Study On Liu Yuan’s Yi-ology From The Perspective Of Xian-tian And Hou-tian

Liu Yuan (1768-1855), is from Shuang Liu, Si Chuan Province, renowned as Tutor Huai-Xuan, and he is the founder of Huai-Xuan school. During his time as a tutor, he venerates Confucianism, tries to eliminate sectarianism, and mixes Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. His grandson, Liu Xianxin summarized that Liu Yuan is focused on to analyze the difference between Xian-tian and Hou-tian, and Xian-tian is on a superiority position. Xian-tian and Hou-tian is the principal line of Liu Yuan’s academic ideology, and my dissertation is also based on this principal line. The "Introduction" part give a brief introduction on Liu Yuan’s life and his books, besides this part, my dissertation contains following four chapters.Chapter One:Liu Yuan’s Yi-ology on Xian-tian and Hou-tian. This chapter tries to analyze the meaning of Xian-tian and Hou-tian, the difference between them and the significance of them. In Liu Yuan’s idea, the difference between Xian-tian and Hou-tian is based on the difference on its’referent——including both nature (before materialized) and artificial (materialized). The difference between "nature" and "artificial" is not only on whether materialized or not, but also on the state of mind which almost ignore time factor.Chapter Two:Zhou Yi originates from Taiji. In Liu Yuan’s idea, the body of Taiji is Xian-tian, which is formed by Yin-Yang. The fluxion of Taiji is the fluxion of Yin-Yang, which produce the eight divinatory symbols and all things on earth, and this is Hou-tian.Chapter Three:The implication of Xian-tian and Hou-tian in divinatory symbols. Liu Yuan believed both Fuxi’s eight divinatory symbols and Wenwang’s eight divinatory symbols contain Xian-tian and Hou-tian. Qian and Kun are Xian-tian symbols while Kan and Li are Hou-tian symbols. The difference of composition in those four symbols means the difference of nature and emotion in them.Chapter Four:An anlysis on the purport of Hou-tian change into Xian-tian. After the above three chapters, Liu Yuan’s view turned into the promotion of the mind, that is to leave Hou-tian to return to Xian-tian, which means to get rid of selfish while becoming civilized. In the academic field, the process is to reverence true nature and to analyze questions from the view of nature. In this way, Liu Yuan’s ideology could eliminate sectarianism.