帛书《要》篇“史巫之筮”一段文字新释

A New Interpretation of a Sentence in the Yao Chapter of the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of Zhouyi

马王堆帛书《要》篇载孔子所言“史巫之筮,乡之而未也,始之而非也”,涉及孔子对“史巫之筮”的看法,对研究其易学思想有重要参考价值。其中,“乡”应读为“向”,指趋向;“之”应指代“易”;“非”和“未”都用作否定副词;“始”读为“似”指相似。句意为:史巫之筮趋向于“易”却没有达至,与“易”相似实际却不是。这是孔子对前句巫“不达于数”、史“不达于德”的进一步阐释,是在批评“史巫之筮”不存德义,而不是告诫人们不要崇尚它。

Confucius said in the Yao(Essentials)chapter of the Mawangdui silk manuscript of the Zhouyi that“[As for]the divination of historians and shamans,xiangzhi(乡之)erwei(而未),shish(始之)erfei(而非)”,which involves Confucius’views on“divination of historians and shamans”,and is an important reference for the study of his thought on the Book of Changes.In the sentence,“乡”should be read from scholars as“向”,which refers to tendency;“之”should refer to“易”(Yi);“非”and“未”are both used as negative adverbs;“始”is pronounced like“似”,which means similarity.The meaning of the sentence is:the divination of historians and shamans tends to the Changes but fails to attain to its realm;it is similar to Yi but it is not.This was Confucius’s further interpretation of the previous sentence—shamans could not understand numbers and historians could not realize(the significance of)virtues,which is criticizing historians and shamans’ignorance of virtues,rather than admonishing people not to admire them.