Chen Jian

( School of Philosophy and Sociology, Shandong University , Jinan 250100, China )

Translated from Chinese by Zhang Wenzhi

(Center for Zhouyi & Ancient Chinese Philosophy, Shandong University , Jinan 250100, China )

 

 

RAISING OF THE TOPIC

 

Two questions urge me to write this paper.

    One is as follows: In Grade Five of a primary school, my son is now able to read newspapers and novels. Once when he was free, he was skimming through the books on my table. After a while, he chose a book of the Yi jing and asked me: “Dad, What kind of book is it?” and then opened the book in the presence of me. The page opened accounts the contents of the hexagrams of Shi (Army, the 7 th hexagram in the received version of the Zhouyi ), Bi ( Union , the 8 th one), Xiao Xu (Small Restraint, the 9 th one), and Lü (Treading Carefully, the 10 th one). Pointing to the hexagrams and lines as well as the statements, he felt puzzled: “What the messes are they; what are their meanings after all?” At the moment, my tongue was tied, but his question likes a stunning blow in the Chan sect of Buddhism that seems to enlighten me suddenly: I indeed know the interpretations of Zhouyi of many scholars such as Wang Bi, Cheng's brothers, and Zhu Xi, etc., but if you ask what does the Yi jing mean after all, I really can't answer this question. In fact, I have never thought of this issue. Then I suddenly found a fact I had never felt that what I remembered in my mind were only other scholars' interpretations without any my own perceptions on it. After a moment, I just stalled my son off: “You will know it after you have received college education.”

    The other is: A French student learning Chinese Chan sect of Buddhism from me once in a break between classes suddenly took out a book of the Yi jing and asked: “I feel interest in the Yi jing , but how can I grasp the meanings of it? I had read it from the beginning to the end, but I still don't know its meanings. It seems to me that the Yi jing makes no sense, can all your Chinese understand it?” Truth to tell, I felt a little nervous and did not know how to answer his question. After a while of pondering, I did not directly answer him, but introduced some commonplace survey of the Yi jing to him. Finally, I extended some remarks to shirk my responsibility, the main points being that I am not a specialist in the Yi jing , if he had any questions on the Yi jing , he might go to the Center for Zhouyi to consult the experts at the Yi jing .

    These two events are always lingering in my mind and oblige me to observe carefully and, from a completely new angle, contemplate on the Yi jing again in which I had felt well versed. We always claim the Yi jing be “the first of the Confucian Classics” and conceive ample connotations which have been explicated in an immense number of books, yet it seems that the Yi jing as a text itself can not give us any sense of significance, especially to a beginner (for instance, to a child or foreigner). But where do the connotations and significance of the Yi jing come from after all in the history of the Yi -ology? This issue is much worth studying.

    It is well known that the development of the Yi -ology history figures a building of the Yi -ology like an “inverted pyramid” in which the first floor is the Yi jing , the second floor is Yi Zhuan , and the third floor includes image-number Yi -ology and meaning-pattern Yi -ology. The figure is as follows:

Image-number Yi -ology — Meaning-pattern Yi -ology

↖↗

Yi Zhuan

↑

Yi jing

    So huge a Yi -ology building is based on so small a Yi jing and still keeps extremely firm in spite of having experienced a history of thousands of years. Is it a marvelous architecture spectacular? Certainly this is only a bantering-like metaphor by which I would like to ask: how can this thin Yi jing conceive so accruing meanings? In my opinion, what called the Yi -ology history is but a history exploring the meanings of the Yi jing and what called the Yi -ology building is but a “building of meanings” laid by the meanings explored from the Yi jing by the Yi -ologists of different dynasties.

    But, taken literally, we cannot find any profound cultural significance in the Yi jing , and at least the consistent meanings, in that its literary style is neither prose nor poem, but at most “informal notes” of every day life ordered by certain formulae. This style is unique in which the “notes” are “boringly confusing, rough, inferior-structured, and endless repeated and obstructed, as well as rude and illogical. In brief, it is endurably foolish! …… As far as the writing is concerned, there is hardly any other so bad a book.” To a reader who read Yi jing for the first time, even if he/she is patient enough — many readers might not be so patient — to read the Yi jing from the beginning to the end, I am sure that he/she will not get any interesting things to him/her. One can receive neither religious preaching, nor philosophical thought, nor novel-like stories, nor poetic passion from it. Quite the reverse, it may upset one's formerly calm mind and make one dismayed, and make his/her formerly holistic thinking fragmentary. Sometimes I am even anxious about that if one read the Yi jing one time every day, after a short period of time, he/she will lose his/her normal and consistent thinking. However, it is this superficially inferior and dull Yi jing that was crowned with the title of “the first of the Confucian Classics”. Is it an undeserved reputation? Certainly it is not an undeserved reputation, moreover, the fame matches the reality, in that the amplitude of the thought derived from it in the Yi -ology history have exhibited that the significance deduced from the Yi jing has been reflected in the variety of layers of Chinese culture. Yet, where do these meanings come from? What I accounted just now has foreboded the figures and statements cannot directly expose any sense, at most reveal very thin and limited senses. Therefore, we have to seek its meanings from the back of the statements. In my humble opinion, I think its meanings originate from the three aspects I am discussing in the following pages.

