The Yijing and Chinese Politics: Classical Commentary and Literati Activism in the Northern Song Period, 960-1127

2. The Northern Song Yijing Text

28 The Yijing that a Northern Song person read was not the same as the one canonized in 35 B.C.E. Certainly the Northern Song person still read the sixty-four hexagrams, the hexagram statements, the line statements, and the Ten Wings—all the parts that formed the Yijing in the Western Han. However, he no longer read them independently. Instead, he read them based on the commentaries written from the third to the seventh century. As the official commentary to the Yijing in the eleventh century, the Zhouyi zhengyi (True meanings of the Yi of the Zhou [Dynasty]) comprised three interlocking parts: the classic , its commentary, and a subcommentary to the commentary. With these three parts, the Zhouyi zhengyi firmly united the Yijing with a commentarial tradition and guided readers to understand it from a particular perspective. What was that particular perspective? How was it presented and reinforced through the complex textual body of the Zhouyi zhengyi? What was its impact on the men of letters of the eleventh century? These are the questions that this chapter addresses. Unifying the Yijing Interpretation Let us begin with the history of the Zhouyi zhengyi. In 63, thirteen years after the founding of the Tang Dynasty that ended centuries of 2 The Northern Song Yijing Text The Yijing was written to teach a lesson . . . to decipher [the functioning of] Heaven and Earth, to give order to human relationships, and to explain the Kingly Way. —Kong Yingda, Zhouyi zhengyi The Northern Song Yijing Text 29 division in China, Emperor Taizong appointed Kong Yingda (574–648) to head a massive project known as the Wujing zhengyi (True meanings of the five classics). The project was to compile sub-commentaries on the Five Confucian Classics: the Yijing, the Shujing (Book of History ), the Shijing (Book of Poetry), the Liji (Records of Rites), and the Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals). As part of the Tang effort to unify China, the goal of Kong’s project was to eliminate differences in classical scholarship that had developed over centuries of division. To unify the interpretation of the Confucian classics, Kong adopted a two-pronged strategy. First, he identified what he considered to be the best commentaries on the Five Classics. Second, in order to make certain that the chosen commentaries would be properly understood, he led a group of classicists to compose subcommentaries (shu) to those commentaries.¹ For the Yijing, Kong chose the third-century Zhouyi zhu (Commentary on the Yi of the Zhou [Dynasty]) as its official commentary. His explanation for the decision was brief but decisive. To him, the Zhouyi zhu was simply the best commentary ever written to the classic. Although many high-quality commentaries had been written, none of them, according to Kong, could be compared to the Zhouyi zhu.² Seen with our historical hindsight, Kong’s decision was not as simple as it appeared. First, he had a number of alternatives in deciding upon an official Yijing commentary, such as the Han Dynasty commentary by Zheng Xuan. Given his assignment to unify the interpretation of the Yijing after centuries of division, he knew his decision would shape the way that the Yijing was to be read in the Tang. Second, in the early Tang, the Zhouyi zhu was more popular among scholars in southern China than in northern China.³ Fully aware of the regional differences in Yijing scholarship at his time, he understood that his preference for the Zhouyi zhu would not please everyone, especially the Yijing scholars in the north. Yet, with so much at stake, he chose the Zhouyi zhu as the official commentary of the classic. Like the Yijing text itself, the Zhouyi zhu was also a composite text. There were two commentators in the Zhouyi zhu—Wang Bi (226–249) and Han Kangbo (d. ca. 385). Wang Bi wrote commentary on the sixty-four hexagrams and their hexagram and line statements. He was also the author of six essays suggesting ways to read the Yijing. Those essays—collectively known as the Zhouyi lüeli (Brief remarks on the Yi of the Zhou [Dynasty])—accompanied the Zhouyi zhu as appendixes.⁴ The other commentator, Han Kangbo, wrote commentary on the rest 30 The Yijing and Chinese Politics of the Yijing, including the Xici, Xugua, Shuogua, and Zagua. Although little is known about him and his relationship with Wang Bi, many...