Between Emulation and Resemblance: A Fundamental Inquiry into the Microcosm of the Dao of Change
This article deeply analyzes the core proposition of 'Yáo imitating Xiàng' found in the *Xici Zhuan II* of the *Zhou Yi*, distinguishing the dynamic differences between 'imitation' (xiào) and 'analogy' (xiàng), tracing the referent of 'this' (cǐ), and interpreting how Yáo-Xiàng constitutes the epistemological framework for revealing the subtle workings of the Dao within the Pre-Qin context.
II. Three Unresolved Inquiries
However, deep analysis also raises several unresolved questions worth further consideration:
The First Inquiry: The Limit of Emulation. The Yao "emulate" the movement of Heaven and Earth—but the movement of Heaven and Earth is infinite and infinitely subtle. Can sixty-four hexagrams and three hundred eighty-four lines possibly exhaust all of it$50 The Xi Ci Shang admits: "In its vastness and readiness, the Yi contains the Way of Heaven, the Way of Man, and the Way of Earth." "Vast and ready" (guǎng dà xī bèi) is an ideal declaration, but logically, can a finite symbolic system exhaust infinite cosmic change$51 This is a profound epistemological problem. Perhaps the answer is that the Yao do not seek to exhaust every detail of Heaven's movement, but rather to capture its fundamental patterns and structures—just as a mathematical formula expresses a universal quantitative relationship without listing every specific value.
The Second Inquiry: The Objectivity of Fortune and Misfortune. "Fortune and misfortune are revealed without"—are fortune and misfortune objectively "out there," or do they depend on the interpreter's subjective judgment$52 Duchess Mu’s case already implies an answer: fortune and misfortune are not inherent qualities of the hexagram image, but judgments that emerge from the interaction between the hexagram image and the concrete situation. If this is the case, then different interpreters faced with the same hexagram image might make completely different judgments of fortune and misfortune—does this mean the "objectivity" of the Zhou Yi is actually an "intersubjectivity"$53
The Third Inquiry: The Transmissibility of the Sage's Sentiment. "The sage's sentiment is manifested in the words"—but can later generations truly comprehend the sage's sentiment fully through the words$54 The Xi Ci Shang states, "Writings do not exhaust words, and words do not exhaust meaning." If words cannot exhaust meaning, then the Cí cannot completely exhaust the sage’s sentiment either. What the Cí can "manifest" (jiàn) is only one aspect of the sage's sentiment. This implies that the interpretation of hexagram and line texts is always an open process—every generation can and should discover new meaning within the Cí. This might be the fundamental reason why the Zhou Yi has retained its vitality across millennia.