 

THE THREE ORIGINS OF THE SENSES OF THE YI JING

 

(1) The Heaven-earth Sense

The Yi jing comes from an imitation of the heaven and earth (i.e. cosmos). It says in Xi Ci xia : “Anciently, when Baoxi had come to the rule of all under heaven, looking up, he contemplated the brilliant forms exhibited in the sky, and looking down he surveyed the patterns shown on the earth. He contemplated the ornamental appearances of birds and beasts and the (different) suitabilities of the soil. Near at hand, in his own body, he found things for consideration, and the same at a distance, in things in general. On this he devised the eight trigrams, to show fully the attributes of the spirit-like and intelligent (operations working secretly), and to classify the qualities of the myriad of things.” Fuxi's (i.e. Baoxi) devising the eight trigrams marks the beginning the Yi jing . Then, according to Monk Zhixu (1599-1655): “Fuxi devised the sixty-four hexagrams (by overlapped the eight trigrams) to let people observe the images; Till the Xia (2070-1600 B.C.) and Shang (1600-1046 B.C.) dynasties, the remarks were affiliated to the hexagrams and lines to judge advantages or disadvantages, hence the emerging of the Lianshan and Guizang ; King Wen of Zhou affiliated the remarks, called the Tuan (Judgment), to the hexagrams; Duke of Zhou further affiliated the remarks, called the Xiang (Image), to each line.” So, it can be seen that no matter the eight trigrams, or the sixty-four hexagrams, or the remarks affiliated are imitating the attributes of the heaven and earth: “Therefore what we call the Yi is (a collection of) emblematic lines. They are styled emblematic as being resemblances. We call the lines (of the figures) Yao from their being according to the movements taking place all under the heaven.” ( Xi Ci xia ) and “The Yi composed of the Yin ( ) and Yang ( ) lines as well as the trigrams was made on lines to the images of (the myriad of things of the) heaven and earth.” For this reason, the Yi is considered a depiction, or a duplication, a copy, or portrays of the (the myriad of things of the) heaven and earth. In short, the Yi jing is a miniature of and represents the whole heaven and earth (universe), as Shen Shandeng (1830-1902), a Yi -ologist in the late Qing dynasty (1616-1911), called the Yi “ Tai yi ” , in which Tai denotes Da , great, to reveal the isomorphism between the system of the Yi and the heaven & earth.

    Because the Yi jing is a depiction of the heaven and earth, the Yi jing must conceives the significance originated from the heaven and earth, i.e. the Dao (Way) of heaven and earth, as described in Xi Ci shang : “The Yi was made on a principle of accordance with heaven and earth, and shows us therefore, without rent or confusion, the course (of things) in heaven and earth.” The heaven and earth bestow significance upon the Yi jing , as Zhixu accounted: “The Yi jing as a book derives its meanings from the heaven and earth, the Yi -ology is originated from the Yi jing , the (final) principle is attained from the Yi -ology.” This shows the first origin of the meanings of the Yi jing is from the heaven and earth. Yet one point must be noted here that the heaven and earth in the Yi jing is both a natural and humanistic (or social) one, but not merely a natural one (one tends to think of it as a natural one), for many hexagrams in the Yi jing concern humanities. According to the commentaries related in Xi Ci xia , the heaven and earth in the Yi jing actually refer to the “Three Powers” of heaven, earth, and human: “The Yi is a book of wide comprehension and great scope, embracing everything. There are in it the way of heaven, the way of man, and the way of earth.” And the Shuo Gua Zhuan (Treatise of Remarks on the Trigrams) further extended: “Anciently, when sages made the Yi , it was with design that (its figures) should be in conformity with the principles underlying the natures (of men and things), and the ordinances (for them) appointed (by Heaven). With this view they exhibited (in them) the way of heaven, calling (the lines) Yin and Yang ; the way of earth, calling (them) the weak (or soft) and the strong (or hard); and the way of men, under the names of benevolence and righteousness.”

    For the sense of heaven and earth conceived in Yi jing , it is necessary to make some comments: (1) the sense of heaven and earth is an original and most real connotations in the Yi jing and manifest Chinese people's sincerity and affinity to the heaven and earth; (2) the thought of the Three Powers of heaven, human, and earth implicated in the meanings of the heaven and earth was the prototype of the “union of heaven and human” which is regarded as the foundation of Chinese philosophy, though this terms were not clearly raised in the Yi jing ; (3) the sense of heaven and earth is a prenatal (or primordial) one which emerged simultaneously with the emergence of the Yi jing . Yet, in the development of the Yi -ology history, it does not directly manifest itself rather being the concealing foundation of the Yi -ology. The immense senses deduced in the Yi -ology history are factually the postnatal (or extended) meanings, i.e. the logic sense and projected sense which will be discussed in the following sections.

