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CONTENTS
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xiii
Concise Chronology of Chinese Dynasties (with Reference to the
Book of Changes) xv
The Structure of the Yijing xix
v
Contents
Bibliography 267
Index 285
vi
PREFACE
vii
Preface
viii
Preface
ix
Preface
x
Preface
Though the yi in Yijing can mean “easy,” the book is not easy read-
ing, nor is it easy to write about with clarity and accuracy—though
we have tried to achieve both. We hope that the Yijing and early China
specialists will look upon our efforts indulgently and even, perhaps,
find it useful as an overview of the key issues in scholarship of the
Yijing.
TRANSL ATIONS
xi
Preface
CHINESE WORDS
AUTHORSHIP
xii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xiii
Ac k n o wl e d g m e n t s
xiv
CONCISE CHRONOLOGY OF CHINESE
DYNASTIES (WITH REFERENCE
TO THE BOOK OF CHANGES)
xv
C o n ci s e C h r o n o l o g y o f C hi n e s e D y n a s t i e s
The dynastic dates are those of the PRC standardization. These have
been controversial, particularly for the earliest three dynasties, the
Xia, Shang, and Zhou. Although the existence of a dynasty referred
to as Xia is generally doubted by Western sinologists, there is now
extensive archeological knowledge of pre-Shang cultures. Whether
any of these were the supposed Xia dynasty is heatedly debated. For
the views of Western scholars on the Xia and other issues of early
Chinese chronology, see Shaughnessy 2008; for the Chinese rebuttal,
see Yin 2002.
Whether or not the name “Xia” can be applied to any known
pre-Shang cultures, archeology has demonstrated beyond doubt
xvi
C o n ci s e C h r o n o l o g y o f C hi n e s e D y n a s t i e s
the extensive human presence in part of the area now called China.
Excavation continues to be very extensive and is greatly expanding
our knowledge of this formative period. For an up-to-date discussion
of the complexities of dynastic dating and the question of the Xia
dynasty, see Wilkinson 2012: 1–15; 678–80. Regarding the early cul-
tures in what is now China, see Liu 2004: 105 et passim.
xvii
THE STRUCTURE OF THE YIJING
xix
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Introduction: The Rewards
and Perils of Studying
an Ancient Classic
The Yijing (I Ching, or Book of Changes), along with the Hindu Vidas
Upanishads and the Hebrew Bible, is one of the world’s oldest books
in continuous use; it has been considered by Chinese to contain their
most profound philosophy. Yet it began three thousand years ago as a
humble divination manual, basically a collection of folk expressions,
magic spells, and allusions to long-forgotten ancient events. How it
came to be an ethical and philosophical text, and now a psychologi-
cal one, is a fascinating saga that takes us from the beginnings of
recorded human consciousness to the digital age.
Despite its centrality in Chinese intellectual history, it is with
much trepidation that one sets out to write about the Yijing. Its first
layer, the Zhouyi, is extremely ancient. Though the date of composi-
tion is disputed by a factor of three centuries, we have no idea who
composed it, or even if one can even speak of authorship at all regard-
ing a text assembled from diverse, long-lost sources nearly three mil-
lennia ago. Perhaps the Zhouyi’s meanings were clear to those for
whom it was contemporary, but since then, thousands of pages of
commentaries have been expended debating, often acrimoniously,
the meanings of even its seemingly most transparent passages. It
is not only the texts that elude definitive exegesis. The hexagrams,
the famous six-line figures often depicted surrounding the familiar
yin-yang symbol, were at times given meanings with little evident
basis in the text. These diagrams, being independent of language,
1
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Few who have engaged with the Yijing have remained neutral about
it; controversy began centuries ago and continues into the present
day. The following gives a sense of the ranges of responses to the clas-
sic. We can begin by letting the Yijing speak for itself:
1. Much has been written about the fascination of the Zhouyi. Of particular inter-
est are the works of Jung 1950; Rutt 1996: 44–59; and Smith 2012.
2. The Confucian classics are discussed in detail in the monograph by Nylan
(2001).
2
I n t r o duc t i o n
3
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
one of the most ancient, most curious, and most mysterious doc-
uments in the world. It is more mysterious than the pyramids of
Egypt, more ancient than the Vedas of India, more curious than
the cuneiform inscriptions of Babylon.6
Others, however, have been far less admiring. The translator James
Legge commented:
6. Carus 1907: 26.
7. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: xlvi.
8. Jung’s (1950) Foreword to Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: xxxiii.
4
I n t r o duc t i o n
5
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
YIJING PHOBIA
6
I n t r o duc t i o n
spend a month teaching each hexagram.17 No doubt Qian and his fol-
lowers had more time on their hands than the emperor, though one
might speculate that the prolonged period of instruction may have
had pecuniary as well as intellectual motives. Nonetheless, anyone
who persists in trying to fully understand the Changes can find the
years slipping by. This does not mean that a useful knowledge of the
classic cannot be obtained in less time. Indeed, it is the purpose of
the present work to facilitate this process.
We are left to imagine for ourselves the reasons for these phobias
regarding the Yijing, though some will become clear as the present
book proceeds. A prominent, if not always acknowledged, reason for
suspicion regarding the Yijing is its association with divination, long
condemned by Western religious authorities and now disparaged
by the scientific establishment.18 Moreover, the enthusiasm of the
1960s occult counterculture for the newly translated ancient classic
engendered suspicion that interest in the Yijing signaled wavering
capacity for critical thought. Divination is discussed in more depth
in the following chapter.
The Western Yijing revival did introduce new ways of understand-
ing the ancient classic. Indeed, it is particularly the interpretations
of Carl G. Jung that have reinvented the Changes for modern readers.
Jung’s views are of considerable interest and are discussed in detail
in a later chapter. These reinterpretations make the Changes more
accessible to moderns, but can have the unfortunate effect of sup-
planting the traditional meanings of the classic. Modern psychologi-
cal interpretations of the Yijing are considered in c hapter 10. Despite,
or perhaps in part because of, its many difficulties, Chinese generally
regarded the Yijing as the most valuable of the Confucian classics,
and it is the only one to have attained best-seller status in the West.19
7
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Sinologists are still known to shake their heads when the subject of
the Changes comes up. There is an extra irony here because one of the
meanings of the character “yi” 易 is “easy.” Some think this, rather
than “change” was the original meaning, because its use for divina-
tion with yarrow sticks was much easier than the elaborate prepa-
rations required for oracle-bone divination. Perhaps, the text was
indeed easy three thousand years ago, but it has not been since.
When there are so many warnings, there must be some real dan-
ger, and it must be acknowledged that expressing opinions about
this ancient text can be risky. Only the simplest statements about
the Changes can be made without fear of eventual refutation. Dates,
authorship, meanings of many key words and phrases, all are uncer-
tain.20 Yet the Yijing, for all its mythological and occult associations,
is simply a text; as with other ancient texts, meticulous consideration
of the received version, comparison to excavated variants, and recog-
nition of historical context can yield much of immense interest, even
if enough obscurities remain for the text to maintain its beguiling
sense of mystery.
Heedless of these many perils, we have decided to “cross the great
water” and provide this introduction to the study and teaching of the
Changes, hoping to have selected an appropriately auspicious moment
to do so. In fact, much suggests that this is indeed a favorable time for
crossing the great water of the Yijing. The revival of China’s presence
any Chinese philosopher, the Lunyu does not seem to have caught popular interest
outside China to the same degree as the Yijing or the Daodejing. This is not to say that
the Master lacks modern admirers. For an influential attempt to revalidate Confucius,
see Fingarette 1998.
20. There is an old story, likely apocryphal, that on the first day of medical school,
the professor announces to beginning students, “Half of what we are going to teach
you during the next four years is wrong. The problem is, we don’t know which half it
is.” Something like this may be true of the Yijing—and of history generally. The only
remedy is to continuously question our certainties.
