Chapter Eleven: A Survey and Reassessment of Interpretations by Earlier Scholars

I. Zheng Xuan's Interpretation

Zheng Xuan, the great Han-dynasty classical scholar who drew on both image-and-number and moral-philosophical approaches in his study of the Yi, left commentary on this chapter that is largely lost. But glimpses survive through Kong Yingda's Zheng Yi:

Zheng Xuan glossed ze as "mixed/miscellaneous" (za), emphasizing the surface aspect — the manifold variety of the myriad things. This gloss highlights the surface meaning of ze — intricate complexity — but relatively neglects its deeper meaning: recondite hiddenness.

II. Han Kangbo's Interpretation

Han Kangbo, continuing Wang Bi's moral-philosophical line, commented:

"Ze refers to principles that are recondite and difficult to perceive. Through deliberation and comparison, their changes and transformations are brought to completion."

Han's gloss directly elevates ze to the level of "principle" (li) — not merely "tangled and hard to see" but "recondite principles." This interpretation set the direction for the later moral-philosophical school.

III. Kong Yingda's Interpretation

Kong Yingda's Zhouyi Zhengyi offers a thorough subcommentary:

"'The sage has the means' says that the sage possesses wondrous principle by which to perceive the utmost principle of deep profundity under heaven. 'Fashioning likenesses of their forms and appearances' means using this principle of deep profundity to estimate the forms and appearances of things. 'Imaging what is fitting for each thing' means that when the sage drew the hexagrams, he imaged what was fitting for the myriad things. 'Therefore these are called xiang' means that because they image the forms and appearances of the myriad things, they are called xiang."

Kong's subcommentary is characteristically meticulous and systematically layered, clarifying the logical relationships of the text with great care. Its limitation is over-rationalization — he interprets "perceive" as "perceive by means of wondrous principle" and ze as "utmost principle," which is already at some distance from the pre-Qin original sense of "intuitive insight."

IV. Cheng Yi's Interpretation

Cheng Yi's Yichuan Yi Zhuan does not directly comment on the Xi Ci Zhuan, but his method of interpreting hexagrams and lines everywhere reflects his understanding of this chapter. A core principle of Cheng Yi's approach to the Yi is "substance and function share a single source; the manifest and the subtle are without gap" (ti yong yi yuan, xian wei wu jian — from his preface to the Yi Zhuan). This is another way of expressing the relationship between ze and xiang: the deep principle (subtle/ze) and the outward image (manifest/xiang) are two faces of the same reality, "sharing a single source" with "no gap" between them.

Cheng Yi's reading of each hexagram begins with the hexagram image (substance, xiang), proceeds to analyze the auspiciousness and inauspiciousness of line statements (function, yao), and concludes with a moral-philosophical lesson. This method of interpretation fully accords with the logical sequence of "perceiving profundity → fashioning images → observing convergence → determining auspiciousness and inauspiciousness."

V. Zhu Xi's Interpretation

Zhu Xi's Zhouyi Benyi comments on this chapter:

"Xiang includes the upper and lower bodies of the hexagram, as well as the statements appended by the Duke of Zhou. This says that the sage in creating the Yi took images that already existed and appended statements to them."

Zhu Xi's interpretation has one important characteristic: he emphasizes "taking images that already existed" (yin yi you zhi xiang) — the sage did not create images out of nothing; rather, because images already existed in heaven and earth (that is, the outward manifestations of ze), the sage merely discovered and expressed them. This view is consistent with our earlier analysis: xiang is not a subjective construction but an objective discovery.

Zhu Xi also particularly emphasized the divinatory function of the Zhouyi. In his Yixue Qimeng he stated: "The Yi is fundamentally a book of divination." In his view, "appending statements to determine what is auspicious or inauspicious" is the Yi's original purpose; moral-philosophical meaning is derived from divination, not the reverse. Though this position has been criticized by some later scholars, from the standpoint of the Yi's actual situation in high antiquity, Zhu Xi's judgment has merit.

VI. Wang Fuzhi's Interpretation

Wang Fuzhi (Chuanshan), the great Confucian of the late Ming and early Qing, in his Zhouyi Neizhuan and Zhouyi Waizhuan, achieved a philosophical distillation of the Yi of exceptional depth. On this chapter, Wang Fuzhi particularly emphasized the ontological status of dong:

"The movements of all under heaven cannot be exhausted from any single vantage." (Zhouyi Waizhuan, juan 5)

In Wang Fuzhi's view, "the movements of all under heaven" is the fundamental mode of existence of the cosmos — it is not that there is first stillness and then movement, but that movement itself is the most fundamental reality. Ze is not a static structure separate from dong; rather, dong itself intrinsically contains ze (order).

This interpretation performs a crucial reversal of the relationship between ze and dong: it is not that structure (ze) comes first and change (dong) follows, but that change (dong) itself contains order (ze). This "movement-as-root" position stands in sharp contrast to the Cheng-Zhu school's "principle-as-root" position, and has provided important intellectual resources for subsequent Chinese philosophical inquiry.