The Yi Weft Diagram of Kun's Numinous Power: Qiu's Preface—Qian Is Heaven; Those of Perfect Virtue Occupy the Position of Son of Heaven

邱序曰：天。經曰：乾，元亨利貞。爻曰：飛龍在天，利見大人。謂易為天。經者，聖人所制作。乾有四德，飛龍在天，此聖人以至德居天子位也。序，此之言說之也。故德配天地，天地不私公位，稱之曰帝。古者聖人德如此也。不私公位，不傳之子孫，禪於能者與天同，故以天稱之也。

Qiu's preface takes “Heaven” as its title, first citing the text of the Zhouyi: the Qian hexagram, yuan, heng, li, zhen (元亨利貞); then citing the line statement of Qian's Nine in the Fifth: “The flying dragon is in Heaven; it is beneficial to see the great person.” What follows is Zheng Xuan's commentary—so-called “Heaven” means that the fundamental argument of the Changes is grounded in the Way of Heaven; “classic” refers to the Zhouyi itself, which issued from the hands of the sages. The Qian hexagram is fully equipped with the “four virtues” of yuan, heng, li, and zhen, and the line statement further says the dragon flies in Heaven: the dragon rising to Heaven's position and being seen by all under Heaven precisely symbolizes a person of the highest virtue ascending to the position of Son of Heaven. The preface marks only the single word “Heaven” in order to point this meaning out. The preface continues: for a person whose virtue can match Heaven and Earth, Heaven and Earth will not privately confer the public position of ruler upon a single surname; only such a person is fit to be called “Emperor” (Di). Zheng Xuan notes: the virtue of the sages of high antiquity was exactly thus—they did not treat the ruler's position as private property, did not transmit it to their own descendants, but abdicated it to the worthy and able. This selflessness is the same character as Heaven's covering and nurturing the ten thousand things without choosing among kin and strangers; therefore they used “Heaven” to name him. This chapter is a fragmentary text compiled from other books; the preface and Zheng's notes interweave, and in reading one must distinguish which sentence is the preface and which is the note.

故堯天之精陽，萬物莫不從者。故乾居西北，乾用事，萬物蟄伏。致乎萬物蟄伏，故能致乎萬人之化。立天之道，曰陰與陽。言堯乃天之陽精所生所成人，人化故然也。經曰：用九。堯時賢聖，為聖德化於天下，故耳天之所首之，故經以明之。

The preface says: Emperor Yao was a person transformed from Heaven's pure yang essence, and therefore none of the ten thousand things failed to follow him. This is the weft-text doctrine of “emperors generated by resonance” (gansheng di, 感生帝)—rulers are not born of ordinary wombs, but are generated by the resonance of a particular heavenly essence; Yao is matched precisely to Qian's yang essence. Zheng Xuan notes: in the Later Heaven (houtian, 後天) arrangement of the eight trigrams, Qian occupies the northwest; around the start of winter, when Qian's qi is in office, the ten thousand things together withdraw and hibernate. To be able to make the ten thousand things each return to their storehouse is also to be able to make the ten thousand people each settle into their transformation—withdrawal-and-store and moral transformation are the same function of Qian, applied once to things and once to people. The Discussion of the Trigrams in the Zhouyi says, “The Way of establishing Heaven is called yin and yang”; here this speaks of Emperor Yao as a person born and accomplished from Heaven's yang essence, the common people naturally returning and transforming under his influence. The preface then cites Qian's classic text “Use of Nine” (yong jiu, 用九). Zheng Xuan notes: when all six lines of Qian change, it is called “Use of Nine,” and its statement is “Seeing a flock of dragons without a leader: auspicious,” corresponding to Yao's age, when worthies and sages appeared together, a flock of dragons arose without contending, and each person transformed the realm with sagely virtue. Heaven therefore first regarded this reign with favor, and the Changes used this line-example of “Use of Nine” to mark it. The phrase “hence the ear of Heaven's putting it first” is already fragmentary and corrupt; “ear” is likely a redundant character or a graphic error. The base text is thus; it is not conjecturally emended, but only read according to the sense.

