HERITAGE AND IMPROVEMENT:FROM WANG BI’S ZHOUYI ZHU TO CHENG YI’S ZHOUYI CHENGSHI ZHUAN

Abstract

Main goal: Cheng Yi, like most neo-Confucian scholars in the Song Dynasty, was deeply influenced by Wang Bi’s thoughts on “Yi-ology”. The two scholars were very similar in their interpretation of the text of the “Book of Changes”. Both of them are renowned scholars of “Yi Li” school (or meaning-pattern) in which scholars study philosophical problems of the “Book of Changes”. We all know that Cheng Yi was a Confucian scholar. However, Wang Bi’s thought
was derived from Taoism. The hermeneutic method of “Zhouyi Zhu”(Wang Bi’s annotation of the “Book of Changes”) was inherited by Cheng Yi and removed the Taoist thought contained in this book.Cheng Yi absorbed Wang Bi’s thought and wrote the “Zhouyi Chengshi Zhuan” (Cheng Yi’s annotation of the “Book of Changes”). This paper will elaborate on aspects which Cheng Yi had absorbed Wang Bi’s thoughts and particularize improvements, which made by Cheng Yi, on Wang Bi’s “Yi-ology”.