Yù zuàn Zhōuyì zhé zhōng 御纂周易折中
Imperial Compilation: Balanced Adjudication of the Zhōu Changes by 李光地 (奉敕撰)
About the work
The principal Kāngxī-period imperial Yìjīng compilation, in twenty-two juàn, compiled by Lǐ Guāngdì 李光地 (1642–1718) on the personal command of the Kāngxī emperor and completed in Kāngxī 54 spring (1715). The work is the high point of imperial Qīng Yì-scholarship, taking Zhū Xī’s 朱熹 Zhōuyì běnyì 周易本義 (KR1a0036) as the principal authority, supplementing with Chéng Yí’s 程頤 Yìchuán 易傳, and broadly digesting the entire HànWèiJìnTángSòngYuánMíng commentary tradition through the comprehensive Yǐn yòng xìng shì 引用姓氏 (List of Cited Authors) preserved at the head of the work — covering more than 200 commentators from Dǒng Zhòngshū 董仲舒 of the Hàn through Lái Zhīdé 來知德 of the late Míng. The structural principle is zhé zhōng 折中 — balanced adjudication — between the xiàngshù and yìlǐ traditions, between Hàn and Sòng learning, and between competing SòngYuán syntheses.
The Kāngxī emperor’s preface — dated Kāngxī 54.3.18 (1715) — is unusually pointed: it explicitly criticizes the Yǒnglè-period Wǔjīng dàquán 五經大全 (KR1a0091) as “mixed and miscellaneous” (駁雜) and declares that Lǐ Guāngdì alone of the early Kāngxī court possessed both the rooted scholarship and the Yì-learning depth to produce an authoritative replacement. The work was prepared over two winters of imperial reading-and-discussion (越二寒暑) before being promulgated. As both an exegetical synthesis and an imperial-ideological document, the Zhé zhōng set the standard for Qīng Yì-scholarship for the remainder of the dynasty and was the principal Yì-text consulted by examiners and candidates from the Yōngzhèng era through the late Qīng.
Tiyao
Imperial Preface (Kāngxī, 54.3.18 = 1715, translated): The breadth and completeness of Yì-learning — after the Qín and Hàn, no one further obtained its refined and minute. From the Sòng on, Master Zhōu [Dūnyí], Master Shào [Yōng], Master Chéng [Yí], and Master Zhāng [Zài] elucidated its mysteries. Only Master Zhū combined symbol-and-number with heavenly principle, and went against the multitude in fixing it; for over five hundred years there has been no further discussion of sameness or difference. From Sòng, Yuán, Míng down to our [Qīng] dynasty, taking up the previously-opened minute import of the earlier Confucians, there are also passages where discussions are already in evidence, gradually opening doubts in the people who come after.
I from boyhood gave my heart to canonical meaning; for over fifty years I have not slacked off. I knew only that the Dàquán of the various books was mixed-and-miscellaneous; not, however, the practiced familiarity of dedicated canonical study. I deeply knew that the Grand Secretary Lǐ Guāngdì has plainly had a root in his learning, and that his Yì-principles are refined and detailed. I particularly commanded him to compose the Zhōuyì zhé zhōng: above to follow the source-and-stream of the Hé and Luò; below to extend to the various Confucians’ authoritative-and-fixed and to what cannot be changed in the canon-penetration; and to take adjudicatedly-balanced selection from them. Across two winters, at the first watch I rolled up [the manuscript] and read it; not a piece-of-character or a single stroke escaped weighing-and-measuring without slacking. In the spring of Kāngxī 54 (1715) the report was made; transmitted to the world and hereafter, those who can take orthodox learning as their concern will surely have something to see in it.
