Yìjīng tōngzhù 易經通注
Comprehensive Commentary on the Classic of Changes by 傅以漸, 曹本榮 (奉敕撰)
About the work
The first imperial Yìjīng commentary of the Qīng dynasty, in nine juàn, compiled by Fù Yǐjiàn 傅以漸 (1609–1665) and Cáo Běnróng 曹本榮 (1621–1664) on the personal command of the Shùnzhì 順治 emperor in Shùnzhì 13.12.15 (early 1657). The imperial edict at the head of the work explicitly frames the project as a corrective to the Yǒnglè-period Wǔjīng dàquán — recognizing the latter’s role in disseminating Yì-learning while complaining of its bulkiness, redundancy, and unselective combining of variant readings. The new Tōngzhù was to be both more concise and more selective, drawing on the additional 250+ years of post-Yǒnglè scholarship to produce a “simple-and-thorough, distilled-and-penetrating” (簡切洞達) work. The compilation was completed quickly — within a single year — and presented in the form preserved in the Sìkù. As an imperial commission with explicit Shùnzhì-period editorial framing, the work is also a significant document of early-Qīng court jīngxué policy.
Tiyao
Imperial edict (Shùnzhì 13.12.15 = early 1657, translated): To Grand Secretary Fù Yǐjiàn and Diary-Lecturer Cáo Běnróng: I have read the Yìjīng — the meaning is refined and the application broad, encompassing the principles of heaven, earth, and the myriad things. From Wáng Bì of the Wèi and Kǒng Yǐngdá of the Táng there are notes and the Zhèngyì; in the Sòng Chéng Yí has his zhuàn and Zhū Xī his Běnyì — to which all scholars submit. In the Míng Yǒnglè period the Confucian officials were commanded to gather the doctrines of all Confucians of pre-Yuán date and assemble them into the Dàquán; in all of these the Yì-principle is much elucidated. Yet within them, sameness and difference rest beside one another, and there is much that is verbose and could be cut, ornate and lacking in essentials. Moreover almost three hundred years have now passed; among Confucians-and-scholars there are likewise no few who have brought out canonical meaning. One ought to gather and select from these jointly, weigh-and-distill the various discussions, with simplicity and sharpness, comprehending and penetrating, gathering them into a single volume to make manifest to those who come hereafter.
You and the others, exhaust your hearts in research, fuse and integrate, dissect principle to its depths, set forth words plainly and easily, taking concision while comprehending and detail without redundancy — so that the august canon of Xī’s [Fú Xī’s] hidden import shines like the sun and stars, in answer to my making clear the great intent of the four sages’ creations and recordings. Respectfully obey! By edict.
Memorial of presentation (Fù Yǐjiàn and Cáo Běnróng): [The memorial is a long piece of imperial-court ceremonial prose praising the emperor and the work; its substantive content is that the work is now complete and is humbly presented.]
The Sìkù tíyào itself is brief and chiefly recapitulates the editorial circumstances and the imperial edict; it does not engage in extended substantive critique of the work’s exegetical choices, treating it primarily as an imperial document. (Tíyào not transcribed in full here.)
Abstract
Composition is fixed precisely by the imperial edict (12.15 of Shùnzhì 13 = January 1657 by Western reckoning). The work was compiled rapidly in the year following the commission. The bracket here (1656–1657) reflects this. The work was the principal imperial Yìjīng document of the Shùnzhì reign and remained influential through the Kāngxī-period revival of imperial Yìxué compilation that produced the much larger Zhōuyì zhé zhōng 周易折中 (KR1a0116 or related) under the Kāngxī emperor’s personal supervision.
The work’s significance is principally institutional rather than exegetical. As the Qīng court’s first major jīngxué compilation under imperial command, it sets the template for the more elaborate Kāngxī-period imperial Yì projects to follow. Doctrinally it stays within the ChéngZhū mainstream, drawing on the Míng Dàquán’s sources but with selective pruning and the addition of late-Míng commentators (notably Cài Qīng KR1a0092 and Lín Xīyuán KR1a0095); it does not engage with the xiàngshù-revival commentaries (Xióng Guò, Lái Zhīdé, Huáng Dàozhōu) of the late Míng.
The choice of Fù Yǐjiàn (the first Qīng zhuàngyuán of 1646) as principal compiler is itself politically significant: it ties the inaugural imperial Yì compilation of the new dynasty to the inaugural Qīng-period top-place jìnshì, signaling continuity with the imperial-examination Confucian tradition. Cáo Běnróng provided the technical Yì-scholarship.
Translations and research
No substantial monograph in Western languages located. For the Shùnzhì-period imperial jīngxué projects more broadly, see Pamela Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (Berkeley: UC Press, 1999); for the Qīng-period imperial Yì tradition see Joseph Adler’s various translations and the introduction to his Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi’s Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi (SUNY, 2014).
Other points of interest
The Shùnzhì-period imperial Yìjīng compilation tradition was both consciously continuous with the Míng Yǒnglè-period Wǔjīng dàquán and consciously corrective of it; the Tōngzhù’s opening edict is one of the more articulate statements of early-Qīng court attitude toward the inherited Míng curricular materials. The work served as the working draft against which the much larger Kāngxī-period imperial Zhōuyì zhé zhōng (1715, KR1a0116 forward) would later define itself.