 

(2) Logic Sense

It has been mentioned above that the Yi jing is a depiction of the heaven and earth (cosmos). But once the Yi jing as the copy of the heaven and earth emerged, it turned out to be a set of symbolic system independent from the heaven and earth. For this set of independent symbolic system, though we are sure it is still correlated to the heaven and earth as the root, it would neither be completely affiliated to the heaven and earth, nor was its sense completely bounded by the sense of the heaven and earth. It is just like a kite in the sky which is flied by a man on the earth and there is always a string connecting the kite and man, but the kite's activities is not completely controlled by the man and string, and thus the kite is comparatively free. Similarly, the Yi jing as a set of symbolic system originated from the heaven and earth also owns senses free from the heaven-earth sense. The logic sense derived from the symbols is one of them.

    It is well known that the Yi jing is composed of two systems: one is made up of the hexagrams and lines; the other is constituted by the remarks affiliated to the hexagrams and lines. If we say the heaven-earth sense in the Yi jing derives from the correlation (i.e. an equal-valued and isomorphic relationship) between the Yi jing and the heaven-earth (universe), then, its logic sense derives the correlations between the two systems which consist of: 1) the correlation between the remarks and hexagrams & lines, 2) the correlation between the lines in a hexagram, 3) the correlation between the remarks of different hexagrams and lines. The 1) and 2) correlations from which the image-numberology was developed are platitudes, for each text book may introduce them, such as the correlation between the remarks and the images conceived in the lines, the transformational relationship between different hexagrams , and the relationship between lines exposed as cheng 乘 (surmounting), cheng 承 (submitting), bi (association between two adjacent lines), ying (correspondence between two lines). All the senses of the image-numberology originated from the (1) and (2) correlations , whereas the meaning-pattern school, in contrast, is deduced from the (3) correlation — seldom has this been deeply analyzed, hence I would like to have a discussion on it at here.

    The above-mentioned notes-like style refers to the remarks appended to the hexagrams and lines which are not represented as prose, nor manifested as poems, for there isn't any semantic correlation between one remark and another, yet there exists a montage-like logic sense between them. As a French word, Montage was originally a terminology of architecture, meaning comprising or assembling. A pile of disordered brinks, steel bars, and cement can not constitute a sense of architecture, as there isn't any substantial relation between them. If we “assemble” them into a residence, a classroom, a bazaar, or a lavatory, there will emerge a kind of logic relation between the bricks, steel bars, and cement, and show different architectural senses. This is an architectural montage. Later, montage was used as movie editing art by which a consecutive whole can be made through selecting, cutting and arrangement of a series of photographic films taken from different locations, different distances, and different angles. When different selected films are connected together, there always gives rise to a sense which can not be attained to by any particular film. This sense is completely aroused from the logic but not the factually existing relations between different shots. Similarly, the remarks affiliated superficially seem to be a pile of disordered bricks, steel bars, and cement, and like the unassociated shots. But, when we search the associations between the remarks by way of “montage”, the remarks present colorful senses to us. For instance, having probed into all the remarks affiliated to the hexagrams and lines, the Qing dynasty scholar Li Guangdi (1642-1781) found the superficially unassociated remarks concurrently constitute the following senses:

 

    Since the sages are anxious to let people correct mistakes, the remarks which ought to be ominous by the position of a line are often not judged as complete misfortune to show that the ominousness can be changed. Great change of misfortune may lead to propitiousness, while small change may make the ominousness slighter.

 

    By Li Guangdi's view, the remarks appended to different lines are implicated with one common idea, that is, all the misfortunes can be changed and “great change of misfortune may lead to propitiousness, while small change may make the ominousness slighter”. It is on this point that the scattered remarks conceive a united sense. For another instance, as considered by the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) Taizhou School Confucianist Yan Jun (1504-1596), the remarks attached to the six lines from the initial to the top indicate a holistic ladder from the base to the top for a Confucian superior man's self-cultivation.

 

(3) Projected Sense

Let me first give forth an example. In the history of Chinese Buddhism, there are many Buddhist monks who had interpreted the Yi jing through the prism of Buddhism, such as Ouyi Zixu (1599-1655) who wrote Zhouyi Chanjie , An Interpretation of the Zhouyi from the Vision of Chan, Zibai Zhenke (1543-1603) who wrote Jie Yi , An Interpretation of the Yi , and Mater Taixu (1898-1947) who wrote Yi li yu Fo xue , Buddhism and the Philosophy of the Yi , and so on. As a result, the philosophy of Buddhism was revealed in the Yi jing . We cannot help asking that, the Yi jing is a purely Chinese native classic, which had come into being before Buddhism, why could the Yi jing conceive the thought of Buddhism and is it reasonable to interpret the Yi jing by Buddhism? This is really a thorny problem. To completely answer this question, we might take use of multiple principles from philosophy, psychology, Buddhism, and cultural anthropology. Limited by my knowledge, I can only give forth one point of that, in interpreting the Yi jing by Buddhism, the meanings of Buddhism is projected on to the Yi jing , whereas it does not mean that the Yi jing really contains meanings of Buddhism. This is what I call the projected sense of the Yi jing . Why the Yi jing can be projected on to with other meanings? Xi Ci shang give us an answer:

