Zhōuyì zhuàn yì hé dìng 周易傳義合訂
A Combined Edition of the Commentary [Yìchuán] and the Meanings [Běnyì] by 朱軾 (撰)
About the work
A high-Yōngzhèng / early-Qiánlóng-period Yìjīng synthetic commentary in twelve juàn by 朱軾 Zhū Shì (1664–1736), Grand Secretary and personal classical-learning tutor of the Qiánlóng emperor in his youth. The work integrates 程頤 Chéng Yí’s Yìchuán and 朱熹 Zhū Xī’s Běnyì into a single integrated edition: where they agree, the work follows; where they substantively differ, Zhū Shì arbitrates (“with the two views each having brought-out and able to run side by side without contradiction, both are recorded; with one substantively superior to the zhuàn and the yì, that is followed and the zhuànyì is set aside”) with appended discussions from later commentators and Zhū Shì’s own opinions. Posthumously printed by 鄂彌達 Émídá (Governor-General of the Two Guǎng) and prefaced by the Qiánlóng emperor (1737) acknowledging Zhū as his own classical-learning tutor.
The work’s fánlì (methodological preface) is unusually substantive and articulates a position recognizably distinct from both the standard Lǐ Guāngdì school and from contemporary alternatives:
(1) The Yì is xiàng 象 (symbol); from 王弼 Wáng Bì onward exegetes have set aside symbol to speak of principle, but Confucius’s Tuàn and Xiàng commentaries are themselves symbol-based — thunder, wind, mountain, lake, Qián horse, Kūn cow, Zhèn dragon, Xùn rooster, etc. — and even hexagram-internal relations (chéng 乘 / róu 柔 / shàngxià 上下 / yìng 應 / bǐ 比 / chéng 承) are all symbol. To set aside symbol and speak of principle leaves principle without ground.
(2) Even technical Hàn-school methods (nà jiǎ 納甲, fēifú 飛伏 etc.) are “one corner of the Yì”; zhōng yáo hù guà 中爻互卦, dǎo Xùn dǎo Duì 倒巽倒兌, hòu Lí hòu Kǎn 厚離厚坎 are even more clearly hexagram-structural symbols.
(3) Hexagram-pairing has duì yì 對易 and fǎn yì 反易 (already abundantly treated by earlier commentators); 來知德 Lái Zhīdé’s (KR1a0100) renaming as guà zōng 卦綜 is wrong.
(4) Chéng Yí declined guà biàn, holding that all hexagrams come from Qián and Kūn, but tested against the Tuàn zhuàn this is not entirely fitting; Zhū Shì follows Zhū Xī’s yī yīn yī yáng zì Gòu Fù 一陰一陽自姤復 doctrine.
(5) Sòng-and-Yuán Yì-charts run to the thousands but contribute nothing to the four-sage canon; they should be set aside.
The Sìkù editors note all these positions as substantive, methodologically combined, and well-grounded — making the Hé dìng one of the more methodologically ambitious post-Lǐ-Guāngdì Yì commentaries.
Tiyao
Imperial Preface (Qiánlóng 2 閏 9.15 = 1737, condensed): The Yì as a book — by odd-and-even it makes clear yīn-and-yáng’s symbol; by yīn-and-yáng it elucidates jiànshùn’s virtue; by hexagram-and-line it covers event-and-thing’s variation; by yì jiǎn (easy and simple) it exhausts the world’s principles. … Since the Hàn and Wèi, those who examined symbol-and-variation got stuck in technique-and-numerology and were unable to penetrate the cause of light-and-dark; those who discoursed on meaning-and-principle drowned in empty-quietude and were unable to investigate the trigger of moral-relations. Only with the appearance of Master Chéng’s Yìchuán and Master Zhū’s Běnyì did meaning-and-principle and symbol-and-number return to one. … My august grandfather the Shèngzǔ Rénhuáng [Kāngxī]‘s Imperial Compilation of the Zhōuyì zhé zhōng probed the source of Hé and Luò, directly received the heart-transmission, ranked-and-encompassed the earlier Confucians, and at the head laid out Chéng’s zhuàn and Zhū’s yì.
