Yì zuǎn yán wài yì 易纂言外翼
Outer Wings to the Yì zuǎn yán
by 吳澄 (Wú Chéng, zì Yōuqīng 幼清, hào Cǎolú 草廬, 1249–1333, of Lèān 樂安 in Línchuān)
About the work
An eight-juan companion-treatise to Wú Chéng’s Yì zuǎn yán (KR1a0071). The Wài yì (“outer wings”) provides the methodological-foundational apparatus that the Zuǎn yán proper does not carry — Wú Chéng’s Zuǎn yán’s “meaning-and-examples scatter through each hexagram and do not mutually thread-and-encompass”; the head-juan only “coarsely lays out the general outline, not yet detailed-discussion-reaching”; therefore Wú Chéng “further composed this book to flowingly clarify it.”
The work was originally in 12 piān (per Wú Chéng’s auto-preface), reduced to 8 juan in the Sìkù reorganization. The 12-piān original structure (auto-preface preserved at the head of the Sìkù base):
-
Guà tǒng 卦統 — the eight-trigrams pure-and-combined bodies are jīng (warp); the 64-hexagrams’ miscellaneous bodies are wěi (woof). This is the basis on which the upper-and-lower jīng are divided.
-
Guà duì 卦對 — odd-and-even reverse-transformation forms 2 hexagrams; either upper-and-lower-篇 mutually-paired or each-篇 self-paired. The 8 non-reversing hexagrams (Qián, Kūn, Kǎn, Lí, Yí, Zhōngfú, Dàguò, Xiǎoguò) and the 28 reversing-pair-couples are systematically discussed.
-
Guà biàn 卦變 — odd-and-even further generate odd-and-even, the use without limit. Hexagram-transformation through line-permutation, generating 64 from each base hexagram. Now lost in the present base.
-
Guà zhǔ 卦主 — extending the Wúwàng zhuàn’s gāng zì wài lái ér wéi zhǔ yú nèi (firm comes from outside and serves as master inside) to clarify each hexagram’s master-line.
-
Biàn guà 變卦 — firm-soft mutually-pushing generates transformation; firm-line transforms then soft, soft-line transforms then firm; one hexagram can become 64 hexagrams. Now lost in the present base.
-
Hù guà 互卦 — the middle four lines further constitute two trigrams within one hexagram. The interlocking-trigram doctrine. Now lost in the present base.
-
Xiàng lì 象例 — class-gathered survey of the canonical text’s image-taking. Anything classifiable is gathered to observe its penetration.
-
Zhān lì 占例 — yuánhēnglìzhēn, jíxiōngwújiù — its meaning all rooted in the Heavenly Way.
-
Cí lì 辭例 — what is not preserved in xiàng lì and zhān lì but is mutually-comparable.
-
Biàn lì 變例 — yarrow-stalk sì yíng shíbā biàn 四營十八變 (four-operations, eighteen transformations) procedure.
-
Yì yuán 易原 — Hé tú, Luò shū, Xiāntiān / Hòutiān charts. Now possibly incomplete.
-
Yì liú 易流 — comprehensive list of post-Yáng-Xióng imitation-Yì writings: Yáng Xióng’s Tài xuán (taking 3-from-3-才), Sīmǎ Guāng’s Qián xū (taking 5-from-Five-Phases-10), Cài Shěn’s Hóngfàn huángjí nèipiān (taking 9-from-9-categories). The judgment: “Shàozǐ wandered easily within Fúxī’s drawing; the three families [Yáng, Sīmǎ, Cài] then ran out beyond Fúxī’s drawing.” Now half-lost.
The Sìkù base is missing Guà biàn, Biàn guà, Hù guà three piān; Yì liú is missing half; Yì yuán is suspected incomplete. The remaining “head-and-tail orderly with no losses” sections were arranged into 8 juan.
The Sìkù tiyao gives a substantive intellectual-historical reading of the work’s significance:
From the Táng’s settling of the Zhèngyì [Kǒng Yǐngdá’s authoritative commentary], the Yì thereupon took Wáng Bì as canon; xiàngshù learning was long set aside and not discussed. Wú Chéng’s Zuǎn yán solely-decided by xiàng (imagery); the historians said it could fully break the traditions’-glosses’ chiseling-and-forced-correspondence; hence Yì-discussers mostly take it as canon. This compilation [the Wài yì] class-gathers and area-divides to seek the principle’s combine-and-penetrate. As: the Guà tǒng and Guà duì two piān discuss why the canon is divided into upper-and-lower — what Master Chéng and Zhū did not reach. The Xiàng lì various piān clarify ancient meanings — especially not what the Yuán-and-Míng various ru’s empty-talk-and-mystical-realization can compare to.