 

    The Yi was made on a principle of accordance with heaven and earth, and shows us therefore, without rent or confusion, the course (of things) in heaven and earth. (The sage), in accordance with (the Yi ), looking up, contemplates the brilliant phenomena of the heavens, and looking down, examine the patterns of the earth; — thus he knows the causes of darkness (or what is obscure) and light (or, what is bright). He traces things to their beginning, and follows them to their end; — thus he knows what can be said about death and life. (He perceives how the union of) essence and Qi (breath) form things, and the (disappearance or) wandering away of the soul produces the change (of their constitution): — thus he knows the characteristics of the anima and animus. There is a similarity between him and heaven and earth, and hence there is no contrariety in him to them. His knowledge embraces all things, and his course in (intended to be) helpful to all under the heaven, and hence he falls into no error. He acts according to the exigency of circumstances without being carried away by their current; he rejoices in Heaven and knows its ordinations, and hence he has no anxieties. He rests in his own (present) position, and cherishes (the spirit of) generous benevolence, and hence he can love (without reserve). (Through the Yi ), he comprehends as in a mould or enclosure the transformations of heaven and earth without any error; by an ever-varying adaptation he completes (the nature of) all things without exception; he penetrates to a knowledge of the course of day and night (and all other connected phenomena); — it is thus that his operation is spirit-like, unconditioned by place, while the principle of the Yi is not restricted to any form.

 

    This paragraph is to explain the reason why the spirit-like operation is unconditioned by place and why the principle of the Yi is not restricted to any form. It is not difficult to see that the most frequently used notional word in the paragraph is “know (knowledge)” which appears six times. It shows that human knowledge penetrates to the heaven in the high and earth in the low; to the life in the presence and death in the distance; to the substantial ordinations of heaven and benevolence and the void anima and animus; spatially, to the transformations of heaven and earth, and temporally, to the course of day and night. In short, human knowledge could touch every thing, however distant it is, and could touch every event. This is called “ Shen , the spirit-like, is unconditioned by place” . Then, what does “the principle of the Yi is not restricted to any form” mean? We all know that the Yi jing is a specific text. Yet, this specific text embraces infinite universal senses (as what is called “encompassing the Dao of heaven and earth). This means that the Yi is not restricted to any form. On this account, all senses to which our knowledge is able to ingress can be attributed to the senses the Yi jing possesses. Thus the senses the Yi jing originally does not possess and those our psychic capacity attains to can be projected on the Yi jing legitimately, this is to say, the projected meanings also belong to the meanings of the Yi jing . The idea of that “ Shen is unconditioned by any place and the Yi is not restricted to any form” is similar to the idea of that “all teachings are but of the dharma” in Buddhism. According to Buddhist teachings, the Buddhist sutras are concrete, yet the dharma is not restricted to what the sutras discourse but is broad and limitless, in that all teachings belong to dharma. Similarly, the Yi jing text is concrete, whereas the principles conceived the Yi is not merely those mentioned in the Yi jing , as the Yi encompasses the Dao of heaven and earth and thus the myriad of things and events reveal the principle of the Yi . In short, the Buddhist sutras embraces the senses the specific sutras have not explicitly taught, while the Yi jing conceives the senses the Yi jing per se has not yet explicitly expounded. This indeed is antimonic.

    The Yi -ologists are active in elucidating the projected senses onto Yi jing . In contrast to its heaven-earth sense and logic sense, its projected sense is more determined by the interpreter's intention, other than is restricted to the Text of the Yi jing , hence showing subjectivity to a large extent . It is this subjectivity with high degree of freedom in expounding its projected senses that the senses of the Yi jing exhibit a feature of “following the demands the time requires”, this is to say, there are different projected senses in different times. We can see that in today's scientific time, the Yi jing is projected upon with scientific sense as Zhouyi Yanjiu (Zhouyi Studies) often set the column of “Zhouyi and Natural Sciences” to reflect this kind of achievements. For instance, Zhouyi Yanjiu in the 1 st issue of 2002 published Li Shujing's “ Yichuan Suanfa yu Yisuan Suanfa ” (Ways of Calculation in Genetics and Those in Image-number Yi ) which manifests the projected sense of genetics on the Yi jing . Besides, Zhouyi Yanjiu in the 2 nd issue of 2000 published Gao Zhiyuan's “ Wujie huanfang yu yishu xitong ” (Magic Square and Numerical System of the Yi ) which reveals the projected sense of topology upon the Yi jing . These examples just expose the unrestrictableness of the Yi -ology in modern scientific era. In short, the Yi jing possesses diverse sources of its projected senses. As long as you can find an appropriate point to project, you can project any external sense onto the Yi jing and make it be the Yi jing 's sense, just as the sun emits its light onto the earth and give rise to daylight — the daylight apparently belongs to the earth's daylight.

