Zhōuyì tōng lùn 周易通論
Penetrating Discussions on the Zhōuyì by 李光地
About the work
A Kāngxī-period Yìjīng synthetic treatise in four juàn by 李光地 Lǐ Guāngdì (1642–1718) — the principal early-Kāngxī Zhū Xī school Yì-master and the chief compiler of the imperial Yù zuàn Zhōuyì zhé zhōng (KR1a0117). Composed as a series of independent essays rather than a continuous canonical commentary: juàn 1–2 expound the great import of the upper and lower scriptures; juàn 3–4 expound the meaning of the Xìcí, Shuōguà, Xùguà, and Záguà. The work opens with two programmatic essays — Yì běn 易本 and Yì jiào 易教 (Foundation of the Yì and Pedagogy of the Yì) — and then takes up hexagram, line, symbol, Tuàn, time, position, and inverted-and-reversed in turn, in detailed and exhaustive analysis.
The work is the principal record of Lǐ Guāngdì’s mature Yìxué outside the imperial Zhé zhōng. Pupils such as 楊名時 Yáng Míngshí took it as their authority and produced their own derived works. The Sìkù editors single out Lǐ’s grouping of Fù 復, Wúwàng 无妄, Lí 離, Zhōngfú 中孚 as “the four hexagrams of the sages’ mind-learning” (聖賢之心學) as bringing out what earlier writers had not, and his readings of guǐshén zhī qíng zhuàng 鬼神之情狀 (the form of spirits) and jì shàn chéng xìng 繼善成性 (continuing the good and completing nature) as mutually elucidating with the Zhōngyōng and Lúnyǔ. Their main reservation: Lǐ’s exclusive yìli orientation does not draw on Hàn-school xiàngshù alongside it for triangulation, and so still works within Sòng-Confucian limits.
Tiyao
Sìkù tíyào (translated): Respectfully submitted: the Zhōuyì tōng lùn in four juàn was composed by Lǐ Guāngdì of our [Qīng] dynasty. Guāngdì, zì Hòu’ān, was a man of Ānxī. He was a jìnshì of the gēngxū year of Kāngxī (1670), and his offices reached as far as Grand Secretary; his posthumous title was Wénzhèn 文貞. This book synthesizes discussion of the Yì-principles, each chapter standing on its own. Juàn 1 and 2 bring out the great import of the upper and lower scriptures; juàn 3 and 4 bring out the meaning of the Xìcí, Shuōguà, Xùguà, and Záguà. It is opened with two essays Yì běn and Yì jiào, then runs through hexagram, line, symbol, Tuàn, time, position, and inverted-and-reversed in detailed exposition exhaustively without omission.
Guāngdì in Yì-learning was the most deeply probing; the various pupils such as Yáng Míngshí who obtained his transmission each have writings, but all take Guāngdì as principal, and in the end none reaches the master’s purity. Although his words concern themselves principally with meaning-and-principle and slight symbol-and-number, unavoidably following on from the Sòng Confucian stream-and-school and not yet able to seek through Hàn learning to triangulate and adjudicate-balance — yet level-and-proper, communicating and penetrating, not engaging in difficult-and-deep, mysterious-and-distant talk, on the four sages’ refined-and-minute he in fact has firm grasp.
His discussion of Fù, Wúwàng, Lí, Zhōngfú — four hexagrams as the mind-learning of the sages-and-worthies — especially brings out what earlier men did not bring out. The discussions of the form of spirits and of “continuing the good, completing nature” likewise serve as inner-and-outer with the Zhōngyōng and the Lúnyǔ. This is by no means what village-school lecturers, plagiarists of the trite-and-rotten, can match.
Respectfully collated, the tenth 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 Lǐ’s mature scholarship and his death in 1718. The work is undated internally; given that the Tōng lùn is methodologically continuous with the Zhé zhōng but not built into it, the bracket here (1690–1718) covers the period of Lǐ’s mature Yì-thinking. The work was probably composed alongside or in preparation for the Zhé zhōng project (1713–1715), with material from his decades-long imperial diary-lectures.
The work is the principal personal Yì-statement of Lǐ Guāngdì, complementing his role as institutional editor of the Zhé zhōng. Where the Zhé zhōng is the comprehensive imperial-examination authority drawing on the entire commentary tradition, the Tōng lùn is Lǐ’s own systematic exposition. Methodologically it is firmly Chéng-Zhū-aligned and methodologically conservative — the Sìkù editors’ qualified diagnosis (insufficient engagement with Hàn xiàngshù) is the standard view.
The doctrine of “the four hexagrams of the sages’ mind-learning” (Fù, Wúwàng, Lí, Zhōngfú) is one of Lǐ’s substantively original contributions and would have notable late-Qīng influence. The mutual-elucidation reading of guǐshén zhī qíng zhuàng and jì shàn chéng xìng with the Zhōngyōng and Lúnyǔ is similarly substantive — situating the Yì within a broader four-classics framework consonant with the Yōngzhèng-Qiánlóng court’s emphasis on integrated Lǐxué curriculum.
The Lǐ Guāngdì school of Yìxué — 楊名時 Yáng Míngshí, 劉玉蓀 Liú Yùsōn, etc. — would dominate the early-eighteenth-century court Yìxué and is documented through these students’ own derivative works.
Translations and research
For Lǐ Guāngdì’s broader career and Yìxué see Ng On-cho, Cheng-Zhu Confucianism in the Early Qing (SUNY, 2001); Wing-tsit Chan in the Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy; ECCP under “Li Kuang-ti.” No major Western-language monograph specifically on the Tōng lùn located.
Other points of interest
The pairing of KR1a0117 (the imperial Zhé zhōng) and KR1a0132 (the personal Tōng lùn) makes Lǐ Guāngdì the only Kāngxī-period figure with both a major imperial Yì-compilation and a major personal Yì-treatise; together they constitute the principal early-eighteenth-century court Yìxué statement. The Sìkù editors’ precise distinction between Lǐ’s “level-and-proper” reading and the more polemical contemporaries (Máo Qílíng) reflects the Qiánlóng-court’s preference for synthesis over polemic.