Yìxué 易學
Studies of the Yì (an early-Southern-Sòng Daoist-inflected exposition) by 王湜 (Wáng Shì, fl. c. 1136, 宋, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
Wáng Shì’s brief one-juan study of the Yì, an early Southern-Sòng treatise composed within the ChénTuán / ShàoYōng xiāntiān tradition, but composed from outside the orthodox Confucian transmission-line and frankly self-conscious of its Daoist-alchemical roots. The book is not recorded in the Sòngshǐ bibliographic treatise (宋志); its first bibliographic notice is in Cháo Gōngwǔ’s 晁公武 Dúshū zhì 讀書志, which records only “Wáng Shì of Tóngzhōu” without further biographical detail. The transmitted recension is the one printed in the late-Míng / Qīng Tōngzhìtáng jīngjiě 通志堂經解.
The work’s substantive content opens with a discussion of tàijí, liǎngyí, sìxiàng, bāguà (Supreme-Pole, Two-Modes, Four-Images, Eight-Trigrams), explicated through the analogy of yèbàn rìzhōng 夜半日中 (midnight and midday) and xīnshèn shēngjiàng zhī qì 心腎升降之氣 (the rising-and-falling qi of heart and kidneys) — an unmistakably nèidān 內丹 (inner-alchemy / internal-alchemy) framework. Wáng Shì further appeals to Zhuāngzǐ’s line “the purified-and-pure emerges from heaven; the resplendent-and-bright issues from earth” (sùsù chū hū tiān; hèhè fā hū dì 肅肅出乎天, 赫赫發乎地), confirming that the book is “all rooted in Daoist doctrine” (全本於道家之說).
Wáng Shì’s own preface lists his sources openly: Chén Tuán 陳摶, Mù Xiū 穆修, Lǐ Zhīcái 李之才, Liú Mù 劉牧 — “joining their books and thinking [them] through together”. The Sìkù editors register this as direct corroboration of the doctrinal genealogy that orthodox Lǐxué later tried to suppress: xiāntiān studies “emerge from the smelting-fire (i.e. the alchemical tradition)” (先天之學, 出於爐火之證也) — Wáng Shì here providing one of the clearest early-Southern-Sòng testimonies on the actual transmission line, without the later Confucian veiling.
The book contains two more striking pieces of bibliographic-historical frankness, both endorsed by the Sìkù editors:
(i) On the xiāntiān tú 先天圖 (Pre-Heaven Diagram): “before Xīyí (= Chén Tuán) no one knows where it came from” (希夷而前, 莫知其所自來). Since Wáng Shì lived only a short time after Shào Yōng (d. 1077) and within the same school’s transmission, this candid statement effectively concedes that the diagram cannot be traced behind Chén Tuán — and therefore that the standard later-Confucian story (transmitted from FúXī, lost in the Qín book-burning, surviving in Daoist conventicles) is a Sòng fùhuì (forced attribution). The Sìkù editors take this as evidentially decisive.
(ii) The closing section, Huángjí jīngshì jiéyào 皇極經世節要 (Essentials of the Huángjí jīngshì), prefaces itself: “Kāngjié [Shào Yōng]‘s posthumous writings — some obtained from household drafts, some from external hearsay — contain among them errors. Accordingly I have judged the errors and composed this book, to show readers of the Jīngshì a doorway.” The Sìkù editors take this as direct testimony that the received Huángjí jīngshì shū “is not entirely Shào Yōng’s” (不盡出於邵子) — again a remark of substantial bibliographic weight given Wáng Shì’s near-contemporary access to the school’s manuscript transmission. The editors pronounce Wáng Shì’s testimony “bright-and-honest, the inheritance of the steadfast simplicity of the old Confucians” (皎然不欺, 有先儒淳實之遺矣).
A separate Wáng Shì work, Tàiyǐ zhǒuhòu bèijiǎn 太乙肘後備檢 in 3 juàn — a Tàiyǐ shù 太乙數 (Tàiyǐ numerology) treatise with 144 charts of yīnyáng èrdùn (the two-method yin-yang concealments), running from Yáo down to Shàoxīng 6 (1136) — is recorded in Zhāng Shìnán’s 張世南 Yóuhuàn jìwén 遊宦記聞 but is no longer transmitted. Cháo Gōngwǔ records Wáng Shì as a miǎnjiě jìnshì 免解進士 (a jìnshì exempted from the preliminary examination), and as a běikè 北客 (a northern refugee) of Tóngzhōu 同州 — i.e., a Northerner who came south during the Jìngkāng / Shàoxīng upheaval of 1126–1127. This is the principal dating evidence: Wáng Shì is an early-Southern-Sòng figure, with terminal-evidence dated to 1136.
For the broader ShàoYōng tradition, see KR3g0005 Huángjí jīngshì shū. For Wáng Shì’s biography, see 王湜.
Tiyao
The source directory /home/Shared/krp/KR3g/[[KR3g0011]]/ is not present in the local KRP mirror; the 提要 below is taken from the Kyoto University Zinbun digital Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào at http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/db-machine/ShikoTeiyo/0223601.html.
