Zhōuyì xiàngzhǐ juélù 周易象旨決錄
Definitive Record of the Symbolic Import of the Zhōu Changes by 熊過
About the work
A mid-Míng Yìjīng commentary in seven juàn by Xióng Guò 熊過 (zì Shūrén 叔仁, hào Nánshā 南沙) of Fùshùn 富順 (Sìchuān). Originally titled Yì xiàngzhǐ 易象旨, it was renamed xiàngzhǐ juélù (after Zhào Qí’s 趙岐 Sānfǔ juélù 三輔決錄) on the model of an established/definitive recension. The work is the principal mid-Míng monument to the xiàngshù 象數 revival in the Yìxué tradition: Xióng explicitly takes the symbol (xiàng 象) as the original import of the Yì, deriving the warrant from the Zuǒ zhuàn (Hán Qǐ 韓起’s visit to Lǔ where he saw the “Yì xiàng” 易象) and the Dàzhuàn’s yì zhě xiàng yě xiàng zhě xiàng yě 易也者象也象也者像也. Methodologically he treats Wáng Bì 王弼 onward (yìlǐ) and Chén Tuán 陳摶 onward (chart-numerology) as variant developments, and seeks to recover a pre-Sòng symbol-centric reading. The text-critical apparatus is extensive: the Sìkù editors enumerate 101 character emendations, 38 phonological notations, 26 phrase emendations, 79 lacuna restorations, 30 surplus-character deletions, 32 line-rearrangements, and 3 cases of correctly defending the received text against earlier proposed emendations. Xióng’s discipline against actually altering the canonical text — emending only by side-note rather than by substitution — earns him Sìkù praise as the standout of Míng-period Yì commentary.
Tiyao
From the work’s私識 (private notes), reproduced as an internal preface: A pupil asks: Your xiàng zhǐ concerns the symbols that have form. What of the symbols that are without form? Reply: Before form, the myriad symbols are densely already complete — that is yīn enclosing yáng. After form, their principle is fixed and unmoving; their varying-and-moving accumulated divisions and numbers are nearly minute and cannot be displayed to others. To split the with-form and without-form is the limitation of vulgar Confucians.
A pupil asks: Your book makes clear the import of the symbols, and that is all — yet it strikes against many houses on the side. Are you not fond of contention? Reply: If one is not direct, the way will not be seen.
Another asks: The “xiàng zhǐ” is meant to make the Yì clear, gathering the various houses’ doctrines and condensing them in the middle. Does this not interfere with cleanness? Reply: At first I wished to compose it as a “discussion-of-questions” (huò wèn 或問) and to attribute the doctrines accordingly; but then I wished to spare the student two readings, and was unable. If one comes after me to compose [a huò wèn version], it would be in keeping with my intent.
He asks: Your treatment of the Xìcí invariably explains it through symbol. Why? Reply: All language is born from symbol. The sage does not flourish empty words. Yáng Shēng’ān 楊升菴 [Shèn] long ago said to me: “To explain the inscribed lines of the Yì through symbol — this perhaps begins with you.” I bowed to Mr Yáng and said: “It existed in antiquity; it was drawn out but not released.” Today…
Sìkù tíyào: Respectfully submitted: the Zhōuyì xiàngzhǐ juélù in seven juàn was composed by Xióng Guò of the Míng. Guò, zì Shūrén, hào Nánshā, was a man of Fùshùn. He was a jìnshì of the jǐchǒu year of Jiājìng (1529), and his offices reached as far as Director in the Sacrifices and Offerings Bureau of the Ministry of Rites. According to Guò’s self-preface, the book was originally named Yì xiàngzhǐ, and afterward had juélù added to its name. The name Sānfǔ juélù 三輔決錄 begins with Zhào Qí 趙岐; the meaning of the naming convention has no transmitted explanation in antiquity, but on inference it presumably means “fixed text/recension.”
