Yì xué xiàng shù lùn 易學象數論
Discussions on the Symbols and Numbers of Yì-Learning by 黃宗羲
About the work
A foundational early-Qīng kǎozhèng treatise in six juàn on the Yìjīng chart-and-numerology tradition, by Huáng Zōngxī 黃宗羲 (1610–1695), one of the “Three Great Confucians of the Early Qīng.” The work is structurally a comprehensive inventory and historical-critical examination of the xiàng (symbol) and shù (number) doctrines that had accumulated around the Yì from the Hàn through the SòngYuánMíng periods. The first three juàn (the nèi piān 內篇) treat xiàng: the Hétú and Luòshū, the xiāntiān directional schemes, nà jiǎ 納甲, nà yīn 納音, yuè jiàn 月建, guà qì 卦氣 (the cyclical positional doctrine), guà biàn 卦變 (hexagram-variation), hùtǐ 互體 (component-trigrams), milfoil-divination methods, and divinatory practice — together with Huáng’s own Yuán xiàng 原象 essay as appendix. The latter three juàn (the wài piān 外篇) treat shù: Yáng Xióng’s 揚雄 Tài xuán 太玄, the Qián záo dù 乾鑿度, the Yuán bāo 元包, the Qián xū 潛虛, the Dòng jí 洞極, the Hóngfàn 洪範 numerologies, the Huáng jí 皇極 numerology, and the technical sān shì 三式 — liù rén 六壬, tài yǐ 太乙, and dùn jiǎ 遁甲.
Huáng’s argumentative spine is the distinction between seven proper symbols of the canonical Yì — the eight-trigram symbol (bāguà zhī xiàng 八卦之象), the six-line symbol (liù yáo zhī xiàng 六爻之象), the form-imitating symbol (xiàng xíng zhī xiàng 象形之象), the line-position symbol (yáo wèi zhī xiàng 爻位之象), the inverted-paired symbol (fǎn duì zhī xiàng 反對之象), the directional symbol (fāng wèi zhī xiàng 方位之象), and the component-trigram symbol (hù tǐ zhī xiàng 互體之象) — and the four false symbols introduced by post-canonical adventitious reading: nà jiǎ, dòng yáo (moving-line), guà biàn, and xiāntiān. The Sìkù editors describe the work as a parallel to Hú Wèi’s 胡渭 Yìtú míng biàn 易圖明辨 (1706), with both works “having merit for the Yì way” (有功易道). Their one substantive criticism is Huáng’s eccentric Sòng (Xuē Jìxuān 薛季宣) -derived theory that the Hétú is the ancient equivalent of the later tújīng 圖經 (cartographic gazetteer) and the Luòshū the ancient equivalent of the later dìzhì 地志 — an over-reach that gives ammunition to defenders of Chén Tuán.
Tiyao
Sìkù tíyào (translated, condensed): The Yì xué xiàng shù lùn in six juàn was composed by Huáng Zōngxī of our [Qīng] dynasty. Zōngxī, zì Tàichōng, hào Líchuāng, was a man of Yúyáo, the son of the Míng Censor Zūnsù. Broadly learned and penetrating in classics, with many writings. In his Nán léi wén àn 南雷文案 he sets forth, on the day in question, the import of writing this book: “The Yì is broad-and-great, encompassing all without lack. The nine schools and hundred houses borrowed it to carry their own doctrines, and the Yì’s original meaning was correspondingly obscured. Worldly Confucians overestimated symbol-and-number, taking it as an absolutely-secret learning, and were deceived. Now I gloss them one by one through, recognizing that they have nothing whatever to do with the Yì; only after that, turning back to seek through Chéng’s zhuàn, is one corner of the cleansing.” He further says: “Wáng Bì’s notes are concise-and-fitting and have no superfluous meaning, and I criticize Master Zhū for adding in Master [Shào] Kāngjié’s xiāntiān learning as adding one further obscurity.”
The Yì under Jīng Fáng and Jiāo Yánshòu drifted into divinatory technique; under Sòng Chén Tuán it diverged into the Daoist school; learners lost the original import. The further they pushed it, the worse the entanglement. Zōngxī, distressed by the late branches’ fragmentation, first reformed the basis of attribution. The first three juàn discuss HétúLuòshū, the xiāntiān positions, nà jiǎ, nà yīn, yuè jiàn, guà qì, guà biàn, hù guà, milfoil-divination method, divination method, with appended his own Yuán xiàng — these are the nèi piān, all about symbol. The latter three juàn discuss the Tài xuán, Qián záo dù, Yuán bāo, Qián xū, Dòng jí, Hóngfàn shù, Huáng jí shù, and the liù rén, tài yǐ, dùn jiǎ — the wài piān, all about number.
