A Discussion of the Order of the Hexagrams and Symbols of the Shanghai Museum Chu Bamboo Manuscript of the Book of Changes--A Reflection on Pu Maozuo’s Research on the Chu Bamboo Manuscript of the Book of Changes

二○○三年十二月《戰國楚竹書(三)》發表了迄今可見最早的一部《周易》──「楚竹書《周易》」，學界觸目。其書今存總五十八簡，涉及三十四卦內容，共一千八百零六字，其中合文三、重文八，又二十五個卦畫。〈釋文考釋〉的作者濮茅左對竹簡中留存的符號歸納分析，認為先秦楚竹書《周易》中存在著另一種與今本不同的卦序。此說發表後，便成為竹書《周易》面世以來最重要的發明成果。其後數年間雖陸續有人提出不同的看法，然至二○○六年底，濮氏新發表上下兩大冊《楚竹書〈周易〉研究》，就初說修訂增益，大抵仍維持原來主張；可見此一問題，學界迄今似尚未獲一致定論。本文作者指出濮氏別有卦序之說，必須由「非覆即變」、「陰陽轉化」、「諸簡一體」三項論述相須結合，才有成立的可能。然此三項立論，如落實簡文檢驗，都不無可商之處，故據見存於竹簡的符號而言，尚難推定簡本另有異於今本的卦序存在。With the publication of the Warring States Chu Bamboo Manuscripts, Vol. 3 in December 2003, the earliest known edition of the Book of Changes has captured the attention and imagination of scholars. This manuscript consists of 58 bamboo slips containing parts of 34 hexagrams for a total of 1,806 characters (of which three are combinations of two characters, eight are marks indicating the repetition of the previous character, and 25 are representations of hexagrams). According to an analysis of the symbols used in the bamboo manuscripts by Pu Maozuo, the order of the hexagrams in this version is different from the one seen in the transmitted version of the Book of Changes. This argument is, to date, the most important research to be done based on the bamboo manuscript of the Book of Changes. And while there have been a number of divergent views put forward in the past several years, a review of Pu’s two volume work Research on the Chu Bamboo Manuscript of the Book of Changes published in 2006 shows that he has basically stuck to his original view, albeit with some revision and further elaboration. As such, it would appear that no consensus has been reached by scholars on this question as of the present. In this paper, we will point out that Pu’s assertion that the bamboo manuscript represents an alternative arrangement of the hexagrams depends on three assumptions, namely that hexagrams form pairs either based on a inversion of their order or on an reversal of all six lines of a particular hexagram (非覆即變), the idea that this text represents the incorporation of a theory of yin and yang into the philosophy Book of Changes (陰陽轉化), and that all of these bamboo slips originate from the same version (諸簡一體). However, as we shall show, given the evidence available to us today, each of these three assumptions is not without their problems. Therefore, based on the symbols used on these bamboo slips, we argue that it is impossible to determine whether they represent an ordering of the hexagrams different from the one used in the transmitted version of the Book of Changes