Zhōuyì qǐméng yì zhuàn 周易啟蒙翼傳
Wing-Tradition on the Zhōuyì Beginner’s Primer
by 胡一桂 (Hú Yīguì, zì Tíngfāng 庭芳, hào Shuānghú 雙湖, 1247–1314, of Wùyuán 婺源 — son of 胡方平 Hú Fāngpíng)
About the work
A four-juan extension of Hú Yīguì’s father’s Yì xué qǐméng tōng shì (KR1a0062) and the methodological-foundation companion to Hú Yīguì’s own Yì běnyì fùlù zuǎn shū (KR1a0069). The title Yì zhuàn (wing-tradition) signals the work’s relationship to its parent: where Hú Fāngpíng’s Tōng shì glossed Zhū Xī’s Qǐméng directly, Hú Yīguì’s Yì zhuàn “further pushes-and-illuminates and discriminates-and-clarifies it.”
The auto-preface (preserved at the head of the Sìkù base) gives the work’s program. Zhū Xī’s Yì-program comprised the Běnyì (canonical-text gloss) and the Qǐméng (foundational-treatise on xiàngshù); these together “open up the beginnings-of-darkness and serve as a step-ladder for reading the Běnyì — substantially [together] all are the Yì-canon’s tradition.” Hú Fāngpíng made the Tōng shì gloss; Hú Yīguì had compiled the Běnyì fùlù zuǎn shū; “today, beyond the recently-augmented-and-compiled, I have further completed the Yì zhuàn in four piān” — because:
It is barely a hundred-and-some years since Master Zhū, and the inheriting-students gradually lose the truth. As: the Túshū has already been corrected, yet some still continue Liú Mù’s error; the Běnyì has already restored the ancient [text], yet some still follow Wáng Bì’s confusion; the divinatory-teaching is luminously clear, yet some still ancestor-honor the yuánzhǐ (originary-intent, i.e. the LǎoZhuāng tradition).
The work’s structural organization is signaled by the table-of-contents: three internal piān + one outer piān.
Internal piān 1 — Jǔ yào 舉要 (Selected Essentials): develops the biànzhān (transformation-and-divination) meaning. The cíbiànxiàngzhān 辭變象占 four-fold framework is invoked.
Internal piān 2 — Míng shì 明筮 (Clarifying the Yarrow-stalk Procedure): examines the Zuǒzhuàn and other historical records’ divination methods and hexagram-occupation principles. The Zuǒzhuàn’s 32 recorded bǔshì 卜筮 cases are systematically gone through.
Internal piān 3 — Biàn yí 辨疑 (Distinguishing Doubts): distinguishes the same-and-different aspects of Hé tú and Luò shū. The Túshū’s post-Liú-Mù → post-Cài-Yuán-dìng tradition’s textual disputes are systematically clarified.
These three piān “all develop Master Zhū’s expositions.”
Outer piān (Wài piān 外篇) — 1 juan: covers Yì wěi hòu 易緯候 (apocryphal Yì-and-celestial-signs texts), Jīng Fáng’s fēi hòu 飛候 (flying-correspondence) doctrine, Jiāo Gàn’s Yì lín 易林 (Yì-grove), Yáng Xióng’s Tài xuán 太玄, Sīmǎ Guāng’s Qián xū 潛虛, Shào Yōng’s Huángjí jīngshì. The wài piān “appends their general outline because all are the Yì’s branch-streams, hence separately calling them outer.”
The Sìkù tiyao gives the methodological comparison with the parent work:
Roughly mutual-overlapping with his father’s book; yet [Hú] Fāngpíng is master on clarifying the original-intent; [Hú] Yīguì is master on distinguishing alien-learning. Hence the structural-examples are each different.
