An Special Interrogation On Yi-ology Of The Warring States Period

The Chinese collocation "zhanguoyixue"(the Yi-ology of the Warring States period)seems to suggest that the academic study of Zhouyi was formed on the basis of the thoughts elucidated in the articles produced in this period such as Tuan,Xiang and Xici exclusively while the fact remains that Zhouyi and the notes on it is just a textual medium to propagate the scholars'new view on cosmology and system of moral metaphysics of the time under the impact of the "New Heaven" thought.With "development" as its topic,the thesis focuses on the breaks in the evolution from sorcery tradition to the Yi-ology of the Warring States period to investigate how scholars of the time linked up the broken ring and explore the purpose and significance of this act.From the perspective of literary and cultural history,the thesis proposes the hypothesis that the collation,deletion,annotation,and transmission of Zhouyi and Spring and Autumn Annals by the Confucianists of the Warring States period indicate the absorption of sorcery culture by Confucianism in the form of reorganizing the old classics left by former emperors so that a philosophical breakthrough can be achieved.This process of textual reorganization is also the transformation of sorcery tradition into Neo Confucian literatures on the Dao of Heaven,morality and ethics.My discussion thereby consists of three parts:how and why the early Confucianists turned to sorcery culture for new ideas;how come the scholars in the Warring States period turned to Zhouyi to expound and spread their thoughts and way;and the interaction between elite Yi-ology and folk divination in the late Warring States period.As early as the Western Zhou dynasty and the Spring and Autumn period,there was politically and culturally a binary opposition between the sorcerers and the noble scholars,the predecessors of the early Confucianists,who on the one hand diligently studied the sorcery culture and quoted from the scorers' classic text,Zhouyi and on the other hand,maintained their confrontation and rivalry.The paradoxical situation is a reflection of the Confucianists' mentality in the age of propriety disintegration:they were in urgent need of drawing new cultural resources in order to solve the problems of the era.An examination of the notes on Zhouyi such as Tuan and Xiang reveals that the various Confucian scholars of the Warring States period at least made two contributions:arranged the hexagrams with numerals(used 6 for a broken line and 9 for a whole line and indicated each the line with a number:base,2,3,4,5,top)and recounted the stylistic rules and the layout of the book.The first one shifts the focal point from the practice of abstracting images from observation in the sorcery tradition(a is b)to the line statements of the hexagrams determined by numerals;the second one,through the explanation of Tuan(a and or by b),raised the divinatory symbols to the level of moral metaphysics and constructed the cosmological system of Heaven,Earth and Man using the six yaos of the hexagram and the meaning of various hexagrams.Besides,Tuan and Xiang still reserve the divinity of Heaven in the classic texts of the previous emperors which shows their religious sentiment.In the background of the flourishing of New Heaven and the prosperity of folk divination,the examination of Zhouyi copied on silk and the hexagrams order in Biegua of the Qinghua Bamboo Slips from the top to the base under the control of Huigua reveals that its operation and style violate the principle of giving priority to loyalty and that a Gua can be seen from the internal and the external.This further reflects that the Confucian scholars conformed to the changing times and considered the convenience for retrieval for common folks in their objective.Meanwhile,the elite Yi-ology created the new divination and repelled the folk divination and the rivaling condition of the two forces and the trajectory of each one's development are significant ideologically and culturally.