Yì yuán jiù zhèng 易原就正
Approaching Correctness on the Origin of the Yì by 包儀
About the work
A Kāngxī-period Yìjīng commentary in twelve juàn by 包儀 Bāo Yí of Xíngtái 邢臺. Composed over nine years of solitary study after Bāo at last obtained a copy of 邵雍 Shào Yōng’s Huáng jí jīng shì 皇極經世 in 1669, the work is the principal early-Qīng Yì commentary that explicitly defends the Sòng xiāntiān chart-tradition against the kǎozhèng attack mounted in the same period by 黃宗羲 Huáng Zōngxī (KR1a0123) and 胡渭 Hú Wèi (the latter not yet published when Bāo was writing). Bāo studied through Shào Yōng and 陳摶 Chén Tuán, and the work’s fánlì explicitly states that contemporary Yì-glosses (countless in number) are all the worse for not having read the Huáng jí jīng shì — they each indulge their private cleverness without grasping the original import of “establishing symbol to exhaust meaning, observing symbol to attach words.” The Sìkù editors regard this position as “stuck on one side” (膠於一偏), but allow that Bāo’s exposition is in fact “clear and concise, the words and meaning lucid” (發揮明簡詞意了然), and notably does not lapse into mere chart-and-numerology calculation.
Two specific positive features the Sìkù editors single out: (1) Bāo holds, against most xiāntiān school commentators, that the Luòshū 洛書 has no relation to the Yì — a position that “outshines other schools’ tangling around” (差勝他家之繳繞); (2) at each line Bāo notes the zhī guà 之卦 (resulting hexagram by line variation), in conscious revival of the Zuǒ zhuàn divinatory practice — “quite close to antiquity.” The work’s defense of the chart-tradition is therefore actually a moderate and selective defense, not a blanket endorsement.
Tiyao
Sìkù tíyào (translated, condensed): The Yì yuán jiù zhèng in twelve juàn was composed by Bāo Yí of our [Qīng] dynasty. Yí, zì Yǔxiū, was a man of Xíngtái, a bágòng student. His beginning-and-end has nothing to be examined.
Observing his self-preface, he says: “In early years I heard of the Huáng jí jīng shì but had no means of seeking the book. From Shùnzhì xīnmǎo (1651) to Kāngxī jǐyǒu (1669) I failed seven examinations, in poverty unable to support myself; lightly traveling to Máchéng, I at length obtained the book in the household of Wáng Kěnán; reaching Jiāngníng I lived as a guest at a monastery, savoring and seeking its import for one year before having attainments.” Apparently also a poor-and-isolated scholar firmly resolved to stand on his own.
Yí’s learning being entered through Master Shào, he therefore trusts Chén Tuán’s prior-heaven diagram very deeply. His fánlì says further that the Yì-glosses circulating in the world are too many to count; in essence none has read the Huáng jí jīng shì, no wonder each indulges his private cleverness, and altogether none reaches the original import of “setting up symbol to exhaust meaning, observing symbol to attach words.” His position-taking is especially stuck on one side.
Yet his exposition is clear and concise, the words and meaning lucid; he does not abandon the canonical meaning to align black-and-white merely as a computation manual would. His saying that the Luòshū has no relation to the Yì is on the contrary an improvement on other schools’ tangling-around. Each line he annotates with the resulting hexagram into which it transforms, also still using the Zuǒshì divinatory method — quite close to antiquity. Apparently his learning, although jointly lecturing on the prior-heaven, brings out Yì-principle and clarifies Yì-symbol in many places. His extravagant promotion of the chart-learning is just borrowed as a frame for self-weight.
Respectfully collated, the fourth month of the forty-fourth year of Qiánlóng (1779). 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 Bāo’s 1669 acquisition of the Huáng jí jīng shì and the work’s nine-year composition span; the bracket here (1670–1685) covers this period. The work was completed in the late Kāngxī period and was probably first printed shortly thereafter.
The work is the principal early-Qīng defense of the Sòng xiāntiān chart-tradition. Its publication context is significant: it was composed in the same decade as 黃宗羲 Huáng Zōngxī’s Yì xué xiàng shù lùn (KR1a0123, 1690s), 黃宗炎 Huáng Zōngyán’s Tú xué biàn huò (KR1a0124), and the lead-up to Hú Wèi’s Yìtú míng biàn (KR1a0138, 1706) — the principal early-Qīng kǎozhèng assault on the chart-tradition. Bāo’s work stands as the leading contemporary defense.
The Sìkù editors’ assessment is calibrated and instructive: they grant the work clarity, concision, and substantive Yì-elucidation, while noting both its sectarianism (as “stuck on one side”) and its tactical hedges (the chart-learning “borrowed as a frame for self-weight”). The two positive features they single out — rejecting the LuòshūYì connection, reviving Zuǒ zhuàn line-variation analysis — show Bāo to be a more nuanced reader than his self-presentation as a chart-tradition advocate suggests.
The biographical detail (failed examinations 1651–1669, traveling Máchéng-Nánjīng pilgrimage, Wú Sānguī rebellion damage to family) is one of the more vivid early-Qīng scholarly biography sketches preserved in the Sìkù tíyào.
Translations and research
No substantial monograph in Western languages located. The work is occasionally cited in Chinese-language histories of the early-Qīng Yìxué debate (Zhū Bóhūi, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ vol. 4) as the principal contemporaneous defense of the chart-tradition.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the cleaner examples of how the early-Qīng chart-tradition did not collapse before the kǎozhèng attack but continued to develop through the work of provincial scholars working outside the major court networks. Bāo’s biographical trajectory — failed examinations, monastic refuge, prolonged solitary study — represents a recognizable late-imperial Confucian path that the more institutionally-connected early-Qīng Yì writers (李光地 Lǐ Guāngdì, 毛奇齡 Máo Qílíng, the Huáng brothers) did not follow.