The methodological self-positioning is articulated in the auto-preface:
Sun-moon-Tú-Shū’s imagery-and-numerology is clarified — the Heaven-and-Earth’s natural Yì is brilliantly displayed; guàyáo-Ten-Wings’ canon-and-tradition divisions — the Fú-xī-Wén-King-Duke-of-Zhōu-Confucius’s Yì is distinguished. Although Xià, Shāng, Zhōu’s Yì differ, what they master-with is the same — divination. The ancient Yì*‘s transformation-and-recovery, although difficult, ultimately the present cannot trump-over the ancient. Transmissions and traditions and glosses, although tangled-and-not-one, specifically mastering principle-and-rightness — how does it match yarrow-stalk-divination’s first-pushing principle-and-rightness as substantive?*
The methodological program: the Yì’s essential character is bǔshì (divination); rooting yìlǐ in bǔshì (rather than treating bǔshì as merely instrumental) is methodologically prior. This is methodologically continuous with Zhū Xī’s Běnyì’s preface program.
The closing pedagogical-application passage of the auto-preface gives one of the cleaner Sòng-Yuán-period statements of the Yì’s practical-ethical reading:
Master Zhū once said: ‘the Yì is only a divination book; it was originally not for setting-up-teaching.’ Yet today, every reading of one hexagram, one line — when it is just like yarrow-stalk-acquired, observe-imagery-and-savor-wording, observe-transformation-and-savor-divination, and further seek the why-it-is-so of its principle, applying it to body-mind-family-state-realm and all-having-use — only then is one a good reader. Hence: in Qián and Kūn one should recognize the lord-minister-father-mother division; in Xián and Héng one should recognize the husband-wife distinction; in ZhènKǎnGènXùnLíDuì one should recognize the elder-younger order; in Lìzé Duì (Joining-marsh Duì, hex. 58) one should recognize friends’-discussion-and-practice; reaching to: cautious-words and self-restraint-of-eating-and-drinking — there should be obtainment from Yí; restrain-anger-and-block-desire, transfer-to-good-and-correct-faults — there should be obtainment from SǔnYì; not-flattering and not-disrespectful, to disciplinary the upper-and-lower’s exchange; settle-the-body-and-after-act, ease-the-heart-and-after-speak, fix-the-exchange-and-after-seek, as the body-preserving Way — there should be obtainment from the Dà zhuàn. Just-by-this and pushing-it, follow-reading-and-receive-use — these are Master [Yán] Jūnpíng’s [Yán Zūn 嚴遵’s] yī xiào yī zhōng (rely-on-filial-rely-on-loyalty) subtle-intent. Although daily-grasping-the-yarrow-stalks divining, the foundation-place is also nothing-greater-than this.
The composition window 1290–1310 reflects: post-1289 (Hú Yīguì’s Wǔyí Mountain visit with father’s Tōng shì manuscript) and post-completion of the Běnyì fùlù zuǎn shū (KR1a0069, composed mid-life); upper bound by Hú Yīguì’s death (1314).
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Zhōuyì qǐméng yì zhuàn in four juan was composed by Hú Yīguì of the Yuán. [Hú] Yīguì’s father [Hú] Fāngpíng once composed the Yì xué qǐméng tōng shì; [Hú] Yīguì further pushed-and-illuminated-and-distinguished-and-clarified it; hence calling [the work] Yì zhuàn.
The auto-preface says: “From Master Zhū it is barely a hundred-and-some years; the inheriting-students gradually lose [the truth]. As: the Túshū has already been corrected, yet some still continue Liú Mù’s error; the divinatory-numbers are luminously like cinnabar-and-azure, yet some still ancestor-honor the yuánzhǐ — there are these.” Therefore, beyond the Běnyì fùlù zuǎnshū, [he] further compiled this book.
One: Jǔ yào, to develop the biànzhān meaning. Two: Míng shì, to examine historical-records’ bǔshì and hexagram-occupation methods. Three: Biàn yí, to distinguish the Hé túLuò shū same-and-different. All develop Master Zhū’s expositions. The wài piān in one juan covers the Yì wěi hòu various books, reaching to Jīng Fáng’s fēihòu, Jiāo Gàn’s Yì lín, Yáng Xióng’s Tài xuán, Sīmǎ Guāng’s Qián xū, [Shào Kāng]-jié’s Huángjí jīngshì — various methods — also appending their general outline; because all are the Yì’s branch-streams, hence separately calling [them] outer.
