Integrated Eastern Culture: A History of Yi Xue Philosophy (Vol. 1-4)

Author: Zhu Bokun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: The theme of this book is to narrate the interpretation of the original texts of the I Ching and the historical development of the resulting I Ching philosophical theories. It covers the period from the pre-Qin era to the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. The main thread is to elucidate the worldview of Chinese cosmology and metaphysics and their modes of thinking. The book explains the characteristics of traditional Chinese philosophy from the perspective of the history of classics, opening up a new field for the study of the history of Chinese philosophy. As an I Ching scholar, Mr. Zhu Bokun inevitably discusses "images and numbers"; as a historian of philosophy, Mr. Zhu also pays great attention to "principles." Mr. Zhu's representative work, The Philosophy of I Ching History, systematically and deeply explains the images and numbers of I Ching scholars throughout history, particularly focusing on the philosophical research of the principle school and the image school. Images and numbers are the two major elements constituting the I Ching, and also the two major schools of studying it. The attitudes and annotation methods of I Ching scholars in different dynasties have their own characteristics, and can generally be divided into the image-number school and the principle school. The General Catalogue of the Four Treasuries divides I Ching studies into two schools and six sects. The two schools refer to the image-number school and the principle school, while the six sects refer to the divination sect, auspiciousness sect, creation sect, Lao-Zhuang sect, Confucian principle sect, and historical events sect. The six sects can actually be attributed to the two schools: the divination, auspiciousness, and creation sects belong to the image-number school, while the Lao-Zhuang, Confucian principle, and historical events sects belong to the principle school. Academia generally regards the I Ching schools that interpret the I Ching with abstract and general meanings as the principle school, while those that interpret it with concrete images as the image-number school. Throughout the development of the history of I Ching studies, the mutual criticism between the two schools has never ceased. In contemporary academia, research on the principle school is relatively in-depth and fair; however, research on the image-number school is not as thorough and is also unfair. Because the image-number school, while interpreting the I Ching, involves astronomy, calendar, music theory, ethics, philosophy, medicine, divination, and other content, its system becomes extremely complex, which also increases the difficulty of understanding it. Over time, the image-number school was shrouded in a veil of mystery and suffered unfair treatment. In modern and contemporary academia, one can say that the attitude toward the image-number school is still not fair. Some believe that image-number is synonymous with divination and fortune-telling, and should be classified as "feudal superstition"; others argue that the image-number school is not the orthodox I Ching study and has nothing to do with philosophy. Around the issues of the connotation, attributes, evolution, and status and role of "images and numbers," academia has debated extensively, with many mistaken views. What exactly are "images and numbers"? What is the relationship between "images and numbers" and "principles"? Are the "image-number school" and the "principle school" completely opposed? To resolve these problems that still perplex academia, one should objectively review the entire history of I Ching studies. Mr. Zhu's The Philosophy of I Ching History sets a good example for us. Reading the discussions of principle scholars on "images and numbers" in The Philosophy of I Ching History is meaningful for correcting biases against "image-number scholars" and misconceptions about "image-number studies." The Philosophy of I Ching History says when discussing the characteristics of the I Ching Commentary: "The I Ching Commentary has two sets of languages: one is about divination, and the other is about philosophy." "From the perspective of the history of I Ching studies, there are two tendencies in interpreting the I Ching Commentary. One tendency leans toward interpreting the philosophical issues from the perspective of divination methods, later known as the image-number school. The other tendency emphasizes interpreting the divination methods from the perspective of philosophy." (Vol. 55, Huaxia Press, 1995) During the Western Han Dynasty, the image-number school of interpreting the I Ching emerged, represented by the official I Ching studies of Mengxi and Jing Fang. This school of I Ching was called "image-number studies" by the Song Dynasty. Its characteristics are three: First, it explains the texts of the I Ching Commentary using the odd and even numbers and the images symbolized by the Eight Trigrams; second, it explains the principles of the I Ching using the theory of hexagram qi; third, it uses the I Ching to explain the changes of yin and yang and disasters." (Vol. 114) During the Wei-Jin period, the principle school of interpreting the I Ching emerged, turning toward the path of interpreting the I Ching with Lao-Zhuang metaphysics, becoming a major school in the history of I Ching studies. Wang Bi was the founder of this school." (Vol. 246) Starting from Wang Bi, the principle school inherited the tradition of interpreting the I Ching from the classical text school, with the interpretation of the I Ching primarily focused on principles, explaining the I Ching from the perspective of the I Ching Commentary, and excluding the learning style of the vernacular text school, which does not discuss mutual bodies, hexagram qi, hexagram transformation, or the integration of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. In my understanding, the image-number school and the principle school are not completely opposed, but simply have different tendencies in interpreting the I Ching. The image-number school takes images and numbers as the position, interprets the I Ching with images and numbers, and discusses principles with images and numbers; the principle school takes principles as the position, interprets the I Ching with principles, and discusses images and numbers with principles. The Philosophy of I Ching History, in its four volumes, systematically discusses the I Ching philosophy of the principle school and the image-number school from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, with particularly detailed discussions of the "images and numbers" views of the principle school.