Zhōuyì biàn huà 周易辨畫
Discriminating the Strokes of the Zhōuyì by 連斗山
About the work
A monumental Qiánlóng-period Yìjīng commentary in forty juàn by 連斗山 Lián Dǒushān of Yǐngzhōu 潁州 (Ānhuī). The work is one of the largest single-author Qiánlóng-period Yì commentaries; ending with one juàn of edited diagrams (Jí tú 輯圖), which take 朱熹 Zhū Xī’s older diagrams and modify them slightly. The work’s main thesis: the meaning of each hexagram is in its lines (yáo 爻); each line consists of a firm or yielding stroke (huà 畫); from these strokes the symbols are established and the words attached. The way of the Yì therefore lies first in biàn huà — discriminating the strokes; hence the title.
The work makes extensive use of hùtǐ 互體 (component-trigrams) and reads each hexagram in stroke-by-stroke detail. Sample reading from the Tún hexagram’s Dà xiàng: “the four yīn-lines arrange themselves like sequenced silk-threads with one yáng running through like a shuttle [3rd line]; the upper component-trigram is Gèn 艮 = hand; the lower is Zhèn 震 = foot — like weaving on a loom — this is the symbol of jīng lún 經綸 (managing-the-warp).” The Sìkù editors describe such readings as “unavoidably over-pierced” (穿鑿太甚) but on balance substantive: the per-hexagram detailed hùtǐ analysis “has much in it that fits with refined principle” and the work’s reading-the-line-from-the-line method is “able to gloss the Yì through the Yì.”
The methodological tí gāng 提綱 (preface preserved at the head — translated below in part) is a substantial defense of xiàng-based reading and a rebuttal of 王弼 Wáng Bì’s “having grasped the meaning, one may forget the symbol” doctrine: “if one does not know the symbol, how can one know the words; if one does not know the words, how can one know the meaning?” Citing Zhū Xī: “studying the Yì, if one looks while staying-grounded-on-symbol, the savor lasts; if one merely looks empty-suspendingly, there is not much meaning to it.” This is a substantive defense of the xiàng-tradition against the post-Wáng-Bì yìli line.
Tiyao
Sìkù tíyào (translated): The Zhōuyì biàn huà in forty juàn was composed by Lián Dǒushān of our [Qīng] dynasty. Dǒushān, zì Shūdù, was a man of Yǐngzhōu. The book’s great import: the meaning of one hexagram is in its lines; the line-strokes have firm and yielding; by reason of the firm-and-yielding strokes the symbol is established; by reason of the firm-and-yielding strokes words are attached. The way [of the Yì] first lies in discriminating-the-strokes, hence the name. At the end is one juàn of edited charts; this is precisely Master Zhū’s old chart with slight gain-and-loss.
His exposition exclusively uses hexagram-stroke meaning-establishment. As for example: on Tún’s Dà xiàng, says the four yīn arrange next-by-next like silk-threads with one yáng running-through, like a shuttle; the upper component-trigram is Gèn hand, the lower [moves as] Zhèn foot, like weaving — the symbol of “managing-the-warp.” This is unavoidably over-pierced.
Yet his per-hexagram detailed laying-out of hùtǐ, dissecting the minute, also has much fitting with refined principle. Apparently by-line discussing the line is precisely able to use the Yì to explain the Yì. Although there are occasional failures of attribution, the original-import of cuò zōng biàn huà (paired-and-inverted-and-varying-stroke) can still be used to side-observe by it. Surely compared to elevated-talk on nature-and-way leading to fuzzy-no-place-of-return, it has comparatively more substantive ground.
Respectfully collated, the eighth 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 the Qiánlóng-period prior to the Sìkù’s 1779 first reading; the bracket here adopts a conservative range. The work is undated internally; biographical details on Lián Dǒushān are sparse.
The work is one of the largest mid-Qiánlóng Yì commentaries (40 juàn), notable for its programmatic commitment to stroke-by-stroke reading combined with extensive hùtǐ analysis. Methodologically it stands within the xiàngshù revival tradition — alongside the contemporary KR1a0155 (惠棟 Huì Dòng) of the Wú pài — but uses hùtǐ and stroke-analysis rather than the 虞翻 Yú Fān / 荀爽 Xún Shuǎng Hàn-school techniques. The combination represents a methodological position different from both the strict yìli school (cf. KR1a0159 程廷祚 Chéng Tíngzuò, who explicitly rejects hùtǐ) and the strict Hàn-school (cf. Huì Dòng, who relies on Yú Fān).
The methodological tí gāng preface — explicitly defending xiàng-based reading against Wáng Bì while remaining within the Sòng synthesis — is one of the more substantive Qiánlóng-period methodological statements on xiàng. The position is methodologically interesting and the Sìkù editors’ qualified endorsement (over-pierced but substantively grounded) is the standard view.
Translations and research
No substantial monograph in Western languages located.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the few Qiánlóng-period Yì commentaries that successfully integrates hùtǐ analysis as a systematic exegetical method without lapsing into either pure technical-numerology or pure metaphysics. The forty-juàn scale also makes it one of the more thorough single-author Yì-corpora of the mid-Qing.