Fēngchuān Yì shuō 豐川易說
Fēngchuān’s Discourse on the Yì by 王心敬
About the work
A Kāngxī-Yōngzhèng-period Yìjīng commentary in ten juàn by 王心敬 Wáng Xīnjìng (1656–1738) of Hùxiàn 鄠縣, Shǎnxī (the 李顒 Lǐ Yóng-school circle). The work is the strongest mid-Qing Yì commentary in the practical-conduct tradition: against the chart-tradition, against the technical-numerology tradition, against pure metaphysical xīnxìng talk, the work reads the Yì exclusively as “the book that discusses human affairs” (易是道人事之書), with the yīnyáng waxing-and-waning treated as merely “borrowed imagery” (借來作影子) for the human conduct that is the canonical concern.
The fánlì and the cited methodological propositions (preserved in the Sìkù notice) constitute one of the more extended methodological statements in the Qing Yì-corpus:
(1) “‘Studying the Yì can make one without great fault’ is Confucius’s making clear that the Yì is close to the human person — this is the way to know the four sages’ attaching-the-Yì’s original intent and the essence of studying the Yì.”
(2) “The Yì is the book that discusses human affairs; yīnyáng waxing-and-waning is just borrowed to serve as shadow [imagery]. Hence it says: the Yì is symbol; symbol is to image. If at the place of yīnyáng waxing-and-waning one’s looking is unclear, the shadow is not true. Yet if one merely sticks to yīnyáng waxing-and-waning without attainment in the close-to-self human affairs, one is also catching wind and grasping shadow.”
(3) “To set aside symbol and speak of the Yì is empty-suspending; to grasp symbol and discard meaning is sticking to traces. Symbol-meaning jointly displayed: substance-application has one source; manifest-and-minute have no gap.”
(4) “The Zhōngyōng was for the time’s discoursing-of-way — those who took it as elevated-deep-mysterious-distant; hence it twice cites the Zhōngyōng to make clear the way. The Yì-Wings ten chapters were Confucius’s for the time’s discoursing-of-Yì — those who took it as elevated-deep-mysterious-distant; hence he reiterates the easy-and-simple doctrine to make clear the Yì.Later Confucians often sought-from-hidden-depths to magnify the Yì*‘s mystery, and unknowingly lost its original intent.*”
(5) “If the Yì did not bear on symbol, one would not know meaning came from where; if it did not belong to milfoil-divination, one would not know what the milfoil was for.”
(6) “Students who read the Yì not knowing to seek the original-intent of pedagogy-establishing, who read the Shū not knowing the broad-policy of Hóngfàn managing-the-world, every time pierce-and-attribute on the* Hé tú and Luò shū — what use to actual-event actual-principle?”
(7) “In general the Hàn-and-Táng Yì merely amounts to gloss; the Sòng-and-Míng Yì mostly winnows-cleverness. Gloss is not Yì, yet the Yì is in it; cleverness disorders the Yì, and the Yì dies.”
(8) “Meaning, words, symbol, divination — same substance, common-thread; abolishing one is impossible, sticking to one is impossible. Later Confucians chaotic-in-dispute principal-on symbol, principal-on number, principal-on principle, principal-on milfoil-divination, principal-on inverted-paired variation — these set aside the great way and enter side-paths.”
The work systematically rejects: hùtǐ 互體 (component-trigrams), the old-yīn / old-yáng beginning-variation doctrine, cuò zōng 錯綜 (paired-and-inverted), guà biàn 卦變 (hexagram-variation) — and even the Zuǒ zhuàn-attested ancient divinatory method. The Sìkù editors describe this as “somewhat over-pressed in maintenance” but vastly superior to chart-tradition entanglement.
Tiyao
Sìkù tíyào (translated, condensed): The Fēngchuān Yì shuō in ten juàn was composed by Wáng Xīnjìng of our [Qīng] dynasty. Xīnjìng, zì Ěrjī, was a man of Hùxiàn. The notes he composed on various classics are mostly fragmentary, piercing, daring to make heterodox arguments — the Shū and Chūnqiū are particularly so — and no single-virtue is to be taken. Only this compilation pushes-and-elucidates the Yì-principle most substantively and clearly — different from the other classics as if from two hands.
His words [as quoted in detail above] are all clear-and-uplifting; hence his book is all close to human affairs and deeply benefits learners. As to the hùtǐ doctrine, the old-yīn-and-old-yáng-beginning-variation doctrine, the cuò zōng doctrine, the guà biàn doctrine — all are rejected and not believed; even the Zuǒshì-recorded ancient divinatory method he repels. Although his maintenance does not escape excess, compared to those who draw charts and lay out doctrines, page-after-page sheaf-after-sheaf, taking the sage-canon as a counting-manual — he surpasses them ten-thousand-and-ten-thousand-fold.
Respectfully collated, the sixth 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 Wáng’s mature scholarship; he died in 1738. The bracket here adopts a generous range from his late-Kāngxī engagement with the Yì through his death.
The work is the principal Qiánlóng-period Lǐ-Yóng-school Yì commentary, applying the Shǎnxī Lǐxué practical-conduct emphasis to canonical Yìxué. Methodologically it is the strongest Qing-period statement of the “Yì as human-affairs book” position — more thorough than 李塨 Lǐ Gōng’s parallel Yán-Lǐ school treatment (KR1a0140) and more polemically articulated. The cited propositions in the Sìkù notice constitute one of the more substantial Qing methodological statements on the Yì’s nature and pedagogical role.
The Sìkù editors’ striking internal discrimination — within the same author’s corpus, the Yì work is praised as substantively important while the Shū and Chūnqiū works are dismissed — is one of the more pointed cases in the Sìkù tíyào of work-by-work judgment. The Yì shuō alone of Wáng’s writings entered the Sìkù quánshū proper.
The position that the work over-maintains its position (rejecting even the Zuǒ zhuàn-attested ancient divinatory method) is the only substantial Sìkù reservation; otherwise the editors approve the work as preferable to the entire chart-tradition / numerology-tradition counter-corpus.
Translations and research
For Wáng Xīnjìng’s broader Lǐ Yóng-school affiliation see Lin Tongqi, The Confucian Tradition of Late Imperial China (1990s), and ECCP under “Wang Hsin-ching.” No major Western-language monograph specifically on the Fēngchuān Yì shuō located.
Other points of interest
The work’s strongly-articulated practical-conduct Yìxué — and the Sìkù editors’ approving reception of the same — makes it one of the principal documents of mid-Qing Lǐ Yóng-school thought. The contrast with Wáng’s other classical commentaries (judged poor by the Sìkù) is also a small case in the recognition that a single Confucian scholar may have radically different aptitudes across the canonical classics. The eight-or-so cited methodological propositions in the Sìkù notice would repay separate study as a substantial Qiánlóng-period statement of Yì-methodology.