8
I n t r o duc t i o n
The Chinese, too, when curiosity about the Yijing leads them to start
reading it, find themselves perplexed, even as they maintain faith
in its profundity.21 A fundamental reason is that the classical form
of the Chinese language has not been part of standard curricula
for the past century. The Yijing in the received version is actually a
much harder book to read in the original Chinese than in translation
because the many difficulties of the text have not been smoothed out
by a translator. Not that this removal of difficulties is entirely a good
thing. Translations, including those into modern Chinese, tend to
favor simplicity over accuracy. A good translation of the Yijing should
leave the reader puzzled by some passages because they are inher-
ently enigmatic.
21. Despite its obscurities, or perhaps partly because of them, the Yijing contin-
ues to fascinate. At the time of a recent visit to Hong Kong, one well-known general
bookstore had on display nearly one hundred works related to the Yijing.
9
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
10
I n t r o duc t i o n
The Master said, “I was not born with knowledge, but being fond
of antiquity, I am quick to seek it.”22
As an example of how far his own age had fallen from the ideal, the
Master commented:
11
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
26. Though such beliefs seem quaint now, fear of the dead persists. We are still
scared by ghost stories, and few will venture into cemeteries at night.
12
I n t r o duc t i o n
the feng shui masters receive large fees by offering advice on grave
siting.
The mystery of death has always been a major human preoccu-
pation. Despite the impossibility of objective knowledge about the
state of the dead, speculation and mythology about it have always
been extensive. Some still seek to communicate beyond the veil. In
the early twentieth century, so-called spiritualism, with its séances
intended to receive messages from the deceased, had many followers,
including even scientists and such luminaries as Arthur Conan Doyle
and William James—although there were prominent debunkers as
well, such as the stage magician Houdini. Mediumship, under the
newer term of “channeling,” enjoyed a revival of sorts in the 1960s
that continues to the present day.
In contrast to oracle-bone pyromancy, shamanism, and yin
feng shui, the Yijing does not explicitly address spirits or the dead
as being responsible for the welfare of the living. While in the
Western Zhou it was probably assumed that responses to inqui-
ries somehow originated with ancestors, there is little trace of this
belief in later use. Thus, the Yijing is this-worldly; as such, it is in
harmony with two of the best-known passages in the Lunyu. When
asked by his disciple, Jilu, about spirits and death, Confucius
replies:
When you don’t yet know how to serve human beings, how can
you serve the spirits? . . . When you don’t yet understand life, how
can you understand death?27
13
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
28. The distinction here is a modern one. According to Chinese tradition, there
were originally three books of Changes, but of these only the Zhouyi survived (Hacker
1993: 101). The recently excavated manuscripts, which were found in tombs of the
late Warring States or early Han, also vary from the received version. The latter are
discussed in c hapter 4.
29. In common usage in China, however, the term Zhouyi often refers to the
entire Yijing.
14
I n t r o duc t i o n
30. The spelling as I Ching is the old Wade-Giles romanization, now replaced by
pinyin, which is official in the People’s Republic. Some currently published works still
employ the old Wade-Giles system. Unfortunately, while there are several excellent
English translations, as listed in an appendix to the present volume, most of what
are purported to be the I Ching are very loose adaptations, often by “translators” with
no actual knowledge of Chinese. A similar situation exists with the Daodejing—one
recent “translator” of which claimed he was uniquely able to know what it really meant
because of his advanced spiritual development.
15
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Like yin and yang, opinions regarding the Changes tend to divide into
dualities, but without one ever completely replacing the other. A basic
difference concerns whether the classic is primarily a divination manual
or a book of wisdom. Those who see it as a monument of Chinese culture
tend to present it as a book of wisdom, divination being out of intellec-
tual fashion in the modern world. Yet in its earliest form as the Zhouyi,
there is no indication that it served any other purpose than divination.
At our present distance, this dispute seems unnecessary. A book
of wisdom may be consulted for practical guidance. Conversely, a
method of divination, to be useful, should give wise advice. To under-
stand the Yijing within Chinese culture, due consideration must be
given to both approaches.
To read the Zhouyi, or Yijing, or I Ching in linear order from begin-
ning to end is both confusing and frustrating. We need to remind
ourselves that in traditional use, the Changes was not read like a mod-
ern book. Usually, a chapter or line text was selected by a random
process to answer the question at hand. Alternatively, literati might
flip through the book, hoping to alight on something with personal
meaning. When passages are selected nonrandomly, the process is
less mysterious, but there may be a gain in relevance. However, use
of a random method may suggest possibilities that are unexpected,
yet pertinent.
16
I n t r o duc t i o n
17
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
with it a taste for obscurity, and perhaps the obscurity of the Yijing is
part of its contemporary appeal.
18
C hapter 1
Divination: Fortune-telling
and Philosophy
1. Smith 1991.
19
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
20
D ivi n a t i o n : F o r t u n e - T e lli n g a n d P hil o s o ph y
4. Raphals 2008–2009: 47f.
21
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
5. Koch 2010: 44.
6. Many academic studies have demonstrated that stock market fluctuations can-
not be predicted. This has not stopped people from seeking market tips. The desire to
know the future remains, despite the fact that it remains mostly hidden from even the
most expert of us.
22
D ivi n a t i o n : F o r t u n e - T e lli n g a n d P hil o s o ph y
23
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Our age has purged the occult sciences, but it is not ungrateful,
or should not be. Sometimes the old doctrines held a grain of
truth in their multicolored veils. . . . Astrology is man’s . . . attempt
7. Adorno 1994: 45
8. Adorno 1994: 57.
9. See, for instance, Flad 2008.
24
D ivi n a t i o n : F o r t u n e - T e lli n g a n d P hil o s o ph y
25
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
13. Perhaps the most famous example is that of King Croesus of Lydia, who was
elated at being promised a great military victory, only to discover too late that it was
his enemies, the Persians, who achieved the victory.
26
D ivi n a t i o n : F o r t u n e - T e lli n g a n d P hil o s o ph y
Qing, members of the educated elite expressed worry about the “dan-
gers of inaccurate or unscrupulous divination.”14
In the West, too, there were skeptics, notably Cicero. Though
officially an augur, that is an official who could interpret the divina-
tory meaning of bird flights, Cicero concluded after a very complete
analysis in De divinatione that divination is not valid.15 No doubt
there were other skeptics who did not leave us their opinions in writ-
ten form, yet the mainstream opinion in premodern times seems to
have been that divination can work. Today fortune-telling is illegal in
many jurisdictions, though courts have generally permitted it as free
speech, which of course it is. Most of us probably know people who
are surreptitious users and would be embarrassed to admit it.16 How
divination might work is a more complex matter than it first appears.
A variety of beliefs and theories underlie its use.
27
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
28
D ivi n a t i o n : F o r t u n e - T e lli n g a n d P hil o s o ph y
this did not seem to play a role in his Yijing interpretation, which did
not involve altered states of consciousness.21
The experience of psychedelic drug use has led some to propose
mind-altering substance use as factor in religious experiences. It has
been proposed that the seeming intoxication of the pythonesses of
Delphi was due to high concentrations of ethylene gas coming from
the cave where they sat upon their tripods.22 A relation between
shamanism and psychedelics is routinely claimed.23 Altered states
can certainly be induced by psychoactive substances, and prophetic
utterances may result. Whether or not the Delphian oracles were
pharmacologically induced, most divination, including premodern
use of the Yijing, clearly does not involve drug use. On the contrary,
divination with the Yijing seems to have been consistently rationalis-
tic and deliberative. In this it was consistent with Confucius’s famed
unwillingness to discuss spirits or anomalies.24
21. It has been suggested that Shang divination involved altered states. The diver-
sity of views on this is summarized by Childs-Johnston (2008: 55 n. 41). Nothing in
the Zhouyi makes reference to altered states, but we do not know how it was used in
the time of its composition. Later Yijing divination seems to have been rationalistic
rather than ecstatic. However, many who divined with the Yijing used ecstatic methods
as well.
22. Broad 2007.
23. Hayden 2003; McKenna 1994.
24. In the Lunyu 7: 20 we find the following line describing Confucius’s learn-
ing habit: “Subjects the Master did not discuss: strange occurrences, feats of strength,
rebellion, the gods” (Watson 2007: 50).
