Studies of the Change Classic in Ch'Ang-Chou
As head of the Lung-ch'eng Academy, Lu Wen-ch'ao apparently felt responsible for recording and preserving local scholarship in Ch'ang-
[19] Ibid., 5.17b-23a. On Shen Pu-hai see Creel, Shen Pu-hai, and Chao Huai-yü, "Hsu" (Preface) to Yang's Meng-lin-t'ang chi , pp. 1a-3a.
[20] Yang Hsiang-k'uei, Ching-shih-chai hsueh-shu wen-chi, pp. 149, 247-48. On the political content of the Chou-li , see pp. 228-76, and pp. 18-28. For Wang Mang's use of the Chou-li see Uno, Chugoku[*] kotengaku no tenkai , pp. 81-82.
[21] Chou, Ching chin-ku-wen hsueh , pp. 27-36.
chou. He therefore compiled the P'i-ling ching-chieh-chih (Bibliography of classical works from Ch'ang-chou).[22] Lu's efforts were especially welcome in view of the prefecture's lack of an archivist. Beginning with works on the I-thing, Lu's bibliography traced local scholarship on the Change Classic back to late Ming writings by Tung-lin partisans Ch'ien I-pen and Sun Shen-hsing in Wu-chin County, as well as to Kao P'an-lung and Ku Yun-ch'eng in Wu-hsi. Ch'ien's work received particular notice in the authoritative bibliographic summary (t'i-yao ) for the Ssu-k'u ch'üan-shu (Complete collection of the Four Treasuries); the editors praised Ch'ien's efforts to reconstruct the images (hsiang ) in the Change .[23]
Yang Fang-Ta and Yang Ch'Un
Lu Wen-ch'ao accorded Yang Ch'un and Yang Fang-ta (fl. ca. 1724) eminence of place in his section on local I-thing studies. Both men had achieved high public office during the early eighteenth century. Their interest in the Classics foreshadowed Hui Tung's influential application of the Han Learning agenda to I-thing scholarship.[24]
A specialist in I-hsueh (studies of the Change Classic ), Yang Fang-ta was well-read in the Classics. Like many early Ch'ing Confucians, however, Yang had already begun to stress Han and T'ang dynasty scholia for classical studies, a perspective that drew praise from Yen Jo-chü, for example. Yang Fang-ta's movement toward Han dynasty sources, however, did not represent the irrevocable break with Sung-Ming Confucians that Hui Tung's Han Learning did.[25]
In his preface to Yang Ch'un's collected writings, discussed above, Chao Huai-yü first linked Yang to Tang Shun-chih and late Ming traditions of ancient-style prose in Ch'ang-chou. He then claimed that Yang Ch'un's classical studies had set the stage for conclusions later drawn by Han Learning scholars in Ch'ang-chou. We have noted above that Yang Ch'un's positions lent support to the emerging New Text position in
[22] Lu Wen-ch'ao's P'i-ling ching-chieh-chih has survived as an unpaginated manuscript in the Peking National Library. In 1859 a compilation entitled Ch'ang-chou itu pa-i i-wen-chih (Bibliography of the eight towns in Ch'ang-chou Prefecture) appeared. Lu also initiated this edition of shorter essays and writings by Ch'ang-chou natives to complement the first. The latter was completed by Chuang I-p'i of the Chuang lineage. See the "Hsu-lueh" (Overview) to Ch'ang-chou fu pa-i i-wen-chih by Chuang I-p'i, p. 1b. See also Lu Wen-ch'ao's "Hsu" (Preface) to the P'i-ling ching-chieh-chih , pp. 1a-1b.
[23] See Ssu-k'u-ch'üan-shu tsung-mu , 5.14b-15b.
[24] Lu, P'i-ling ching-chieh-chih , "I-lei" (Works on the Change Classic ).
[25] Wu-chin Yang-hu hsien ho-chih (1886), 23.2b-3a, 26A.24a-24b.
Fig. 11.
The Ho-t'u
The Lo-shu is a magic square in which numbers along any diagonal,
line, or column add up to 15. The Ho-t'u is arranged so that when the
central 5 and 10 are disregarded, both odd and even number sets add up to 20.
Source: Chu Hsi's Chou-i-pen-i
of the Chou Changes ; Taipei: Hua-lien ch'u-pan-she, 1971).
