Yì lì 易例
Examples of the Yì by 惠棟
About the work
A Qiánlóng-period methodological-collection in two juàn by 惠棟 Huì Dòng (1697–1758), the third item from the planned but unfinished seven-work supplementary corpus of his Zhōuyì shù (KR1a0155). The work was unfinished at Huì’s death and was first printed posthumously at Cháoyáng 潮陽; it survives as ninety topical categories of which thirteen have catalog-headings without content. The original bá 跋 (postscript) candidly declares the work “unfinished.”
The work’s compositional mode: Huì gathered Hàn-Confucian Yì-glosses topically and noted them down “as he went, jotting down the marker-notes” (隨手題識筆之于冊), with the intention of later distilling these source-collections into a finished systematic Yì lì. As the Sìkù editors note, the surviving manuscript is therefore not the finished work but the source-material collection (the “raw materials for composing the discussion” 以儲作論之材).
The Sìkù editors’ assessment is a careful balance: they cite many examples of the manuscript’s unfinished state — duplicate or near-duplicate categories that would clearly have been merged in revision (扶陽抑陰 vs. 陽道不絕陰道絕 vs. 陽無死義; six categories on zhōnghé 中和 with a seventh later, plus jūn dào zhōnghé and zhōnghé zhī běn at the end of the volume); categories that have been collected for a different purpose but survived as standalone topics (古者有聖人之德然後居天子之位 collected as supporting evidence for a Qián shēng Kūn jiàng example, but standing alone in the text); cited histories (司馬遷 Sīmǎ Qiān’s Shǐjì on reading the Yì, Hàn shū on Yì-transmission lineages) that are evidentiary apparatus mistakenly preserved as work content. They conclude: “in this way numerous, all cannot be relied on as a fixed text” — yet the substantive Hànxué content is so substantial that the work cannot be discarded: “his cited material on the various canons deeply glimpses ancient meaning; the master-old-Confucians’ dedicated-school transmission’s minute-import — every character and phrase has its source. Trim the noise, preserve the essence; and through what is recorded, by ranking and cross-checking, one can still see the great outline of the sage’s making of the Yì and the broad scheme of the Hàn dynasty’s transmitting of the canon. One should not because of incompleteness and few-threads simply discard the manuscript.”
Tiyao
Sìkù tíyào (translated): The Yì lì in two juàn was composed by Huì Dòng of our [Qīng] dynasty. The catalog at the back of Dòng’s Zhōuyì shù lists seven books beginning with Yì wēi yán; only the Yì wēi yán in two juàn is appended cut at the end of the volume; the rest are all missing. This Yì lì in two juàn is precisely the third item among the seven books. Recently it was first cut to blocks at Cháoyáng. All examines-and-investigates Hàn-Confucian transmission in order to elucidate the Yì’s root-examples.
In all ninety classes; among them with-catalog-without-content, thirteen classes. The original postscript calls it an unfinished book. Now examining the book: not only is the gathering not complete, even the section-and-headings are not yet divided. Apparently Dòng wished to fuse-and-cast old doctrines to make an Yì lì; first creating a draft, gathering Hàn-Confucian Yì-glosses and as he went jotting marker-notes in the volume to store materials for composing the discussion. His marker-headings have entries that should be examples and stand as one class, and entries that should not be examples but stand as one class; have one class as one example and one class as several examples.
[Long enumeration of cited duplications and miscategorizations.]
Yet Dòng on the various canons deeply glimpses ancient meaning; what he gathers and extracts is in general the master-old-Confucians’ dedicated-school authorized-transmission’s minute-import. Every character and phrase has rooted source. Trim its noise, preserve its essence; through what is recorded, by ranking-and-cross-checking, one can still see the sage’s making of the Yì’s great outline and the broad scheme of the Hàn dynasty’s canon-transmission. One should not because of fragmentariness and few-threads decisively discard the manuscript.
Respectfully collated, the seventh 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 Huì Dòng’s mature scholarship through his death in 1758; the work was unfinished at his death and first printed at Cháoyáng posthumously, then included in the Sìkù. The bracket here adopts a span from his early forties through his death.
The work is the methodological complement to the Zhōuyì shù (KR1a0155) and Yì Hàn xué (KR1a0156) — together the trio constitutes the principal Wú pài Yìxué corpus. Where the Zhōuyì shù is the integrated commentary and the Yì Hàn xué is the historiographic-reconstruction of the Hàn-school sources, the Yì lì would have been the systematic codification of the Hàn-school technical examples — the methodological appendix that would have made the program complete. Its unfinished state is therefore methodologically as well as practically frustrating.
The Sìkù editors’ candid handling — preserving the unfinished raw-materials manuscript while explicitly characterizing its compositional state — is one of the more honest editorial interventions in the Sìkù tíyào. The decision to preserve rather than reject is justified by the substantive Hànxué content: even in raw form, the citations serve as a substantial record of Hàn-Confucian Yì-doctrine.
The work’s reception in the eighteenth and nineteenth century has been principally as source-material for further high-Qing kǎozhèng Yìxué (張惠言 Zhāng Huìyán’s Yú Fān reconstruction draws on it; 焦循 Jiāo Xún’s Yìxué sān shū engages with it).
Translations and research
Treated alongside the Zhōuyì shù and Yì Hàn xué in standard Qing Yìxué surveys; see references in those entries.
Other points of interest
The Yì lì is one of the more candidly-acknowledged-unfinished work in the Sìkù corpus, and the editors’ detailed enumeration of its compositional defects (duplicate categories, mis-categorized supporting-evidence, cited histories preserved as content) is unusually transparent. The decision to preserve the raw manuscript as substantive Hànxué document despite its compositional incompleteness reflects the Sìkù editors’ deep respect for Huì Dòng’s overall Wú pài program.