Hexagrams and politics: Wang Bi's political philosophy 71 in the Zhouyi Zhu

Since the publication of Tang Yongtong's (Image Presented.) article in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies in 1947,1 Wang Bi (Image Presented.) (226-249) has been a main focus in Western studies of Chinese philosophy. This interest in Wang Bi is due in part to his brilliant commentaries on the Laozi (Image Presented.), the Lunyu (Image Presented.), and the Yijing (Image Presented.). It is also built on what Tang Yongtong called "the transition from cosmology to ontology," in which Wang Bi is said to have introduced a new mode of thinking known as xuanxue (Image Presented.) (Scholarly Exploration of the Mysterious Dao).2 Commonly rendered as "Neo-Daoism," xuanxue is compared to an Aristotelian ontology for its attempt to define the essence of the universe based on the dichotomy of certain key concepts: you (Image Pesented.) (being) and wu (Image Pesented.) (nonbeing), ti (Image Pesented.) (substance) and yong (Image Pesented.) (function), and yi (Image Pesented.) (one) and zhong (Image Pesented.) (many).3 These bipolar concepts, as Tang emphasizes, direct our attention from the phenomenal events surrounding us to the underlying structure or hidden pattern of the universe. While Tang's thesis has inspired a large number of works on Wang Bi's xuanxue,4 scholars tend to ignore his Yijing commentary, the Zhouyi zhu (Image Presented.). Even when they discuss the Zhouyi zhu, they do so only selectively. For instance, they pay special attention to Wang's essay "Zhouyi luüeli" (Image Presented.) and his commentary on the hexagram "Fu" (Image Pesented.) (#24), where he appears to develop an ontology of wu. They stress the Jin dynasty (265-420) commentator Han Kangbo's (Image Presented.) summary of Wang's interpretation of the concept of "da yan zhi shu" ((Image Presented.)) in the "Xici" (Image Presented.) (Appended Remarks) section of the Yijing, where Wang seems to discuss the relationship between the "one" and the "many."5 Certainly, this selective reading helps to elucidate "the transition from cosmology to ontology," thereby drawing a sharp distinction between the scholarly pursuits in the Han dynasty (206 bce-220 ce) and Wang Bi's xuanxue. Nevertheless, it does not give an account of Wang Bi's contribution to Yijing studies, nor does it explain why the Zhouyi zhu was for many centuries considered to be the standard commentary to the classic. The challenge of the Zhouyi zhu is that it does not fit Tang Yongtong's thesis. Unlike his commentary to the Laozi, Wang Bi seldom discussed the ontology of wu when interpreting the Yijing. It is particularly true of his commentary on the sixty-four hexagrams and the "Wenyan" (Image Pesented.) ,6 where his main concern was building a responsive government and a stable society.7 This political reading of the hexagrams had won him honor and fame in both medieval and late imperial China. For instance, the Tang court scholar Kong Yingda (Image Presented.) (574-648) considered him the best Yijing commentator in history because of his discussion of the art of governing.8 Likewise, the Tang exegete Li Dingzuo (Image Presented.) distinguished him from other Yijing commentators by his undivided attention on "human affairs" (renshi (Image Presented.)).9 Similarly, the Northern Song scholar Li Gou (Image Presented.) (1009-1059) applauded him for addressing "the urgent needs of state affairs" ((Image Presented.)).10 Other Northern Song exegetes, such as Sima Guang (Image Presented.) (1019-1086) and Su Shi (Image Presented.) (1037-1101), wrote new Yijing commentaries modeling after Wang's political interpretation of hexagrams.11 Certainly these scholars' views of Wang Bi reflect their interests and those of their times; but they also mean that there must be sufficient political discussion in the Zhouyi zhu to justify their views. Then, what was Wang Bi's xuanxue? Was it a philosophical pursuit that marked the transition from cosmology to ontology? Or was it a multifaceted system of thought that included philosophical and political elements? To answer these questions, in this chapter I will compare the Zhouyi zhu with the commentaries of Zheng Xuan (Image Presented.) (127-200), Xun Shuang (Image Presented.) (128-190), and Yu Fan (Image Presented.) (164-233). The goal of this comparison is twofold. First, I will locate the Zhouyi zhu in its own context. Rather than reading the Zhouyi zhu retrospectively as the beginning of xuanxue, I will show that the Zhouyi zhu was indeed a product of third-century China. Its intent, in short, was to address concrete and specific issues of the period. Second, directly answering the question about the nature of Wang Bi's xuanxue, I will demonstrate that Wang was as much a political thinker as a philosopher. I will affirm what Rudolf Wagner and Yu Dunkang (Image Presented.) have found, namely, that Wang's ontology was a political philosophy that promoted a new sociopolitical order after the fall of the Han dynasty.12. © 2010 by The State University of New York Press. All rights reserved.