Jing Fang's Yijing Commentary: Upper Volume
京氏易傳卷上
Jing Fang's Yijing Commentary: Upper Volume
京氏易傳卷上
Qian Palace: Hexagram Qian (The Creative)
乾宮·乾卦
純陽用事。象配天，屬金。與坤為飛伏，居世。 〈〈壬戌土，癸酉金。〉〉 《易》云：「用九，見群龍無首，吉」。 〈〈純陽，用九之德。〉〉 九三，三公為應，肖乾乾、夕惕之憂。 甲壬配外內二象， 〈〈乾為天地之首，分甲壬入乾位。〉〉
Pure yang governs this hexagram. Its image corresponds to Heaven; its element is Metal. It pairs with Kun as its flying-hidden complement, occupying the generational position. [Commentary: Ren-xu Earth, Gui-you Metal.] The Yijing says: 'Using nine: seeing a group of dragons without a head is auspicious.' [Commentary: Pure yang -- the virtue of 'using nine.'] The nine in the third place: the Three Dukes correspond to it, embodying the anxiety of 'diligent through the day, vigilant through the evening.' Jia and Ren are assigned to the outer and inner trigrams. [Commentary: Qian is the head of Heaven and Earth, so Jia and Ren are distributed to the Qian position.]
京房 (Jing Fang): Jing Fang (京房, 77-37 BC) was a Han dynasty Yijing scholar who developed an elaborate system of hexagram interpretation incorporating the Five Phases (五行), heavenly stems and earthly branches (天干地支), astronomical correlations (二十八宿), and bureaucratic cosmology. His system became the foundation of the '象數 (image and number)' school of Yi studies.
The Jingfang Yizhuan organizes the 64 hexagrams into eight 'palaces' (宮), each headed by one of the eight primary trigrams. Each palace contains eight hexagrams showing progressive transformation through line changes. This structure -- unique to Jing Fang -- maps hexagram changes onto seasonal cycles, bureaucratic hierarchies, and celestial phenomena.
飛伏 (fei fu, 'flying and hidden'): a technical term in Jing Fang's system where each hexagram has a 'flying' (manifest) component and a 'hidden' (latent) complement. For Qian (all yang), the hidden complement is Kun (all yin). 世 (shi, 'generational position') indicates which line represents the 'ruler' of the hexagram in divination practice.
The double angle-bracket annotations 〈〈...〉〉 are commentary by Lu Ji (陸績, 187-219 AD) of the Wu kingdom, who annotated Jing Fang's original text. These explain the correlative cosmology underlying each hexagram's associations.
Qian Palace: Five Phase Correspondences
乾宮·五行配象
積算起己巳火，至戊辰土，周而復始。 〈〈吉凶之兆，積年起月，積日起時，積時起卦入本宮。〉〉 五星從位起鎮星， 〈〈土星入西方，麗西北，居壬戌為伏位。〉〉 參宿從位起壬戌， 〈〈壬戌在世，居宗廟。〉〉 建子起潛龍， 〈〈十一月冬至，一陽生。〉〉 建巳至極，主亢位。 〈〈四月龍見於辰，陽極陰來，吉去凶生，用九吉。〉〉
Calculation begins from Ji-si Fire, to Wu-chen Earth, cycling back to the beginning. [Commentary: The signs of fortune and misfortune -- from accumulated years derive months, from accumulated days derive hours, from accumulated hours derive hexagrams entering the original palace.] The five planets begin from the Saturn position. [Commentary: Saturn enters the west, connects to the northwest, residing at Ren-xu as the hidden position.] The Shen constellation begins from Ren-xu. [Commentary: Ren-xu is in the generational position, residing at the ancestral temple.] At the establishment of Zi, the 'hidden dragon' begins. [Commentary: The eleventh month, winter solstice -- the first yang is born.] At the establishment of Si, it reaches its extreme, governing the 'overreaching' position. [Commentary: In the fourth month, the dragon appears at the chen position. Yang reaches its extreme, yin arrives. Good fortune departs, misfortune arises. Using nine is auspicious.]
This passage maps the Qian hexagram onto multiple correlative systems simultaneously: the sexagenary cycle (干支), the five planets, the twenty-eight lunar mansions (二十八宿), the twelve months, and the hexagram line statements. This multi-layered mapping is the essence of Han dynasty correlative cosmology -- everything in the cosmos is interconnected through systematic correspondences.
Qian Palace: Hexagram Gou (Encountering)
乾宮·姤卦
陰爻用事。金木互體，天下風行曰姤。姤，遇也。《易》曰：「陰遇陽。」 〈〈一陰初生，陽氣猶盛，陰未為敵。〉〉 與巽為飛伏，元士居世。
A yin line governs. Metal and Wood form the interlinked body. Wind moving beneath Heaven: this is Gou. Gou means 'encountering.' The Yijing says: 'Yin meets yang.' [Commentary: One yin has just been born; yang energy is still strong, and yin is not yet a match for it.] Its flying-hidden pair is with Xun (Wind). The lowest officer occupies the generational position.
Gou (姤) is the first hexagram to change from Qian in the palace sequence: the bottom line changes from yang to yin, representing the first intrusion of dark into light. The palace system traces this progressive darkening through six stages before reaching the 'wandering soul' (遊魂) and 'returning soul' (歸魂) hexagrams.
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