| Abstract |
Trigged by a passage made by Sima Tan—“to rectify Yi”—this study explores the relationship between Shi Ji and Zhou Yi. This tudy discovers that Sima Tan and Sima Qian both knew Yi well, which they learned fromYang He. Their ambition to “rectify Yi” was inspired by Confucius’ idea to explore the relationship between heaven and people; they also intended to organize various theories about Yi to assist their writing on the Six Classics. In Sima Qian’s opinion, Yi originates from Fu Xi’s drawing of hexagrams, which was rearranged by King Wen of the Zhou, and then elaborated by Confucius.This concept dominated the related studies in the Han Dynasty. Sima Qian also based on the idea of “change” to explain the characteristic nature of Yi. In Shi Ji, one reads passages such as “to discern the causes of the rise and fall [of a dynasty]” and “to make changes to excite the people”, which are consistent with the very notion of Yi. Sima Qian paid special attention to the aspect of divination in Yi. There are plenty examples in Shi Ji referring to Yi with regard to divinations and interpretations. This fact indicates that Yi incorporates the art of divination and philosophical interpretation. Among the cited examples, the inquisitive notion of “Hong Fan” (Grand Example) is utilized to observe the development of Chinese politics; the principle of change (yi) is referred to in explaining the cause and effect in the development of history.Both cases clearly show how Sima Qian referred to the principles of Zhou Yi in writing his Shi Ji. This study concludes that there presents in Zhou Yi a thorough understanding of the relationship between heaven and people, which inspires Sima Qian to seek a balance heaven and people. The issue of how Zhou Yi influenced Sima Qian deserves further studies.
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