The self-preface further says that he had first heard that the man of Mǐn, Cài Qīng 蔡清, was good at the Yì, and procured his book; finding that it only opened up canonical meaning and did not reach to symbol, he therefore made small notes of his doubts as supplementary discourse. In the xīnchǒu year (1541) he was exiled to Diān 滇 [Yúnnán] and met Yáng Shèn 楊慎, who first urged him to bring this book to completion. Initially he had read the Sòng Yì and felt it did not fit; he therefore set it aside and turned to the Hàn Yì. Hence his exposition takes symbol as principal. Examining the Zuǒ zhuàn: Hán Qǐ 韓起 went to Lǔ and saw the Yì xiàng and the Chūnqiū; the ancients already named it by xiàng, so we know that xiàng is the original import of the Yì. Hence the Dàzhuàn says: “the Yì is xiàng; xiàng is to image (xiàng 像).” From Wáng Bì on, the variation moved to discuss principle; from Chén Tuán on, the variation moved to speak number — what may be called each illuminating one meaning. Later men combined them and called both xiàngshù together; whereupon those given to dim-and-distant talk swept both away and reviled the term xiàngshù. The Míng-period Yì: those who spoke of number entered into the Daoist talk; those who spoke of principle entered into the Buddhist talk — for this very reason. Guò composed this book; although he was unable fully to recover the Hàn learning, his readings invariably examine antiquity and substantively exceed the fragmentary, dim, illusory talk.
His basis on old explanations to correct the present text amounts to: 101 character witnesses; 38 phonological witnesses; 26 phrase witnesses; 79 lacuna witnesses; 30 surplus-character witnesses; 32 line-rearrangement witnesses; 3 witnesses where what was received as not-erroneous had been called erroneous and is now defended. The books on which he draws — such as Guō Jīng’s 郭京 falsely-attributed old text, or Wú Chéng’s 吳澄 reckless emendation of the ancient classic — he uses by citation, and is not always free of light credulity. Again, on the Kūn hexagram’s xiǎo xiàng, he knows only the Wèi shū’s reading “Initial Six: treading on frost,” and does not know the Hòu Hàn shū’s actual reading “treading on frost — solid ice”; here too there is occasional under-checking.
Yet all his judgments draw on prior learning; none is from arbitrary fabrication. Moreover, he merely glosses “such-and-such character, on the basis of such-and-such book, ought to be such-and-such,” and dares not arbitrarily alter the canonical text — this still belongs to the strict and severe. Among Míng-period Yì-expositions, he is conspicuously the standout.
Respectfully collated, the tenth month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng (1780). 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 is bracketed by Xióng’s 1529 jìnshì, his 1541 Yúnnán exile (where Yáng Shèn 楊慎 urged completion), and his presumed death by ca. 1560. The catalog meta provides “date: 1529” for the work, but this likely refers to Xióng’s jìnshì date rather than the work’s composition date — the self-preface and the Sìkù notice both make clear that the work was substantially completed only after 1541 in Yúnnán. The bracket here (1541–1560) reflects the period of active composition under Yáng Shèn’s encouragement.
The work is the principal mid-Míng monument to the Hàn-revivalist xiàngshù tradition in Yìxué, and the editors’ praise — that it is “conspicuously the standout among Míng-period Yì expositions” — is one of the strongest endorsements in the Sìkù tíyào on the Míng Yì-class. The work prefigures the more thorough Qīng-period Yì-philology of Huì Dòng 惠棟 and Zhāng Huìyán 張惠言 by nearly two centuries, and is recognized as their precursor. Its restraint in not actually emending the canonical text — emending only by side-note — sets a methodological standard the Qīng kǎozhèng school would later codify.
The connection to Yáng Shèn (Yáng Shēngān 楊升菴) is historically important: Yáng’s encyclopedic philology and his Yúnnán exile circle were the principal mid-Míng counter-current to the Wǔjīng dàquán orthodoxy, and Xióng’s symbol-centric Yì-reading is in part Yáng’s intellectual inheritance.
The Sìkù editors’ minor kǎozhèng corrections — the Hòu Hàn shū citation against Xióng’s Wèi shū-only reading on Kūn’s xiǎo xiàng; the warning about over-trusting Guō Jīng and Wú Chéng — are characteristic of their willingness to discipline a generally admired text without dismissing it.
Translations and research
No substantial monograph in Western languages located. Treated in Chinese surveys of late-Míng Yìxué (Zhū Bóhūi, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ vol. 4) as the principal mid-Míng Hàn-revivalist Yì commentary, and a precursor to Qīng kǎozhèng Yìxué.
Other points of interest
The internal sī shí 私識 notes preserved at the head of the work — modeled on Sòng-style yǔlù 語錄 — give an unusually clear sense of Xióng’s pedagogical relation to his pupils and his methodological self-understanding. His acknowledgment of Yáng Shèn’s “drawn-out-but-not-released” precedent (yǐn ér bù fā 引而不發) is a small but valuable piece of late-Míng intellectual genealogy.