| Abstract |
This paper takes a semantic approach to analyze and contrast the interpretations by scholars from Song to Qing dynasties, of the sentence “Saints wash the mind and hide in secrecy” in The Book of Changes. A special focus is on the word xi洗 and xixin 洗心. It is written as yi 佚in The Silk Book Version in the period of Emperor Wen of Han. Lu Deming (陸德明, ca. 550-630) records it as xian 先 ‘earlier’ in his Textual Explanations of Classics in the early Tang dynasty. Qing dynasty scholar Ruan Yuan (阮元, 1764-1849) makes a comprehensive verification in volume 7 of his Book of Annotations and Verifications of Zhou Yi and says “‘xi’ is recorded the same in the Stone Classic, the Yue version, and the Min, the Jian, the Mao versions; it is recorded in The Textual Explanations that ‘洗’ is only written as xian in the versions of Jing, Xun, Yu, Dong, Zhang, Shu Cai, which is the same as in the Stone Classic.” Han Kangbo (韓康伯) in Jin dynasty annotates xixin as “the mind that washes everything”; Kong Yingda (孔穎達, 574-648) in Tang dynasty succeeds and interprets it as “the mind that cleans everything” . However, xixin implies efforts and functions while xianxin signifies existence of substance. As the saying goes “The substance and the function come from the same source and there is no interstice between the explicit and the implicit,” xixin and xianxin differ in sequence but in fact have the same origin.
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