Ch'ang-chou, which was closely tied to k'ao-cheng research on the Old Text Classics and the doubts it threw on the Confucian Canon.[26]
Cosmograms in the Change Classic
In their I-hsueh, neither Yang Fang-ta nor Yang Ch'un accepted the more radical positions of late Ming and early Ch'ing Confucians, who had exposed the Taoist provenance of certain cosmic diagrams that since the Sung dynasty had been part of the official text of the Change Classic. In fact, Yang Fang-ta based his own research on the nine charts in Chu Hsi's annotations of the Change Classic. But Yen Jo-chü's friend and colleague Hu Wei (drawing on the findings of Huang Tsung-hsi and Kuei Yu-kuang) had earlier rejected the classical antiquity of the Ho-t'u (River Chart) and Lo-shu (Lo Writing) cosmic diagrams (t'u) (fig. 11) in his widely read I-t'u ming-pien (Discerning clearly the diagrams in the Change Classic).
Embarrassed by the inclusion of the charts in Chu Hsi's commentary on the Change, Huang Tsung-hsi and others tried to play down the importance of the cosmic diagrams in that work. Huang also denied the cosmological significance of the charts and maintained instead that they were originally primitive geographical maps and charts. In his critique of their purported mystical correspondences Hu Wei demonstrated the Taoist origins and associations of the cosmic diagrams in the I-ching. Their heterodox origins also placed into doubt the legitimacy of Sung Confucians as transmitters of the Confucian Canon.[27]
The charts had traditionally been understood as the graphic progenitors of the primal world-ordering instruments used by the sage-kings and were thought to be linked to the eight trigrams (pa-kua) of the I-ching. According to legend, the sage-king Yü (tr. r. 2205-2197?? B.C. ) was presented with two magic charts by miraculous animals after he had tamed raging floods. The River Chart was the gift of a dragon-horse that emerged from the Yellow River; the Lo Writing was presented by a turtle from the Lo River. These cosmograms were considered by Sung Confucians to be the origin of Chinese mathematics. The Han Learning attack on the authenticity of the charts thus
[26] Chao Huai-yü, "Hsu" (Preface).
[27] Ssu-k'u ch'üan-shu tsung-mu, 10.13a-14a. See also Kuei, Kuei Chen-ch'uanhsien-sheng ch'üan-chi , 1.20a-25a. Huang Tsung-hsi's I-hsueh hsiang-shu lun was another influential work in late Ming I-ching studies. Cf. Henderson, Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology , pp. 137-73, 218-25.
struck at the heart of the Sung Learning cosmological ordering of the heavens and earth.[28]
In the process, heterodox accretions to the Change Classic (traced back to the Lao-Chuang [Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu] scholar Wang Pi [226-249] after the fall of the Later Hah dynasty) were increasingly subjected to critical scrutiny. Criticism of the Ho-t'u and Lo-shu became so sharp that even Ch'ing dynasty Sung Learning scholars felt compelled to dissociate themselves from the teachings of their Sung dynasty masters. By the 1780s the editors of the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries could express their pride in recapturing the true face of the ancient Change Classic and in demystifying the more recent superstitions surrounding the Sung Learning version of the text. Hui Tung's research, according to the editors, was the epitome of Hah Learning.[29]
A decisive shift in I-hsueh was in the making, and in the mid-eighteenth century Hui Tung emerged as the premier I-ching scholar of his time. His followers among the Yangtze Delta literati employed the Hah Learning framework to reconstruct the "images and numbers" (hsiang-shu ) of the Change Classic. The Hah Learning legacy of Hui Tung captured I-hsueh.
Hui Tung and I-Hsueh
Hui Tung reissued a book in 1756 in an effort to counteract the heterodox Taoist doctrines that he thought Wang Pi had introduced into the interpretation of the I-ching. Written by the Southern Sung Confucian Wang Ying-lin (1223-96), the work was entitled Cheng-shih Chou-i (Master Cheng [Hsuan's] version of the Chou [dynasty] Change [Classic]). It contained some notable additions, including sources. Wang Ying-lin's pioneering k'ao-cheng studies were revived by a number of Ch'ing dynasty evidential research scholars. In his preface for the reissued work, Lu Chien (fl. ca. 1756) wrote:
Cheng Hsuan's scholarship had been established in the official academy since the Han, Wei [221-280], and Six Dynasties [280-589]. For several hundred years there were no differing opinions. During the T'ang dynasty, between 627 and 649, K'ung Ying-ta composed the Orthodox Meanings in the Five Classics . For the Change [Classic ] he relied on Wang Fu-ssu [that is, Pi]; for the Documents [Classic ], he relied on K'ung An-kuo. As a result, Cheng
[28] Saso, "What Is the Ho-t'u ?" See also Needham, Science and Civilization in China , vol. 3, pp. 3.5-59.