The Grand Secretary of Gāo’ān, Zhū Wénduān, of clean cultivation and upright learning, of weighty character in the present age, formerly in the lecture-seat opened-and-watered me much. Lifelong his learning was specialized in the Yílǐ and Xiǎo Dài lǐjì, but the Yì, Chūnqiū, and Zhōuguān he also touched on as side-engagements. The Zhuàn yì hé dìng he composed probes the meaning of what the two masters say, brings out and extends them — concise yet fitting, broad yet not branching, hooks-the-deep-and-explores-the-hidden without piercing-and-attribution. Apparently from the maturity of his savoring, his selection-of-words is refined; from the depth of his embodying, his analysis of principle is close. He may be called one who well speaks the Yì.
Wénduān, when his former subordinate Émídá was Governor-General of the Two Guǎng, hand-transmitted to him this book; Émídá cut it to blocks and transmitted it. When the cutting was complete, it was presented for inspection. Reading it, the day’s diligent-and-earnest beneficial-instruction-of-coming-students of the heart’s bitterness — as if I were meeting him again. I cannot help being saddened. Hence I take up the brush and make for it this preface.
— Qiánlóng 2 intercalary 9th month 15th day [1737]. (Editorial note: this preface is in fact recorded in the Yùzhì wén chū jí; yet this collection’s printed edition in fact takes it as the head — we accordingly faithfully record it.)
Sìkù tíyào (translated, condensed): The Zhōuyì zhuàn yì hé dìng in twelve juàn was composed by Zhū Shì of our [Qīng] dynasty. Shì, hào Kětíng, was a man of Gāo’ān; Kāngxī jiǎxū jìnshì; office to Grand Secretary; posthumous title Wénduān. This compilation, because Master Chéng’s Yìchuán and Master Zhū’s Yì běnyì mutually have variance, takes them and combines-and-collates them in order to return to oneness — no longer with both views establishing-difference. Where the two meanings each have brought-out and can run side by side without contradiction, both are still recorded; with appended Confucian discussions; where the various Confucians’ discussions are substantively superior to the zhuànyì, that is followed and the zhuànyì is set aside. Shì’s own opinions are also each appended at the back.
His fánlì says: [the five-point program summarized above].
Respectfully collated, the seventh 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 Zhū’s mature scholarship and his death in 1736; the work was published posthumously in 1737 with an imperial preface from Qiánlóng. The bracket here adopts the late-Kāngxī through Yōngzhèng span. The work is undated internally; the Sìkù notice does not narrow it.
The work is a substantively original mid-Qiánlóng synthesis. It explicitly inherits the 李光地 Lǐ Guāngdì Zhé zhōng tradition (Chéng-Zhū as primary base) but pushes farther than Lǐ Guāngdì in its acceptance of xiàngshù: Hàn-school nà jiǎ and fēifú are accepted as legitimate corners of the Yì; 毛奇齡 Máo Qílíng’s fǎn yì and duì yì doctrines are accepted; Lái Zhīdé’s cuò zōng is rejected (as merely a renaming); Chéng Yí’s denial of guà biàn is rejected in favor of Zhū Xī’s yī yīn yī yáng zì Gòu Fù doctrine.
This places Zhū Shì at a methodologically interesting point: he is more xiàngshù-friendly than Lǐ Guāngdì but rejects the Sòng Yì-chart tradition as unhelpful; he draws on Máo Qílíng’s recent reforms but does not endorse Máo’s polemical excesses. The combination is recognizably Yōngzhèng-period in feel and reflects the maturation of high-Qīng court Yìxué under the influence of the kǎozhèng turn.
The Qiánlóng emperor’s personal preface (acknowledging Zhū as his own classical-learning tutor) makes the work also a piece of imperial-court political document: it functioned as one mechanism by which the new Qiánlóng emperor signaled continuity with the Yōngzhèng-period court ideology while asserting his own Confucian-learning lineage.
Translations and research
For Zhū Shì’s broader Yōngzhèng-period role and his personal connection to the future Qiánlóng emperor see ECCP under “Chu Shih”; for his Yílǐ and Lǐjì scholarship see Anthony Yu’s writings on Qīng lǐ-classics studies. No major Western-language monograph specifically on the Hé dìng located.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the cleanest cases of high-Yōngzhèng / early-Qiánlóng court-Confucian Yìxué that successfully integrates kǎozhèng method (Hàn-school xiàngshù, the early-Qīng reformist tradition through Máo Qílíng) with imperial-orthodox doctrinal content. The detailed methodological fánlì is one of the more substantive Qīng-period statements of Yì-method and would repay separate study.