Yì xué làn shāng 易學濫觴
The Source-Streams of Yì-Studies
by 黃澤 (Huáng Zé, zì Chǔwàng 楚望, 1260–1346, of Zīzhōu 資州 in Sìchuān, resident at Jiǔjiāng 九江 in Jiāngxī — shānzhǎng of the Jǐngxīng and Dōnghú academies)
About the work
A one-juan compact methodological treatise on the foundational issues of Yì-studies, by Huáng Zé 黃澤 — the major mid-Yuán Yì-and-Chūn-qiū scholar whose pedagogical legacy passed through his disciple Zhào Fǎng 趙汸 (1319–1369) into the Míng-period Dàoxué tradition. Zhào Fǎng was born late-Yuán and as a young man studied under Huáng Zé — both his Yì and his Chūnqiū learning derive from Huáng Zé.
The work was composed when Huáng Zé was in advanced old age, with the explicit purpose of setting out the general outlines (dà fán 大凡) of his unfinished planned Yì and Chūnqiū glosses. He composed two parallel works: this Yì xué làn shāng (on the Yì) and a Chūnqiū zhǐ yào 春秋指要 (on the Chūnqiū; now lost). Both were originally bound together as a single volume, with 吳澄 Wú Chéng’s tí cí 題辭 (titling-words) at the head, dated Yányòu 7 (1320). Wú Chéng’s titling explains:
Master Chǔwàng’s gloss-of-canon — his intent may be called good. The Yì he wished to clarify-imagery; the Chūnqiū he wished to clarify writing-method. Indeed [the works] would no-ancient-before, no-current-after (qián wú gǔ, hòu wú jīn 前無古後無今) — specifically [he] brings out the great-outline of what he has obtained to display to people; and a complete gloss [is] not easy to complete. He often, with family-poverty and advancing-age, was not able to quickly complete his glosses — sighing the world, “is there a humane-and-righteous person who can enable [me] to fulfill the intent?” — That I cannot make certain. Way’s circulation is by fate; though I love it, I cannot help [him] — only sighing-eternally.
Wú Chéng’s titling reveals Huáng Zé’s poverty-restricted scholarly conditions and the methodological commitment to a “no-ancient-before, no-current-after” — i.e., methodologically distinctive — Yì-program.
The Yì xué làn shāng enumerates 13 substantive issues where Huáng Zé argues the post-Hàn Yì-learning has failed to recover the ancient (fù gǔ 復古):
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Yì’s name-and-meaning (Yì zhī míngyì 易之名義): the Yì character’s etymology and the canonical-name’s meaning.
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Hexagram-doubling meaning (chóng guà zhī yì 重卦之義): the question of who first doubled the trigrams into hexagrams.
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Reverse-and-forward meaning (nìshùn zhī yì 逆順之義): the Shuō guà’s shù wǎng zhě shùn, zhī lái zhě nì (counting-the-past is forward, knowing-the-future is reverse) doctrine.
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Hexagram-name meaning (guàmíng zhī yì 卦名之義): the methodological principles for understanding hexagram-names.
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Hexagram-transformation method (guàbiàn zhī fǎ 卦變之法): the guàbiàn technical apparatus.
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Hexagram-name (guàmíng 卦名): individual hexagram-name analysis.
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Yì-number’s origin (Yìshù zhī yuán 易數之原): the foundational source of the Yì’s numerological apparatus.
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Yì’s wording-meaning (Yì zhī cíyì 易之辭義): the canonical-text wording-and-meaning.
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Yì’s divinatory-wording (Yì zhī zhāncí 易之占辭): the divinatory wording’s structural pattern.
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Yarrow-stalk method (shī fǎ 蓍法): the procedural-divinatory yarrow-stalk technique.
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Divination method (zhān fǎ 占法): the broader divinatory method.
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Xù guà 序卦: the hexagram-sequence.
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Lapses-and-doubts characters (tuō wù yí zì 脱誤疑字): textual-critical issues — lost, erroneous, and doubtful characters.
The methodological program is articulated in three commitments:
a. Yì-discussion takes clarifying-imagery as foundation. Míng xiàng 明象 (clarifying-imagery) is methodologically prior to yìlǐ exposition.
b. Clarifying-imagery takes Xù guà as foundation. Within the imagery-program, the Xù guà (hexagram-sequence) provides the structural anchor.
c. Divinatory method takes Zuǒzhuàn as canon. The Zuǒzhuàn’s 32 recorded bǔshì 卜筮 cases provide the canonical model for divinatory practice.