29
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
30
D ivi n a t i o n : F o r t u n e - T e lli n g a n d P hil o s o ph y
generally. While it was generally assumed that there were no more sages
during historical times—even Confucius refused to claim this status for
himself—the concept was used to describe the ideal human, usually a
ruler. Sagehood involved recognition of incipience—patterns of events
at their earliest stage of manifestations, permitting intervention at the
most favorable time. When a sage ruled, society was in order without
the need for active intervention. Because the sage behaved correctly—
that is, in accord with the Dao, or will of heaven—society was in order.
As expressed by Confucius:
31
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
So close was the connection of the Yijing with mythical ancient sages
that the book was often written about almost as if it were a living
being. To use the classic was to come as close as possible to actual
contact with the sages. Given that the Yijing was the summa of sagely
wisdom, it followed that it would provide the best possible guidance
to those virtuous and learned enough to understand it. To make effec-
tive use of it, extensive self-cultivation and, above all, sincerity were
essential. Wrong answers could be excused as due to misinterpreta-
tion or lack of sincerity on the part of the inquirer. Self-cultivation
(considered in detail in c hapter 8) was intended to develop moral
qualities, not supernatural abilities. On the other hand, most literati
would have believed in much of what we now consider supernatural.
Modern disavowals of supernatural aspects of divination are a form
of apologetic that would not have been thought of in premodern
China.
As today, many of those who claimed special powers were not
sages but charlatans—though some had sincere belief in their own
special abilities. The precise nature of such a special ability is left
undefined. Sarah Iles Johnston quotes Cicero in De divinatione:
32
D ivi n a t i o n : F o r t u n e - T e lli n g a n d P hil o s o ph y
33
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Lateral Thinking
A common modern rationale for divination is that it helps one see
possibilities one would otherwise have overlooked. This is inherent
in Jung’s view of the Changes, but does not require his theories of
archetypes and synchronicity. As expressed by Thomas Cleary, “Using
DeBono’s model of lateral thinking, it is easy to conceive of the pro-
cess of I Ching divination as a means of expanding thought or opening
up new perceptions . . . ”35
A similar justification has been advanced with reference to astrol-
ogy: “the study of astrology—even if astrology itself is not considered
objectively valid—can disclose new perspectives on this world and the
way we relate to it.36 The statement would be equally valid in speaking
34
D ivi n a t i o n : F o r t u n e - T e lli n g a n d P hil o s o ph y
35
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
36
C hapter 2
The Zhouyi—that is, the early texts of the Yijing without the later Ten
Wings commentaries—was composed in the Chinese Bronze Age, an
era as different from our own as can be imagined. To understand this
very ancient work, it is necessarily to have some sense of life at the
time it was composed. The Yijing often is read in modern guise; but
with knowledge of its historical context, it becomes a window onto
an early stage of human society. Many of its problems were utterly
different from those of today, yet others are constants of human life.
Books were physically quite unlike the bound volumes (codices)
that are familiar to us. Indeed, we do not know with certainty in what
physical format the Zhouyi was first read. The Shiji (Records of the
Grand Historian) composed by Sima Qian 司馬遷 (circa 145/35‒86
BCE), refers to Confucius reading the Changes so often that he wore
out the leather binding straps three times. This indicates the most
common format for books in that era—vertical bamboo strips held
together by cords of leather or other materials. The earliest extant
bamboo strip manuscripts are from circa 300 BCE. but this medium
was clearly in use from much earlier times.1 (Printed books would not
exist until the Eastern Han dynasty.) Though this appealing refer-
ence to Confucius’s devotion to the Changes is now regarded as apoc-
ryphal, it does indicate that in the first century BCE ancient texts
of the Changes were assumed to be in this format. This appealing
detail of Confucius’s lifestyle first appeared five centuries after the
Master’s life and even more centuries after the Western Zhou, so it
1. Tsien 2004: 96–125.
37
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
2. Although printing was invented in China, this did not occur until the Song
dynasty.
38
Bronze Age Origins
the proscribed books were buried alive. With the onset of the Han
(206 BCE‒220 CE), many texts had to be reconstructed from the
memories of scholars.3 Though the authenticity of many other early
works was debated throughout later Chinese history, the genuine-
ness of the received Zhouyi text seems not to have been much ques-
tioned, though in modern times the meanings were reinterpreted
(see c hapters 5 and 9). Recently excavated texts do contain many
variants, but overall are similar in both content and literary style.
No direct evidence exists to establish the exact dating of the
Zhouyi. The earliest excavated manuscripts date from circa 300 BCE,
long after the original composition. That the text was compiled
sometime during the Western Zhou (circa 1045/6 to 771 BCE) is
undisputed. 4 What remains controversial is when during this span of
centuries the work was set into writing. Given that the text derived
from heterogeneous sources that must have been created at different
times, possibly over several centuries, it could not in its entirety have
originated at a single date.
The nature of much of the material in the Zhouyi strongly sug-
gests it was orally transmitted before being set in writing. Some
phrases echo the much earlier Shang oracle-bone inscriptions and so
probably originated before the Zhou. A few phrases also occur in the
Shijing (Book of Songs), a collection of folk-song lyrics, some of which
probably also originated before the Zhou.5 The stylistic similarity of
some oracle-bone inscriptions to phrases in excavated Warring States
3. There is some doubt about how accurate this account is. Proverbally, history is
written by the victors. Just as the Zhou demonized the Shang they deposed, so did the
Han with its predecessor, the Qin.
4. Instituts Ricci 2003: 22; Nivison 1983: 481–590.
5. Standard works on the challenges inherent in studying early Chinese texts
include Keightley 1985; Shaughnessy 1983, and Loewe 1993. More recent treat-
ments are Kern 2005, Li and Branner 2011, Nylan 1994, and Richter 2013. Two doc-
toral dissertations are essential for serious study of the Zhouyi: Shaughnessy 1983
and Kunst 1985. The field is being reshaped as study of excavated manuscripts pro-
ceeds. The important excavated manuscripts have been transcribed and translated by
Shaughnessy—the Mawangdui silk version in 1997 and the Shanghai Museum bam-
boo strips as well as other manuscripts in 2014. The extensive discussion in the later
work is indispensible for those interested in the early texts.
39
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
6. Shaughnessy 1983: 16–49.
7. Shaughnessy 1999b: 296.
8. Hacker 1993: 26–8.
9. For comparison, these are the approximate dates Western scholars assign to
the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
40
Bronze Age Origins
era, including the Zhouyi, were later incorporated into the multifac-
eted ideology we refer to as “Confucianism.”10 The first extant com-
mentaries, the Ten Wings, seem to have been composed at least two
centuries after Confucius’s death, in the late Warring States or early
Han. Even farther in time from the origin of the Changes were the
two most influential commentators, Wang Bi (226‒249) and Zhu Xi
(1130‒1200), who wrote nearly one and two millennia, respectively,
after the Zhouyi was composed.
Though the Zhouyi was created in the land that later became China,
use of the term “China” needs to be qualified. Until the Qin dynasty
the area that became known by that name was comprised of sev-
eral smaller states that shared cultural features, though with some
linguistic and other differences. Intermarriage was usual, at least
among the ruling class. The writing systems were similar, though
with significant regional variations. Despite their similarities, these
states were almost constantly at war with each other.
Unification came about when the Qin dynasty supplanted the
Eastern Zhou. The creation of China as an empire was the accom-
plishment of Shi Huangdi, the famous first emperor of Qin, now best
known for the terra-cotta warriors that were buried with him. It has
been suggested that the name of his dynasty, Qin, may be the origin
of the word “China.”11 The Qin created a fundamental discontinuity
in the history of early Chinese texts because of the notorious book
burning referred to above.
What we know regarding Western Zhou life comes from three
sources: archeological excavations, early texts, and later histories.
The most direct are archaeological excavations, mainly of burial sites.
41
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
12. An excellent introduction to Sima Qian and his influential outlook on Chinese
history is Durrant (1995).
13. This is equally a problem with early Western histories, such as those of
Herodotus, Manetho, and Josephus, as well as later works.
14. http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/archae/tcoumain.htm (accessed
10/23/13).
42
Bronze Age Origins
15. Wealth is highly concentrated in the modern world as well, with the differ-
ence being that there is a large middle class that can afford good housing and plentiful
possessions.
16. Keightley 2012 gives a detailed account of the lives of workers based on the
oracle-bone inscriptions.