 

A RESPONSE TO WANG SHUREN: “ INFINITE DIRECTIONS POINTED TO” BY THE YI JING

 

In searching certain materials for the paper, I am surprisingly delighted to see that Mr. Wang Shu-ren, who is employed at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pays the same concerns onto the Yi jing as mine in his paper of the “ Zhouyi de yuan chuang xing ji qi si wei te zhi ”, Originality of Zhouyi and Its Distinctive Thinking Mode , except that his approach differs from mine. He uttered:

 

    In the discussions on the Yi studies in modern eras, scholars have made a good number of textual researches and studies on the completion time of the statements and its significance, inclusive of the emergence of the hexagram or trigram system and its significance as well as the completion time of the Yi Zhuan known as the Ten Wings and its significance, giving rise to many different arguments. These studies and discrepancies are undoubtedly indispensable not only to the real nature of the Text and Commentaries but to an in-depth comprehension of its connotations. Yet seldom has been mentioned about the issue how can the Zhouyi exert such a profound and extensive influence or how can the Zhouyi point to infinite purports, even nor has it been clarified as a fundamental issue. The influences of the Zhouyi upon Chinese culture are manifested not only in the disputes and plural coexistence thereafter the completion of the Yi Zhuan but in many other realms of traditional Chinese culture such as literature, philosophy, esthetics, medicine, astronomy, art of war, geomancy, agriculture, and so on. All the evidences prove that the Zhouyi possesses infinite purports.

 

    The two questions raised by Mr. Wang Shuren are actually another expression of my question where these ample senses of the Yi jing come from. I can draw Mr. Wang's viewpoints to support my viewpoints mentioned above, but to avoid the reader's misunderstanding my attention on the origin of the Yi jing 's senses, I particularly recount Mr. Wang's concerns and his viewpoints to show that, besides I, other scholars are also paying attention to the origin of the Yi jing 's senses. In addition, Mr. Wang's views are original and based on a unique angle which can not be completely covered and replaced by my views, whereas the combination of our views can answer his questions better and bring a broader vision to the solution of the questions. Mr. Wang said:

 

    From its connotations, the uniqueness of the Zhouyi lies in that neither its symbolic system nor its character system is an ossified, definite and closed stipulation, but a dynamic system open to indefinite purports. ……Now that the Zhouyi possesses indefinitely possible opening routes, any kind of exegetics only belongs to one of the routes. Even the hermeneutic meanings of this specific approach are not ossified. In fact, it is the indefinitely possible approaches the Zhouyi possesses and the mutability in the interpretations that constitutes in its development the image-number school based on the interpretations of symbols and the meaning-pattern school based on the interpretations of the remarks affiliated to the hexagrams and lines and there are various sects within the two main schools. The significance of this diversity of manifestation of the Yi studies is not limited within the Yi learning itself but urges Chinese culture into a colorful development with multiple possible approaches.

 

    According to Wang Shuren, the “indefinitely possible accessibility” possessed by the Yi jing is the very reason which diversifies its senses and “urges Chinese culture into a colorful development”, in that the Yi jing “also exerted great influences upon many other branches of Chinese culture”. Well, how should we understand the “indefinitely possible directions” the Yi jing indicates after all? Mr. Wang Shuren recommend two approaches to us: (1) “in respect to the original meanings of the Zhouyi , either the ideas conceived in the hexagrams and lines or the ideas embraced in the remarks affiliated to the hexagrams and lines are mutable, or, we may say, are in dynamic. Its Yin ( ) and Yang ( ) lines like 0 and 1 in the binary system and can change endlessly. For the remarks affiliated to the hexagrams and lines, in respect to it poetic symbolicity, their purports direct to multiple dimensions and indefinite possibility. ……As for the “dynamic equilibrium” purported in the Yi jing , the vision it opens is indefinite”; (2) “In the Zhouyi also conceives a ‘holistic immediacy and perceptional thinking'. ……The possible purports they indicate are also indefinite. ……Basing on indefinite indications opened by the ‘holistic immediacy and perceptional thinking', man can communicate with the macrocosm to different extents from a particular angle.” Mr. Wang Shuren's view that the Yi jing possesses indefinite possible purports” apparently has certain correlations with the diversity of the origins of the Yi jing 's senses. In other words, the reason why the Yi jing possesses diverse origins of the senses is because the Yi jing possesses “indefinitely opening possible purports” — the senses it opens to are just what I mentioned the three senses of the Yi jing , i.e. heaven-earth sense, logic sense, and projected sense. Here, I would like to cite from the words of a popular song co-sung by S.H.E of “You are sense, the senses of heaven, earth, and spirit ( Shen )” to describe the senses of the Yi jing . The difference is that the Shen in the song refers to a religious spirit, whereas the Shen in the Yi jing refers to man's cognition.

