Yìjīng zhōng lùn 易經衷論
Heart-Discussions on the Yìjīng by 張英
About the work
A Kāngxī-period Yìjīng commentary in two juàn by 張英 Zhāng Yīng (1637–1708), the Kāngxī Grand Secretary and father of the more famous 張廷玉 Zhāng Tíngyù. The work treats only the sixty-four hexagrams (omitting the Xìcí and Wings); each hexagram receives a single integrated essay (zhuàn 篇) on its general import, without reproducing the canonical text. Doctrinally the work takes 朱熹 Zhū Xī’s Běnyì as principal authority and elucidates its content; on Kǎn 6/3’s èr yòng fǒu 貳用缶 phrase Zhāng diverges from the Běnyì and follows 程頤 Chéng Yí’s Yìchuán in reading the phrase-break as zūn jiǔ guǐ èr 樽酒簋貳 — a “discriminating selection of the perfectly fitting” (斟酌盡善) that the Sìkù editors single out as not the move of a sycophant.
The Sìkù editors single out two notable readings: (1) on Qián’s Tuàn phrase yuán hēng lì zhēn 元亨利貞, Zhāng holds that King Wén’s verbal commentary should originally be read on the same pattern as the rest of the hexagrams; (2) on the Wényán of Qián and Kūn, Zhāng holds that the sage uses these two hexagrams to display to the reader the method of reading the Yì: one should expand and embody other hexagrams in the same way. Both readings the editors describe as “clear-and-thorough, with the disease of tangled-and-clamorous absent” (見地明達無紛紜轇轕之病). The work uses the standard chéng 乘 / chéng 承 / bǐ 比 / yìng 應 line-relationship apparatus to derive the source of fortune-and-misfortune, with concise expression and avoidance of xiàngshù speculation: the Sìkù editors call it “still one of the level-and-honest among Yì-exposition houses.”
Tiyao
Sìkù tíyào (translated): Respectfully submitted: the Yìjīng zhōng lùn in two juàn was composed by Zhāng Yīng of our [Qīng] dynasty. Yīng, zì Dūnfù, was a man of Tóngchéng. He was a jìnshì of the dīngwèi year of Kāngxī (1667), and his offices reached as far as Grand Secretary of the Hall of Literary Glory, concurrently Minister of Rites; his posthumous title was Wénduān 文端.
This book is what he composed as Yì meaning, exclusively glossing the import of the sixty-four hexagrams without reaching to the Xìcí and after. Each hexagram is a single chapter glossing the great meaning, and does not lay out the canonical text. His establishment of doctrine takes Master Zhū’s Běnyì as principal, separately bringing out its accumulated meaning. On Kǎn’s èr yòng fǒu phrase, however, he holds the Běnyì to be unsettled and follows the Chéng zhuàn in taking zūn jiǔ guǐ èr as the phrase-break. His weighing-of-perfect-completeness — not coincident-conformity — is not what those of the world who shift-to-attribute can match.
His gloss on Qián’s Tuàn yuán hēng lì zhēn says: “King Wén’s verbal commentary is fundamentally on the same example with the various hexagrams’ glosses.” His gloss on Qián and Kūn’s Wényán says: “The sage raises the two hexagrams Qián and Kūn to display to people the method of reading the Yì; one should expand and embody it like this.” Both are clear-and-thorough seeing-of-place, without the disease of tangled-and-clamorous.
His other [discussions] root in the principles of chéngshēngbǐyìng in order to directly extract the wherefrom of fortune-and-misfortune-regret-and-stinting; in general the words are concise and the meaning is comprehensive. He does not pierce-and-attribute through symbol-and-number to engender side-branches on his own — still one of the level-and-honest among Yì-exposition houses.
Respectfully collated, the sixth 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 Zhāng’s mature scholarship and his death in 1708; the work is undated internally. The bracket here (1670–1708) covers the period of his Kāngxī court career.
The work is a moderate Kāngxī-period court-Confucian Yì commentary, methodologically conservative and Chéng-Zhū-aligned. The Sìkù editors’ positive assessment is consistent with their general preference for level, non-polemical readings — Zhāng’s avoidance of xiàngshù speculation and his disciplined Chéng-Zhū exposition fit the editors’ ideal type.
The work’s structural choice — one essay per hexagram, omitting the canonical text and the Wings — shares with KR1a0130 (喬萊 Qiáo Lái’s Yì sì) and KR1a0102 (葉山 Yè Shān’s Yì zhuàn) the late-Míng / Kāngxī-period editorial preference for synthetic per-hexagram treatment over continuous canonical commentary.
Translations and research
For Zhāng Yīng’s broader Kāngxī-period role see ECCP under “Chang Ying”; he is also the protagonist of the famous liù chǐ xiàng 六尺巷 (“Six-Foot Lane”) parable about deferring to neighbors in property disputes. No major Western-language monograph specifically on the Yìjīng zhōng lùn located.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the cleaner cases of high-Qīng court-Confucian moderate Yì-reading; the Sìkù editors’ approval reflects both the work’s content and Zhāng Yīng’s status as one of the most senior and admired Kāngxī Grand Secretaries (and father of the great Yōngzhèng-Qiánlóng minister 張廷玉 Zhāng Tíngyù).