Compiled by Wáng Shì of the Sòng. This book is not recorded in the Sòng [history] bibliographic treatise. Its name appears in Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì, which records only “Wáng Shì of Tóngzhōu” without elaborating on his beginnings or end. Zhāng Shìnán’s Yóuhuàn jìwén records: “Kāngjié Xiānshēng’s Huángjí jīngshì — its learning had no transmission. Outside [this line] there is so-called Tàiyǐ shù. After the southern crossing, there is the ‘northern guest’ Wáng Shì of Tóngzhōu, a miǎnjiě jìnshì, who applied himself to this book and composed the Tàiyǐ zhǒuhòu bèijiǎn in 3 juàn. It contains the two-method yīnyáng èrdùn, with 144 charts. From Emperor Yáo onward, down to Shàoxīng 6 bǐngchén [1136]…”; so [he was] an early-Southern-Sòng person. Today the Tàiyǐ zhǒuhòu bèijiǎn has no transmitted recension. The present book has been printed by Tōngzhìtáng jīngjiě.
In the book, the head first discusses tàijí, liǎngyí, sìxiàng, bāguà, illuminating them by means of midnight-and-midday rising-and-falling of heart-and-kidney qi. There is also a borrowing from Zhuāngzǐ’s phrase “the purified-and-pure issues out of heaven; the resplendent-and-bright emerges out of earth”. The whole is rooted in the doctrines of the Daoists. His self-preface states that he “conjoined and thought-through Chén Tuán, Mù Xiū, Lǐ Zhīcái, and Liú Mù’s books.” This is evidence that xiāntiān studies emerge from the smelting-fire (= alchemical) tradition.
Yet his discussion of the xiāntiān tú says: “Before Xīyí, no one knows where it comes from”. His time was not far from Shào Yōng’s — and his words are as such. From this one may know that [the standard story of the diagram] being transmitted from FúXī, lost in the Qín book-burning, flowing into the [Daoist] convocations beyond the world, is an attribution by later Confucians.
The final section is the Huángjí jīngshì jiéyào. The self-preface says: “Kāngjié’s posthumous writings — some obtained from household drafts, some from outside hearsay — sometimes have corruptions. Accordingly I have judged among the right-and-wrong, in order to bring this book into being, to show readers of the Huángjí a doorway.” One may also know that the Huángjí jīngshì is not entirely Shào Yōng’s. His words may be called clear-and-without-deception; he has the inheritance of the steadfast simplicity of the old Confucians.
Abstract
Composition window: 1127–1160. The only securely-anchored date is Shàoxīng 6 = 1136, which marks the terminus of Wáng Shì’s Tàiyǐ zhǒuhòu bèijiǎn (a separate, now-lost work — but whose period of composition would necessarily share Wáng Shì’s active life). The present Yìxué is undated but presumably composed in the same general period. The opening bound (1127) reflects the Jìngkāng fall of Kāifēng and the southern crossing that produced Wáng Shì’s běikè (northern refugee) status; the closing bound (~1160) is a conservative estimate for an early-Southern-Sòng figure active in the Shàoxīng and early-Lóngxīng reigns. CBDB does not contain a confidently-matched record for this Wáng Shì.
The work’s main significance lies in three things:
(a) Open Daoist genealogy. Wáng Shì lists Chén Tuán, Mù Xiū, Lǐ Zhīcái, Liú Mù in his self-preface and treats the xiāntiān tradition as straightforwardly emerging from internal-alchemy / nèidān practice. This is a rare unbothered Sòng witness to the doctrinal genealogy that Zhū Xī and other orthodox Lǐxué commentators would later try to historicize away.
(b) Direct testimony on the xiāntiān tú*. Wáng Shì’s “before Xīyí no one knows where it came from” is one of the strongest contemporary contradictions of the standard Confucian attribution of the xiāntiān diagrams to FúXī, surviving via Daoist conventicles after the Qín fire. The Sìkù editors take it as evidentially decisive. The remark provides a Sòng anchor for what modern philology would also conclude.
(c) Direct testimony on the Huángjí jīngshì shū*. Wáng Shì’s Jiéyào self-preface explicitly registers that the received Huángjí jīngshì contains drafts and outside materials mixed in alongside genuine Shào Yōng material, and that the recension needs critical sifting. This is unusually candid testimony from inside (or at least very close to) the school’s manuscript transmission, and remains the strongest contemporaneous evidence for the composite character of the received text.
The Sìkù editors’ verdict — 皎然不欺, with the “steadfast simplicity of the old Confucians” — is rare praise within the shùshù-class tíyào, all the more notable in that the book’s substantive doctrine is openly Daoist-rooted.
Translations and research
- Smith, Kidder Jr. et al. Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
- Wyatt, Don J. The Recluse of Loyang: Shao Yung and the Moral Evolution of Early Sung Thought. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1996.
No dedicated Western-language study of Wáng Shì’s Yì-xué located.
Other points of interest
The two candid Wáng Shì observations — that the xiāntiān tú cannot be traced before Chén Tuán, and that the received Huángjí jīngshì shū is not wholly Shào Yōng’s — are reproduced in many later catalog and commentary works as the principal Sòng evidence that the standard Confucian-orthodox account of these texts is a later reconstruction. The fact that the Sìkù editors endorse both points marks an unusual high-Qīng kǎojù acknowledgement of the Daoist genealogy of xiāntiān studies.