[29] Ssu-k'u ch'üan-shu tsung-mu , 1.1a-2a.
[Hsuan's] meanings for these two Classics were lost. Today, the only available sources [for Cheng Hsuan's annotations] are the three Rituals [Classics ] and the Mao recension of the Poetry [Classic ].
Until the Northern Sung, Cheng's version of the Change was still extant. By the Southern Sung, however, four chapters [of the latter] had already been lost. As a result Wang Ying-lin from Ling-i began to collect materials from many books in order to reconstruct Cheng [Hsuan's] version of the Change in one [complete] chapter.[30]
At stake in such reconstructions was the relocation of the foundation of orthodox Confucianism in the teachings of Hah dynasty Confucians, thereby overturning the Sung-Ming tradition of Tao-t'ung (orthodox transmission). The latter stressed Confucius and Mencius but rejected Hah Confucians such as Cheng Hsuan as the basis for Nco-Confucian orthodoxy. Sung Confucians had gone so far as to claim that "after the Ch'in burning of the books, [some] books nonetheless survived. As Hah Confucians pored through the Classics, the Classics were lost." Hui Tung and his followers stressed the restoration of the Han dynasty transmission of classical studies through the networks of teacher-student relations within the officially sponsored Han Confucian Academy (T'ai-hsueh ). Once the "schools system" was restored, even late writings from the Han would yield an authoritative framework for Confucian orthodoxy based on Hah Learning. Lu Chien noted the importance of this strategy:
Han Confucians when explicating the Change Classic all followed the schools system [chia-fa ]. They would not dare produce works that did not follow in this line of tradition. What Wang Ying-lin has collected together still contains remnants of this system. My friend Hui Tung From Yuan-ho [that is, Su-chou] has mastered the ancient meanings and added [materials] and revisions to be combined with the sayings of the Hah [Confucian Cheng Hsuan] who reached the top of Mount Sung [the highest of the Five Sacred Mountains]. As a result, Hui reissued [Wang Ying-lin's work] in three chapters [incorporating these additions].[31]
In his own major studies, entitled I Han-hsueh (Hah Learning of the Change Classic) and Chou-i shu (Transmission of the Chou Change Classic ), Hui Tung noted that the reconstruction of Hah Learning
[30] Lu Chien, "Hsu" (Preface) to Wang Ying-lin's Cheng-shih Chou-i , pp. 1a-1b. See also Hui Tung's "Hsu" (Preface) to his I Han-hsueh , and Ssu-k'u ch'üan-shu tsung-mu , 1.7a-8a.
[31] Lu Chien, "Hsu," (Preface), p. 1b. See also Hsueh Ying-ch'i, Fang-shen hsien-sheng wen-lu , 20.7b, for the Sung attack on Hah Confucian scholarship. On the Hah "schools system," cf. Ebrey, "Patron-Client Relations in the Later Hah."
required the recognition that much of the present classical canon was of dubious origin:
The Six Classics were authoritatively transmitted by Confucius, burned under the Ch'in [dynasty], and retransmitted under the Han. Hah Learning has been lost for a long time now. Only the Poetry, Rituals, and Kung-yang [Commentary ] have remained intact. The three Mao, Cheng, and Ho traditions of the Spring and Autumn Annals were disordered by Mr. Tu [Yü, 222-284]. The Documents Classic was disordered by the forged K'ung [An-kuo] version. The Change Classic was disordered by Mr. Wang [Pi] . . .