17. Use of bronze inscriptions as historical records is the subject of Shaughnessy
1991.
18. So many of these jade and bronze burial artifacts have been found that they
fill the galleries of many of the world’s museums. Though the scale is much reduced,
lavish funerals are still common among affluent families in Hong Kong and Taiwan,
though expensive burial objects have been prudently replaced by paper offerings, pre-
sumably equally acceptable to the dead. A detailed monograph is by Janet Lee Scott
(2007).
19. Keightley 1999: 1–63.
43
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
women were buried with their birth family rather than with their
husband. This practice suggests that many women continued to feel
a closer emotional attachment to their parents and other relatives
than to their marital family, not entirely surprising when marriages
were usually arranged.
Until late in the Spring and Autumn, cash was little used and taxes
were in the form of rice, grain, or corvée labor. Marketplace trans-
actions were by barter, and salaries of officials were paid in grain.20
Medicine was mostly shamanic, with disease causation attributed
to spiteful ancestors or other supernatural beings. Military ethics
mandated that wounded soldiers be attended to, but most would
nonetheless have died agonizing deaths. Being almost constant, war
would have been a significant cause of early mortality of males, prob-
ably leading to a shortage of potential husbands, possibly a factor in
polygamy.
Children were valued for their labor and as support when their
parents were too old to work. Maternal death in childbirth was com-
mon, and only about half of newborns survived to adulthood, mak-
ing fertility a life-or-death issue for families. Whether to raise a baby
rather than to let it die of exposure was a conscious decision. Girls, or
those with physical anomalies, were less likely to be kept. Providing
food for a child who would need a dowry, or who would be unable
to work, would be an economic impossibility for some poor families.
Only sons were qualified to make the ritual offerings necessary for
the well-being of deceased ancestors—an essential component of the
filial piety central to Chinese society. Sons with physical deformities
were not eligible to make the offerings. Thus both poverty and social
convention added to the harshness of life.
And yet, as expressed in some of the poetry of the Shijing, life
was not without pleasures, such as music, dancing, and feasting.21
Civilization progressively advanced. Bronze casting reached a degree
44
Bronze Age Origins
At least for the elite, life was highly ritualized. Divination was a
state affair and as ubiquitous as government committees today.
Consultation with ancestors by tortoise and milfoil (yarrow) was
obligatory before all important state activities, including going
into battle. It was the ruler’s personal virtue and adherence to rit-
ual requirements, including divination, that were thought to bring
well-being to the people at large.22 Though there were public works,
such as water management to reduce flooding, modern concepts of
social welfare did not exist. Nor were there conscious social or envi-
ronmental policies in the modern sense.
Complex rules prescribed what clothes were suitable for each sea-
son, what rooms were to be used for each, even the proper sauce for
each dish, as well as innumerable other minor details of daily life.23
These rules often seem impossibly elaborate; actual conduct would
often have fallen short of the ideal.
Confucius frequently expressed admiration for the ancients,
particularly their exemplary fidelity to the rites. Most ethical writ-
ings devoted more attention to ritual requirements than to morality.
45
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
24. Confucianism and Daoism did not exist as such when the Zhouyi was com-
posed, though they did by the time of the Ten Wings. Sometimes it is asserted that the
Yijing is Daoist or Confucian, though it was not exclusive to either school. The prob-
lematic nature of this distinction is pointed out in Sivin 1978: 303–330.
25. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: lv.
26. Progressively more elaborate methods developed for determining favorable
times (hemerology) and continue to be used by contemporary Chinese. These methods
46
Bronze Age Origins
rhythms such as day and night and the seasons. In ancient times, it
was assumed by analogy that there were hidden patterns in the uni-
verse that determine human well- or ill-being and that these can be
discovered by divination.
A much quoted phrase from Duke Cheng (576 BCE) states that “the
great affairs of the state are sacrifice and warfare.”27 Both of these
activities are prominent in the historical record of early China.
Determining the exact form of sacrifice that would please deceased
ancestors was the predominant concern of oracle-bone divination.
Sacrifice is also frequently mentioned in the Zhouyi, though the prac-
tice is rarely described in the later received tradition, which tend to
pass over unsavory practices. Similarly, most English translations
such as those of Wilhelm-Baynes and Lynn generally avoid referring
to sacrifice. Those versions intended to recreate the early meanings,
such as those of Kunst and Rutt, restore these references.
Warfare was frequent, not only with external enemies but
between internal factions contending for power. The fate of con-
quered peoples was grim. A major motivation for waging war was
obtaining captives for human sacrifice. Those not sacrificed were
likely to be enslaved. Human sacrifice seems to have been pervasive
in the Shang and earlier. While later Chinese tradition claimed that
this cruel practice ended with the ascendency of the supposedly vir-
tuous Zhou, archeological evidence indicates it continued well into
that dynasty, though to a lesser degree. There are direct references to
it in the Zhouyi.28 Human sacrifice was justified by the belief that it
utilize Yijing imagery, but are complex and require considerable knowledge of their
specialized Chinese technical language, which is probably why they have little follow-
ing in the West. English-language manuals are available however, such as Koh 2005
and Yap 2008.
27. Legge 1970: 81; quoted in Yates 2005: 19.
28. Historians tend to avoid discussing this exceedingly disturbing practice,
but it is perhaps better to face this peculiar propensity of Homo sapiens (Bremmer
47
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
2007: 237–257). This repellent practice was not confined to “exotic” cultures, but also
existed in the West, being mentioned in ancient Greek writing—Polyxena in tragedies
by Sophocles and Euripides, and Iphigenia in the Iliad—and was prevalent in ancient
Rome in the form of the Coliseum “games.” It has been pointed out that the burning of
witches and heretics in the Inquisition was also a form of human sacrifice, as were the
twentieth-century mass killings ordered by Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and, unfortu-
nately, numerous other despots. Some regard capital punishment as a survival of this
abhorrent practice.
29. Pines 2002: 51–52.
48
Bronze Age Origins
30. This is available in various reprints of Legge 1865: 588–612 and online at
http://ctext.org/shang-shu/marquis-of-lu-on-punishments (accessed 4/15/14).
31. Legge 1865: 607.
32. Legge 1865: 609.
49
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
50
Bronze Age Origins
ones. Phrases such as “favorable (or not) to meet the great person”
can equally be applied to private life as to public meetings with
officials. Those having ambitions of rising in society, as did the shi,
would have needed practical guidance on how to conduct themselves
in situations for which their upbringing had not prepared them.
For guidance on how and when to act, the Changes could be easily
consulted. For the literati, it accorded with their social rank, while
consultation with shamans, did not, though often resorted to none-
theless.34 The prognostications provided by the Changes were consis-
tent with literati values, at least as it came to be read. It provided
not fatalistic declarations, but prognostications that could stimulate
thought and could nearly always be interpreted as ultimately posi-
tive. Conveniently, the Changes assumed that one could do the right
thing and still benefit personally.
Thus rise of the shi class, whose members achieved success by
education and expertise, brought with it this rise in importance of
the written classics, including the Changes. For those who were edu-
cated, but not necessarily wealthy, that is who would now be consid-
ered part of the “middle class,” the Changes was ideal. It was rooted
in the classical tradition and presumed to teach Confucian values, it
required literacy, and it could be carried out by individuals privately.
Other sorts of oracles were consulted by the literati, but the Changes
was the most authoritative.
34. Shamans were at times employed by kings or emperors and at other times
suppressed. Particularly in later China, Confucians were opposed to shamans, though
some consulted them surreptitiously.
51
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
the “judgment texts”; the Duke of Zhou, who wrote the line texts;
and Confucius, who collected (or wrote) the commentaries. Some
explanation of the nature of these eminent personages is in order.
Implicit in this is the notion that wisdom is not simply knowing a set
of rules in advance, but an ability to think through what to do as new
situations arise. The sages created the Changes, not as a list of guide-
lines, but as a system to aid one in thinking through how to act.37
52
Bronze Age Origins
Sagely wisdom was not only theoretical but also concerned the
practical aspects of governing. Many philosophical writers would
refer to the way of the ancient sages as a way to validate their views.
