Yìxiàng túshuō nèipiān 易象圖說內篇
Inner Volume of the Discourse on Symbols and Charts of the Book of Changes
by 張理 (撰)
About the work
The inner volume of a paired late-Yuán Yìjīng 易經 chart-and-discourse compilation by Zhāng Lǐ 張理 (zì Zhòngchún 仲純, fl. 1314–1364) of Qīngjiāng 清江, in three juan, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0161 / CT 161 = TC 161), 洞真部 靈圖類. The work forms a set with [[KR5a0163|DZ 162 Yìxiàng túshuō wàipiān]] (the outer volume); the two together cover the Daoist xiàngshù 象數 tradition’s reading of the Yì. The inner volume opens by setting out Chén Tuán’s 陳摶 (陳摶) theory of the lóngtú 龍圖 / Hétú 河圖 — which Zhāng paraphrases at length, citing the master directly — and the Hétú tiāndì wèi hé 河圖天地未合 (the Hétú in its uncombined state) and yǐ hé 已合 (in its combined state) configurations. Zhāng then comments on selected passages of the Yìjīng (juan 1), proceeds to an explanation of the origins of the sixty-four hexagrams across juan 2.1a–3.7a (with ten supporting charts), and closes with divinatory calculations using milfoil (shī 蓍).
Prefaces
The volume opens with two prefaces. (i) The 1357 preface by Huáng Zhènchéng 黃鎮成 (1287–1362) of Zhāowǔ 昭武 (signed Zǐyún shānrén 紫雲山人), praising Zhāng Lǐ as a man “broadly read in all the classics and especially deep in the Yì” who has, “by the strength of his contemplation,” set out his work in chart and discourse. Huáng describes the four major sections in turn: the Jí yí xiàng guà tú 極儀象卦圖 (charts of the cosmogonic sequence with odd-above-even, even-below-odd, generating yīnyáng and gāngróu 剛柔 inwardly and outwardly through transformation, securing the origin of trigram-strokes, the meaning of the four seasons, the doctrine of nature-and-mandate, the numbers of the HétúLuòshū, and the prognostications of milfoil and counting-rods); the circular chart of the sixty-four hexagrams (with Qián, Duì, Lí, Zhèn, Kūn, Gèn, Kǎn, Xùn in cyclical rotation, displaying the dynamic of Heaven-and-Earth, the qì-nodes of one solar year, and the lunar mansion-traversal of one month); the square chart (with the same trigrams arranged top-to-bottom and left-to-right, on which the Cāntóng qì 參同契 hexagram-qì doctrine and Shào Yōng’s 邵雍 Tàiyì yín 太易吟 twenty-eight-mansion symbolism can be derived); the biàntōng tú 變通圖 (with Qián and Kūn mutually generating, yáng ascending in sequence to the left and yīn descending to the right, displaying the six-yáng / six-yīn hexagrams); and the zhìyòng tú 致用圖 (the hòutiān 後天 eight palaces each generating seven hexagrams, neatly displaying the four-quadrant and four-corner reflections). Huáng concludes that Zhāng Lǐ’s charts are “ingenious, neat, and perfectly orderly, requiring no exertion of intellect, with not a hair’s breadth that can be added or removed and not a thread of doubt”; he declares them a continuation of the charts of Shào Yōng and Zhū Xī 朱熹 forming a school of their own. Signed at Zhìzhèng 至正 dīngyǒu 丁酉 (1357) autumn, seventh month. (ii) Zhāng Lǐ’s own preface follows. He opens with the Yìjīng line “the Hétú came forth from the [Yellow] River, the Luòshū came forth from the Luò; the sage took them as his model” — Hétú and Luòshū are the images of the yīnyáng of Heaven and Earth, the Yì is the means by which the sage writes their shén 神. He proceeds to derive the trigrammatic generation of cosmos and human body (head round like Qián, belly receptive like Kūn, eyes outward-bright like Lí, ears inward-keen like Kǎn, etc.), articulating the doctrine that “the Yì is my mind, my mind is the Yì.” Signed at Zhìzhèng jiǎchén 甲辰 (1364) third month, third day.
Abstract
Marc Kalinowski, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:749 (§3.A.2, Divination and Numerology), assigns the inner volume to 1357 (the date of Huáng Zhènchéng’s preface) and the outer volume to 1364 (the date of Zhāng Lǐ’s own second preface, found at the head of the outer volume). Kalinowski observes that Huáng Zhènchéng’s 1357 preface refers solely to the nèipiān, citing the title “Discourse on Symbols and Charts of the Book of Changes in One Volume” (Yìxiàng túshuō yīpiān 易象圖說一篇; prefaces 1b); it is therefore likely that this inner volume circulated independently already by that time. The Yìxiàng túshuō has an entry in the Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要 108.23a–24a. The frontmatter brackets composition for the inner volume notBefore 1356 / notAfter 1357.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Marc Kalinowski, “Yixiang tushuo neipian,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.2, 749. On Yuán xiàngshù exegesis see Tze-ki Hon, The Yijing and Chinese Politics (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005); Bent Nielsen, A Companion to Yi Jing Numerology and Cosmology (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0162
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.2, 749.