Yì xiǎo tiē 易小帖
Small Slips on the Yì by 毛奇齡
About the work
A miscellaneous Yìjīng commentary in five juàn by Máo Qílíng 毛奇齡 (1623–1716), gathered and edited by his pupils from his lectures and miscellaneous remarks. Comprising 143 entries (each a “small slip” xiǎo tiē), the work serves as supplementary discourse to Máo’s Zhòngshì Yì (KR1a0126). The Sìkù editors note that of all Máo’s classical-commentary works, only the Zhòngshì Yì and the Chūnqiū zhuàn were edited by Máo himself; the rest — including this work — were edited by pupils, with occasional pupil-additions interspersed (the editors’ implicit warning to readers).
The work concentrates Máo’s polemical energy: it is sharply critical of both the Wáng Bì 王弼 yìlǐ tradition and the Chén Tuán 陳摶 chart-tradition, and uses earlier (Hàn-period) glosses to discipline more recent readings. The Sìkù editors’ assessment is striking and historically substantial: “from the Míng on, in re-clarifying Hàn-Confucian learning so that scholars dare not interpret canon by empty words, in fact Qílíng opened the path.” The discussions of the Zǐxià Yì zhuàn 子夏易傳 and the Liánshān 連山 / Guīcáng 歸藏 (the lost pre-Zhōuyì hexagram-systems) are singled out as especially detailed and substantive.
The work originally circulated in ten juàn (per the Jīngyì kǎo), then in eight juàn (per Shèng Táng’s 盛唐 Xīhé biographical preface), and now survives in five — a sequence of editorial condensations attributed to the loyalty of the pupil-editors in pruning unsettled or duplicative material.
Tiyao
Sìkù tíyào (translated, condensed): The Yì xiǎo tiē in five juàn — Yì-discussion words of Máo Qílíng of our [Qīng] dynasty, edited by his pupils into a book. Of all Qílíng’s writings on classical exegesis, only the Zhòngshì Yì and the Chūnqiū zhuàn were edited by himself; the rest all came out of his pupils’ hands, hence in the middle there are passages with pupil-language inserted.
This Xiǎo tiē in 143 entries is all miscellaneous discussions of lecturing on the Yì, mutually drawing-and-extending with the Zhòngshì Yì. Zhū Yízūn records it in the Jīngyì kǎo, saying “all is Mr Xīhé’s record of Yì-discussion that can be argued with.” Now examining the book: he draws on earlier men’s glosses to correct recent ages’ Yì-expositions, and against the two schools of Wáng Bì and Chén Tuán his attack is especially forceful. Although in places one cannot avoid the abuses of forced wording and meandering elaboration to widen the dispute, since the Míng, the re-clarifying of Hàn-Confucian learning so that scholars dare not interpret canon by empty words — Qílíng in fact opened the road. His discussions of the Zǐxià Yì zhuàn and of the Liánshān / Guīcáng are especially detailed and substantive.
The contents of juàn 5 are all words of weighing-and-evaluating the Zhòngshì Yì; the original draft was originally appended at the end of the Zhòngshì Yì, and only later moved into this compilation. The old catalog has ten juàn; the present edition has five — apparently his pupils, in editing, made deletions. Examination of Shèng Táng’s Xīhé zhuàn mentions “Yì xiǎo tiē in eight juàn” — apparently the ten juàn cut to eight, then cut again to five.
For Confucians who revere a single master, every character and phrase becomes a tortoise-shell-and-milfoil-stalk, and many unsettled discussions get edited into the yǔlù. Hence the Èr Chéng yí shū has Master Zhū’s doubts; the Zhūzǐ yǔlèi often diverges from the Sìshū zhāngjù jízhù and huò wèn — all from failure of pruning-by-editor. The case of Qílíng’s pupils may be called those who can love their master.
Respectfully collated, the third 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 is bracketed by Máo’s middle and late life. The work was edited and printed by his pupils in successive condensations during and after his lifetime. The bracket here (1690–1716) covers the period of his lectures on the Yì. The five-juàn Sìkù recension is the latest editorial condensation.
The work is the principal yǔlù-form record of Máo’s Yì-thought, supplementing the Zhòngshì Yì (the systematic exposition), the Tuī yì shǐ mò (the historical-philological supplement), and the Chūnqiū zhàn shì shū (the documentary-divinatory reconstruction). Together they form the four-part Máo Yì-corpus.
The Sìkù editors’ historically substantial claim — that Máo “opened the road” for the modern recovery of Hàn-Confucian learning — is one of the more important statements in the Yì-class tíyào, ranking Máo as a substantive precursor to the high-Qīng kǎozhèng school (Huì Dòng 惠棟, Zhāng Huìyán 張惠言, Jiāo Xún 焦循). The 145 entries treat questions ranging from textual-critical (the Zǐxià Yì zhuàn, the Liánshān and Guīcáng) to specific exegetical points; juàn 5 is a meta-commentary on the Zhòngshì Yì itself.
The transmission profile (10 → 8 → 5 juàn through successive editorial condensations) is itself unusual and was preserved by the Sìkù editors as evidence of the pupils’ pruning practice. The editors’ approving comparison to the Èr Chéng / Zhū Xī yǔlù problem (insufficiently pruned, hence accumulating contradictions) frames Máo’s pupils’ aggressive condensation as exemplary editorial loyalty.
Translations and research
No substantial monograph in Western languages located. For Máo Qílíng’s broader role in early-Qīng kǎozhèng see Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology (Harvard, 1984; rev. 2001), and ECCP under “Mao Ch’i-ling.”
Other points of interest
The work serves as a small case study in early-Qīng yǔlù-genre editorial practice. The pupil-editors’ three-stage condensation (10 → 8 → 5 juàn) and the Sìkù editors’ approval of this practice as “loving the master” suggests that high-Qīng critical bibliography had developed an explicit norm of yǔlù compression as a virtue — a norm worth contrasting with the Sòng-period accretive expansion of the yǔlù genre under Zhū Xī’s followers.