There are many such references to sagehood in the Dazhuan, the
“Great Commentary” to the Yijing.38 Unfortunately, as Confucius said
of his own time, the way of the ancients had been lost and so sages no
longer appeared. Even Confucius denied that he was one.
Sages were conceived as human beings with extraordinary abili-
ties, not as gods; but some of their attributes seem supernatural to
us. In China, as in other traditional cultures, there was no sharp line
between natural and supernatural, nor between myth and history.
This does not mean that everyone was equally credulous regarding
supernatural claims. The philosopher Xunzi 荀子 (circa 310‒210
BCE) was an early skeptic, declaring that events in heaven, such as
eclipses, are not caused by human action and that rain rituals do
not actually cause rain.39 Most likely there were other skeptics, but
they may have been silent regarding their dissent from orthodoxy.
Perhaps in response to an undertone of skepticism, interpretation
of the Changes came to avoid explicit reference to the supernatural.
The classic was assumed to work because the ancient sages put their
knowledge of the patterns of heaven and earth into it; there was no
need for further speculation as to why it worked. Sages might be
referred to as already knowing what was in the Changes, or as gaining
their wisdom from the Changes. Either way: “It is by means of the
Changes that the sages plumb the utmost profundity and dig into the
very incipience [ji] of things.”40
A related concept is the culture hero, one who made significant
contributions to the early development of civilization. Thus, in the
Dazhuan, Fu Xi is explicitly credited with the trigram system of the
Changes, but often also credited with the sixty-four hexagrams—as
well as nets for catching fish and animals, based on the trigram (or
53
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
The Legendary Fu Xi
Fu Xi 伏羲 is a complex figure in Chinese mythology. In the lore of
the Changes, he was a very ancient ruler who discovered, or invented,
the linear diagrams.42 In later visual material, he is a wise old man
clad in an animal skin. According to the Dazhuan:
When in ancient times Lord Bao Xi [Fu Xi] ruled the world . . . he
looked upward and observed the images in heaven and looked
downward and observed the models that the earth provided. He
observed the patterns on birds and beasts and what was suitable
for the land. . . . He thereupon made the eight trigrams in order
to become thoroughly conversant with the numinous and bright
and to classify the myriad things. . . . 43
54
Bronze Age Origins
44. For a summary of these confusingly contradictory forms of the myths of the
origins of trigrams and hexagrams, see Rutt 1996: 28f
45. Berglund 1990: 56.
46. Analects 9:9. Watson 2007: 61. The best discussion of these mysterious dia-
grams from a sinological perspective is that of Nielsen 2003: 103–105, 169–171,
236f. Swetz 2008: 9f. et passim summarizes the associated myths and also mathe-
matical aspects. The detailed monograph of Berglund 1990 addresses iconographical
and cultural associations, while Sherrill and Chu 1977 covers the diagrams from the
practitioner’s viewpoint. Because numerology appeals to a certain sort of intellectual
eccentricity, much of what has been written on the subject is not historically sound.
55
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
This is simply a long way of stating the heaven is associated with odd
numbers and earth with even ones, consistent with the line-type num-
bering in which yang is 7 and 9, and yin 6 and 8. The Hetu diagram
was also correlated with the five phases (wu xing 五行). The Luoshu is
a magic square of order three. It is usually arranged as a box divided
into nine squares, something like that for tic-tac-toe. The numbers 1
through 9 are so arranged that all rows add up to 15. The original dia-
grams consisted of dark or light dots connected by lines.
These numerical diagrams were associated with the Changes in
Chinese metaphysics, but the connection is rather tenuous, the result
of the desire to integrate distinct metaphysical conceptions. The tri-
grams and hexagrams long antedated the Hetu; its role in their origin
is entirely mythical, a product of the syncretic tendency of correlative
metaphysics. Except for the one phrase of the Dazhuan, quoted above,
any supposed relationship is tenuous at best.
The variations in the legends of Fu Xi’s creation of the trigrams
seem not to have bothered most Chinese scholars of the Changes. In all
its variants, the story of Fu Xi serves to place the Changes at the dawn
of Chinese civilization, and to emphasize its fundamental importance
by crediting it with inspiring the invention of the plow, boats, and
other essentials of civilization. It also serves to link the human mind by
means of the trigrams and hexagrams with the patterns of the natural
and social worlds. The Changes is thus made to respond to the human
spiritual need for meaning.
Fu Xi had another, quite different and much reproduced iconog-
raphy in which he is depicted with human torso and snake-like lower
body, intertwined with the similarly shaped body of his sister and
consort, Nuwa. Sometimes, like Adam and Eve, they are the primeval
parents.48 Fu Xi and Nuwa seem not to have been connected with each
56
Bronze Age Origins
57
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
The Zhou blamed the last Shang king for having been disrespect-
ful to the gods and spirits and for ignoring the sacrifices, follow-
ing the advice of women, rejecting men from his own clan, using
criminals . . . and indulging in drinking alcohol. The Zhou justi-
fied their military action as correcting the Shang’s betrayal of its
own tradition. There has been an increasing consensus among
modern scholars that the late Shang did deviate from its ear-
lier religious norms—including replacing some divination with
highly formulated rituals, abolishing sacrifices to the high god
and natural powers . . . 55
is here referred by his complete name, King Zhou Xin, 紂辛. “King Wen” can be trans-
lated as the “literary king,” while “King Wu,” is the “martial king.” The Duke of Zhou
(Zhou Gong 周公 or Zhou Dan 周旦) was the brother of King Wu, whose son, King
Cheng, was thus the Duke’s nephew.
53. Chinese annals, notably the Zuozhuan, seem to relish accounts of men seduced
into evil by wicked women. Such salacious tales are found throughout the world’s lit-
erature, a notable example being Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
54. Atrocity stories have commonly been used to justify attack on the regime
supposedly committing them. At a distance of several millennia, it is impossible to
separate fact from propaganda. King Zhou Xin’s supposed many malfeasances and how
they led to his defeat by the Zhou are discussed in detail by Marshall 2001: 17–34.
55. Wang 2000: 58f.
58
Bronze Age Origins
59
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
as in the traditional history. Then, as now, those who held power were
quite capable of ruthlessness when it served their purposes. Also, as
now, regime change did not necessarily benefit the people at large.
Each event in the traditional account of the Shang to Zhou transi-
tion provides a moral example. The overthrow of Shang was justified
not only by the cruelty and dissoluteness of the last king, but also by
his ritual neglect. King Wen represented patience in adversity because
he did not abandon his principles, even when imprisoned. The Duke
of Zhou remained regent rather than supplanting the rightful heir to
the throne, because he put principle before the wish for power.
Alternative historical sources tell a less pleasing story. Empirically
based historical research indicates that the victory of the Zhou over
the Shang was due not to virtue but to superior military technology
and morale, hardly a surprising finding. According to the Shi fu, or
“Great Capture,” upon his victory, King Wu displayed little mercy to
the defeated Shang king’s followers:
King Wu then shot the hundred evil ministers of [Shang king] Zhou.
He beheaded . . . their sixty minor princes and great captains of the
cauldrons and beheaded their forty family heads . . . then the south-
ern gate was flanked with captives to be sacrificed, all of whom were
given sashes and clothes to wear. . . . [T]he great master shouldered
the white banner from which the head of Shang king Zhou was sus-
pended and the red pennant with the heads of his two consorts.58
60
Bronze Age Origins
While the Zhouyi does not refer to this episode, its references
to human sacrifice are consistent with this sort of victory celebra-
tion. In neither the Zhouyi, nor the Shi fu, is there any expression of
remorse about human sacrifice, nor any sense that it has to be justi-
fied; sacrifices were routine after a victory. Zhou rule may well have
been less harsh than that of Shang, but probably not by much. The
carrying of the heads of Zhou Xin and his consorts is gruesome, but
had the function of proving to the people, in an era with no media,
that the Shang rulers were dead and the Zhou triumphant. It would
also have discouraged rebellion by surviving Shang supporters.
The Duke of Zhou, without taking the title of king, seems to have
been the de facto ruler. He was no less ruthless than others in high
positions—for example, executing or exiling his brothers to pro-
tect both King Cheng, the legitimate heir, and the basis of his own
authority as regent.60
Confucius
Confucius is the final figure in the mythology of the Book of Changes.
