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The Origin of an Yijing Line Statement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

Edward L. Shaughnessy
Edward L. Shaughnessy*
Affiliation:
Department of East Asian, Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago, Chicago IL 60637
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Abstract

This essay begins by examining divination records from the Zhou dynasty (such as those from Zhouyuan and Baoshan, as well as records in traditional texts) showing that the topic of divination was invariably announced in the form of a “charge” indicating the desire of the person for whom the divination was being performed. Next, other accounts of turtle-shell divination (in the Shiji, Guo yu and Zuo zhuan) are examined to determine how the results of the divinations were interpreted. The author shows that the diviner was responsible for producing a yao 竊 or “omen-text” that was composed of three lines of four characters, the first describing the crack in the shell (i.e., the omen), followed by a couplet linking this omen to the announced topic of the divination, similar to the way in which the nature evocations of the Shijing are linked to events in the human realm. Finally, the author shows that this omentext is formally identical to the most developed form of the line statemerits of the Yijing, and proposes that from this form can be discerned the divinatory context that originally produced these line statements.

本文先從考査周代卜筮之記載 (諸如周原卜辭、包山楚簡以及各種傳統文獻) 入手,顯示無論爲何種卜筮, 卜筮的主題均是以「命辭」來表明卜筮者的願望.其後筆者檢核其他文獻有關貞卜之記載以判定這些結果是如何被詮釋的.筆者並指出卜人在獲兆之後都要給出一段「繇」詞, 其型式是固定的; 共爲三行,每行四字.首行描述龜甲上的裂痕 (亦即兆徵),二三行對仗並有韻,將兆徵與「命辭」繋聯起來並討論其意義,這與《詩經》中״興״的用法很相似.最後筆者指出這種「繇」的型式與《易經》裏的爻辭完全相同, 並論證從爻的型式即可推知《易經》原本功用在於占卜.

Type
Articles
Information
Early China , Volume 20 , 1995 , pp. 223 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 1995

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References

1. 1. For a survey of the contributions of these five scholars, with complete bibliographical citations of their work, see Shaughnessy, Edward L., “The Composition of the Zhouyi” (Ph.D. diss.: Stanford University, 1983), 8–11Google Scholar.

2. Jingchi, Li 李鏡池,Zhouyi tongyi 周易通義 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 7Google Scholar.

3. For Gao's views, see Heng, Gao 高亨, Zhouyi gu jing jin zhu 周易古經今注 (Shanghai: Kaiming shudian, 1947), 1Google Scholar.

4. Chunqiu Zuo zhuan zhengyi 春秋左傳正義, in Shisan jing zhu shu 十三經注疏, 2 vols. (Rptv Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), vol. 2, 2085–2085 (48.382-383)Google Scholar; see, also, Legge, James, The Chinese Classics, Vol. 5: The Ch'un Ts'ew with the Tso Chuen (Rptv Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), 666, 668Google Scholar.

5. Yili zhu shu 儀禮注疏, in Shisan jing zhu shu, vol. 1, 1179 (44 [“Tesheng kuishi li” 特牲饋食禮], 235).

6. See, for example, Xu Xitai 徐鍚台, Zhouyuan jiaguwen zongshu 周原甲骨文總述 (Xi'an: San Qin chubanshe, n.d. [preface dated 1986]), 11 (hand drawing, transcription, and notes), 385 (photograph). For a discussion of the formulaic ending of the Zhou-yuan oracle-bone inscriptions, see Hanyi, Xia 夏含夷, “Shishi Zhouyuan bud si zi — jianlun Zhoudai zhenbu zhi xingzh” 試釋周原卜辭字一兼論周代貞卜之性質, Guwenzi yanjiu 古文字硏究 17 (1989), 304–308Google Scholar. Evidence discovered subsequently, the Baoshan 包山 bamboo strips (which will be discussed below), demonstrates conclusively the two major hypotheses of this article: that is the protograph of si 思,”to wish,” and that it serves a function analogous to that of shang 尙,”would that,” in later divination forumlas; compare Baoshan Chu pan 包山楚簡, ed. kaogudui, Hubei sheng Jing-sha tielu (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1991), 32Google Scholar Strip 197-198, and 33 Strips 209-211.

