Zhōuyì zhuàn zhù 周易傳註
Commentary and Notes on the Zhōuyì by 李塨
About the work
A Yōngzhèng-period Yìjīng commentary in seven juàn (with appended Zhōuyì shì kǎo 周易筮考 in one juàn) by 李塨 Lǐ Gōng (1659–1733), the principal pupil of 顏元 Yán Yuán and chief Yán-Lǐ 顏李 school transmitter. The work was composed and revised over a decade: drafted in Kāngxī guǐwèi 康熙癸未 = 1703 (covering through Guān); continued in spring of jiǎshēn 甲申 (1704) at 李斯義 Lǐ Sīyì’s house in Běijīng (completing the hexagrams); revised in autumn of the same year at 溫德裕 Wēn Déyù’s office in Yǎnchéng 郾城; the Xìcí and other Wings completed in bǐngxū 丙戌 (1706); revised in rénchén 壬辰 (1712) winter at 鄭知芳 Zhèng Zhīfāng’s house in Zǎoqiáng 棗強; further revised three or four times.
The work’s argumentative core: the Yì was made for human affairs (Yì wèi rén shì ér zuò yě 易爲人事而作也). Lǐ holds, against the entire late-Sòng / YuánMíng / chart-tradition, that the canonical reading should foreground the human-and-ethical rather than the heavenly-and-metaphysical. He follows Confucius’s Xiàng statements as evidence: even where the trigram-symbols name natural phenomena (heaven-and-earth, jiànshùn 健順, cloud-and-thunder, Tún difficulty), the formula necessarily concludes with jūnzǐ yǐ 君子以 (“the gentleman thereby”), grounding the symbolic reading in human conduct. Methodologically Lǐ accepts xiàng (symbol) as principal but uses hùtǐ 互體 jointly; for Hàn-period material he draws extensively on 李鼎祚 Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s Jíjiě (KR1a0009); for recent material he draws on 毛奇齡 Máo Qílíng’s Zhòngshì Yì (KR1a0126) and Tú shū yuán shùn biàn and on 胡渭 Hú Wèi’s Yìtú míng biàn (KR1a0138).
The work’s deliberate omissions are substantive: refutation of guà biàn under Sòng hexagram; refutation of HétúLuòshū doctrine in the Xìcí gloss; refutation of xiāntiān eight-trigram doctrine in the Shuōguà gloss. Elsewhere the work simply elucidates canonical meaning without rebutting old doctrines — Lǐ’s fánlì says “of the earlier Confucians’ debates I cannot list a volume’s worth; only where it greatly bears on the canon do I unavoidably argue.” The Sìkù editors regard the work as substantively important: although Lǐ’s polemical preface “is unavoidably excessive,” his return of the Yì to rén shì “deeply attains the sage’s import in transmitting instruction.” Their summary diagnosis of the late-Míng Yìxué problems Lǐ corrects against — xīnxué 心學 readers who insert Chán gě 禪偈 to gloss the canon, xiàngshù readers who proliferate diagrams and forget the canonical text — is one of the more pointed critical statements in the Yì-class tíyào.
Tiyao
Sìkù tíyào (translated, condensed): The Zhōuyì zhuàn zhù in seven juàn and Zhōuyì shì kǎo in one juàn were composed by Lǐ Gōng of our [Qīng] dynasty. Gōng, zì Gāngzhǔ, hào Shùgǔ, was a man of Lǐxiàn. He was a jǔrén of Kāngxī gēngwǔ (1690) and held office as Education Director of Tōngzhōu.
This compilation: the great import says that the sage’s teaching rarely speaks of nature and heaven; the four virtues of Qián and Kūn must be returned to human affairs; from Tún’s “establishing princes,” Méng’s “initial divination” and the rest, every hexagram likewise speaks by human affairs. Chén Tuán’s Lóng tú, Liú Mù’s Gōu yǐn, and the searching of wújí and pushing of xiāntiān — all make the Yì way enter into uselessness. The Cān tóng qì, Sān Yì dòng jī, and the rest are all heterodox and technical-art transmissions; their doctrines are sufficient only to disorder the Yì. Even the five-phase victory-defeat, divided-trigrams day-by-day, and the first-second-third-fourth-generation doctrines — all are also outside what the three sages said, additional side-branches.