His role was said to be the compilation or editing of the Ten Wings,
the commentaries that became attached to the Zhouyi to make it the
Yijing. These are discussed in c hapter 6. Yet as early as the Song, care-
ful readers recognized that the Master could not have composed the
Ten Wings, given the marked differences in style and content. While
the Dazhuan (Great Commentary) contains some ideas that could be
considered Confucian, the literary presentation is quite unlike the
Analects.
60. Nylan 2010a: 94–128. Fratricide by kings has been common in history
because brothers would be potential rival claimants to the throne.
61
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Duke of Zhou were historical personages, but they could not have
written the Zhouyi texts, and there is no evidence that they even
knew the book. While Confucius may have known of the Zhouyi, and
did revere the Duke of Zhou, there is no convincing evidence that he
actually made use of the classic. Certainly he never claimed to have
done so, nor did he ever claim to have authored or edited the Ten
Wings.
The mythical association of the Changes with King Wen, the Duke of
Zhou, and Confucius are as important as the actual history because
these figures were integral to the ideology of the Chinese system
of government, in which an all-powerful emperor was guided by
Confucian scholar-advisors. Although the great figures of the Zhou
founding were long gone, their virtue and wisdom lived on in the
Changes. Those consulting it would often have reflected on the ide-
als of rulership they represented, even though the story was exter-
nal to the Zhouyi, which contains nothing like the narrative account
in the “Great Declaration.”61 Yet it is this genealogy, as much as any
supposed divinatory accuracy, that gave the Changes its central place
in Chinese intellectual history. Indeed, without the ideology made
concrete in the legend of the Shang–Zhou transition, China might
not have persisted as a unified country. Aihe Wang comments: “To
actually take over a political and ritual center that had lasted nearly
a millennium [the Shang] and to legitimize such a seizure . . . posed
a much greater challenge to the Zhou conquerors that the military
conquest itself.”62
62
Bronze Age Origins
63. While Westerners tend to be puzzled that the PRC government remains nomi-
nally Marxist, this ideology replaces the previous mandate of heaven as the basis of
legitimacy. Chinese history suggests that loss of a unifying ideology will result in social
chaos.
64. Pines 2009: 2 (emphasis added).
63
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
64
Bronze Age Origins
The term junzi 君子 is one of the most prominent in the Zhouyi, one
whose change in meaning accompanied the social changes already
discussed. At first meaning “prince,” it came to mean a person whose
nobility was of character rather than birth. Unlike shi, which was a
term designating a person’s social class, junzi indicated an individual
of ethical probity.
Rather than discussing the virtues of the junzi abstractly, the
Changes tends to explain what a junzi would do in the situation
inquired about. The virtuous person is also referred to as the da ren
大人, “great” or “big person,”, in contrast to the xiao ren 小人, “petty”
or “small person,” who is selfish and often treacherous. When all is in
67. For a very complete discussion of these five fundamental texts, see Nylan
2001.
65
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
66
Bronze Age Origins
Though the Yijing was admired for its ethical content, when the
Western Zhou portion is read without its accretion of commentar-
ies, there is little that is morally exemplary. It was mostly about
what was expedient, rather than what was right—though there is
little indication of this most fundamental moral distinction. Later,
in the Zuozhuan, “The Several Disciples Asked” of the Mawangdui
manuscript, and in the Ten Wings, we find that the Western Zhou
texts are read as teaching ethics and cosmology. The ethical content
in these early commentaries is expressed somewhat vaguely, prob-
ably because language to express ethical ideas was still developing.
Thus morals tend to be stated, not as general principles, but as what
a moral person (junzi or da ren) would do. Some words came to be
construed as referring to virtues, notably yuan heng li zhen 元亨利貞,
but these were rather fluid as to the specific traits they referred to.
We find the beginnings of the moralistic interpretation of the
Zhouyi in the Zuozhuan 左傳 anecdotes. Ostensibly a commentary
on the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Zuozhuan records nineteen
Zhouyi divinations nominally dated between 671 and 487 BCE.70
These constitute the earliest surviving record of how the Zhouyi was
interpreted. Unfortunately, however, as the text reached its received
form much later than the events it describes, possibly as late as the
Western Han, it cannot help us to establish a reliable date for when
the Zhouyi became an ethical text.
The Zuozhuan accounts of Zhouyi divinations mostly show how
failing to heed its advice, usually moralistic, leads to disaster. What
comes across most strikingly, however, is the eternal gap between
moral principles and actual behavior. In the Zuozhuan the first four
words of the Zhouyi—yuan heng li zhen—are no longer an invocation
but terms for ideal character traits.71 Also present is the concern with
67
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
She continues:
68
Bronze Age Origins
69
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
The moralistic meanings Mu Jiang declares for yuan li heng zhen are
those of the opening sentences of the Wenyan.75 We do not know if they
were taken from the latter text, or if they circulated in other forms,
plausible given their somewhat aphorisitic form. While there are too
many uncertainties to speculate on whether the Ten Wings were known
in anything like their present form at the time this passage was placed
in the Zuozhuan, it does demonstrate that material incorporated into
the Wings was circulating by the time the anecdote was composed.76
It has been suggested that the real Lady Mu Jiang never spoke
these words. The question of whether the speeches in early Chinese
texts were really spoken in anything like their transmitted form can
probably never be answered with any degree of certainty.77 While one
cannot help but be curious about the real Mu Jiang, what is more
important is that this is an early description of the use of the Changes
for moral self-examination. The anecdote is also significant because it
tells us that women, at least those of the elite, could be accomplished
in interpretation of the classic. A more extensive discussion of what
the Zhouyi tells us about women’s lives in early China is provided in the
next chapter.
The Zuozhuan suggests that the Changes could be quoted to
express ethical principles. In one such anecdote, an official of the Earl
of Zheng visits Chu and reports back:
70
Bronze Age Origins
71
C hapter 3
In ancient China, as was generally the case in the rest of the ancient
world, most women had limited autonomy and difficult life situations.
The lot of men was better, but only somewhat. Both sexes were con-
strained by the hierarchical society in which deference and obedience
to authority were the main values and there was no concept of human
rights. Families were held accountable for crimes committed by one
member. This meant that women and children could be punished for
the misdeeds of male family members.
While the Yijing was often read as assuming that women should be
subordinate to men, as this chapter will demonstrate, this reading is not
present in explicit form in the original Western Zhou meanings. This is
not to suggest that the Zhouyi presents any notion resembling rights for
women, simply that its texts referring directly to women did not explicitly
state that they should be subordinate. When the Western Zhou portions
of the texts are examined directly, rather than through the lenses of later
commentators, one finds interesting details regarding women’s lives but
no general pattern of denigration. We cannot conclude from such limited
evidence that Western Zhou society was characterized by greater gender
equality than later China, though it raises the possibility that subordina-
tion of women was less formalized in pre-Confucian China.
The place of women in early Chinese society can only be under-
stood based on the evidence of contemporaneous documents and
archaeology.1 The accounts written in later dynasties from the Han
1. For the historical studies of early China, see Keightley 1999 and Linduff and
Yan Sun 2004.
72
WOMEN IN THE YIJING
While Smith is writing about the Qing, we have even less information
regarding divination by and for women in the Western Zhou, mainly
hints in the Zhouyi itself as recounted below. We know that shamans
(wu 巫) in early times were usually women, while later they were
more often men—another bit of suggestive evidence that women’s
lives were less restricted in early times. The oracle bones are known to
have been prepared by women, and the King Wu Ding examples indi-
cate that pyromantic divination was frequently on behalf of women,
though only those in the royal entourage. Early texts frequently
repeat the set phrase “divination by tortoise and milfoil.”3 Since the
two methods were often done together, if women’s concerns were
addressed with the far more elaborate pyromantic method, they
almost certainly would have been addressed by milfoil as well.
Women are subject to the same hopes and fears that lead men
to practice divination, with particularly intense anxiety regarding
2. Smith 1991: 261.
3. Milfoil refers to the use of the dried stems of the common yarrow plant (Achillea
millefolium) for divination, if not with the Zhouyi, then with an earlier text.
