Shao Yong’s Numerological-Cosmological System

Abstract

Shao Yong 邵雍 (1011–1077) was born into a family of humble scholars that had resided in Fanyang 范陽 (less than 65 kilometers southwest of modern Beijing) for many generations. By the time of his adolescence, however, the northern upheaval caused by the incursions of the Qidan 契丹 Liao dynasty (947–1125) uprooted Shao Yong and his kinsmen, forcing them into several southerly peregrinations until his father Shao Gu 邵古 (986–1064) eventually settled with his family in relative safety at Gongcheng 共城 in Weizhou 衛州 (in modern Hui 輝 county, Henan 河南). As a youth, Shao Yong followed in the footsteps of his father Gu and his grandfather Shao Dexin 邵德新 (d. 996), both of whom led learned but reclusive lives. Thus, like his contemporary Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073)—with whom he is often linked intellectually—Shao Yong never sat for the imperial civil service examinations. Unlike Zhou—who availed himself of the hereditary “shadow” (yin 蔭) privilege of entering government service to pursue a successful bureaucratic career—Shao refused to serve in office, despite receiving imperial summonses in 1061 and in 1069 appointing him to do so.