Zhōu Yì lüè lì 周易略例
Brief Exemplary Schemata of the Zhōu Yì by 王弼 Wáng Bì (撰)
About the work
A single fascicle of theoretical-hermeneutical essays composed by the Xuánxué 玄學 founder 王弼 Wáng Bì (226–249) to accompany his Zhōu Yì zhù 周易注 (KR1a0007). The lüè lì — “brief examples” or “exemplary schemata” — sets out, in seven short chapters, the methodological principles by which Wáng Bì proposes to read the Yì: how the Tuàn 彖 verdicts unify each hexagram, how line-positions yield meaning, how the trigrammatic image is to be understood, and so on. The work has been continuously read and re-edited together with the Zhōu Yì zhù since the Táng, but is also transmitted as a separate one-juàn unit (as here). It is the single most important programmatic statement of the Yì-hermeneutics that displaced the Hàn cosmological tradition.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source. The Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū registers the Zhōu Yì lüè lì not as a separate work but as integral to Zhōu Yì zhèng yì 周易正義 (KR1a0007); the Sìkù tíyào there discusses the lüè lì under the same heading as Wáng Bì’s main Yì commentary, observing that the Táng-era Sìmén zhùjiào 四門助教 邢璹 Xíng Shù composed an authoritative sub-commentary on the lüè lì, which is the form in which it has descended to us.
Abstract
The Zhōu Yì lüè lì is securely attested as Wáng Bì’s own composition (mid-3rd-c.), composed in or shortly before 249, the year of his death at age 23. It consists of seven essays — most famously Míng Tuàn 明彖 (“On Verdicts”), Míng Yáo Tōng Biàn 明爻通變 (“On Lines and Their Transformations”), Míng Guà Shì Biàn 明卦適變通爻 (“On Hexagrams Adapting through Their Lines”), Míng Xiàng 明象 (“On Imagery”), Biàn Wèi 辨位 (“Discriminating Positions”), Lüè Lì Xià 略例下 (“Brief Examples, Lower”), and Guà Lüè 卦略 (“Hexagram Outlines”). It is preserved in two forms: (1) embedded in the Táng-era Zhōu Yì zhèng yì 周易正義 of 孔穎達 Kǒng Yǐngdá (as KR1a0007 in this corpus), with 邢璹 Xíng Shù’s sub-commentary; (2) as a standalone one-juàn item (as in the present file), which is the form normally cited by later Yì scholars.
The most-cited paragraph in Chinese intellectual history may well be the opening of Míng Xiàng 明象, where Wáng Bì articulates the principle of dé yì wàng yán 得意忘言 (“grasping the meaning, forgetting the words”): “Imagery (xiàng) is what conveys meaning; words (yán) are what convey imagery. To exhaust meaning, nothing equals imagery; to exhaust imagery, nothing equals words. Words are born from imagery — so by retracing words one can observe imagery. Imagery is born from meaning — so by retracing imagery one can observe meaning. Meaning is exhausted by imagery; imagery is fulfilled by words. Therefore: the words are the means for explaining imagery — once the imagery is grasped, the words are forgotten. Imagery is the means for retaining meaning — once the meaning is grasped, the imagery is forgotten.” (Translation summarised from R. Lynn, The Classic of Changes, 1994.) The doctrine became programmatic for Xuánxué hermeneutics and was generalised far beyond Yì-studies into mediaeval Chinese (and later) textual interpretation.
In Míng Tuàn 明彖, Wáng Bì argues that each hexagram is unified by a single “ruling line” (zhǔ yáo 主爻) whose function is identified by the Tuàn verdict. This principle — zhì zhòng yú zhì guǎ 治眾於至寡, “ruling the many through what is most scarce” — is at once a hermeneutical principle (for reading the Yì) and a political-cosmological principle (consonant with Wáng Bì’s Lǎozǐ commentary doctrine of chóng běn xī mò 崇本息末). The two readings reinforce one another: the One ruling line stands to the Six as wú 無 stands to yǒu 有 in his metaphysics.
The textual transmission is secure. The Suí shū·Jīng jí zhì 隋書經籍志 already registers a one-juàn Zhōu Yì lüè lì by Wáng Bì; the Táng Jīng diǎn shì wén 經典釋文 of 陸德明 Lù Démíng treats the work as canonical; Xíng Shù’s Táng sub-commentary established the form in which later readers received it. The Sòng-Yuán-Míng-Qīng critical bibliographies all uphold the attribution.
Translations and research
- LYNN, Richard John. The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Pp. 25–46 contain the complete translation of the Lüè lì with Xíng Shù’s sub-commentary, the most accessible scholarly English version.
- BERGERON, Marie-Ina. Wang Pi: Philosophe du non-avoir. Variétés Sinologiques, n.s. 69. Taipei: Institut Ricci / Paris: Belles Lettres, 1986. French monograph with translation and detailed philosophical commentary.
- WAGNER, Rudolf G. The Craft of a Chinese Commentator: Wang Bi on the Laozi. Albany: SUNY Press, 2000. Although focused on the Lǎozǐ commentary, this monograph contains decisive analysis of Wáng Bì’s overall hermeneutical method including the Yì lüè lì.
- LOU Yulie 樓宇烈. Wáng Bì jí jiào shì 王弼集校釋. 2 vols. Beijing: Zhōnghuá shū jú, 1980. The standard critical Chinese edition.
- For genre and reception: Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §32.1; KIDDER SMITH et al., Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching (Princeton, 1990), pp. 1–8 for Xuánxué background.
Other points of interest
The text is a foundational document for the entire Yì commentarial tradition from the late Hàn forward: every subsequent commentator engaged either by elaborating Wáng Bì’s principles (e.g., 韓康伯 Hán Kāngbó in his commentary on the Xìcí) or by polemically returning to the older Hàn cosmological style (惠棟 Huì Dòng’s mid-Qīng Yì Hàn xué 易漢學 KR1a0156 is the most famous reaction). Modern English-language Yì studies (Wilhelm-Baynes, Lynn, Rutt) standardly take Wáng Bì’s framework as the default reading, with the Hàn alternative noted in apparatus.