龟卜筮占的递兴与《易》卦符号的性质

The Switch of Flourish from Tortoise Shells to Yarrow Stalks Oracle and the Quality of the Symbols of the Hexagrams

先民信奉的术数有天启与人为之別。天启是消极被动地等待"天垂象,示吉凶",人为则是以卜筮"决嫌疑,定犹豫"。龟卜繁难,筮占简易。殷人尚卜与周人用筮,实为不同民族的稽疑习惯。周人受封于商,殷周始有文化往来,而周人迁岐之后,殷人之龟卜乃行于周邦,但周人仍以筮占为主。周朝开国立基,依其传统的稽疑之法编纂筮书,称之为《易》,其命名之朔,正是着眼于龟卜的繁难与筮占的简易。而《周易》卦爻辞乃旧有之象占、星占及筮占甚至龟卜之辞的鸠合与改编,具有相当程度的加工与润色。六十四卦卦画符号的原初功能就是"纪数"与"检索"。内"贞"外"悔"的爻辞顺序,也是针对六十四卦卦画绝大多数皆可"表里视之,遂成两卦"所作的规定。因此,《易》之所以名"易",一是相对龟卜而言,筮占简单容易;二是筮书编成之后,卦画符号具有方便的检索功能。而各种不同的筮法,皆可视为筮书的不同检索方式。

The oracles believed by ancient people can be attributed to revelation and man＇s endeavors. The former passively resorts to heavenly figures from which good fortune and bad are seen and the latter to divination by cracks on tortoise shells or images from yarrow stalks. The process of divination by tortoise shells is complicated and that by yarrow stalks simple. The Yin { c. 1300-1046 BCE, lat- er period of the Shang dynasty [ 1600-1046 BCE] } people uphold tortoise shells mode and the Zhou people yarrow stalks, actually be- ing two different national divinatory habits. The Zhou people were subinfeudated by the Shang （ 1600-1046 BCE） and the cultural in- tercourse between them started till the Yin period. After the Zhou people moved to Mount Qi area, the tortoise shells divinatory mode still prevails in the original State Zhou area yet the Zhou people also mainly take use of the form of yarrow stalks. Since the establish- ment of the Zhou dynasty （ 1046-256 BCE） , the Zhou people began to compile a divinatory book according to their divinatory tradi- tion, called the Yi （ lit. easy or simple, generally rendered as ＂ Change＂ later） , the appellation of which in the outset stresses the simplicity of the yarrow stalks form in contrast to the complexity of tortoise shells mode. The primary function of the 64 hexagrams was to record numbers and search. The arrangement of the line statements with Zhen 贞 （ lit. , chasteness） in the inner trigram and Hui （ lit. repentance） in the outer trigram aims to manifest the inversion of a hexagram can form another hexagram. Therefore, the naming of Yi is on one hand to disclose the simplicity of the yarrow stalks form in contrast to that of tortoise shells and on the other hand to reveal the simplicity of searching of the hexagrams after the compilation of the divinatory book. But the variety of divinatory methods can all be regarded as different modes of searching.