蔡清论河洛先天之学

Cai Qing's Views on the Former-heaven Theory Based on the He tu and Luo shu

蔡清对河洛之学用功颇深,就河洛问题提出了一套较为完整的独到见解。首先,将河图与太极图结合在一起来看,认为河图所展现的就是太极生阴阳五行的动态过程,赋予河图生生不息的宇宙大化流行之内涵。其次,针对河图配八卦过程中产生的矛盾,蔡清以"阴之老少主静而守其常,阳之老少主动而通其变"来解释。认为河图中蕴含着阳动阴静之妙,与天地契合,体现造化之妙用。朱熹、蔡清等人将河图、洛书视为作《易》之源,有一定的合理性,因为体现这两图本质内容的十数图和九数图在先秦即与阴阳、五行、四时以及术数皆有紧密联系。蔡清关于河图、洛书的一系列思想,既是对易学本身的发展,对探讨易学起源有一定的启发意义,同时也为宋明理学的发展做出了一定的贡献。此外,蔡清关于作《易》之源非止一端的思想,也值得予以重视。

Cai Qing (1453--1508)devoted much of his attention to the He tu (Yellow River Map)and Luo shu (Luo River Chart),on the basis of which he set forth a set of integrated insightful views.First,he viewed the He tu from the cosmology conceived in the Tai ji (Supreme Ultimate)diagram and contended that what the He tu .manifested was the dynamic course in which the Tai ji produced yin-yang and Five Agents,by which he added cosmological connotations of ceaseless production to the He tu.Second,considering the inconformity between the He tu and the eight trigrams,Cai Qing dissolved the contradiction by his view that "yin symbolized by the black dots signifies stillness and non--changes while yang symbolized by the white dots designates changes,which embodied the miraculous changes and transformations of the world.It was,to some extent,reasonable that Zhu Xi (1130--1200) and Cai Qing viewed the He tu and Luo shu as the origin of the Changes, in that the ten numbers in the He tu and the nine numbers in the Luo shu had been closely associated with yin-yang,Five Agents,four seasons,and other numerological contents in the pre-Qin (before 221B.C.E.)period.The series of views of Cai Qing related to the He tu and Luo shu can be regarded as a development of Changes scholarship,which was not only inspiring for us to discuss the origin of the Changes but also contributed to the development of the Song-Ming (960--1644) Neo-Confucianism.In addition,Cai Qing's view that the Changes had many origins was also worthy of our attention.