Further Discussion on the Issue of the Ancient and the New Texts of the Zhouyi 1

Abstract After the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.), when interpreting or discussing the Zhouyi , Confucian scholars tend to focus on the issue of the Ancient Text (written with the calligraphies popular in the pre-Qin before 221 B.C.E. period) and New Text (written with the lishu calligraphy prevalent in the Han dynasty) traditions as a point of departure. As a matter of fact, there are many misunderstandings in these exegeses. Despite of the “burning of the books” (213 B.C.E.) by the Qin dynasty (221–206 B.C.E.), the Confucian Changes were transmitted without break, when there were only disputes between different family approaches or between different schools rather than disputes purely over the issue of the ancient and new texts. Yang Xiong’s (53 B.C.E.–18 C.E.) remarks in his Fayan ( Imitation of the Analects of Confucius ) try to demonstrate that the lost Changes , obtained by the woman in Henei during the reign of Emperor Xuan (74–49 B.C.E.) belonged to ancient text, it seems the account was actually taken out of context. What the “Arts and Literature Treatise” in Hanshu ( History of the Western Han 206 B.C.E.–8 C.E.) says—that “only Fei Zhi’s text of the Changes is the same as the ancient text”—means that the number of characters in Fei’s text is the same as that of the ancient text, without any missing, rather than Fei’s text was always transmitted with ancient characters. The booklist including Meng Xi’s (fl. c. 50 B.C.E.) Changes referred to in the preface by Xu Shen (c. 58–c. 147) to his Shuowen jiezi ( Explanation of Simple and Composite Characters ) signifies that some characters cited from these books are in alignment with their ancient meanings and conform to the original meanings when Cang Jie and Shi Zhou were inventing the characters.