Postface to Master Zhou's Taiji and Tongshu

周子太極通書後序

by Zhu Xi [1169] ⁽¹⁾

Above are Master Zhou's writings compiled together. Today there are editions from Chongling, Lingling, and Jiujiang, which all have similarities and differences. The Changsha edition was the last to appear, so that is the one I have compiled. I have examined the other editions in the most careful detail, but they seem to be incomplete.

The profundity of the Teacher's learning is embodied in the Taiji Diagram, and the words of the Tongshu manifest the comprehensiveness of this Diagram. The sayings of the Cheng brothers on the nature and endowment all follow his theory. We can see this by observing the [Tongshu] chapters on authenticity [1-2], activity and stillness [16], and order, nature, and endowment [22] and comparing them with such examples of the Chengs' writings as [Cheng Hao's] epitaph for [his friend] Li Zhongtong,⁽²⁾ his epitaph for [his son] Cheng Shaogong,⁽³⁾ and [Cheng Yi's] "Essay on What Yanzi Loved to Learn."⁽⁴⁾ Therefore when Pan Jingyi [Pan Xingsi] wrote the Teacher's epitaph,⁽⁵⁾ in listing the books he wrote he specificially put the Taiji Diagram first, so I do not doubt that the Diagram belongs at the head of the Explanation. But when the Teacher personally transmitted the books to the two Chengs, [the Diagram] followed the Explanation, according to Qi Kuan (Juzhi).⁽⁶⁾ Those who transmitted it saw it like this, with the Diagram wrongly placed after the Explanation, and did not correct it. This caused the subtle meaning of the Teacher's symbolism and deep ideas [in the Diagram] to be obscure and unclear, and readers of the Tongshu in turn were unaware of its meaning, so some editions were lacking. But the Changsha edition of the Tongshu that the Hu family transmitted was not [wrongly] reordered. It is missing the section titles, with "The Master said" added instead of them. Although this does not harm the general meaning of the book, it is not the Teacher's original, and without the titles it is difficult to understand: for example, the "Order, nature, and endowment" section (li xing ming). Several editions include inscriptions, poems, and events, many of them repeated. Some [of these] do not succeed in bringing to light the Teacher's Way for the benefit of students.

Therefore I have relied especially on Pan's epitaph, which places the Diagram at the beginning, taking it as the Teacher's essential idea so as to comprehend the discussion of the [Tong]shu. As for the [Tong]shu's correct sequence of sections, I have also returned to the original order, and have selected the real events from the Teacher's life from the records of Pu Zuocheng, Kong Sifeng, and Huang Taishi, eliminating duplications and combining them into one chapter for contemplation.⁽⁷⁾ Of what has been transmitted in the Teacher's writings, his words and deeds are contained herein.

What Mr. Pan calls the Yitong I suspect is Tongshu, and the Yishuo alone [among the works mentioned by Pan]⁽⁸⁾ has been lost. Regarding the many different writings gathered by my friends, each called a traditional text, even the briefest look makes me smile at their superficiality. They are all by scholar-officials from the period of the "[three] hall system,"⁽⁹⁾ who [simply] pieced together vestigial residues. They are completely unlike the Tushuo and Tongshu; we can know they are false without inquiring. But we don't know whether or not the world has the ability to get the truth. By extending the Diagram and Discussion we know what they express: the very essence of polarity. Fine words disappear; what a pity.

I have read Zhu Neihan (Zhen)'s Jin Yi shuobiao (Memorial Presenting the Yi), which says that this Diagram was transmitted from Chen Tuan to Zhong Fang to Mu Xiu and on [to Zhou Dunyi].⁽¹⁰⁾ Hu Wufeng (Renzhong) [Hu Hong] wrote the "Preface to the Tongshu" in which he says that the Teacher went beyond the learning of Zhong and Mu, and especially their teacher [Chen Tuan], who was not at this level.⁽¹¹⁾ The mystery of the Teacher's learning did not come from this Diagram; it came from himself [or humanity]. It is definitely beyond Zhong and Mou. This being the case, then what did the Teacher's learning add to this Diagram? I have questioned this. After examining [Pan's] eulogy I have come to the conclusion that the Teacher composed it himself; he did not receive it from anyone. Mr. [Hu] never saw what this eulogy said. Still, Mr. Hu writes of the Tongshu's meaning:

People see this book's approximate meaning, but they do not understand the greatness of its Way; they see the material of the text but do not understand the essence of its meaning; they see the lightness of its words but do not understand the extent of its flavor. If people really have the ability to establish the will of Yi Yin and to cultivate Yanzi's learning,⁽¹²⁾ then they will understand this book and embrace its greatness, and the business of the sages will be inexhaustible.

This is a statement that cannot easily be matched, but those who read this book should understand it. Accordingly I have selected it to connect with posterity.

