The encounter between the "Chinese symbolic science of the Yijing" and modern science in interwar France

Conference by Stéphanie HOMOLA, anthropologist, research fellow at the CNRS.

Le YijingThe Confucian philosophical classic known as the "Book of Changes" or "Classic of Changes" is based on 64 hexagrams and 8 trigrams. bagua, divinatory symbols of continuous and discontinuous lines governing the universe and its phenomena. The consideration of this work as a scientific source has fueled intellectual exchanges between China and the West since the 18th^rd century, this study analyzes the reception of these ideas in French academic circles during the 1920s and 1930s. While the status of the classic gradually evolved in China from a sacred text to a mere historical artifact, French sinologists found themselves confronted by Chinese scholars who sought to connect traditional science to the Book of Changes to the modern Western science of the time.

The eight trigrams of the Bagua according to the order of King Wen.

Program of the Institute of Advanced Chinese Studies in Paris for 1927-1928.

Founded in 1920, the Institute of Advanced Chinese Studies (IHEC) testifies to the dynamism of this dialogue. A Franco-Chinese cultural and diplomatic initiative, this higher education institute dedicated to Chinese studies and affiliated with the Sorbonne aimed both to strengthen China's international prestige and to promote France's political and economic interests in China. Cultural propaganda and diplomatic ambitions tended to overshadow the scientific focus before 1925, when, faced with China's financial disengagement, French sinologists took over the leadership of the project.

Marcel Granet (1884-1940), administrator until 1940 – and subsequently Paul Pelliot (1878-1945) – conceived an ambitious teaching program and worked to create a library and publications to develop Chinese studies in France and raise awareness of the country. The IHEC then offered a large-scale educational program combining courses in Chinese civilization, economic and political history, language learning, and lectures, through the joint involvement of the École des Langues Orientales (School of Oriental Languages), the École Pratique des Hautes Études (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences), and the Collège de France, among others. It established itself as a center for active scientific collaboration between France and China and provided an institutional framework both for hosting Chinese academics as visiting professors and for training Chinese students and researchers in the critical and scientific methods of French sinology, for the benefit of Chinese research.

While IHEC initially considered inviting scientists trained in China and involved in the development of Chinese research, a course on "Chinese science" in 1926 was paradoxically entrusted to Sheng Cheng (1900-1996), a poet, writer, and sericulture (silkworm breeding) specialist originally from Beijing but primarily trained in sericulture in France and Italy. He had arrived in France as part of the "Diligent and Frugal Work Movement," which saw 1500 Chinese students sent to France between 1919 and 1921 to combine manual labor with studies in a degree program. Sheng Cheng began his course at IHEC with a historical introduction, describing a Chinese science based on the philosophy and numerology of the Book of ChangesWhile welcomed by the audience, this concept does not appear to have sparked debate at IHEC despite the questioning of this theory by the French scientific community of the time, as shown by the case of the intellectual Liu Zihua.

Sheng Cheng (1900-1996). Poems.

Liu Zihua (1899-1992).

Liu Zihua (1899-1992). The cosmology of the Pa Koua and modern astronomy.

Liu Zihua (1899-1992), originally from Chengdu and trained in medicine upon his arrival in France as part of the Work-Study Movement, undertook a comparative analysis of modern Western science and numerology. YijingIt is part of a form of romantic and esoteric Orientalism in Europe that elevates the Book of Changes as a symbol of a Chinese essence, an ancient culture rooted in modernity, which he intends to embody, even as ancient knowledge and customs are increasingly criticized in China during this period.

Through his thesis in the history of science, which he defended in 1940 at the University of Paris, he sought to demonstrate that the discoveries of modern Western science correspond to the structure of the Yijing and wishes to propose a synthesis of the two methods for analyzing phenomena. To do so, he undertakes to reconcile the modern astronomy of the time and the "cosmology of the Koua pa offering a privileged glimpse into the logic underlying this convergence of the sciences: he goes so far as to advocate the theoretical discovery of a new planet which he names Proserpine.

Following the process of traditional Chinese science, Liu Zihua proceeds in four stages:

• He associates the stars with the trigrams of the Yijing taking care to match the planets of ancient Chinese astronomy to the Western solar system.
• He applies the laws governing trigrams to modern planets according to a distribution by pair, one pair of which appears to be incomplete.
• He seeks to confirm this arrangement with data from modern science by highlighting mathematical constants (rotation speed, distance of the planets, density): for example, adding the rotation speeds of the pairs leads to a constant of 60.
• Solving the equation for the incomplete pair, he deduces the characteristics of the potential missing planet.

The highly critical thesis report of sinologist Henri Maspero (1883-1945) offers an overview of the intellectual context in which Liu Zihua's project took place, as well as the intercultural understanding of science and literature.

Maspero thus considers Liu Zihua as a representative of the so-called "Chinese origin of Western science" theory, which originated in China as early as the 17th century.^rd century in response to the introduction of Western sciences by the Jesuits. The latter maintained a similar position in order to serve their policy of accommodation and thus prove the compatibility of Chinese classics with Christian doctrine. The Yijing is then claimed by each of the parties as intercultural proof of religious or scientific primacy.

But while most Chinese intellectuals of the late 19th century^rd century considers the Book of Changes as a sacred script allowing the interpretation of all natural phenomena, the classical lost prestige after the abolition of the imperial examination system in 1905 and subsequently saw its scientific credibility, built on explanations deemed rhetorical, nuanced in favor of a historical consideration that could be the subject of a philological study.

Intercultural understanding of Yijing is also linked to the question of its various translations, which are guided by motives reflecting the concerns of their time and the interests of the interpreters. As the case of Liu Zihua shows, the process thus offers the translator the possibility of constructing the scientific and literary equivalence he wishes to demonstrate, allowing the exploitation of the Book of Changes and the application of this approach in numerous fields. Still little known to the general public until the 1920s and 1930s, Richard Wilhelm's 1924 translation initiated a new turning point in the reception of the Book of Changes by the Western world and established its success from the 1950s onwards.

Amber Geneva