 

CHALLENGES OF THE SENSES OF THE YI JING TO HERMENEUTICS

 

There is a learning called hermeneutics in western philosophy. “Hermeneutics can be simply defined as a set of theory which explores the understanding and interpretations of the senses” and mainly discusses how the senses of the text emerged. Hermeneutics is developed under the background of the practice of the interpretations of the text, in that “since the ancient Greek's interpretations to Homer and other's poems, the scholars of the European classics had established the tradition of interpreting ancient literatures. Till the later period of the Middle Ages, the ‘classics hermeneutics' which concerns the interpretations of the biblical scriptures and items of law and philology which makes textual researches on the ancient literature were established.” With F.E.D. Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer's contributions, hermeneutic theories have been capable of reveal many regular phenomena in the emergence of the text meanings. Yet, any theory possesses relativity because it is not a Jack of all trades and will encounter academic blind spots it cannot interpret. For instance, as for the emergence of the senses of the Yi jing , hermeneutic theories can not give us a comprehensive convincing interpretation. The most fundamental framework of hermeneutics shows that all senses of a text are inferred and abstracted from the text while the reader is reading or deciphering the text, and the senses of the text can not exist outside the text. But the three kinds of senses of the Yi jing manifested by the history of the Yi -ology show that the reader can only read out the logic and heaven-earth senses from the text of the Yi jing , whereas the projected sense can not be attainted directly from the text. That is to say, the projected sense exists outside the text and is attached to it. For the projected sense of the Yi jing , what I am studying is not how the Yi jing can own some projected sense but how and why the Yi jing accepts this kind of projected senses. The reason that the Yi jing can accept some kind of projected sense demonstrates that the Yi jing must have a special organism. We can project Buddhist thought onto the Yi jing , but we can not project it onto the Bible. This difference just manifests the Yi jing 's uniqueness. It can be seen that, the emergence of the projected sense of the Yi jing would result in interpreting other texts with the Yi jing as a media or revealing other texts' senses with the Yi jing as a “screen” rather than result in interpreting the text of the Yi jing per se . Western hermeneutics just tells us how to dig out the senses from the texts, in addition to this, the hermeneutics of the Yi jing based on the interpretative history of the Yi jing tells us how to use the Yi jing to sustain more externally projected senses. The adaptablity to modern circumstances of the Yi jing just attests to its sustaining capacity. The text is always the text of the past and its meanings are always definite and stamped with the brand of the times, whereas if a text owns an organism which could constantly receive and carry new projected senses, this text will be a text which can “renew” itself everyday. The Yi jing is just a text of this kind.

 

 

ENDNOTES

This paper was originally published in Chinese in Zhouyi Yanjiu 《周易研究》 (Studies of Zhouyi) in 2005:3, pp.53-62.

Chen Jian, associate professor, Ph. D, School of Philosophy and Sociology, Shandong University , Jinan , Shandong Province. Specialties: Chinese philosophy, Chinese Buddhism.

 

These remarks were used by British philosopher Thomas Carlyle to describe Koran . Here I borrow them to describe the Yi jing . I think, with regard to the literal style and writing, the Yi jing is more inferior. From the inferior superficies of Koran , Carlyle discovered the sincerity of Arabian nation conceived in the canon and thus claim Koran is a “sincere book”. (See Yingxiong Yu Yingxiong Congbai 《英雄与英雄崇拜》 , Hero and Hero Worship, Shanghai Sanlian Shudian 上海三联书店 , 1988, pp. 105-106.) Here I will also reveal the sincerity of Chinese nation under the inferior superficies of the Yi jing .

Imitation is different from description, for the latter is a subjective expression of things reflected in one's mind, whereas the former is an objective expression of the things per se . The purpose for description is to express personal emotions, whereas the purpose for imitation is to reveal the features of things. In addition, description must be accomplished by language, whereas, besides language, imitation can be accomplished by other emblems (such as the lines, trigrams, and hexagrams in the Yi jing ); Travel notes belong to description while the tourist map belongs to imitation; Description is literature-like while imitation is tool-like — the differences between them are more or less like this. British philosopher Bertrand Russell's theory of “depicting terms” exposed characteristics of imitation to some extent. See Xian dai Xi fang Zhe xue 100 ti 《现代西方哲学 100 题》 , 100 Questions and Answers Concerning Modern Western Philosophy, complied by Jiang Wencai 蒋文彩 , etc.. Tianjin : Tianjin Renmin Chubanshe Press, 1988, pp. 115-118.