7. Baoshan Chu jian, 34 Strips 216-17. For an introduction in English to these divination records, see Ling, Li, “Formulaic Structure of Chu Divinatory Bamboo Slips,” Early China 15 (1990), 71–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. For the fullest exposition of this interpretation, including comments by David Keightley, see ”The Early China Forum,” Early China 14 (1989), 77–172Google Scholar.

9. Shiji 史記 (Zhonghua shuju ed.), 10.413-414.

10. Shiji, 128.3241.

11. See the comments of Zhang Yan 張晏 (Shiji jijie 史記集解) and Xun Yue 荀悅 (Shiji suoyin 史記索弓), as quoted at Shiji, 10.415 n. 8.

12. Guo yo 國語 (Sibu beiyao ed.), 7 (“Jin yu 1”). 1b.

13. Chuncjiu Zuo zhuan zhengyi, vol. 2, 1648 (31.246)Google Scholar; see also, Legge, , The Ch'un Ts'ew with the Tso Chuen, 443, 447Google Scholar.

14. The occurrences are in the top line of “Meng” 蒙 (4/6) and in the third line of “Jian” 漸 (53/5); see Zhouyi zhengyi 周易正義, in Shisan jing zhu shu, vol. 1, 21 (1.9)Google Scholar, 63 (5.51).

15. Shaughnessy, Edward L., “Marriage, Divorce, and Revolution: Reading between the Lines of the Book of Changes,” The Journal of Asian Studies 51.3 (08 1992), 594CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. For the emendation of e 阿, “hill,” for lu 陸,”land,” see Shaughnessy, , “The Composition of the Zhouyi” 192–193Google Scholar.

17. I am well aware of problems of anachronism in considering the hexagram picture or constituent trigrams at the time of the Yijing's creation. Since the publication in 1980 of Zhang Zhenglang's 張正烺 “Shishi Zhouchu qingtongqi mingwen zhong deYigua” 試釋周初靑銅器銘文中的易卦(Kaogu xuebao 考古學報 1980.4, 403–415)Google Scholar, it has become widely accepted that throughout the Western Zhou period results of milfoil divination were expressed with numerical symbols. However, it seems to me still not clear how these numerical symbols should be related to Yijing hexagrams (the simple conversion of odd numbers into yang lines and even numbers into yin lines strikes me as simplistic), and so I think it remains helpful to consider all available asso ciations.

18. I have suggested elsewhere that divination using the Yijing must originally have involved at least two separate steps, the first resulting in one of the sixty-four hexagrams, and the second specifying one of that hexagram's six lines; see Shaugh-nessy, “The Composition of the Zhouyi,” 74-103. The divinatory scenario I present here is obviously idealized, collapsing as it does both the identification of the omen with the hexagram and also the incremental repetition of the omen's changes throughout the line statements. In reality, these two stages of the texfs composition must have been achieved at different times.

19. For the clearest examples of bottom-to-top low־to-high organization of images, see “Xian” ׳ (31) and “Gen” ׳ (52). For discussion of this feature, see Kunst, Richard A., “The Original ‘Yijing’: A Text, Phonetic Transcription, Translation, and Indexes, with Sample Glosses” (Ph.D. diss.: University of California, Berkeley, 1985), 38–43Google Scholar.

20. It is of course also possible that the composition process entailed more than a single divination. The omen-verse must surely have been created at one time, and would subsequently have come to be associated with that line of “Jian” hexagram. Perhaps at some later date, another divination resulted in the same line, and the then existent omen-verse required further explication, at which time the prognostication “inauspicious” and/or the injunction “beneficial to resist robbers” might have been added.

21. See Section B2 of the “Xici” for this explanation; Zhouyi zhengyi, vol. 1, 86 (8.74)Google Scholar.

22. Zhouyi zhengyi, vol. 1, 37 (3.25)Google Scholar.

23. For a thorough discussion of how these associations were used in the Zuo zhuan in interpreting Yijing divinations, see Smith, Kidder Jr., “Zhouyi Interpretation from Accounts in the Zuozhuan,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 49.2 (1989), 421–463CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. Chunqiu Zuo zhuan zhengyi, vol. 2, 2040–2041 (43.338-339)Google Scholar; see also, Legge, , The Ch'un Ts'ew with the Tso Chuen, 600-601, 604Google Scholar.