73
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
fertility and the health of their children; not only because of affec-
tional bonds, but because these were essential to their status within
the family. While references to women in the Zhouyi are less numer-
ous than those concerning men, there does not seem to have been
any taboo about their inclusion.4 In contrast, with the onset of
Confucianism later classical Chinese texts are peculiarly reticent
about mentioning women at all—the rigidities of propriety dictating
that they be kept not only out of sight, but even out of texts.5
As we shall see, the Zhouyi texts about women are for the most
part simply neutral references to some of their life circumstances. We
do not find proscriptive statements about restricting women’s free-
dom, as we do in Han and later commentaries. Confucianism came
to hold that women were to remain at home and not participate in
public life, but it is hard to determine when these ideas became for-
malized. Official suppression of women, like other forms of politi-
cal oppression, is almost never entirely successful. Early moralistic
texts tend to describe what the author(s) believed should be the case,
rather than how people actually lived. Despite the restrictive ortho-
doxy, women were often able to attain some degree of control over
their own lives.
In authoritarian cultures, divination can be a means to freedom
of thought because it can provide private advice outside of the intru-
sive gaze not only of government officials, but also of neighbors and
even other family members. It is likely that women had their own
private oral culture to which men were not privy.6 Most likely women
74
WOMEN IN THE YIJING
Nothing in this passage specifies that yin and yang were meant in the
sense of feminine and masculine, although given that the passage is
about creation and the birth of the ten thousand things, there is a
hint of such an implication. However, this is certainly not a comment
Jiangyong county of Hunan province, it is evidence that women had ways of thought
that they kept to themselves. See Mann 1997.
7. The translation is modified from Feng and English 2011. The Daodejing is
thought to be of Warring States, or possibly even Spring and Autumn origin, though
not necessarily in the form of the received version. For discussion of origin and dating,
see R. Cook 2012: 195‒199.
75
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
about female and male social roles, but rather a concept of creation
partly based on human reproduction.
The character for yin 陰 appears only once in the Zhouyi, in line 2
of hexagram 61 Zhongfu (Inner Truth). It reads:
Cranes sing out from the southern bank of the river. Their young
respond. I have a good wine container. I will share it with you.8
8. Pearson 2011: 223.
9. As many other such images in the Changes, this one has attracted diverse inter-
pretations. Wilhelm summarizes as meaning that sincere words from the heart can be
heard at a great distance. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: 237f. The crane has rich symbol-
ism in Chinese culture; for example, see Williams 1974: 101f.
76
WOMEN IN THE YIJING
first two hexagrams could readily be made to stand for dualities, such
as heaven-earth and yin-yang. However in the Mawangdui ordering,
this direct contrast is lost and the hexagram titles are slightly differ-
ent—Jian and Chuan. The different position in Mawangdui suggests
the possibility that the yang/yin cosmological contrast may not have
been the early intent of placing the Qian and Kun hexagrams together.
Rather they may have been adjacent simply to fit the scheme of order-
ing hexagrams by pairing those with opposite line patterns. Thus there
is no evidence to suggest that a male-female contrast was the early
intent. In one of the commentaries included in the Mawangdui manu-
script, translated by Shaughnessy as The Properties of the Changes, they
are discussed as a pair.10 Whether the compiler of this commentary
also knew the received order, or simply noticed the obvious relation
of the two diagrams can only be guessed at. It does suggest a degree of
dissociation between the specific Zhouyi version and the commentaries
appended to it.
Despite the absence of the yin-yang symbolism in the Zhouyi, it did
became of central importance later. Kun, consisting of all broken lines,
being placed after Qian, representing the male principle, and containing
a reference to a female horse easily became associated with femininity
and thus a convenient hook upon which to hang misogynistic discourse.
Since the character for yin does not appear in any of the lines of Kun, its
only reference to gender is this one regarding a female horse. There is no
indication that the mare is a symbolic reference to women, given that the
word used for female is pin 牝, referring specifically to female animals.
The Zhouyi text, moreover, gives no support for such an interpre-
tation. Here is the line in question:
元亨利牝馬之貞
77
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
The mare reference later became part of the justification for asso-
ciating this hexagram with the supposed feminine traits of being
compliant rather than active or initiating. Thus Wang Bi commented:
78
WOMEN IN THE YIJING
79
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
doubt that most of the ideas expressed in it were actually those taught by the Master
himself. For a closely reasoned, but controversial, analysis of the composition of the
Lunyu, see Brooks and Brooks 1998. The Daodejing of Laozi is clearly later than the
Lunyu but the Daoist ideas it records that might have originated long before it was
composed.
15. Hinsch 2002: 87.
80
WOMEN IN THE YIJING
81
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
19. Nu appears in 3.2, 4.3, 20.2, 28.2, 31.0, 37.0, 44.0, 53.0, and 54.6.
20. Legge 1882: 187.
21. Wilhelm-Baynes 1967: 171.
22. Pearson 2011: 176.
82
WOMEN IN THE YIJING
23. Bride kidnapping still occurs in remote areas of rural China; local govern-
ments have not always been energetic is suppressing the practice. This mode of obtain-
ing a wife reminds us that marriage in ancient times was far less about compatibility
than about childbearing and female-specific labor.
24. Rutt 1996: 267.
25. Life expectancy is not the same as longevity, the age a person can reach if not
dying prematurely of disease, accident, or warfare. Some Chinese women and men
attained advanced ages, but they were a small fraction of the population.
83
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
婚媾女子貞不字十年乃字.
This certainly suggests that it was possible for some women to choose
when to marry, though presumably she is expected to remain a virgin
until her marriage. Rutt translates this as meaning that the wife will
conceive, but only after ten years, taking zi 字 to mean “breed,” rather
than “word” in the sense of giving one’s word. With this reading we are
reminded that in premodern China, as in many other cultures, a woman
who did not quickly conceive after marriage was in a difficult position.
It was assumed to somehow be her fault and she was likely to be treated
harshly, notoriously by her husband’s mother. Rutt’s version would
indicate some degree of tolerance for the woman’s delayed childbear-
ing. (This line is particularly easy to interpret in a divination—it would
mean that a wished-for outcome would occur, but not for a long time.)
A particularly interesting reference to women occurs in line 3 of hexa-
gram 4 Meng (Youthful Folly): 勿用娶女見金夫不有躬无攸利.
Wilhelm-Baynes translates the line as:
Take not a maiden who, when she sees a man of bronze [or gold,
or metal],
Loses possession of herself.
Nothing furthers.27
84
WOMEN IN THE YIJING
Observing briefly.
Favorable for an unmarried woman.30
85
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
31. Phrases to the same effect, such as the English proverb, “A woman’s place is in
the home,” have been prevalent in many other cultures, ancient and modern, though
at last fading from use.
32. At least in the Qing the women’s quarters might be provided with a peephole
for them to watch what was happening in the rest of the house. We do not know if such
a contrivance existed or would even have been needed in the Western Zhou.
33. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: 209‒212.
34. “Concubine” is the usual English translation of di 娣, referring not to a mis-
tress in the Western sense, but to a secondary wife. Secondary wives had an estab-
lished status in the household but were subordinate to the principal wife.
86
WOMEN IN THE YIJING
The bride was the daughter or sister or cousin of Diyi, a Shang king.36
The bride is overshadowed at her own wedding by the more sumptu-
ously dressed king’s mistress. This would be humiliating to the bride
and a violation of propriety on the king’s part.37 Taken together,
the line texts for this hexagram refer to potential unfavorable mar-
riage circumstances that can arise for women. They refer to the dif-
ficult decision of whether to accept a proposal, or wait in the hope
of receiving a better one later, and to rivalry between the bride and
other women present. The texts shows awareness that women could
be adversely affected by circumstances beyond their control. While
no solutions are suggested, obtaining these lines during divination
would at least provide a warning.
The Zhouyi, as we have seen, also had advice for men on choice of
a marriage partner, but that advice is more direct, basically “do” or
“don’t.” While men were affected by family conflicts, they were even
worse for women because they had less freedom to leave the house-
hold and would have to contend not only with in-laws, but with other
wives, inevitably competing for the husband’s favor. While some
87
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
The woman holds the basket, but there are no fruits in it.