See Zhou yi Si shu Chan jie 《周易·四书禅解》 complied by Zhixu, Tuan jie Chu ban she , 1996, p. 250. There isn't a final conclusion on the figure who developed the eight trigrams into the sixty-four hexagrams in the history of the Yi -ology, as “Wang Bi 王弼 (226 -249 A .D.) insists it was Fuxi while Zheng Xuan 郑玄 (127 -200 A .D.) maintains it was Shengnong 神农 , and some are inclined to Dayu, Yu the Great 大禹 , whereas Si-ma Qian 司马迁 (145 or 135-87 B.C.), Ban Gu 班固 (32 -92 A .D.), Yang Xiong 扬雄 (53B.C. -18 A .D.), and Wang Chong 王充 (27 -97 A .D.) adhere that it was King Wen 文王 who began to overlap the eight trigrams (to the sixty-four hexagrams).” See Zhou yi Gai lun 周易概论 , A General Survey of Zhou yi , written by Liu Dajun 刘大钧 . Jinan: Qilu Publishing House 齐鲁书社 , 1986, p.5. But that Yi jing starts from Fuxi's devising the eight trigrams has become a unanimously accepted view .

Zhi Xu 智旭 : Zhouyi sishu chan jie 《周易·四书禅解》 , An Interpretation of the Book of Changes and the Four Books from the Vision of Buddhism of the Chan Sect). Beijing: Tuanjie chubanshe 团结出版社 , 1996, p.250.

Zhang Dainian: “Shen Shandeng zhengxue sixiang 沈善登哲学思想 ” (Sheng Shandeng's Philosophical Thought), Zhang Dainian Wenji 张岱年文集 (Collected Writings of Zhang Dainian) vol. 5. Beijing : Qinghua University Press, 1994, pp. 315-317.

Zhi Xu 智旭 : Zhouyi sishu chan jie 《周易·四书禅解》 , An Interpretation of the Book of Changes and the Four Books from the Vision of Buddhism of the Chan Sect). Beijing: Tuanjie chubanshe 团结出版社 , 1996, p.250.

“In the sixty-four hexagrams, there exists a kind of transformational relationship between two hexagrams: it is believed that one hexagram is transformed from another one. This relationship between the two hexagrams is call ‘hexagrams' transformation'.” See Liu Dajun's 刘大钧 Zhouyi Gailun 《周易概论》 , A General Survey of the Zhouyi . Jinan: Qilu Publishing House 齐鲁书社 , 1988. p.69.

For the knowledge of image-numberology, please see Lin Zhongjun's 林忠军 Xiangshu Yixue Fazhanshi 《象数易学发展史》 , A History of Development of the Image-numberology in the Studies of the Yi. Jinan: Qilu Publishing House 齐鲁书社 , 1998. Though the image-numberology is much complicated, it is clarified in Lin's works.

Li Guangdi 李光地 , Rongchu yulu: Rongchu xu yulu 《榕村语录·榕村续语录》（上） (Analects of 方 Rongchu, Continued), vol. 1. Beijing: Zhonghua shujiu 中华书局 , 1995, p.151.

Huang Xuan-ming 黄宣民 , Yan Jiu ji 颜钧集 , Collected Writings of Yanjun (Collated). Beijing : Chinese Social Sciences Publishing House, 1996, p. 50.

Shen 神 in ancient China connotes two meanings, one refers to minute changes in the natural world, as is mentioned in Xi Ci shang that “the unpredictable reaction between Yin and Yang is called Shen ”. (See Zhang Dainian 张岱年 , “Zhong guo Zhe xue shi Fang fa lun Fa fan 中国哲学史方法论发凡 ”, An Elucidation of the Methodology of Chinese Philosophy, in Zhang Dainian Wen ji 《张岱年文集》 , Collected Works of Zhang Dainian. Beijing: Qinghua University Press, 1994, pp. 475-475.); the other to human psyche and its features, such as the Shen mentioned in Fan Zhen's 范缜 Shen mie Lun 《神灭论》 , and that in religious Daoism, and as Zhou Dunyi 周敦颐 expounded in his Taiji Tushuo 太极图说 : “Now that the body was formed, the Shen begin to obtain knowledge.” Here the Shen which is not restricted to any form should refer to psyche and shows that human psychic cognitive capacity is infinite, in other words, human cognition is infinite as we often say. However, in ancient China , Shen mainly does not refer to spirits of religious sense (such as the personified god in Christianity or the cult god in Buddhism).

Of course the heaven-earth sense and logic sense of the Yi jing also contain subjective inclination 出鬼 because all senses are imbued with subjectivity, and even the principles of natural science are not excluded (such as the Uncertainty Principle raised by Heisenberg in physics). We know that sense is a kind of “empirical fact which depends on the viewer's previous conceptions and knowledge. In other words, the establishment of the empirical fact implies within it there are some low-grade conceptions and theories upon which the fact can ‘be seen'. Since the existence of the fact is inseparable from man's conceptions, we can not find an objective and neutral fact.” (See Ci Lin 慈林 : “ Fojiao yu kexue 佛教与科学 ”, Buddhism and Science, in Linshan Huihai 灵山会海 , 2004, (2), p. 12.) Comparatively, we can assert with complete assurance that the projected sense of the Yi jing shows an absolute subjectivity while its heaven-earth and logic senses reveal a relative subjectivity, in that the latter senses are released on the basis of adequately venerating and following the Text, whereas its projected sense is not interpreted out of the Text but from the external projection and laid upon the Text of the Yi jing .

