Zhōuyì jízhuàn 周易集傳
Collected Commentary on the Zhōu Changes by 龍仁夫
About the work
The Zhōuyì jízhuàn is a Yuán-period commentary on the Yìjīng by Lóng Rénfū 龍仁夫 (zì Guānfù 觀復) of Lúlíng 廬陵 / Yǒngxīn 永新. It was originally compiled in eighteen juàn and completed in zhìzhì xīnyǒu 至治辛酉 (1321); only eight juàn survive, but the upper and lower scriptural sections together with the Tuàn 彖 and Xiàng 象 commentaries are essentially complete. Lóng works within the Chéng–Zhū framework but is not a mere paraphraser: his method derives meaning directly from the symbols (xiàng) of the hexagrams and their constituent lines, reading hexagram-symbol against line-symbol and probing each in turn. The Sìkù editors single out his treatment of the Záguà 雜卦 as a divinatory document, supported with Chūnqiū zuǒzhuàn citations.
Tiyao
Respectfully submitted: the Zhōuyì jízhuàn in eight juàn was composed by Lóng Rénfū of the Yuán. Rénfū, zì Guānfù, was a man of Lúlíng — the Jí’ān fǔ zhì 吉安府志 makes him a man of Yǒngxīn — and held the office of educational intendant for Confucian learning in Húguǎng 湖廣. The book was completed in zhìzhì xīnyǒu 至治辛酉 (1321). Dǒng Zhēnqīng’s 董真卿 Zhōuyì huìtōng 周易會通 (KR1a0086) says it had a self-preface in one chapter; the present copy lacks it. Zhū Yízūn’s 朱彞尊 Jīngyì kǎo 經義考 transcribes the older prefaces and editorial principles in full, but likewise lacks this preface — so it must have been lost long ago.
The Jí’ān fǔ zhì says: “Rénfū’s Zhōuyì jízhuàn in eighteen juàn establishes its readings principally from the Běnyì 本義, distinguishing under each hexagram and line the variation, the symbol, the verbal commentary, and the divinatory aspect.” Examining the present glosses: while their grounding is largely in Chéng and Zhū, the intent lies in deriving meaning straight from the symbols. He observes hexagram-symbol and line-symbol jointly, analyzes them apart, and turns them back upon one another in extended exposition; he is genuinely able to set forth what he has gathered in his own mind. He is not, like Hú Bǐngwén 胡炳文 (KR1a0078) and his sort, one of those who hold blindly to the received text only in order to gain the reputation of revering Master Zhū.
The Jí’ān fǔ zhì further records that Rénfū regarded the Záguà 雜卦 as a divinatory document, citing the Chūnqiū zuǒzhuàn’s instances of “tún is firm, bǐ is entrance, kūn is peaceful, zhèn is killing” — single-character hexagram judgments — as evidence; this reading appears innovative but is in fact rooted in the texts, and is unlike groundless free-floating discourse. The Yuán shǐ 元史 says of him that what Rénfū wrote on the Zhōuyì in many places brought out what earlier Confucians had not brought out — almost certainly not in error.
The original book had eighteen juàn; what survives now is only eight. Yet the upper and lower scriptural sections together with the Tuàn and Xiàng commentaries are wholly intact. Zhū Yízūn’s Pù shū tíng jí 曝書亭集 has a colophon to this book stating that when the Tōngzhì táng jīngjiě 通志堂經解 was being cut to blocks, the work was passed over because of its incompleteness, etc. Now: in transmitting and copying out an old book, what should be asked is whether its principles and meaning are sound or not, not how complete or incomplete its juàn-pages are. Even fragmentary editions and broken slips were collected by the ancients; Rénfū’s book has its upper and lower scriptural sections richly intact, yet to discard it because it is not complete — how perverse! Moreover, Fù Yín’s 傅寅 Yǔgòng shuō duàn 禹貢說斷, Chéng Dàchāng’s 程大昌 Yǔgòng tú shuō 禹貢圖說, and Lín Zhīqí’s 林之竒 Sānshān shū zhuàn 三山書傳, when collated against the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典, are likewise not complete recensions, and yet Mr Xú [Qiánxué 徐乾學, sponsor of the Tōngzhì táng jīngjiě] still set them on the pear-blocks — how can the inconsistency be explained? We now particularly preserve this work in the canon and re-publish it to the world, in hope that it may be of some assistance to classical learning.
Respectfully collated, the fifth month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng (1778). Editor-in-chief: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief proofreader: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The work was completed in 1321; the dating bracket adopted here (1300–1321) reflects the plausible years of composition before that explicit completion date. The text passed through the Yuán in its full eighteen-juàn form (Dǒng Zhēnqīng’s Zhōuyì huìtōng of 1335 — see KR1a0086 — already attests its self-preface, since lost) and was still extant in some form in the early Qīng (Zhū Yízūn saw it), but the Tōngzhì táng jīngjiě declined to cut it because of its lacunae. The present eight-juàn recension was reassembled by the Sìkù editors from the surviving portions and published in the Sìkù quánshū; the editors’ notice (translated above) is a small but pointed defense of fragmentary classical commentaries against the early-Qīng editorial preference for complete recensions.
Methodologically, Lóng stands at the boundary between rote Chéng–Zhū exposition (his contemporary Hú Bǐngwén) and the more independent symbol-and-line analysis that would become characteristic of later Yuán Yìxué. The Sìkù notice’s foregrounding of his Záguà reading, with Zuǒzhuàn support, is a genuine textual contribution: it ties the Záguà back into the divinatory practice attested in pre-imperial sources rather than treating it as a late philosophical appendix.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature in Western languages located. Treated in Chinese surveys of Yuán Yìxué (e.g. Zhū Bóhūi 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ vol. 3) as a counterweight within the Yuán Zhū-Xī school to the strict orthodoxy of the Hú Bǐngwén / Dǒng Zhēnqīng line.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ notice is also a piece of editorial polemic: it explicitly criticizes the Tōngzhì táng jīngjiě (sponsored by Xú Qiánxué) for inconsistency in its principles for printing fragmentary works, and uses the Jízhuàn as the occasion for a wider defense of preserving incomplete classical commentaries.