Wang Bi's Taoist Interpretation of the Book of Changes

東漢末嚴守家法，強調詞韋訓詁的解經模式漸趨式微，形成諸子學復興，為魏晉新思潮創造良好契機。王粥注《老》，並將諸子學注入經學，輔以新生命。在《易》《老》會通的方向上，王粥將拘泥於象數的解《易》風氣朝義理層面作一轉向，提出「得象而忘言」、「得意而忘象」的詮釋觀點，越過象數，直探《易》之義理本身。王獨對《周易》義理方面之詮釋，主要是透過老、莊思想而進行。這不但體現了王粥個人的詮釋特色，同時也具體閻明了魏晉易老莊三玄合一的趨勢。王粥的《周易》詮釋是在易、道之間，以雙向詮釋的脈絡進行。即一方面「以道解易」，援引道家重要思想以入易：男方面又「以易明道」 ， 在《周易》 義理詮釋中，呼應道家思想。由易、道之間的雙向詮釋 ， 進而開展出「道易一 體」的理論思維。在「以道解《易》」中 ， 王粥一方面將《老子》「 有」、「無」一對範疇由宇宙發生及本原論層面，轉化至本體論層面，再以本體論層面的「有 J 、「無」引 進《周易》， 並賦予其形上思維。王粥以「有」、「無」詮釋《易》的占益方法，一方面藉《易》以顯其形上思想，同時也是對《易傳》中所涵具的《老子》形上思想的嶄新呈現。王粥「以道解《易》」， 除了藉道家的形上思維以充實其理論建構外，也借助於道家的生活智慧及其對現實社會的敏銳洞察。在「以易明道」方面，王粥一方面由以理統眾，一爻之為主的觀點詮釋《周易》， 其中所涵蘊的以寡統眾之形上觀，恰是呼應了老子尚寡、顯微的形上思想； 其次，則是透過闡發《周易》的時、位觀而呼應黃老重時變的思想。In the near end of the Later Han period, the academic tradition maintained by factional succession which emphasized its own style of the lexical and phraseological explications on the canonical texts was gradually declining. This historical tendency revived the studies on the texts of the Hundred schools, facilitating a new tide of the Wei-Jin thought. Wang Bi's commentary on the Laozi brought the learning of the Hundred schools into the domain of the canonical studies, and contributed to its revival. In his cross-annotating work of the Laozi and the Book of Changes, Wang Bi transformed the interpretative style of the Book of Changes which used to consist of an unduly focus on mathematical and symbolic aspects of the canon, into in-depth analysis of its meanings. In this interpretative transformation, his new perspective on the interpretation of the Book of Changes, can be summarized by a phrase: “Words will be forgotten in acquiring a hexagram, and the hexagram will be forgotten in acquiring its meaning.” In this interpretative work, what he attempted was to overcome the limitation which was inevitably brought by traditional interpretative attitude unduly focusing on the mathematical and symbolic aspects of the canonical texts. Wang Bi's interpretation of the meaning of the Book of Changes was attained mainly on the basis of his understanding of the Laozi and the Zhuangzi. His inclusion of the two texts reveals the characteristic of Wang Bi's own interpretation and represents the tendency of the synthesizing of the texts of the three esoteric learnings, i.e., the Book of Changes, the Laozi and the Zhuangzi during the Wei-Jin period. In his cross-interpretation of the Book of Changes and Taoist tenet, Wang Bi, on the one hand, incorporated the major concepts of Taoism into his interpretation on the Book of Changes. On the other, he in turn elucidated the significance of the Way with the help of the concepts in the Book of Changes. This strongly suggests that his interpretation of the Book of Changes was crystallized in his reflection of Taoism. It is owing to his cross-interpretation of the Book of Changes and Taoism that Wang Bi could develop his theoretical thinking concerning the unification of the Change (i.e., yi) and the Way. In his interpretation of the Book of Changes with the concept of the Way, he shifted the locus of the discourse concerning the pair of categorical concepts, e.g. being (you) and nothingness (wu) in the Laozi from cosmogony and etiology to ontology, and, then, in turn, incorporated the ontological concepts of being and nothingness into his work on the Book of Changes, which invested his work with a metaphysical foundation. By utilizing the concepts of being and nothingness in his interpretation on the method of the divination, Wang Bi allows the Book of Changes to demonstrate not only its metaphysical thought, but also a new aspect of the Laozi's metaphysical thought which had been also originally contained in the thought of the Book of Changes. Wang Bi's incorporation of the Taoist tenets into his annotation on the Book of Changes is not limited to his theoretical efforts of constructing a metaphysical framework of his annotation. Wang Bi also owed to the Taoist work both the wisdom for daily life and the insight into realistic society. Concerning his argument of “elucidating the Way with the help of the Book of Changes,” Wang Bi, first, adopted an interpretative method that pays particular attention to an element in a hexagram, which supports the idea of “ruling a multitude by grasping a few.” This adequately matched Laozi's esoteric metaphysical thought that also emphasized the importance of a few. And second, in its elucidation of the concept of time and position in the Book of Changes, Wang Bi's argument was also in accordance with Huang-Lao's advocacy of appropriate change and transition in the course of time. In sum, in his synthesis of the Way and the Change, Wang Bi combined the thoughts of the Laozi, the Zhuangzi and the Book of Changes together in their viewpoints about word, meaning, and symbol. Moreover, Wang Bi's method for interpreting canonical texts, which advocated “forgetting words in obtaining a hexagram” and “forgetting the hexagram in a acquiring meaning,” gave a profound impact on the commentary work of the Zhuangzi by Guo Xiang