| Abstract |
During the Qian-Jia period, scholarship on the Classics went through a paradigm shift, from concern with metaphysics to concern with character, turning towards more concrete issues, using more linguistic methods and emphasizing rituals. For this direction in scholarship, Hui Dong’s work Yi hanxue, which used the Han Learning methods to interpret the Yijing, is one of the most important works. Hui’s explanation of the Yi, which stemmed directly from the Han, considered that Confucian scholars of that period had absorbed the personal transmission from the masters, which formed a connection to the “great meaning” and “subtle words” of the ancient sages. His earlier work, the Yi hanxue extended the Han Confucian studies of the Yi, whereas the later Zhouyi shu, moved in a new direction, towards the Han attempts to uncover original meanings through new commentaries, which led to Hui’s later works such as the Yi weiyan and the Yi dayi. We can thus see that use of the paired concepts of “great meaning” and “subtle words” was not begun by the Quanzhou scholars, but rather were already present in Hui Dong’s model of Han Learning
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