Qiandao [reign period], jichou [year, 1169], 6^th month, wushen day: respectfully written by Zhu Xi of Xin'an.

NOTES

1. This postface is not included in Zhang Boxing's Zhou Lianxi xiansheng quanji. It is found in Zhu wengong wenji 75 (Zhuzi quanshu, vol. 24: 3628-30).

2. "Li Sicheng muzhi ming," in Er Cheng ji: 497-99.

3. "Cheng Shaogong muzhi," in Er Cheng ji: 494-95. The conclusions of both epitaphs speculate as to the reasons for these deaths in terms of the cosmology of qi and its mixed endowment in the human constitution. For example, the conclusion of the epitaph for his son begins as follows: "Activity and stillness are the foundation of yin and yang. The interactions of the five qi are mixed and uneven..." (continuing with what became the standard Cheng-Zhu theory of the mixed endowment of pure and impure qi); the parallels with chapters 1, 2, 16, and 22 of the Tongshu are clear.

4. "Yanzi suo hao he xue," in Er Cheng ji: 577. This obviously resonates with Tongshu sections 10, 23 and 29, all of which mention Yanzi (Yan Yuan or Yan Hui).

5. "Lianxi xiansheng muzhi ming," in Zhou Lianxi 10:19a-20b.

6. However, in the 1144 postface to the Tongshu by Qi Kuan that we have (Zhou Lianxi 7:3b), he says that what he found in Zhou's house contained no diagram. See Zheng Jixiong, "Cong jingdian quanshi de jiaodu lun rudao Yi tu de leixing yu bianyi " (On the Genre and Changes of the Confucian and Taoist I-Ching Figures and Images -- a Perspective of Classical Interpretation), Renwen xuebao (Taiwan: National Central University), no. 24 (2001): 93-184, p. 112; and A.C. Graham, Two Chinese Philosophers: Ch'eng Ming-tao and Ch'eng Yi-ch'uan (London: Lund Humphries, 1958): 166-67, 174 n.60.

7. "Lianxi xiansheng shizhuang," in Zhou Lianxi 10:20b-22b.

8. "He delved deeply into the study of the Yi. He wrote the Taiji Diagram, the Yishuo (Discussion of the Yi), the Yitong (Penetrating the Yi) in several tens of sections, and ten scrolls of poems; these today are stored in his house" (Zhou Lianxi 10:20b).

9. My thanks to Yang Xiao for identifying this historical reference. The "three-hall system" (sanshe fa 三舍法), which Zhu Xi opposed, organized the Imperial University (Taixue) into three classes through which students could pass in order to qualify for official positions without taking the standard civil service examinations. It was established by the Northern Song prime minister Wang Anshi (1021-1086) during the reform period of 1069-1085, overturned (1085-1093) by the anti-reformers led by Sima Guang (1019-1086), and then revived (1093-1125) under prime minister Cai Jing (1047-1126). See Thomas H.C. Lee, Government Education and Examinations in Sung China (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1985): 64-65, 77-80, 231-33; and Thomas A. Wilson, Genealogy of the Way: The Construction and Uses of the Confucian Tradition in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995): 37. On Wang Anshi see James T.C. Liu, Reform in Sung China; Wang An-shih (1021-1086) and His New Policies (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959); on Zhu Xi's (and his predecessors' in the Cheng school) opposition to Wang Anshi's reforms see Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (NY: Columbia University Press, 1999): 609-628.
     Zhu's disparaging reference to the "period of the [three] hall system" is probably directed at the Cai Jing era, when the writings of Cheng Yi, among many others, were declared heterdox (Wilson: 37). Cai Jing and Wang Anshi before him were attempting to impose a narrow conformity on the thinking of Confucian officials (see Liu: 88 and Lee: 240). The irony, of course, is that the eventual dominance of Zhu Xi's own system over other varieties of Confucian thinking in the Southern Song, and its becoming the official standard for the civil service examinations during the succeeding Yuan dynasty, resulted in the same kind of stifling orthodoxy. See Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi's Ascendancy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992). For some of Zhu Xi's criticism of the three-hall system see his unsubmitted 1187 memorial on education (Zhu wengong wenji 69, in Zhuzi quanshu, vol. 23: 3355-3364), partially translated in Lee: 232-233.

10. Zhu Zhen (or Zhu Hanshang, 1072-1138) was a student of Xie Liangzuo (1050-1121), who had been a student of the Cheng brothers. See Zhu Zhen's account in Richard J. Smith, Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I-Ching, or Classic of Changes) and its Evolution in China (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008): 115.

11. See Hu Hong, Tongshu xulüe (Outline preface to the Tongshu), in Zhou Lianxi 7:1b.

12. See Tongshu 10.