Yìjīng méng yǐn 易經蒙引
Introductory Pulling of the Classic of Changes by 蔡清
About the work
A mid-Míng subcommentary in twelve juàn on Zhū Xī’s Zhōuyì běnyì 周易本義 (KR1a0036) by Cài Qīng 蔡清 (1453–1508), the founding figure of the Fújiàn (Mǐnxué 閩學) Zhū Xī revival. Formally the work is a fā míng 發明 (“bringing-out”) of the Běnyì — its physical layout sets the Běnyì alongside the canonical text, marked off only by a small circle at the head of each Běnyì entry to signal that it stands “second to the canon” (亞於經) — but in substance Cài frequently and openly diverges from Zhū Xī. The Sìkù editors single Cài out, with deliberate parallel construction, as the Míng counterpart to Zhū Xī’s own readiness to differ from Chéng Yí: as Zhū Xī did not entirely follow the Yìchuán and yet was the one best able to bring out its meaning, so Cài Qīng did not entirely follow the Běnyì and yet was the one best able to bring out its meaning. The work is the foundational text of the Quánzhōu Yìxué school of the mid-to-late Míng.
Tiyao
Respectfully submitted: the Yìjīng méng yǐn in twelve juàn was composed by Cài Qīng of the Míng. Qīng, zì Jièfū, hào Xūzhāi, was a man of Jìnjiāng. He was a jìnshì of the jiǎchén year of Chénghuà (1484), and his offices reached as far as Chancellor of the Nánjīng Imperial Academy. His career and works are set out in the Míng shǐ rúlín zhuàn. This work takes as its sole concern the bringing-out of Master Zhū’s Běnyì; hence its layout writes the Běnyì alongside the canonical text, but at the head of each Běnyì entry adds a single circle to mark the distinction, in honor of its standing immediately below the canon.
In fact, however, it diverges considerably from the Běnyì. For instance, on the partition of the canonical text into upper and lower sections: Master Zhū says it is “because the bamboo sections were heavy and bulky, hence partitioned into upper and lower halves.” Cài Qīng says: “Of the sixty-four hexagrams, why was it not made thirty-two for the upper and thirty-two for the lower? Why instead thirty in the upper and thirty-four in the lower?” On yòng jiǔ jiàn qún lóng wú shǒu 用九見羣龍无首: Master Zhū says “yòng jiǔ is the general formula for the one-hundred-ninety-two yáng-lines of all the hexagrams; jiàn qún lóng wú shǒu is the divinatory phrase for the case where all six lines of this hexagram are yòng jiǔ.” Cài Qīng says: “Confucius’s Xiàng zhuàn and the Wényán throughout proceed on the basis of the case where all six lines are yòng jiǔ; only the Běnyì does not adopt this view.” He adds: “If we are to follow Master Zhū’s reading, then under yòng jiǔ there ought further to be added the phrase ‘in the case where all six lines are yòng jiǔ’.” On zhī zhì zhì zhī zhī zhōng zhōng zhī 知至至之知終終之: Master Zhū’s reading places weight on the “zhī” of the upper line and the “zhōng” of the lower line. Cài Qīng says: “This is not necessarily the meaning of the original text. Why should the lower line have a ‘know’ (zhī) added so casually? Surely it is not just placed there to balance the upper line and have nothing of its own to denote?” His refusal to twist himself into agreement is, as a rule, of this kind.
Master Zhū did not entirely follow Master Chéng’s zhuàn, yet none was so able as he to bring out the zhuàn’s meaning; Cài Qīng did not entirely follow the Běnyì, yet none was so able as he to bring out the Běnyì’s meaning. This learning of the pure Confucian’s mental attainment is precisely what marks him off from those who contend over sectarian standpoints.
Respectfully collated, the sixth 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
Composition can be bracketed by Cài Qīng’s mature scholarly career: he passed the jìnshì examination in 1484, took up his sequence of educational and Imperial Academy posts, and died in 1508. The bracket here (1484–1508) reflects this; the work is undated internally and was probably revised over a long period of teaching. The catalog meta gives the extent as twelve juàn and the Sìkù notice agrees, though some Míng editions are reported in twenty-six juàn (as the catalog ‘book’ field of 26 may reflect, though the actual recension is 12 juàn).
The work’s significance is twofold. Within the school of Zhū Xī’s Yìxué, Cài represents the Mǐnxué school’s recovery of an active, critical engagement with the Běnyì — Cài does not abandon the framework, but he refuses to read it as a closed system. The cited examples (the partition of the canon, yòng jiǔ, zhī zhì zhì zhī) show him working within Zhū Xī’s general orientation while maintaining the right to disagree on individual passages. Within the broader Míng Yìxué tradition, the work and its school form one of the principal counterweights to the Yáng Wàngmíng 王陽明 xīnxué 心學 reading of the Yì that would dominate the late Míng.
The Sìkù editors’ assessment is unusually warm — in part because Cài’s exegetical posture (deference to the master combined with quiet textual independence) is the one the Sìkù editors themselves espoused for jīngxué generally. The parallel construction in their concluding sentence — Zhū / Chéng :: Cài / Zhū — is one of the more memorable formulations in the Yì-class tíyào.
The Quánzhōu Mǐnxué school that grew out of Cài’s teaching produced a long line of further Yì writings (Lín Xīyuán 林希元, Chén Lín 陳琛, etc.) that would dominate Míng Yì exegesis through the late sixteenth century.
Translations and research
No substantial monograph in Western languages located. For Cài’s broader place in mid-Míng Mǐn-xué see Wang Mingming, Empire and Local Worlds: A Chinese Model for Long-Term Historical Anthropology, on Quánzhōu intellectual culture, and the Dictionary of Ming Biography under “Tsai Ch’ing.” In Chinese: Wú Huáixiáng 吳懷祥, Mǐn-xué de fùxīng 閩學的復興 (Fúzhōu, 2003), and Zhū Bóhūi 朱伯崑, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ vol. 4.
Other points of interest
The graphic device of marking Běnyì with a single head-circle as a sub-canonical layer is itself a small but interesting moment in the typographic history of Chinese commentary printing — Cài uses it to encode a hierarchy (canon > Běnyì > Cài’s gloss) that the prose simultaneously undermines. The mismatch is, in a sense, the work’s argument.