Still, although Han Learning had been lost, it had not been completely lost. Only when Wang Fu-ssu [Pi] borrowed the theories of images [hsiang ] to explicate the ChangeClassic and based them on Huang-Lao [Huang-ti (Yellow Emperor) and Lao-tzu] Taoism were the meanings taught by Han classical masters irrevocably lost.[32]
Hui Tung wanted to purify the I-ching of Taoist interpretations that since the Sung dynasty had replaced the Hah dynasty "schools system" tradition for the transmission of the Change. So Hui began to compile the Chou-i sbu to overturn Chu Hsi's Chou-i pen-i (Original meanings of the Chou Change ), considered an orthodox text since the Yuan dynasty. Because Chu Hsi's version included the Taoist cosmic diagrams that Huang Tsung-hsi and Hu Wei had already called into question, as well as anachronistic metaphysical concepts such as hsien-t'ien (before heaven, that is, a priori) and wu-chi (vacuous ultimate), Hui regarded it as a continuation of Wang Pi's misguided I-hsueh.[33]
Hui Tung passed away before finishing the Chou-i shu, but his Su-chou disciple Yü Hsiao-k'o (1729-77) completed the project. In this work, Hui Tung was intent on restoring the "esoteric words" (wei-yen ) and "great meanings" (ta-i ) in the Change Classic, which would then clarify the "precedents" (i-li ) and "models" (i-fa ) that Hah Confucians had gleaned from the Classic. Hui therefore made frequent use of the Kung-yang commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals to clarify the Hah dynasty version of the I-ching. Yang Hsiang-k'uei has recently pointed out the degree to which Hui Tung's I-hsueh lead him to reevaluate the Change Classic in light of New Text vs. Old Text recensions.
Hui Tung's Hah Learning position allowed him to move back and forth from the Kung-yang Commentary and the Change Classic because the former was one of the few Han dynasty classical commentaries to
[32] Hui Tung, "Hsu."
[33] Hui Tung, I Han-hsueh , 8.5b-6b, where Hui notes the superiority of Ch'eng I's version of the Change because it contains fewer Taoist accretions. See also Lu Chien's "Hsu" (Preface) to Hui Tung's Chou-i shu , pp. 1a-2a.
have survived in one piece after the demise of Han Confucian traditions during the T'ang and Sung. The Kung-yang's authoritative presentation of "precedents" and "models" that Confucius had encoded in the Annals (see chapter 5) could thus be applied to Confucius's version of the Change as well. For Hui Tung, "the Change and Annals both represented the Way of Heaven and man" (t'ien-jen chih tao ). The logic of Han Learning assumed the existence of an overriding classical symmetry among the texts Confucius had brought together to form the Six Classics.[34]
Hui Tung's program for Hah Learning was applied to all of the surviving Five Classics and their Han commentaries. In Ch'ang-chou, the Change Classic and Spring and Autumn Annals came under close scrutiny by both Chang Hui-yen and Chuang Ts'un-yü.
Chang Hui-Yen and Ch'Ang-Chou I-Hsueh
Eleven of Chang Hui-yen's books on the Change Classic received mention in Lu Wen-ch'ao's Ch'ang-chou bibliography. This impressive number far surpassed mention of Chuang Ts'un-yü's work, of which only six were included. Surprisingly, Ts'un-yü was second in prominence in the I-hsueh bibliography. Chang Hui-yen, like many Ch'ang-chou classicists, had close ties with the Chuang lineage, especially to Chuang Chün-chia (1761-1806), Ts'un-yü's grandson. This friendship extended to Yun Ching, who prepared an epitaph for Chün-chia describing Chang Hui-yen's and Chün-chia's mutual interests in classical studies, and especially their admiration for Ts'un-yü's I-hsueh.[35]
The development of Han Learning I-ching studies in Ch'ang-chou yielded the influential studies of Chang Hui-yen, which shed much light on Chuang Ts'un-yü's interest in the Change Classic and its place in Chuang's classical scholarship. Su Wan-en also noted the link between Ch'ang-chou I-hsueh and Kung-yang studies, which he considered characteristic of the "learning of Ch'ang-chou":
The learning of Ch'ang-chou moreover has become prominent within the empire. For example, Mr. Chang Hui-yen's ordering of the Cheng [Hsuan] and Yü [Fan, 172-241] versions of the Change Classic and Mr. Liu Feng-
[34] Hui Tung, I-li , 137.1b. See also Yang Hsiang-k'uei, Chung-kuo ku-tai she-hui yü ku-tai ssu-hsiang yen-chiu , vol. 2, pp. 901-11.
