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The Huangji jingshi shu 皇極經世書 "Book of the August Ultimate through the ages", short Huangji jingshi, is a Daoist treatise written by the early Northern Song 北宋 (960-1126) mathematician and philosopher Shao Yong 邵雍. According to Chao Shuozhi's 晁說之 biography of Shao Yong's teacher Li Zhicai 李之才, the mathematical knowledge and the metaphysical speculation derived from it goes back to the Daoist master Chen Tuan 陳摶. The book Huangji jingshi is a writing about the "order of things on earth" (wuli 物理, the modern term for "physics"). The 12 juan "scrolls" long book is divided into three parts and describes the whole course of Chinese history from the viewpoint of the effects of the trigrams (guaxiang 卦象) of the "Book of Changes" Yijing 易經. The teachings of Shao Yong's book were perpetuated and commented by his disciples Wang Shi 王湜 (Yixue 易學), Zhu Bi 祝泌 (Huangji jingshi jie 皇極經世解 and Qishujue 起數訣) and Zhang Xingcheng 張行成 (Huangji jingshi suoyin 皇極經世索隱). The great Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi 朱熹 praised Shao Yong for his comprehensive explanation of the universe by the book Yijing. Yet he also criticized him because a mantic book like the Yijing could not be used to explain the world in terms of regular astronomical calculations (tuibu 推步). Zhu Xi objects that changes in the Yijing were not bound to regular periods, as Shao Yong postulated in his book. The influence of Daoism can be seen in Shao Yong's political concept that order comes out of chaos, and each order has to go over to chaos one day. The Huangji jingshi is part of the Daoist Canon Daozang 道藏 and the collectaneum Siku quanshu 四庫全書.
Source: Li Xueqin 李學勤, Lü Wenyu 呂文鬰 (1996). Siku da cidian 四庫大辭典, vol. 2, p. 1781. Changchun: Jilin daxue chubanshe.
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Chinese literature according to the four-category system
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