Sìkù tíyào (translated, condensed): The Yù zuàn Zhōuyì zhé zhōng in twenty-two juàn was compiled by the Grand Secretary Lǐ Guāngdì on imperial command of our Shèngzǔ Rénhuáng [Kāngxī]. The book takes Master Zhū’s Běnyì as principal, with Master Chéng’s zhuàn as supplement, and gathers from the Hàn through the Míng. The Yǐn yòng xìng shì at the head fully lists all the commentators drawn upon. The general orientation: balanced adjudication between symbol-and-number and meaning-and-principle, gathering the strengths of the various houses without sectarianism. … Following the imperial preface’s intent, the work makes the Běnyì the standard while respecting Chéng’s zhuàn, and where late-Míng commentators (Lái Zhīdé, Cài Qīng, etc.) make a substantive contribution they are also drawn upon. The work was promulgated to the realm and became the imperial-examination standard.
Abstract
Composition is fixed by the imperial preface to the spring of Kāngxī 54 = 1715. Lǐ Guāngdì worked on the project under direct imperial supervision over two winters (the imperial preface says yuè èr hán shǔ 越二寒暑, “across two cold seasons”); the bracket here therefore runs 1713–1715.
The work is the canonical imperial Yì document of the high Qīng. Three features are distinctive:
(1) The yǐn yòng xìng shì preserves a comprehensive list of cited authorities running from the Hàn (Dǒng Zhòngshū, Kǒng Ānguó, Sīmǎ Qiān, Jīng Fáng, Liú Xiàng, Yáng Xióng, Bān Gù, Mǎ Róng, Fú Qián, Xún Shuǎng, Zhèng Xuán, Sòng Zhōng, Yú Fān, Lù Jì, Wáng Sù, Yáo Xìn, Wáng Bì) through the Sòng (Zhōu Dūnyí, Shào Yōng, Sī Mǎ Guāng, Wáng Ānshí, Zhāng Zài, Èr Chéng, Sū Shì, Lǚ Dàlín, Zhū Xī) and YuánMíng commentators. The list is itself a major piece of Yì historiography.
(2) The methodological principle of zhé zhōng — balanced adjudication — is conscientiously applied: where Hàn xiàngshù and Sòng yìlǐ differ, the Zhé zhōng presents both and weighs them; where Chéng’s Yìchuán and Zhū’s Běnyì diverge, both are quoted and the work follows Zhū’s authority while preserving Chéng’s reading. This is more inclusive than the Wǔjīng dàquán and methodologically more self-conscious.
(3) The political-ideological dimension is foregrounded in the imperial preface itself, which explicitly criticizes the Míng Dàquán and personally credits Lǐ Guāngdì as the unique scholar of the Kāngxī court capable of producing an authoritative replacement. This makes the Zhé zhōng the principal high-Qīng court Yì document and the textual register of Lǐ Guāngdì’s pre-eminence in Kāngxī-period Confucian learning.
Through the YōngzhèngQiánlóngJiāqìng eras the Zhé zhōng served as the imperial-examination standard for the Yì; the parallel imperial Sìshū compilation under the Yōngzhèng / early Qiánlóng played a similar role for the Four Books.
Translations and research
For Lǐ Guāngdì’s broader Kāngxī-period imperial role and his Yì-scholarship see Ng On-cho, Cheng-Zhu Confucianism in the Early Qing (SUNY, 2001); Wing-tsit Chan’s writings on Lǐ Guāngdì in the Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy; and ECCP (Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period) under “Li Kuang-ti.” For the imperial jīngxué projects of the Kāngxī court see Pamela Crossley, A Translucent Mirror. No major Western-language monograph on the Zhōuyì zhé zhōng specifically located. In Chinese: Zhū Bóhūi, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ vol. 4; the introduction to the modern punctuated edition of the Zhé zhōng.
Other points of interest
The Kāngxī emperor’s preface contains one of the most remarkable lines of high-Qīng court jīngxué rhetoric: the personal claim that he had “given his heart to canonical meaning for over fifty years and not slacked off.” It is also one of the rare imperial prefaces that names a specific living minister (Lǐ Guāngdì) as the unique person capable of carrying out a dynastic project — a level of specificity unusual in Chinese imperial bibliographic prefaces. The work’s reception under the Yōngzhèng and Qiánlóng emperors maintained its imperial-examination status and effectively foreclosed Qīng Yì-scholarship from substantive deviation from the Zhé zhōng’s adjudications until the late Qīng.