[35] Yun Ching, Ta-yun shah-fang chi , pp. 182-83 (erh-chi, chüan 4). See also Chu-chiChuang-shih tsung-p'u (1883), 8.32a-33a, and P'i-ling Chuang-shih tseng-hsiu tsu-p'u (1935), 13.20b-21b.
lu's ordering of the Kung-yang [Commentary] to the Annals are both outstanding illustrations of a single tradition.[36]
In an 1803 preface to Chang Hui-yen's study on the Change Classic, Juan Yuan (speaking for the Yang-chou Han Learning tradition) described the book as a continuation of Hui Tung's efforts to reconstruct the Han dynasty appearance of the Change Classic. In his own preface to the work, Chang confirmed Juan's appraisal, claiming that his reconstruction of Hah dynasty interpretations of the Change derived from Hui Tung's pioneering research on "ancient meanings" (ku-i ).[37]
But Chang Hui-yen went beyond Hui, widening the Han Learning approach to the Change by including attempts to reconstruct the Hsun Shuang (128-190) and Yü Fan recensions, and not just Cheng Hsuan's version that Hui had emphasized. Chang's research on the Yü Fan recension was of particular interest. It added considerable collateral evidence on the I-ching during the Hah period.[38]
Like Hui Tung, Chang Hui-yen was interested in reconstructing the pre-Wang Pi version of the Change Classic in order to recapture the thought-world of the ancients after centuries of misrepresentation. In particular, he sought to build on the seventeenth-century criticism of the cosmic diagrams associated with the I-ching and to reconstruct what those charts represented during classical antiquity, before they were lost and replaced by Taoist cosmograms. Theory and cosmology did not worry him, as they worried so many k'ao-cheng scholars, but misguided theory and heterodox cosmology did.[39]
In another work on the Chou Change, Chang Hui-yen demonstrated interest in Chuang Ts'un-yü's contributions to I-hsueh. Chang's nephew Tung Shih-hsi later composed an important preface to this work (see below). Liu Feng-lu, in his 1802 inscription for Chang Hui-yen's Yü-shih i-yen (Mr. Yü's comments on the Change ), noted his close friendship with Tung Shih-hsi, who had transmitted Chang's research on the Yü Fan recension to him. An 1803 afterword by Ch'en Shan to Chang Hui-yen's Meanings in Mr. Yü's Chou Change described the
[36] P'i-ling ching-chieh-chih , "I-lei." See also Su Wan-en, "Hsu" (Preface ).
[37] Juan Yuan, "Hsu" (Preface ) to Chang Hui-yen, Chou-i Yü-shih i . Efforts to restore the Poetry Classic to its Han dynasty form had been initiated by Hui Chou-t'i, Hui Tung's grandfather. See Hui Chou-t'i's Shih-shuo . Hui Shih-ch'i, Hui Tung's father, initiated similar efforts on the Spring and Autumn Annals , which we shall discuss in the next chapter.
[38] Chang Hui-yen, "Hsu" (Preface) to his Ming-k'o wen ssu-pien , A.18-20.
[39] Tseng, "Hsu" (Preface ), which describes Chang's theoretical interests. See also Hsu-hsiu Ssu-k'u ch'üan-shu t'i-yao , pp. 79-81.
close friendship among Tung Shih-hsi, Li Chao-lo, and Liu Feng-lu. The pervasive impact of Chang's l-hsueh in Ch'ang-chou occurred within a context of literati collegiality.[40]
These links between Chang Hui-yen's research and the Ch'ang-chou New Text school are further confirmed by Chang's association with other members of the Chuang lineage with whom he corresponded or for whom he composed epitaphs included in the Chuang genealogy. In fact, it was through the efforts of Tung Shih-hsi and Liu Feng-lu that Chuang Ts'un-yü, posthumously, became known outside of Ch'ang-chou for his classical scholarship. Tung Shih-hsi, in particular, helped promote Chuang's I-hsueh, while Liu Feng-lu championed his grandfather's Kung-yang teachings.[41]
In the next section, we shall discuss Chuang Ts'un-yü's studies of the Change Classic in light of his attempt to revive the Kung-yang Commentary as a classical veil for criticizing political corruption. Then, we shall return to the intellectual world of eighteenth-century Ch'ang-chou to explore the classical debate concerning the Spring and Autumn Annals. Chuang's appeal to a more voluntarist approach to Confucian statecraft was based, we shall see, on both the Change Classic and the Spring and Autumn Annals.