来知德

Lai Zhide was a Ming-dynasty scholar known for his study of the Zhouyi (Book of Changes). Public information about his life and official career is limited, and modern readers know him mainly through his surviving works. Three of his works are included here, all centered on the Zhouyi: a reader titled Zhouyi and different editions of Zhouyi Jizhu (Collected Commentaries on the Zhouyi). This shows that his writing consists chiefly of commentaries on the classics, focusing on layer-by-layer explanation of the hexagram and line statements and on the exposition of their meaning, rather than on miscellaneous discussion. In classification, these works are often placed under Eastern philosophy and also touch on categories such as culture and popular science, indicating that their content is both intellectual and informative. Lai Zhide's writing addresses serious students, in a plain and solid style, concentrating on clarifying the meaning of the classics, gathering earlier commentaries, and stating his own views; it has had a lasting influence on later students of Yijing scholarship.