The Early History of the Zhouyi cantong qi

Fabrizio Pregadio
Stanford University, Department of Religious Studies

Adapted from an appendix in "The Representation of Time in the Zhouyi cantong qi," in Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 8 (1995): 155-73.

Yu Fan and the "Studies on the Book of Changes"

The authorship of the Zhouyi cantong qi (Token for Joining the Three According to the Book of Changes) is traditionally attributed to Wei Boyang, a legendary character said to come from the Shangyu commandery of Guiji in present-day Zhejiang. According to the common account, Xu Congshi, a native of Qingzhou in present-day Shandong, was the first to receive the text and wrote on it a commentary. At the time of Emperor Huan of the Later Han (r. 146-167), Wei Boyang transmitted his work together with Xu's commentary to Chunyu Shutong, who also came from Shangyu and began to circulate the scripture.

While some accounts of Chunyu Shutong, as we shall see, reflect the relation of the Cantong qi to the apocrypha, its association with the Han "Studies of the Changes" (yixue) is manifest in the work of the last great representative of this tradition, Yu Fan (164-233). A descendent of the lineage that included Meng Xi (fl. 69 BCE) and Jing Fang (77-37 BCE), the two main Former Han exegetes of the Changes, Yu Fan is the first author whose work shows acquaintance with the Cantong qi. In a gloss on the character yi ("change") in the Jingdian shiwen (Lexicon of the Classics; early seventh century), he is ascribed with a reference to a sentence ("Sun and Moon make change") also found in the received text of the Cantong qi. The ambiguous wording of the gloss even leaves room for the possibility that Yu Fan wrote the earliest known independent commentary on the Cantong qi. The gloss has two possible readings:

(1) "Yu Fan's commentary to the Cantong qi says that this character is formed by the graph 'sun' with the graph 'moon' below it."
(2) "[According to] Yu Fan's commentary [to the Changes,] the Cantong qi says that this character is formed by the graph 'sun' with the graph 'moon' below it."
Jingdian shiwen (Lexicon of the Classics), 2.1a.
The punctuation implicit in the first reading, "Yu Fan's commentary on the Cantong qi says . . . ," fits the pattern of quotations in the Jingdian shiwen.

There is no mention of such a commentary in bibliographic sources, but a reference to it in one of the two Tang exegeses of the Cantong qi supports this reading. Other evidence on Yu Fan's familiarity with the Cantong qi may have been located by Suzuki Yoshijirô (1963: 602-3), who suggested that Yu Fan drew on zhang 13-15 for a passage of his commentary on the Book of Changes.

For the mention of a commentary to the Cantong qi attributed to Yu Fan see Zhouyi cantong qi (CT 999), 3.11a. Here and below, the numbers of zhang (sections) refer to Peng Xiao's redaction.

The Cantong qi and the Apocrypha

The Shuowen jiezi, a dictionary dating from the year 100 CE, attributes the same sentence alluded to by Yu Fan to a "secret text" or some "secret texts" (bishu), an apparent reference to the apocrypha (weishu.

Shuowen jiezi [Explication of the signs and analysis of the characters], 9B.18a. See the exhaustive discussion in Wang Ming 1984: 242-48.

While this sentence does not prove either that the original Cantong qi was an apocryphon attached to the Book of Changes, or that its original version dated from before the end of the first century, it is the first of several pointers to the background that the Cantong qi shares with the apocrypha. The three-character title following the name of the parent Classic, which the Cantong qi has in common with most weishu (Wang Liqi 1984), is only the most conspicuous indication in this regard. The word qi ("token"), which is also frequent in the titles of apocryphal texts, belongs to a group of near synonyms that, as Anna Seidel remarked, "assimilates the apocrypha to contracts" between Heaven and man (1983: 309). Like fu (symbolon, tally), qi sometimes designates an object, bestowed by Heaven either directly or through the mediation of a master, which grants the potentiality to communicate with Heaven. The Cantong qi is one these objects: it is said to contain no method for the compounding of elixirs, but to be itself the elixir. In the words of an early Song text, the Longhu huandan jue, "for the Reverted Elixir (huandan) there is no formula; the Jinbi jing and the Cantong qi are its formulae" (1.1a; see Sivin 1980: 249).

The Jinbi jing is preserved as the Jindan jinbi qiantong jue in j. 73 of the Yunji qiqian (ca. 1025; CT 1032). It is shorter paraphrase of the Cantong qi, marked by a tendency to replace the Cantong qi imagery with a language closer to that of alchemy. During the Song period, the Jinbi jing was re-edited and presented as the "ancient text" of the Longhu jing (Scripture of the Dragon and Tiger), which according to several accounts was the scripture that originally provided inspiration to Wei Boyang.
Connections of the Cantong qi with the apocrypha are also intimated by at least two passages in the received text. A description of the transcendence acquired by the adept (zhang 28) concludes with the line "he will obtain the Script and receive the Chart," one of several analogous expressions that in the apocrypha designate the mandate granted by Heaven to a sovereign. In a wording similar to the one found in the Cantong qi, this expression appears in the Qianzuo du, an apocryphon on the Book of Changes.
Yasui and Nakamura 1981: 48. In later times, the same expression defined the Taoist ceremony of transmission; see Seidel 1983: 308-9.
In another passage (zhang 11), the Cantong qi mentions Confucius and alludes to the initial sentences of the Classics that the apocrypha were attached to. Both features, which would hardly be expected if the Cantong qi had originated as an alchemical text, fit the context of the apocrypha, sometimes deemed to have been written by Confucius long before their supposed re-emergence in Han times.

