Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 12

A Discourse on the First Emperor of Qin's Not Burning the Book of Changes秦始皇不焚周易論

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 1 passages · 290 Chinese characters · reading time 2.6 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 12 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.

傳有秦始皇欲愚天下黔首。坑儒生焚詩書。而以周易爲卜筮之書。獨不焚之。予以爲此天之意也。非秦皇之意也。何以言之。秦皇旣欲愚黔首。而焚詩書坑儒士。則五經莫智莫神於羲易也。豈獨置此書。乃反神其人智其民耶。若要其卜筮。則卜筮者。惟深於易者。然後能之也。深於易則儒之流也。然則向之坑儒之意左矣。若存其人而亡其書。則他經亦爾。然則向之焚詩書之意戾矣。且天生神物曰蓍龜。申之以河圖洛書。繼之以聖人。聖人受命而生。演八卦定乾坤。以通神明之德。於是乎有易焉。經不云乾坤成則易立乎其中。易不可見則乾坤幾乎息矣。由此觀之。易者。生於天者也。天欲廢之。則如勿生。苟不廢焉。則寧不勝一秦皇而使焚之。於以滅天地之道耶。予是以。曰是天之意。非秦皇之意也。不然。與他書同矣。烏在爲神明之書。天地之用歟。

It is handed down that the First Emperor of Qin (秦始皇), wishing to make the people of the world stupid, buried the Confucian scholars and burned the Odes (詩) and the Documents (書), yet alone did not burn the Changes of Zhou (周易), saying it was a book of divination. I hold that this was the will of Heaven and not the will of the First Emperor.

On what ground do I say so? If the First Emperor, wishing to make the people stupid, burned the Odes and the Documents and buried the scholars, then among the Five Classics there is nothing wiser and nothing more numinous than the Changes (易) of Fuxi. Why would he leave this one book alone, and so make the man numinous and the people wise?

If divination was what he needed, divination can be done only by one deep in the Changes. To be deep in the Changes is to be of the company of the Confucians. In that case the earlier purpose of burying the scholars is undone. And if he kept the men and did away only with the book, the same holds for the other classics. In that case the earlier purpose of burning the Odes and the Documents is undone.

Again, Heaven brought forth numinous things, the yarrow stalks and the tortoise, and doubled these with the Hetu (河圖) and the Luoshu (洛書), and carried them on through a sage. The sage, born with a mandate, unfolded the eight trigrams and fixed Qian (乾) and Kun (坤), and so penetrated the virtue of the spirits; thereupon the Changes came to be. Does the classic not say: "When heaven and earth are made, the Changes stand within them; and if the Changes cannot be seen, heaven and earth all but cease"?

Seen in this light, the Changes is a thing born of Heaven. Had Heaven meant to abolish it, it would not have brought it forth at all. And if truly it was not to be abolished, how would Heaven fail to prevail over a single First Emperor of Qin, and let him burn it and thereby destroy the Way of heaven and earth?

This is why I say that it was the will of Heaven and not the will of the First Emperor. Had it been otherwise, it would have gone the way of the other books; and where then would be its place as the book of the spirits and the working of heaven and earth?

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