經曰：震下乾上，無妄，天精起。起，猶立。乾為天，震為長子。天生長子，聖人立為天子。天下之人各得所天所獲無妄也。帝必有洪水之災，天生聖人使殺之。故言乃統天也。初九，震在子，坎為水，又年與艮同體，艮為山，是大水為人害，天故生聖君堯求命之，是亦堯辜也，與乾統天之功同。

The weft text cites the Zhouyi: the lower body is Zhen, the upper body is Qian; this is the hexagram Wu Wang (無妄, No Errancy), and its omen is “Heaven's essence arises”—the essence of Heaven arises, signaling that a true-mandate sovereign is about to establish a state. Zheng Xuan notes: “arises” means to be established. Qian symbolizes Heaven, Zhen symbolizes the eldest son; Qian above and Zhen below, the hexagram image is that Heaven has given birth to an eldest son, and the sage, answering this image, receives Heaven's Mandate and is established as Son of Heaven. The people of the realm each have that on which they rely (“that which is Heaven to them” means the ruler-father on whom they depend), and what they obtain is all genuine and not false; hence the name “No Errancy.” The weft text further says: an emperor who receives the Mandate will necessarily meet the disaster of a flood; Heaven therefore sends down a sage to level this water calamity, and so the Commentary on the Judgments says of Qian that it “thereupon rules Heaven.” Zheng Xuan notes: taking the first line, Nine at the Beginning, of Wu Wang, Zhen in the twelve earthly hours belongs to Zi, and the Zi position governs water; Kan also governs water; its year is also of the same body as Gen, and Gen symbolizes mountain—water overflowing the mountains is precisely the image of a great flood harming the human world. According to the weft-text meaning of disasters and anomalies, when Heaven sends down a great flood, the fault is charged to the ruler; therefore Heaven specially sent down the sage-ruler Yao, that he might request the Mandate from Heaven and go to govern it, and this flood was thus counted against Yao's name for him to bear. The merit of his successfully relieving the disaster is of the same rank as Qian's virtue of “ruling Heaven.” In this passage the phrase “its year is also of the same body as Gen” has omissions and corruptions; the character “year” is suspected to be an error for another character. The base text is thus, and no correction is supplied.

邱括義因象助類辭曰：天無雲而雷。先王，以茂對時，育萬物。茂勉也。對遂育長也。天之將雨，先必與雲而後雷，今乾在上，下無坎而有震，是以雷行天下，無雲而雷。洪水之時人苦雨之多。故堯於是茂勉，遂其教令以養萬物。以是眾庶艱食，得以餬口焉。

Qiu sums up the hexagram's meaning and, following the hexagram image, derives statements of the same class, saying: this is the image of thunder sounding in a cloudless Heaven. What is cited is the Great Image commentary of Wu Wang—“The former kings, by flourishing correspondence with the seasons, nurtured the ten thousand things.” Zheng Xuan notes: “flourishing” (mao) means to exert effort; “correspondence” (dui) means to follow along; “nurture and grow” means to rear so as to make them grow. When Heaven is about to rain, clouds must first arise and then thunder; now the upper body of Wu Wang is Qian, and the lower body is not Kan, which governs rain, but Zhen, which governs thunder; therefore there is only the sound of thunder traveling under Heaven, becoming the image of thunder without clouds. The human affair that answers this image is: in the age of the flood the people suffered from too much rain; what was most needed then was not further rainfall, but that the rain should stop and agriculture be raised. Therefore Emperor Yao at this time exerted himself, following the agricultural seasons in issuing teachings and ordinances to nurture the ten thousand things. Precisely when the common people were short of food, they depended on these ordinances to scrape a living. Taking “thunder that does not become rain” as the image, and “urging agriculture and relieving famine” as the correspondence, is the regular method by which weft texts infer correspondences from hexagram images.

經曰：乾下艮上，大畜。天災將至，預畜而待之，人免於餓，故曰元亨。按《乾元序制記》，內賢子孫，繼世而立……云云，疑此處註文。下皆通，各載其性，故曰利貞。載之時，言得值也。言待堯養萬物，將歲不餓長幼，情性人自各，得如此也。

The weft text cites the Zhouyi: Qian below and Gen above is the hexagram Da Xu (大畜, Great Accumulation). Zheng Xuan notes: when a heavenly disaster is about to arrive, one stores grain in advance in order to wait and meet it; the people are thereby spared from hunger, and so the hexagram statement calls it “yuan heng”—greatly penetrating. Below this is inserted a collator's note: according to the Record of Qian's Primordial Sequence and Institutions there are words such as “inner worthies and descendants established in successive generations,” and one suspects that commentary from another chapter has been mixed in here—this remark comes from the compiler, not from the weft text itself; it is still recorded as it stands to preserve the old state. Conditions below can all communicate upward, and the ten thousand things each bear and fulfill their own natures, so the hexagram statement also says “li zhen”—beneficial to hold to correctness. Zheng Xuan notes: “bear” (zai) speaks of the timing, meaning one happens to meet this moment; the whole sentence says that it all depended on Emperor Yao's storing grain and nurturing the people, so that even in a barren year the old and the young need not go hungry, and each person's temperament finds its ease—only thus could this be reached. Looking at the hexagram image: Da Xu has Gen above as mountain and as stopping, Qian below as Heaven and as vigor; vigor that can stop is precisely the image of accumulating and awaiting the time. The weft text matches this to Yao's policy of preparing against famine, speaking of the correspondence that if one prepares before disaster, one obtains blessing.

