Dà Yì zé yán 大易擇言
Selected Words on the Great Yì by 程廷祚
About the work
A monumental Qiánlóng-period systematic Yìjīng anthology in thirty-six juàn by 程廷祚 Chéng Tíngzuò (1691–1767) of Shàngyuán 上元. Composed under the methodological scheme suggested by his friend 方苞 Fāng Bāo (1668–1749), the work organizes the entire Yì-commentary tradition under each canonical passage into six rubrics: (1) zhèng yì (proper meanings); (2) biàn zhèng (correcting variants); (3) tōng lùn (general discussion penetrating multiple passages); (4) yú lùn (isolated residual insights); (5) cún yí (preserved doubts — passages where the received commentary is suspicious but seemingly plausible); (6) cún yì (preserved divergences — passages where the received commentary is contradictory). Chéng’s own opinions are marked yú àn 愚案. The work is thus simultaneously an anthology and a critical-evaluative apparatus.
The work’s methodological commitments: (1) the Shuōguà’s eight virtues — jiànshùndòngrùxiànlìzhǐshuō 健順動入陷麗止說 (firm-yielding-moving-entering-fall-adhere-stop-pleasure) — are the proper symbols of the eight trigrams; the gain-and-loss of the eight trigrams are determined by the doubled-hexagram in which each appears; (2) line-meaning is sought from the line itself, with the line-relationship apparatus (chéng 承 / shèng 乘 / bǐ 比 / yìng 應) explicitly rejected; (3) the six positions are based solely on the Xìcí’s “biàn guì jiàn zhě cún hū wèi 辨貴賤者存乎位” (distinguishing high-and-low resides in position) — the doctrine of “yáng-line in yīn-position / yīn-line in yáng-position” is entirely rejected. Methodologically the work is a strong yìli commentary that breaks decisively with the xiàngshù tradition; the Sìkù editors describe it as “forcefully repelling the symbol-and-number learning, taking only meaning-and-principle as principal.”
The preface by 汪由敦 Wāng Yóudūn — preserved at the head — is unusually substantial, defending Chéng’s divergences from Chéng-Zhū against the charge of presumption: “the Yì-principle is inexhaustible; even if Chéng and Zhū were reborn, they would not necessarily not take it as ‘arousing me’; and Chéng is decidedly not one who follows his own mind and despises the ancients.”
Tiyao
Sìkù tíyào (translated, condensed): The Dà Yì zé yán in thirty-six juàn was composed by Chéng Tíngzuò of our [Qīng] dynasty. Tíngzuò, zì Miánzhuāng, hào Qīngxī, was a man of Shàngyuán. This compilation, by following the prefatory discussion of Fāng Bāo of Tóngchéng, takes six rubrics to compile the various houses’ doctrines: first, zhèng yì — the various doctrines fitting the canonical meaning; second, biàn zhèng — settling sameness-and-difference; third, tōng lùn — discussing one place but the meaning penetrates elsewhere, with separate-explanation principles still able to penetrate; fourth, yú lùn — single-words and partial-sayings that can serve to bring out elucidation; fifth, cún yí; sixth, cún yì — both old men’s erroneous-and-erroneous prose; what seems-to-be is called doubt, what is back-running is called divergence. Outside the six rubrics, what is settled by his own opinion is marked off with yú àn.
His making clear the line-symbols only takes the Shuōguà’s “firm-yielding-moving-entering-fall-adhere-stop-pleasure” eight-trigram meaning as the eight-trigrams’ true symbols; the gain-and-loss of the eight is decided by the doubled-hexagram each meets. His making clear of line-meaning is sought only from the basic line, and forcefully breaks the various old explanations of chéngshèngbǐyìng. His investigation of the six positions is based exclusively on the Xìcí’s “biàn guì jiàn zhě cún hū wèi” import; all the doctrines of yáng-line-yīn-position and yīn-line-yáng-position are also entirely deleted. Apparently he forcefully repels symbol-and-number learning, only taking meaning-and-principle as principal.
Respectfully collated, the fourth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng (1781). 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 Chéng’s mature scholarship through his death in 1767; the bracket here adopts a span from his early forties through his death.
The work is the most ambitious mid-Qiánlóng Yì-anthology, second in scale only to the imperial Zhōuyì zhé zhōng (KR1a0117) and Lì Guāngdì’s compilation. Methodologically the work is a substantial yìli-school manifesto: the systematic rejection of the entire xiàngshù line-relationship apparatus (chéng-shèng-bǐ-yìng and the yīn-position-yáng-line speculation) makes Chéng one of the most thoroughgoing Qiánlóng-period anti-xiàngshù commentators, more decisive than even the early-Qing kǎozhèng school (黃宗羲 Huáng Zōngxī, 胡渭 Hú Wèi) which had attacked the chart-tradition while preserving the line-relationship apparatus.
The six-rubric editorial scheme — proper meanings / correcting variants / general discussion / residual / preserved doubts / preserved divergences — is methodologically interesting and reflects Chéng’s commitment to gradient evaluation rather than binary acceptance/rejection. Wāng Yóudūn’s preface defending Chéng against the charge of departing from Chéng-Zhū is also a small but substantive document of mid-Qiánlóng court literary politics.
The relationship to the parallel imperial Zhōuyì zhé zhōng is interesting: where the Zhé zhōng is doctrinally more conservative (Chéng-Zhū base with broad inclusion), Chéng’s Zé yán is doctrinally more radical (pure yìli with rejection of the xiàngshù apparatus) but methodologically more systematic (six-rubric grading vs. the Zhé zhōng’s simpler authority-marking). The two together constitute the principal mid-Qiánlóng Yì-anthology corpus.
Translations and research
No substantial monograph in Western languages located. For Chéng Tíngzuò’s broader career see ECCP and the standard mid-Qiánlóng intellectual histories.
Other points of interest
The six-rubric editorial scheme is one of the more sophisticated mid-Qing critical apparatuses in jīngxué, and reflects the Yōngzhèng-Qiánlóng-period rise of more nuanced editorial-evaluative methodology than the simpler authority-marking conventions of the Sòng-Yuán synthesis. The methodological position (rejection of chéngshèngbǐyìng etc.) is also one of the more substantive Qiánlóng-period statements of yìli-pure exegesis.