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.