The last sentence — “especially not what the Yuán-and-Míng various ru’s empty-talk-and-mystical-realization can compare to” — is a remarkable Sìkù-period verdict, placing Wú Chéng’s evidential-philological Yì-scholarship against the broader YuánMíng Yì-tradition’s drift toward mystical-realization (the YìChán and xīnxué lines).
The composition window 1290–1330 reflects Wú Chéng’s mature scholarly years parallel to the Yì zuǎn yán’s composition. The Wài yì may have been begun later but completed contemporaneously; precise dating within this window is uncertain.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yì zuǎn yán wài yì in eight juan was composed by Wú Chéng of the Yuán. [Wú] Chéng’s composed Yì zuǎn yán’s meaning-and-examples scatter through each hexagram and do not mutually-thread-and-encompass. The head-juan’s laid-out hexagram-strokes also coarsely contains the general outline; not detailed-discussion-reached. [He] therefore further composed this book to flowingly clarify it.
The Zuǎn yán has the Tōngzhìtáng cut-base, long circulating in the world. This book — transmission-bases gradually rare; recently scattered, no surviving [base]. Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo notes: “seen in the Míng Kūnshān Yèshì shūmù 葉氏書目, recording 4 fascicles; also did not see the book.” Today only the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn still divides-and-records [the text] under each rhyme.
Examining what [Wú] Chéng wrote — the small-prefaces — the original book was 12 piān. 1 Guà tǒng: with the 8 canonical-trigrams’ pure-bodies and combined-bodies as jīng, the 64-hexagrams’ miscellaneous-bodies as wěi — what the upper-and-lower jīngpiān’s division is by. 2 Guà duì: by odd-and-even reverse-transformation forming 2 hexagrams, or upper-and-lower-篇 mutually-pairing. 3 Guà biàn: speaks of odd-and-even further generating odd-and-even, its use without limit. 4 Guà zhǔ: extending from the Wúwàng zhuàn and pushing it, to clarify a single canon’s meaning. 5 Biàn guà: speaks of firm-and-soft mutually-transforming and one hexagram can become 64 hexagrams. 6 Hù guà: speaks of the middle four lines further constituting two hexagrams to form one hexagram. 7 Xiàng lì: all the canon’s image-taking is class-gathered to observe its penetration. 8 Zhān lì: speaks of yuánhēnglìzhēn, jíxiōngwújiù — its meaning all rooted in the Heavenly Way. 9 Cí lì: what xiànglì and zhānlì did not preserve, [yet] can be mutually-seen. 10 Biàn lì: speaks of the yarrow-stalk sìyíng shíbābiàn method. 11 Yì yuán: clarifies Hé tú, Luò shū, Xiāntiān and Hòutiān charts. 12 Yì liú: comprehensively lists Yáng Xióng-and-after’s imitation-Yì books.
Today missing Guà biàn, Biàn guà, Hù guà three piān; Yì liú missing half-piān; Yì yuán suspected also incomplete. The rest [is] still head-and-tail orderly with no losses.
From the Táng’s fixing the Zhèngyì, the Yì thereupon took Wáng Bì as canon; xiàngshù learning was long set aside and not discussed. [Wú] Chéng made the Zuǎn yán solely-decided by imagery; the historians said it could fully break the traditions’-glosses’ chiseling-and-forced-correspondence — hence Yì-discussers mostly take it as canon. This compilation, by class-gathering and area-dividing, to seek the principle’s combine-and-penetrate, as the Guà tǒng and Guà duì two piān discuss why the canon is divided into upper-and-lower — what Master Chéng and Master Zhū did not reach. The Xiàng lì various piān clarify ancient meanings — especially not what the Yuán-and-Míng various ru’s empty-talk-and-mystical-realization can compare to. Although there is some little residual-loss, the great outline and big topics still can be pushed-and-sought. We respectfully follow the original-piān-arranging-and-sequence, separately-into 8 juan, that with the Zuǎn yán mutually-supplementing-and-circulating.
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 Yì zuǎn yán wài yì is methodologically the more theoretically-articulate of Wú Chéng’s two principal Yì compositions. Where the Zuǎn yán is a running canonical-text commentary, the Wài yì is a thematic methodological apparatus: 12 chapters covering the structural-organization principles of the canon (chapters 1-2 on jīngwěi organization), the hexagram-relations principles (chapters 3-6: guàbiàn, guàzhǔ, biànguà, hùguà), the imagery-and-divination examples (chapters 7-9: xiànglì, zhānlì, cílì), the procedural-yarrow-stalk doctrine (chapter 10: biànlì), and the cosmological-foundational-and-historical apparatus (chapters 11-12: Yì yuán, Yì liú).
