Huáng jí jīng shì shū 皇極經世書
The Imperial-Pole Governing-the-World Book
by 邵雍 (Shào Yōng, zì Yáofū 堯夫, hào Kāngjié xiānshēng 康節先生; 1011–1077)
The major Northern-Sòng cosmological-numerological work — Shào Yōng’s lifetime-project, organising universal history into a system of yuánhuìyùnshì (epochs, ages, generations, years) on the basis of an Yìjīng-derived numerology, and laying out the cosmic and political-historical sequence under a unified diagrammatic scheme. The text combines Yì-numerology (the Hétú / Luòshū tradition’s Sòng re-formulation) with a periodisation of ruling dynasties under the HuángDìWángBà (sage-thearch-king-hegemon) descending hierarchy. The DZJY recension preserves the principal Jīngshì yǎn yì tú 經世衍易圖 (“Diagram of Performing the Yì in Governing-the-World”) and the related diagrams Jīngshì tiāndì sì xiàng tú 經世天地四象圖 etc.
Prefaces
The text opens with the Jīngshì yǎn yì tú and an editorial àn (case-note) explaining Shào’s particular eight-trigram correspondence (rìyuèxīngchén shuǐhuǒtǔshí — sun-moon-star-asterism, water-fire-earth-stone — instead of the Fúxī standard tiāndìléifēngshuǐhuǒshānzé). The editorial note is conciliatory: “Shào Yōng transmitted the pre-cosmic-learning, but his eight-trigram-images deviate from the Fúxī image-of-the-original — this is his own one-house-learning, not implying that Fúxī’s original-image was as he gives it.” The note continues to summarise Shào’s broader doctrine of the YuánHuìYùnShì periodisation across cosmic time, and the alignment of the HuángDìWángBà moral-political ranks with the YìShūShīChūnqiū canonical learning.
Abstract
The foundational Northern-Sòng work of xiàngshù (image-and-number) cosmology, composed during Shào Yōng’s mature period at his Luòyáng Ānlèwō studio. The work was hugely influential on subsequent SòngYuánMíngQīng cosmological speculation; its number-systems were applied to dynastic-cycle prediction, calendrical theory, and divinatory practice. The DZJY recension preserves the principal diagrammatic outlines and a digest of the core theoretical content, marking Shào Yōng’s place in the Three-Teachings synthesis claimed by the planchette circles. Terminus a quo c. 1050 (Shào’s mature period); terminus ad quem 1077 (Shào’s death).
For the broader Shào Yōng tradition see 邵雍 and the secondary literature on Sòng xiàngshù.
Translations and research
- Birdwhistell, Anne. Transition to Neo-Confucianism: Shao Yung on Knowledge and Symbols of Reality. Stanford 1989.
- Wyatt, Don J. The Recluse of Loyang: Shao Yung and the Moral Evolution of Early Sung Thought. Hawai’i 1996.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0081
- Author: 邵雍.