至德之萌，五星若連珠，日月如合璧。天精起，■（豆斗）口有位，雞鳴斗運，行復始，莫敢當之。黃星笰於北斗，必以戊巳日，其先無芒。行文元武動，事莫之敢距。

When the first sprout of a ruler of perfect virtue about to arise appears, such star-images will show in Heaven: the five planets of Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth form a single line, like pearls strung together; the sun and moon share the same degree and shine together, like two jade disks joined. “Five planets strung as pearls” and “sun and moon joined as jade disks” are the most weighty auspicious tokens of receiving the Mandate in the weft texts, answering exclusively to a change of dynasty and surname and the establishment of a new king. Heaven's essence arises, and at a certain “mouth” there is then the location of the imperial position—here the base text has an inked blank, with the two characters for “bean” and “dipper” proposed beside it as the graphic shape; the character is no longer identifiable, and is suspected to concern the Northern Dipper or the Dipper lodge; it is not conjecturally supplied. At the hour of the cock's crow the Northern Dipper turns, its movement beginning again from the start, and none under Heaven dares to match it. A yellow star-qi brushes past the Northern Dipper (“fu” means to wipe or to cover), and it necessarily appears on a Wu day or a Ji day (the base text's si should be ji; Wu and Ji belong to Earth, Earth's color is yellow, of the same qi as the yellow star), and before it appears it does not carry rays. Thereafter cultured virtue circulates, and the northern lodge of the Dark Warrior (Xuanwu; “Yuanwu” is a later printed substitution to avoid a taboo) is set in motion. Once the image that governs arms is in motion, none under Heaven dares resist the affairs of the realm. The whole passage speaks of the celestial tokens verifying a change of dynasty and the receiving of the Mandate: the five planets and the sun and moon govern the circulation of virtue; the Northern Dipper governs the issuing of government; the yellow star and Wu-Ji govern Earth's virtue coming to kingship. Together they are the correspondence of a new king receiving the Mandate, whom none can withstand.

《坤靈圖》云，伏羲立九部而民。《易理》又云，蠶陽者火，火惡水，故食不飲。桑者土之液，木生火，故蠶以三月葉類會五黑龍■白龍陵，故泰人有命。鄭康成云：陵當為除。今皆無其文，蓋此本非完書，且有錯人《乾元序制記》篇內者。

This passage is lost text of the Diagram of Kun's Numinous Power compiled by the collator from other books, appended at the end of the juan to illustrate the incompleteness of the present recension. The Diagram of Kun's Numinous Power says: Fuxi established nine official departments and thereafter governed the people—this traces the system of offices back to Fuxi, taking the numbers of the Way of Kun, “the earth divided into nine wilds, offices established as nine departments,” which accords with this book's purpose of founding its discourse on the Way of Earth. The Principles of the Changes further says: the silkworm in the Five Phases belongs to yang, yang is Fire, Fire detests Water, and therefore the silkworm eats only mulberry leaves and does not drink water; mulberry is born of the juices in the earth, and Wood can also generate Fire, so the silkworm thrives by eating leaves in the third month. The following sentence, “meeting of the class of five black dragons [blank] white dragon ling,” has an inked blank and missing characters in the base text; the sense is no longer recoverable. The general meaning seems to be that the images of the black dragon and the white dragon meet, and therefore the people of Tai obtain Heaven's Mandate. Zheng Kangcheng is Zheng Xuan; his collator's note says: the character ling should be chu, “to remove.” At the end the compiler says: these sentences can no longer be found in the present recension, probably because this recension is not a complete book, and moreover there are portions wrongly entered into the Record of Qian's Primordial Sequence and Institutions chapter (“wrong person” should be “wrongly entered”; a graphic error in the base text). Reaching this point one should understand: the original Yi Weft Diagram of Kun's Numinous Power has long been lost; what is seen today is only fragments compiled from old compilations such as the Yongle Encyclopedia. The beginning and end do not cohere, and places where the classic text and the commentary are confused are many; it must not be read as a complete original book.