The methodological balance: “Master Wáng Bì’s discarding-imagery-and-numerology drifted into the originary-emptiness; the Hàn- ru*‘s using imagery-and-numerology also lost themselves in the fánsuì (proliferating-and-fragmenting). Therefore [I] balance-the-middle to weigh their evenness.*”
The Sìkù tiyao’s judgment is decidedly favorable: “The discussions all have evidential basis. Although [Huáng Zé] could not engrave-and-make-a-complete-book, [yet] developing ancient meanings, the structural-examples are bright-and-distinct, [the work] already encompasses the comprehensive book’s master-essentials. Following his exposition and pushing-extending it, also is sufficient to be the guīniè (compass-and-square / standard) of Yì-discussers.”
The companion Chūnqiū zhǐ yào is no longer extant. Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo records the present Yì xué làn shāng with the note “lost” — the work survived into the Sìkù base only because of the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn.
The composition window 1310–1320 reflects: Huáng Zé’s late-life mature scholarship (he was 50 in 1310, 60 in 1320, 86 at his death in 1346) and the firmly-fixed Wú Chéng Yányòu 7 (1320) preface as terminus.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yì xué làn shāng in 1 juan was composed by Huáng Zé of the Yuán. [Huáng] Zé, zì Chǔwàng, a man of Zīzhōu, residing at Jiǔjiāng. In the Dàdé era served as Mountain-Master of Jǐngxīng Academy; further [served as] Mountain-Master of Dōnghú Academy. After more than 80 years of age, then ended. Therefore Zhào Fǎng was born at the late-Yuán and still managed to serve [Huáng Zé] as teacher; his Yì and Chūnqiū learning are all received from [Huáng] Zé.
[Huáng] Zé in his late years wished to gloss the Yì and Chūnqiū two canons, fearing he could not complete them — therefore composed this book and the Chūnqiū zhǐ yào to develop their general outline. The volume’s head has Wú Chéng’s Yányòu 7 [1320] tí cí. Per his words: the two books were combined into one volume. Today the Chūnqiū zhǐ yào has no transmission-base; only this book survives. Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo records this book with note: “lost” — so [Zhū] Yízūn also did not see [it]. [The work is] known to be a rare-encounter base.
His Yì-discussion takes clarifying-imagery as foundation; his clarifying-imagery takes Xù guà as foundation; his divinatory method takes Zuǒzhuàn as canon. The great-intent: with Wáng Bì’s abandoning imagery-and-numerology drifting into yuánxū, and the Hàn-ru’s using imagery-and-numerology also losing-themselves in fánsuì — therefore balancing-the-middle to weigh their evenness.
Within [the work] he sequentially lists Yì-learning’s not-recovering-the-ancient: 1 Yì’s name-and-meaning; 2 hexagram-doubling meaning; 3 reverse-and-forward meaning; 4 hexagram-name meaning; 5 hexagram-transformation method; 6 hexagram-name; 7 Yì-number’s origin; 8 Yì’s wording-meaning; 9 Yì’s divinatory-wording; 10 yarrow-stalk method; 11 divination method; 12 Xù guà; 13 lapses-and-doubts characters — 13 items in all. The discussions all have evidential basis.
Although [he] was not able to engrave-and-make-a-complete-book, [yet] developing ancient meanings, the structural-examples are bright-and-distinct — already encompasses the comprehensive book’s master-essentials. Following his exposition and pushing-extending it, also is sufficient to be the guīniè of Yì-discussers.
Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth 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
Huáng Zé (黃澤, 1260–1346), zì Chǔwàng 楚望, of Zīzhōu 資州 in Sìchuān (modern Zīzhōng, Sìchuān). CBDB id 10820: 1260–1346. Resident at Jiǔjiāng 九江 in Jiāngxī.
A scholar without high office: served as shānzhǎng 山長 (Mountain-Master / Head of Academy) at the Jǐngxīng Academy 景星書院 in Dàdé era (1297–1307) and later at the Dōnghú Academy 東湖書院. Lived past 80 to 86 suì; one of the longest-lived major Yuán-period Yì-scholars.