This is Mr. Wang Shuren's article submitted to the “Cross-strait Yi Studies and Chinese Philosophy Conference” hosted by the Center for Zhouyi & Ancient Chinese Philosophy of Shandong University in August, 2002 in Qingdao . Though I was also one of the participants, I did not pay attention to this paper then. It is fortunate to come to and read it now.

Wang Shuren 王树人 , “ Zhouyi de yuanchuangxing ji qi siwei tezhi 《周易》的原创性及其思维特质 ”, 民 Proceedings of the Cross-strait Yi Studies and Chinese Philosophy Conference (Volume of the Yi Studies). Qingdao , 2002, p.5.

Ibid., p.5.

Ibid., pp. 5-6.

Jiang Wencai 蒋文彩 , etc., Xiandai xifang zhexue 100 ti 《现代西方哲学 100 题》 , 100 Questions and Answers Concerning Modern Western Philosophy, Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1988, p.275.

Zhang Rulun 张汝伦 , “Gadamer de zhexue shiyixue” (Gadamer's Hermeneutics of Philosophy), Xiandai xifang zhexue gaishu 《现代西方哲学概说》 , A General Survey on Modern Western Philosophy. Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 1986, 167.

Though “hermeneutics of the Yi jing (or Zhouyi )” has not hitherto been established as an independent branch of learning, many inland and overseas insightful scholars have noticed the uniqueness of the interpretations to the Yi jing beyond the framework of western hermeneutics and wish to establish Chinese hermeneutics based on the practice of the interpretations of the Yi jing . For their views, we may draw reference from Tang Yijie's “ Ne fo chuanjian zhongguo de jieshixue ? 能否创建中国的解释学 ”, Can We Create Chinese Hermeneutics?, published in Xue Ren 学人 , No.13, 1988, and his “ Guanyu jianli Zhouyi jieshixue de tongxin 关于建立《周易》解释学的通信 ”, A Letter Concerning the Establishment of the Hermeneutics of the Zhouyi , published in Zhouyi Yanjiu (Zhouyi Studies), 1999:3, and “ Guanyu jianli Zhouyi jieshixue wenti de tantao 关于建立《周易》解释学问题的探讨 ”, A Discussion on the Establishment of the Hermeneutics of the Zhouyi , published in Zhouyi Yanjiu 1999:4. The author also had a tentative discussion on this issue. Please see “ Yi zhu yu zhongguo chuantong zhexue zhong de zhushi “易注”与中国传统哲学中的注释 ” , Interpretations and Annotations of the Yi jing and Traditional Chinese Philosophy, published in Jiangnan shehui xueyuan xuebao 《江南社会学院学报》 (Supplement), 2002.

 

 

CHINESE GLOSSAR

 

 

Baoxi                                   包牺                                     Tuan                                    《彖》

Bi                                        比                                       Wang Bi                              王弼

Chan                                   禅                                         Wang Chong                        王充

Cheng's brothers                 程氏兄弟                             Wang Shuren                      王树人

cheng                                  承                                         Wujie huanfang yu yishu xitong

cheng                                 乘                                                                                     五阶幻方与易数系统

Dao                                     道                                         Xi Ci shang                          《系辞上》

Dayu                                   大禹                                     Xi Ci xia                               《系辞下》

Da                                       大                                         Xiang                                  《象》

Fuxi                                     伏羲                                     Xiao Xu                               小畜

Gao Zhiyuan                      高治源                                 Xia                                      夏

Guizang                               《归藏》                             Yan Jun                               颜钧

Jie Yi                                     《解易》                             Yang Xiong                         扬雄

Li Guangdi                          李光地                                 Yao                                      爻

Li Shujing                            李树菁                                 Yi jing                                   《易经》

Lianshan                              《连山》                             Yi li yu Fo xue                       《易理与佛学》

Liu Dajun                            刘大钧                                 Yi Zhuan                               《易传》

Lü                                        履                                         Yichuan Suanfa yuYisuan Suanfa

Ouyi Zixu                           藕益智旭                                                                         遗传算法与易算算法

Qi                                        气                                         ying                                     应

Shang                              商                                         Yi-ology                               易学

Shen Shandeng                    沈善登                                 Zheng Xuan                        郑玄

Shengnong                           神农                                     Zhixu                                  智旭

Shen                                    神                                         Zhouyi Chanjie                    《周易禅解》

Shi                                       筮                                         Zhouyi de yuan chuang xing ji qi si wei te zhi

Shuo Gua Zhuan                 《说卦传》                                           《周易》的原创性及其思维特质

Si-ma Qian                          司马迁                                 Zhouyi                                  《周易》

Tai yi                                   太易                                     Zhu Xi                                朱熹

Taixu                                   太虚                                     Zibai Zhenke                      紫柏真可

Taizhou                               泰州