Roughly mutual-overlapping with his father’s book; yet [Hú] Fāngpíng is master-on-clarifying-the-original-intent; [Hú] Yīguì is master-on-distinguishing-alien-learning — hence the structural-examples are each different.
Respectfully revised and submitted, twelfth 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 Qǐméng yì zhuàn together with Hú Yīguì’s Běnyì fùlù zuǎn shū (KR1a0069) constitutes the comprehensive Hú Yīguì Yì-program. The two works divide labor: the Fùlù zuǎn shū is the canonical-text running commentary on Zhū Xī’s Běnyì; the Qǐméng yì zhuàn is the methodological-foundation work on xiàngshù and divinatory-procedure, supplementing his father’s Tōng shì.
The work’s three internal piān (Jǔ yào, Míng shì, Biàn yí) systematically address: (1) the cíbiànxiàngzhān four-fold framework with focus on biàn and zhān; (2) the Zuǒzhuàn and historical-record divinatory cases; (3) the Hé túLuò shū textual-tradition disputes. The outer piān surveys the broader xiàngshù-cosmological literature (apocrypha, Yì lín, Tài xuán, Qián xū, Huángjí jīngshì) — branch-streams of Yì-tradition that Hú Yīguì recognizes as legitimate but separates from the canonical-Zhū-school core.
The Sìkù-noted father-son labor-division — Hú Fāngpíng on original-intent clarification + Hú Yīguì on alien-learning distinction — represents one of the cleaner family-line scholarly programs in the late-Sòng / early-Yuán Dàoxué corpus. The Tōng shì + Yì zhuàn pair gives the HúWùyuán scholastic-dynasty’s complete contribution to Zhū-school Yì-pedagogy.
The closing auto-preface passage (the yī xiào yī zhōng ethical-application program) is one of the more articulate SòngYuán statements of the practical-ethical reading of the Yì — specifying which hexagram applies to which life-domain (Qián / Kūn for political-cosmic relations; Xián / Héng for marriage; etc.). The catalog of mappings is methodologically continuous with the YángWànlǐ historical-cases reading tradition (KR1a0040) but operates within the strict Zhū-school doctrinal frame.
The composition window 1290–1310 brackets Hú Yīguì’s mature scholarly years post-1289 Wǔyí Mountain visit and prior to his 1314 death.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. The work is principally consulted for the Hú-school Yì-program.
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Univ. of Hawaii, 1992) — Yuán-period Zhū-school transmission.
- Joseph A. Adler, Reconstructing the Confucian Dao (SUNY, 2014) — Zhū Xī’s Yì-program and its later inheritance.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ, vol. 3 — Hú Yīguì’s Qǐ-méng yì zhuàn discussed.
- Wáng Tiějūn 王鐵均, Yuándài Yìxué shǐ — chapter on the Hú-Wù-yuán family-line.
- Modern punctuated editions on the Sìkù base.
Other points of interest
The methodological diagnosis of post-Zhū-Xī drift — Túshū returning to LiúMù, canonical-text returning to WángBì, divinatory teaching returning to yuánzhǐ — is one of the cleanest Yuán-period statements of the orthodoxy-maintenance challenge facing the post-Zhū-Xī Zhū-school. Hú Yīguì’s diagnosis is methodologically similar to Wèi Liǎowēng’s earlier (KR1a0054) but focused specifically on the post-Zhū-Xī drift rather than on the broader HànSòng tradition.
The 32-Zuǒ-zhuàn-cases methodological focus in the Míng shì piān — systematically going through every recorded Zuǒzhuàn divinatory case to derive procedural-and-interpretive principles — is one of the cleaner systematic Yuán-period treatments of bǔshì literature. The procedure became standard in later YuánMíng Yì-pedagogical works.
The outer-piān survey of xiàngshù-cosmological branch-streams (Yì lín, Tài xuán, Qián xū, Huángjí jīngshì) is, despite its tone of dismissal, one of the more substantial Yuán-period documentary surveys of the non-canonical Yì-related literature. The survey functions as a Cooper-test of the canonical Yì-tradition: anything not derivable from the Zhū-school Běnyì-and-Qǐméng base is consigned to the outer category.