching represent some of the cleaner Sòng/Yuán-period instances of xiàngshù-internal critical evaluation.
-
Comprehensive Yì-bibliographic survey. The closing juan-4 chapter on Wèi-Jìn-and-after, Táng-Sòng-onward various-schools’ authored writings is one of the more substantial Sòng/Yuán-period Yì-corpus bibliographic surveys, supplementing Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Jùnzhāi dúshūzhì and Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí.
-
Inheritance reception of forced-correspondences. The Sìkù-noted reception of Tián Chóu’s and Shǐ Xuán’s forced-correspondences is methodologically interesting: even within Yú Yǎn’s broadly-deflationary critical apparatus, certain specific correspondences (the Gé-49 / Jié-60 calendrical-numerical alignment) were retained — suggesting Yú Yǎn drew the line between systematically-forced and individually-attractive correspondences in ways modern analysis would dispute.
The composition window 1280–1310 reflects Yú Yǎn’s mature scholarly years. The bibliographic-survey orientation of juan 4 implies post-Jí shuō composition (post-1296 likely); the upper bound is constrained by Yú Yǎn’s death in 1314.
The Sìkù-period bibliographic recovery work — separating the Dú Yì jǔ yào proper from the four other Yì-chart works originally bound with it (Liùshísì guà tú, Yì tú hé bì, Lián zhū, Yì tú zuǎn yào) — is methodologically articulate Qīng evidential-bibliographic archeology.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. Treated principally in the secondary literature on Yú Yǎn and the Sòng/Yuán Yì-tradition.
- Bent Nielsen, A Companion to Yi Jing Numerology and Cosmology (Routledge, 2003) — Yú Yǎn’s fù-huì deflationary readings discussed.
- Joseph A. Adler, Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi’s Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi (SUNY, 2014) — context for the guà-biàn reading.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ, vol. 2 — Yú Yǎn’s methodological handbook treated.
- Wáng Tiějūn 王鐵均, Sòngdài Yìxué shǐ — chapter on Yú Yǎn’s Jì shuō / Jǔ yào pair.
- Modern punctuated editions on the Sìkù base.
Other points of interest
The 28-topic thematic organization of the Jǔ yào is one of the cleaner Sòng/Yuán-period Yì-handbook structural-frameworks. Compared to Cài Yuān’s Yì xiàng yì yán (KR1a0053) or Lín Zhì’s Yì bì zhuàn (KR1a0045), Yú Yǎn’s organization gives a wider topical-coverage with cleaner methodological boundaries — the four-juan topical organization corresponds to four levels of Yì-pedagogy (foundational divination, compositional structure, numerological cosmology, canonical-textual history).
The juan-4 bibliographic survey, inheriting the Sòng Jùnzhāi dúshūzhì and Shūlù jiětí but introducing some name-and-place-of-origin corrections, is a small but real piece of Yì-bibliographic scholarship at the SòngYuán transition. The survey represents the first time a major Yì-scholar systematically surveyed the existing corpus from within the Yì-pedagogical framework.
The Sìkù editors’ separation of the Jǔ yào proper from the four bound-companion-chart-works is a small monument of Qīng evidential-bibliographic care.