Pedagogical legacy: his disciple Zhào Fǎng 趙汸 (1319–1369; zì Zǐcháng 子常, hào Dōngshān 東山) was a major Yuán-Míng-transition scholar of the Yì and Chūnqiū, with substantive works in both. Zhào Fǎng’s Chūnqiū jí zhuàn 春秋集傳, Chūnqiū jīn shǔ 春秋金鑰, Chūnqiū shī shuō 春秋師說 (which preserves Huáng Zé’s Chūnqiū teachings), and his Yì-related works all derive from Huáng Zé’s transmission. The HuángZé / ZhàoFǎng pedagogical chain is one of the cleaner Yuán-Míng-transition private-academy-scholarship lineages.
Methodologically Huáng Zé is the most theoretically-articulate mid-Yuán-period Yì-and-Chūnqiū methodological-foundationalist. The 13-item systematic survey of “not-recovering-the-ancient” issues is one of the cleanest pre-modern Yì-philological-methodological surveys; the three-fold methodological commitment (xiàng foundation; Xù guà foundation; Zuǒzhuàn divinatory canon) is methodologically clean and substantively executable.
The Sìkù-noted guīniè praise — that the work is “sufficient to be the standard of Yì-discussers” — is one of the more enthusiastic Sìkù-period verdicts in the entire Yì lèi. The work’s compactness (1 juan), methodological clarity, and evidential discipline made it a YuánMíng pedagogical-foundation text despite its rare transmission.
The lost Chūnqiū zhǐ yào would have been the methodological foundation for Huáng Zé’s Chūnqiū program, paralleling the present work’s foundation for the Yì program. Its loss leaves only the Yì-side of Huáng Zé’s planned bicanonical methodology recoverable.
The composition window 1310–1320 reflects Huáng Zé’s late-life maturity and the Wú Chéng 1320 preface terminus.
Translations and research
No European-language translation. Treated principally in the secondary literature on Yuán-period Yì-philological-methodology.
- John D. Langlois Jr., China under Mongol Rule (Princeton, 1981) — Yuán-period scholarship context.
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Univ. of Hawaii, 1992) — Yuán-period Dào-xué transmission.
- Zhū Bóqūn 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ, vol. 3 — Huáng Zé treated as a major Yuán-period Yì-philologist.
- Wáng Tiějūn 王鐵均, Yuándài Yìxué shǐ — chapter on Huáng Zé and the Huáng-Zhào lineage.
- Modern punctuated editions on the Sìkù base.
Other points of interest
The 13-item systematic survey of Yì-philological-methodological issues is one of the cleanest pre-modern statements of what an Yì-philologist would need to address to recover the ancient text and meaning. Each item is methodologically distinct from the others; together they give a complete map of the foundational issues. The survey anticipates the Qīng-period evidential-studies kǎojù xué approach to canonical-text reconstruction by several centuries.
The methodological commitment to xiàng-as-foundation (against the WángBì yìlǐ-only line and against the Hàn xiàng-shù-fragmentation line) places Huáng Zé in a distinctive position within the Yuán-period Yì tradition: methodologically more conservative than the Yuán-Zhū-school orthodox HúWùyuán line, but more disciplined than the heterodox-leaning xiàngshù writers (Léi Sīqí KR1a0067, Zhū Yuánshēng KR1a0063).
The Zuǒ-zhuàn-as-divinatory-canon commitment provides a documentary anchor for divinatory-procedural reading. The Zuǒzhuàn’s 32 bǔshì cases are the only substantive corpus of pre-Qín Yì-divinatory practice; using them as the canonical model is methodologically clean.
The HuángZé / ZhàoFǎng pedagogical chain — with the Yì xué làn shāng preserving the HuángZé Yì-method and Zhào Fǎng’s Yì writings continuing it — is one of the cleaner Yuán-Míng-transition private-academy-scholarship lineages. The Jiǔjiāng (Lúshān region) academy circuit produced multiple major YuánMíng Yì-and-Chūnqiū scholars (Hú Zhèn KR1a0075, Huáng Zé, Zhào Fǎng, etc.), making it one of the principal Yuán-period Dàoxué refuges parallel to Wùyuán (Hú-school) and Jiànyáng (Cài-school).