A Study Of Cheng Shi Yi Zhuan

A significant monograph on I Ching (Yi Jing) , Cheng Yi ( Ch'eng I )'s Cheng Shi Yi Zhuan ( A Cheng's Interpretation of I Ching ) has a very important place in the history of Neo-Confucianism and the history of I Ching study. Contemporary scholars have done a lot of research on this work. Having referred to their discussion, I give a further overall investigation on Cheng Shi Yi Zhuan in this thesis in a systematic way.Though it is a subject with profuse interpretations, the study of I Ching had been put into different perspectives by two distinct schools of thought, viz. the school of images and numbers (xiang shu) and the school of morality and principle (yi li). Cheng Shi Yi Zhuan is a work of the latter, and this thesis approaches it in the latter point of view.The thesis is divided into eight chapters.Chapter One gives a brief account of Cheng Yi's life, his major works and scholarship.Chapter Two probes into the origin and development of Cheng Shi Yi Zhuan , on which I have done some textual research.Chapter Three summarizes my study of Cheng Shi Yi Zhuan . Briefly, I review the achievements by contemporaries in studying this work, and point out what deepening and development have been made in this thesis.Chapter Four inquires into the thoughts with which Cheng annotated I Ching.Chapter Five describes Cheng's methodology of I Ching interpretation.First, to 'learn Shi Yi (Confucius' introductory comment on the I Ching ) directly, view its scenesand ponder its explanations of the Diagrams (ci)'. This indicates that Cheng's ways of reading andinterpreting I Ching was inherited directly from Confucius.Second, to 'emphasize the grandness and edging the humbleness, cultivate yang and restrain yin '.This expresses Cheng's two seemly opposite but in nature uniform principles of reading I Ching :On one hand, he attached importance to the temperament of virility ( yang gang zhi de ) andrepressed the temperament of gentleness (yin rou zhi de ); on the other hand, he argued the valueof the latter and considered it to be indispensable. The thesis suggests the subtle relation betweenthese two concepts, and expounds why they contradict each other in appearance but arecomplementary in nature.Third, to 'improve the learning of I Ching through practice, and elevate the understanding of itthrough perfecting manners and harmony'. This implies the conceptions with which Chengdemonstrated the enlightening of I Ching and concludes two ways directing to I Ching byperfecting manners and harmony.Fourth, to 'approach life and nature, explicate I Ching by the mirror of history'. I observe that theway of evidencing I Ching with history is in essence explaining I Ching with Confucius' spirit inSpring and Autumn Annals ( Chun Qiu).