A further, more ambiguous indication is a pun in the final section, where some characters can be rearranged to form the phrase "composed by Wei Boyang." Similar cryptograms were both a pastime of Han literati and a technique of divination documented in the apocrypha and elsewhere, but the final portions of the Cantong qi are among those most likely to have been added after the Han.

Wang Ming 1984: 247-48, discusses this passage and provides other examples drawn from apocryphal texts.

Chunyu Shutong

The tradition concerning Chunyu Shutong's role in the composition and transmission of the Cantong qi provides a clearer focus for the evidence examined above.

Unlike Wei Boyang, Chunyu Shutong is a historical character, whose connections to prognostication point to a milieu close to that which produced the apocrypha. The most elaborate account concerning him is found in Tao Hongjing's (456-536) Zhengao (Declarations of the Perfected), where he appears in a section devoted to the bureaucracy of the otherworld. According to this narrative, Chunyu was proficient in numerology (shushu) and used to ingest pills of sesame seeds and deer bamboo. At the time of Emperor Huan he was District Magistrate of Xuzhou (in present-day Jiangsu). Later, Emperor Ling (r. 168-189) appointed him General-in-Chief, but he declined the summons and went to Wu, where he received the Hongjing dan jing (Scripture of the Elixir of the Rainbow Luminosity) from the immortal Huiche zi. Tao Hongjing's own notes quote a short passage on Chunyu Shutong's life as coming from the Cantong qi, which may have appeared in a lost preface to the text or in one of its early versions. Chunyu is depicted there as a disciple of Xu Congshi, from whom he learned the art of prognostication.

Zhengao [Declarations of the Perfected; ca. 500 CE], 12.8a-b.

Chunyu Shutong's connections to the science of prediction are amplified in other works that relate his divinatory feats and make him an expert on the Book of Changes and the apocrypha. His dealings with both divination and alchemy acquire meaning in the light of the affiliations between the two disciplines, which apply the same cosmological system in different directions.

Sources on Chunyu Shutong's connections to divination are collated in Yu Jiaxi 1958: 10.1211-14. See also Wang Ming 1984: 242 n. 1.

The Cantong qi in the Six Dynasties

Although some scholars have suggested that the present-day Cantong qi was reconstructed during the Tang period (seventh-ninth centuries), there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the text was not lost after the Han period, but actually circulated in southeastern China. The Six Dynasties authors who mention the Cantong qi -- Jiang Yan (444-505), Tao Hongjing (456-536), Yan Zhitui (531-91), and possibly Ge Hong (283-343) -- either came from or were closely associated with Jiangnan, the region south of the lower Yangtze River. At that time, Jiangnan preserved a branch of the Han "Studies on the Changes" and the lore of the apocryphal texts (Strickmann 1981: 98-103). This suggests that the Jiangnan-based lineage of Yu Fan was instrumental in the preservation and transmission of the Cantong qi. The spread of alchemical practices in this area also made it an ideal soil for its transformation into a treatise on the elixirs.

The little-known tradition represented by Hugang zi may have been among those that used the Cantong qi as scriptural authority. The now fragmentary body of writings associated with this legendary alchemist contained the earliest alchemical texts largely based on metals, including lead and mercury (the two main emblematic substances in the Cantong qi). Traditions that associate Hugang zi either with Wei Boyang or with Ge Hong's line of transmission suggest a southern origin for these texts, and in the first case point to links with the Cantong qi.

Early Tang Works on the Cantong qi

A confirmation of the links between the Cantong qi and the lineage associated with Hugang zi comes from the two-juan anonymous commentary to the Cantong qi (Zhouyi cantong qi, CT 1004), which highlights methods attributed to Hugang zi. As Chen Guofu first suggested (1983: 377-78), this commentary dates from around 700 CE. A quotation from the preface of this commentary in two cognate Tang texts, to which Meng Naichang called attention (1993: 28-29), supports this indication, as also do the mentions of personal names in the commentary and the substitutions of tabooed characters.

The Cantong qi reached its present form by the early eighth century, as shown by the two-juan anonymous commentary, by the textually cognate commentary attributed to Yin Changsheng (CT 999), and by Liu Zhigu's (before 661-after 742) Riyue xuanshu lun (Essay on the Sun and the Moon, the Mysterious Axis). Liu Zhigu provides a synopsis of the Cantong qi and its first neidan interpretation. In doing so, he quotes passages found in all the three juan, or pian, of the received version.