His exposition is therefore quite clear-sharp and substantive-real, not lapsing into fragmentary phantasm. His refutation of guà biàn opens the example under Sòng’s Tuàn statement; his refutation of HétúLuòshū opens the example in the Xìcí zhuàn; his refutation of xiāntiān bāguà opens the example in the Shuōguà zhuàn. The rest he merely elucidates canonical meaning and does not return to refute the old text. His fánlì says: “of the earlier Confucians’ debates I cannot list a volume’s worth; only where greatly relevant do I unavoidably argue.”
In general he takes observing-symbol as principal and also jointly uses hùtǐ. Of ancient writers he mostly draws on Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s Jíjiě; of recent writers he mostly takes Máo Qílíng’s Zhòngshì Yì and Tú shū yuán shùn biàn, and Hú Wèi’s Yìtú míng biàn.
His self-preface in attacking the various Confucians is unavoidably excessive. Yet from the Míng’s Lóngqìng and Wànlì on, those who spoke of principle inserted mind-learning into Yì-learning, generally taking Chán gě (Buddhist verses) to gloss the canon; those who spoke of number cycle-pushed odd-and-even, black-and-white, with diagrams piling up daily — turning around to set aside symbol, divination, word, variation, fortune-and-misfortune-regret-and-stinting and not ask. Their canker on canonical learning is in fact an unending shortage. Gōng draws-and-returns it to human affairs, deeply attaining the sage’s import in transmitting instruction. As to his correcting-bend by going-too-straight, blowing-the-vegetables out of fear of soup-burned — these should be viewed distinguishingly. One should not by word damage meaning. That is acceptable.
Respectfully collated, the second month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng (1780). 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 fixed by Lǐ’s own preface to a sequence of revisions over 1703–1712; the bracket here adopts that range. The preface (translated above in the source) records four named locations and a sequence of revisions across nearly a decade.
The work is the principal Yán-Lǐ school Yì commentary, applying the school’s shí xué 實學 (practical-learning) emphasis on human affairs to the canonical Yì. As such, it is one of the more methodologically distinctive early-eighteenth-century Yì commentaries: methodologically aligned with the high-Qīng kǎozhèng on chart-and-numerology (drawing on Máo Qílíng and Hú Wèi) but doctrinally distinct in its Yán-Lǐ practical-Confucian orientation. The combination is unusual.
The Sìkù editors’ qualified endorsement is substantial: they grant Lǐ the diagnosis of the late-Míng problems but warn against excessive polemic. The pairing with the contemporary 魏荔彤 Wèi Lìtóng Dà Yì tōng jiě (KR1a0136) — also Yōngzhèng-period, also methodologically reformist, also held by the Sìkù editors as somewhat polemically excessive — is instructive: both reflect the early-eighteenth-century willingness to depart from the late-Míng / Kāngxī court orthodoxy.
The appended Zhōuyì shì kǎo (one juàn) extends the work to milfoil-divination practice — paralleling 王弘撰 Wáng Hóngzhuàn’s KR1a0125 of an earlier generation but more compact.
Translations and research
For Lǐ Gōng’s broader Yán-Lǐ school role and shí xué program see Mansvelt-Beck, Lectures on the Yan-Li School (1990s); Theodore de Bary, Learning for One’s Self (Columbia, 1991); Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology (Harvard, 1984; rev. 2001); and ECCP under “Li Kung.” For the Yì writings specifically see Zhū Bóhūi, Yìxué zhéxué shǐ vol. 4. No major Western-language monograph specifically on the Zhōuyì zhuàn zhù located.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the cleanest cases of Yán-Lǐ school methodology applied to a single classical canon: practical-learning emphasis (rén shì over tiān dào), critical engagement with chart-and-numerology, and an orderly editorial restraint (refuting only where greatly relevant rather than entry-by-entry). The compositional itinerary preserved in the preface (Beijing, Yǎnchéng, Zǎoqiáng, with multiple host households) is itself a small case in the early-Qīng northern-Confucian travel-and-revision practice.