The general import: the sage uses symbol to display to people, with eight-trigram symbol, six-line symbol, form-symbol, line-position symbol, inverted-pair symbol, directional symbol, and component-trigram symbol; when these seven are complete, symbol is exhausted. Later Confucians who made false symbols — nà jiǎ, the moving-line, guà biàn, xiāntiān — these four are mixed in, and the seven are obscured. Hence this compilation honors the seven symbols and rejects the four; and within the seven it must further seek what fits with antiquity in order to discriminate the corruptions of symbol-learning.
Further, the dùn jiǎ, tài yǐ, and liù rén — three books, what the world calls the sān shì — all govern the nine palaces in order to consult and fit human affairs. This compilation uses Zhèng Kāngchéng’s “tài yǐ moves through the nine palaces” method to confirm tài yǐ; uses the Wú Yuè chūnqiū’s divinatory method and the Guóyǔ’s Língzhōu Jiū’s 伶州鳩 reply to confirm liù rén; and says that later ages all lost their transmission — in order to correct the errors of number-learning.
His position-taking always has bases. Zōngxī had thoroughly engaged with symbol-and-number, hence one by one he penetrates their beginning-and-end and obtains their flaws — by no means like those who merely lean on principle for empty talk, unable to hit the vital points.
Only on the basis of the Sòng Xuē Jìxuān’s 薛季宣 doctrine of taking the Hétú as the ancient equivalent of the later tújīng 圖經 and the Luòshū as the ancient equivalent of the later dìzhì 地志, and the Gùmìng 顧命’s Hétú as the present huáng cè 黃冊 [imperial population register]; this is somewhat over-pressed in maintenance, to the point of correcting bend-into-stretch — turning so that those who transmit Chén Tuán’s learning get to use the canon-and-classics to retort. This is one failure. Yet his great outlines and large topics, with their refined and detailed argument, may be called — together with Hú Wèi’s Tú shū biàn huò — having merit for the Yì way.
Respectfully collated, the twelfth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng (1781). 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 Huáng’s post-1644 retirement and the work’s 1690s circulation; the bracket here (1655–1690) covers the period of his mature kǎozhèng scholarship. The work is undated internally but the Sìkù notice cites a self-account from Huáng’s Nán léi wén àn 南雷文案.
The work is the foundational early-Qīng kǎozhèng treatise on the entire Yì chart-and-numerology tradition, and the principal late-seventeenth-century preparation for Hú Wèi’s Yìtú míng biàn (1706). Its lasting contribution is the systematic seven-true-vs-four-false typology of Yì-symbols, which provided the conceptual frame for late-Qīng and Republican-period rethinking of the Yì’s exegetical history (Liào Píng 廖平, Xióng Shílì 熊十力, etc.).
The wài piān on the technical sān shì (dùn jiǎ, tài yǐ, liù rén) is also philologically substantive: Huáng’s reconstruction using Zhèng Xuán’s tài yǐ xíng jiǔ gōng 太乙行九宫 method, the Wú Yuè chūnqiū’s divinatory practice, and the Guóyǔ’s Línzhōu Jiū episode is one of the more careful pieces of pre-imperial divinatory-technique reconstruction in the entire Qīng corpus.
The Sìkù editors’ criticism of Huáng’s eccentric Xuē Jìxuān-derived gazetteer-theory of the HétúLuòshū is the only substantive challenge they raise, and is correctly framed as a small but consequential lapse — by replacing the Sòng chart-theory with an even more remote pre-imperial geographical-administrative theory, Huáng provided the chart-tradition’s defenders with a target. The pairing with Hú Wèi’s parallel and largely complementary effort makes the two together the standard early-Qīng demolition.
Translations and research
Huáng Zōngxī has been the subject of substantial Western-language scholarship. For the Yì xué xiàng shù lùn specifically, see Tang Junyi 唐君毅, Zhōngguó zhéxué yuán lùn: Yuán jiào piān, on the xiàngshù tradition. For Huáng’s broader thought see Theodore de Bary, The Liberal Tradition in China (Hong Kong: CUHK Press, 1983), and de Bary, Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince (Columbia, 1993, translation of Míng yí dài fǎng lù). For kǎozhèng contextualization see Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology (Harvard, 1984; rev. 2001).
Other points of interest
The work’s structural organization — nèi piān on xiàng with seven canonical and four false symbols, wài piān on shù with the major numerological systems and the technical sān shì — is one of the more thorough taxonomic-historical treatments of the Yì’s technical apparatus produced before the modern period. Together with KR1a0117 (Lǐ Guāngdì’s Zhōuyì zhé zhōng of the same generation, doctrinally opposed but methodologically also synthetic) and KR1a0120 (Wáng Fūzhī’s Bài shū) it forms an early-Qīng Yì-summa trilogy from three very different positions.