Peng Xiao's Commentary

In the Five Dynasties, Peng Xiao (?-955) submitted the text of the Cantong qi to a substantial rearrangement. Comparison of his text with the two Tang redactions shows that the variants he introduced consist, together with the division into sections (zhang), in several inversions and relocations of lines, and in a large number of substitutions of single words.

The exact extent of these variations, however, is difficult to ascertain. This is shown in a postface written in 1208 by the astronomer Bao Huanzhi (fl. 1207-1210), which is only preserved in the Daozang edition of Peng Xiao's commentary (CT 1003). In this valuable document, which has not yet received the attention it deserves, Bao praised the redaction by Peng Xiao as the best available at his time, but noted that it was not exempt from errors, and that its divisions into sections were not always accurate. Due to later alterations, moreover, the copy preserved in the Imperial Library -- which Bao must have had access to when he worked at court -- differed from the other versions circulating by his time. Bao then goes on to remark that before him the text had been revised by Zheng Huan, but his edition included many errors. Later, he adds, Zhu Xi (1130-1200) established a better text in his Zhouyi cantong qi kaoyi (CT 1001), but his divisions into sections, as well as his commentaries, were occasionally faulty.

Bao Huanzhi's preface is found in Zhouyi cantong qi dingqi ge mingjing tu (The "Song of the Tripod" and the "Chart of the Bright Mirror" of the Zhouyi cantong qi; CT 1003), 6b-8a.

This prompted Bao Huanzhi to collate as many editions as possible of the Fenzhang tong zhenyi, and produce what he believed would be a critical edition. For the main text of the Cantong qi he based himself on Zhu Xi's redaction, while for Peng Xiao's own notes he relied on Zheng Huan's edition. He followed, however, other editions when they agreed with each other against Zhu Xi and Zheng Huan. Another rule that informed his work was to leave the main text unaltered when a passage differed from a quotation of the same passage within the commentary. Based on two examples that Bao himself provides of his alterations, Peng Xiao's original text was definitely closer to the Tang text of the Cantong qi than it is now.

Being substantially the same as the one in the Daozang, all other available editions of the Fenzhang tong zhenyi are based on Bao Huanzhi's revision, and none preserves the original text established by Peng Xiao. Further evidence of alterations is provided by a quotation from the lost commentary by Zhang Sui, who lived one century after Peng Xiao (CT 1003: 1a). The Fenzhang tong zhenyi, nevertheless, maintains its standing as a watershed between the earlier and the later redactions of the Cantong qi, for many of which it served as textual basis.

Works Quoted

Sources

Jingdian shiwen [Lexicon of the Classics; early seventh century]. Baojing tang ed., 1791.

Longhu huandan jue [Instructions on the Reverted Elixir of the Dragon and the Tiger; early Song]. CT 909.

Shuowen jiezi [Explication of the signs and analysis of the characters; 100 CE]. Ed. of 1873.

Zhengao [Declarations of the Perfected; ca. 500 CE]. CT 1016.

Zhouyi cantong qi [Token for Joining the Three According to the Book of Changes]. CT 999. [Commentary attributed to Yin Changsheng.]

Zhouyi cantong qi dingqi ge mingjing tu [The "Song of the Tripod" and the "Chart of the Bright Mirror" of the Zhouyi cantong qi]. CT 1003.

Studies

Meng Naichang. 1993. Zhouyi cantong qi kaobian [An inquiry into the Zhouyi cantong qi]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.

Seidel, Anna. 1983. "Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha." In Michel Strickmann, ed., Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of Rolf A. Stein, II: 291-371. Bruxelles: Institute Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises.

Sivin, Nathan. 1980. "The Theoretical Background of Elixir Alchemy." In Joseph Needham, Ho Ping-yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, and Nathan Sivin, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. V: Chemistry and Chemical Technology, part 4: Apparatus, Theories and Gifts, 210-305. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Strickmann, Michel. 1981. Le Taoïsme du Mao Chan: Chronique d'une révélation. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises.

Suzuki Yoshijirô. 1963. Kan Eki kenkyû [A study of the Book of Changes in the Han period]. Revised ed., Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha.

Wang Liqi. 1984. "Chenwei wulun" [Five essays on the apocrypha]. In Yasui Kôzan, ed., Shin'i shisô no sôgôteki kenkyû [Collected studies on the thought of the apocrypha], 379-94. Tokyo: Kokusho kankôkai.

Wang Ming. 1984. "Zhouyi cantong qi kaozheng" [An examination of the Cantong qi]. In Daojia he daojiao sixiang yanjiu [Studies on Taoist thought], 241-92. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe. First published in Guoli zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 19 (1948): 325-66.

Yasui Kôzan and Nakamura Shôhachi, eds. 1981. Isho shûsei [Complete collection of apocryphal texts]. Vol. 1A. Tokyo: Meitoku Shuppansha.

Yu Jiaxi. 1958. Siku tiyao bianzheng [Critical review of the descriptive notes in the Complete Texts of the Four Repositories]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.