The Guà tǒng + Guà duì opening pair is methodologically distinctive: the upper-and-lower jīng division is read as a jīngwěi (warp-and-woof) structural composition, with the 8 non-reversing hexagrams (Qián, Kūn, Kǎn, Lí, Yí, Zhōngfú, Dàguò, Xiǎoguò — the palindromic hexagrams) functioning as jīng and the 56 reversing-pair-couples functioning as wěi. This methodologically converges with Shuì Yúquán’s KR1a0057 bù yì zhī bā guà / hù yì zhī wǔshíliù guà analysis from a different theoretical direction.
The Yì liú chapter’s substantive intellectual-history of Yì-imitation works (Yáng Xióng, Sīmǎ Guāng, Cài Shěn) places these works methodologically in the zhī liú 支流 (branch-stream) category — external to the canonical Yì tradition proper. Wú Chéng’s verdict — Shàozǐ within Fúxī’s drawing; the three [Yáng, Sīmǎ, Cài] outside it — is one of the cleaner Sòng-Yuán-period typological judgments of the post-canonical Yì-related literature.
The Sìkù-period transmission state — 3 piān completely lost (Guà biàn, Biàn guà, Hù guà), the Yì liú half-lost — represents one of the more substantial late-transmission losses in the Sìkù Yìlèi recovery. The lost three piān would have substantially expanded Wú Chéng’s hexagram-relations doctrine; their loss is a real defect in the surviving WúChéng Yì-corpus.
The Sìkù verdict that the Wài yì is methodologically superior to the broader YuánMíng tradition — “especially not what the Yuán-and-Míng various ru*‘s empty-talk-and-mystical-realization can compare to*” — places Wú Chéng’s evidential-philological-and-structural approach decisively against the broader YìChán / xīnxué Yì drift. Modern scholarship has confirmed Wú Chéng as a methodologically-rigorous outlier within the post-Zhū-Xī Yì tradition.
The composition window 1290–1330 reflects Wú Chéng’s mature scholarly years parallel to the Yì zuǎn yán. The two works function as paired companion-volumes — Zuǎn yán for the canonical text, Wài yì for the methodological apparatus.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. Treated alongside the Zuǎn yán in the secondary literature on Wú Chéng.
- David Gedalecia, The Philosophy of Wu Ch’eng (Indiana, 1999) — chapter on Wú Chéng’s Yì-scholarship.
- Joseph A. Adler, Reconstructing the Confucian Dao (SUNY, 2014) — context for the post-Zhū-Xī Yì-tradition.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ, vol. 3 — Wú Chéng’s Wài yì discussed alongside the Zuǎn yán.
- Wáng Tiějūn 王鐵均, Yuándài Yìxué shǐ — chapter on Wú Chéng’s two-work Yì-program.
- Modern punctuated editions on the Sìkù base.
Other points of interest
The Guà tǒng + Guà duì structural reading of the upper-and-lower jīng — recognizing the 8 palindromic hexagrams as the jīng (warp / structural-anchor) of the canonical sequence — is methodologically continuous with Shuì Yúquán (KR1a0057) but theoretically more developed. Wú Chéng’s framing is jīngwěi (warp-and-woof) rather than Shuì Yúquán’s bùyì / hùyì (non-varying / mutually-varying), but the underlying structural insight is the same. Together the two readings represent the late-Sòng / early-Yuán recognition of a real symmetry-property of the 64-hexagram set.
The Yì liú chapter’s typology of Yì-imitation works is one of the cleaner intellectual-historical surveys of the post-canonical Yì-tradition. The Wú-Chéng-derived classification — Shào Yōng inside Fúxī’s drawing (i.e., authentic continuation); Yáng Xióng / Sīmǎ Guāng / Cài Shěn outside it (i.e., external imitations) — is a methodologically clean criterion.
The 3-piān loss in transmission (Guà biàn, Biàn guà, Hù guà) — covering precisely the hexagram-line-transformation doctrine — leaves a substantial gap in the surviving WúChéng Yì-corpus. This is one of the cases where post-Sòng scholarly transmission’s losses had decisive consequences: had the three piān survived, modern Yì-scholarship would have a more articulated picture of the late-Yuán xiàngshù tradition.