The man stabs the sheep, but no blood flows.
Nothing that acts to further.39
The empty basket suggests a barren womb and the lack of blood flow,
perhaps lack of male seed. This would suggest that if the inquiry is
about a marriage, it will be barren.40 More generally, it suggests lack,
not only of children, but of food, vitality, and ability to carry out
effective ritual. Significantly, both partners, not just the woman,
are named as responsible for the inauspicious situation. The wom-
an’s role involves food and fertility, while the man’s is to fulfill ritual
obligations.
While the Zhouyi texts discussed here provide glimpses of some
of the problems women faced regarding marriage, they do not, of
course, give a comprehensive description of marital sociology in
the Western Zhou. Despite the later repute of the Changes as com-
prising all things in heaven and earth, the Zhouyi is a collection of
fragments and does not offer comprehensive guidance on the issues,
38. Rutt 1996: 277, 347–349 interprets this text historically in the context of
one of the odes as referring to “sororal polygamy” in which sisters of the primary bride
would accompany her to the king’s household as secondary wives. This is a possible
reading of the otherwise puzzling fifth line, but does not fundamentally alter the
interpretation given above.
39. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: 212.
40. While blood in later Daoist internal alchemy refers clearly to menstrual blood,
there is no evidence for this in the Zhou. However a man stabbing can be an obvi-
ous metaphor for intercourse. Such indirect sexual imagery was common in Chinese
writing.
88
WOMEN IN THE YIJING
41. Some modern interpreters have made up for this by rewriting the classic
as a guide to romance. See Karcher 2005, Legge 1882, and Ross 2011 for three such
appropriations.
42. We need only think of the novels of Jane Austen and George Eliot (the pen
name of Marian Evans) to realize how recently this has been the case in the West as
well. Modern diviners usually report that they have predominantly women clients and
that romance is the most frequent concern for which a reading is sought.
43. In art not governed by formal literati conventions, notably in woodblock illus-
trations, female figures were common. Quite explicit depictions of sexual intercourse
appeared in illustrated manuals on the “arts of the bed-chamber,” which probably
served for erotic stimulation as well as for guides of actual behavior. Many of the posi-
tions shown seem fanciful. While nothing of this sort survives from ancient times,
many of the poems in the Shijing, or Book of Songs of Songs have sexual implications,
later explained away by Confucian exegetes. Though out of date in many respects, Van
Gulik’s works (1951, 1961, 2003) are the most extensive treatises on sexuality in pre-
modern China.
89
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
inscriptions.44 During the same king’s reign, Lady Fu Hao, his second
wife, was the principal general of the army and seems to have been
quite successful in her campaigns. Periodically during Chinese his-
tory other women attained high military rank.45
An illustration of the influence of women—and male
resentment of it—is found in line 5 of 23 Bo (Splitting
Apart): 貫魚,以宮人寵,无不利. Wilhelm-Baynes render the line
as:
Others have translated this as meaning that favor comes to the court
ladies (or concubines).47 The former interpretation seems more con-
sistent with divinatory use. The political benefit of being favored by
women close to the seat of power is hardly unique to early China.
This line is somewhat curious, as access to the court ladies was likely
to be restricted, though perhaps less in the Western Zhou than later.
One can speculate that this line would refer to a situation where
the inquirer was a relative of the court lady—placing female rela-
tives with the king or high nobles was a usual way of attempting to
increase a family’s influence. This was true in Europe as well, though
in the medieval and later West even kings were allowed only one wife
at a time. Mistresses, however, might live openly in the palace and
consort with the ruler. (The divinatory meaning of this phrase would
presumably be broader, that success would be attained through using
connections, probably women in positions of power.)
In Wang Bi’s commentary, we find something quite different.
Referring to this line, he wrote:
90
WOMEN IN THE YIJING
[I]f one were to grant favor to the petty in such a way that it
would be strictly limited to palace ladies, no harm would be done
to the upright.48
That is to say, women belong to the class of small people (xiao ren
小人), a very unfavorable category in the Yijing. This implication is
not found in the Zhouyi, but can be read into the hexagram because it
is nearly all yin lines. Not satisfied with this gratuitously misogynis-
tic reading, Wang Bi regards “fishes” as referring to the collection of
yin lines in the hexagram: .
These examples are two of countless instances of yin lines serv-
ing as a pretext for negative remarks regarding women. In this way,
the great authority of the Book of Changes was used to support ideas
that originally had no place in it. One of the early meanings of yi 易
was “chameleon”—which may be the etymology of the word coming
to mean “change”—and the book has always been able to change to
blend in with its intellectual surroundings.
While the official Confucian attitude toward sexuality was one
of prudery and misogyny, there was an alternative tradition that
regarded sexual activity as normal and healthy. In this context, some
material in the Yijing was interpreted as about human reproduction
and sexuality. An example is hexagram 63 Jiji (After Completion).
This consists of the trigram for water over that for fire. As summa-
rized by van Gulik:
91
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
This passage shows how imagery from the Yijing was used to
describe differences in female and male sexuality. In books on the arts
of the bedchamber, detailed explanations are provided on how men
can please their female partners. Thus Confucian orthodoxy is not
the whole story regarding relationships between men and women in
traditional China. Here, in a quite different way that it was for Wang
Bi, the Changes serves as a place to locate ideas that arose much later
than the Western Zhou.
92
C hapter 4
1. One must distinguish between the age of the physical manuscript and the age
of the composition of the text. It cannot be assumed that those found in earlier tombs
are earlier versions of the text.
93
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
94
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
2. This, the oldest extant silk text, is of considerable interest, though not related
to the Zhouyi. Barnard 1973 gives reproductions, translation and commentary.
3. The occupant of the Mawangdui tomb died in 168 BCE. The standard mono-
graph and translation is that of Shaughnessy 1996.
4. Shaughnessy 2014: 47–57.
5. Examples are Allan and Williams 2000; Cook 2012; Harper 1997; Holloway
2009; Shaughnessy 1996; and Tseng 2011.
95
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
[T]he definition of an Yi text was still fairly fluid and may have
included varied combinations of textual material drawn from
different textual or oral traditions, traditions that undoubtedly
varied by time and place.6
6. C. Cook 1998: 37.
7. There may well have been other divinatory texts, such as the Baoshan and
possibly the Guicang, in which Changes phrases are combined with textual elements
from other sources. However, the received text, the Shanghai Museum bamboo
strips, and the Mawangdui silk manuscript all adhere to the same formal structure.
Unquestionably there were divinatory texts that were not of the Changes type. For
Baoshan, see C. Cook (2006: 153–210 et passim. For Guicang see Shaughnessy (2014:
141–187).
96
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
97
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
98
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
are considered in the order in which they were discovered and the
extent that they have been studied. Much of the important work is
available in Chinese only, but the useful English sources are cited in
what follows.10
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
“at least 560 characters . . . differ from those in the received text. They
amount to about 12% of what is readable.”14 Rutt makes the interest-
ing observation that “[m]ost of the variants are more elaborate forms
of characters in the received text, making the work appear ostenta-
tiously learned and mysterious.”15
Thus in the Mawangdui version, more than five hundred years
after the original composition, what had been an unadorned practical
manual for divination, has now taken on literary pretensions. This
choice to make a display of erudition gives us a hint of the personal-
ity of the scribe or, more likely, of the person who commissioned the
copy. Even in this remote age, the taste of the users played a role in
shaping texts, though we find nothing comparable to our present-day
obsession with authors’ personality quirks.16
The commentarial material of the Mawangdui Yijing, though
mostly fragmentary, is conceptually similar to the Ten Wings.
Of particular interest is a relatively long section translated by
Shaughnessy as “The Several Disciples Asked,” which consists of
previously unknown material. Each portion consists of a brief
text from the Zhouyi, introduced by the phrase “the Changes
says,” followed by a response attributed to the Master, suppos-
edly Confucius. Stylistically it does not resemble the Lunyu, being
characterized by a rather Polonius-like portentousness. With many
of the interpretations it is hard to see how they follow from the
Zhouyi texts.
These traits are apparent in the following example. First, from
the received versions, where it is line 6 of hexagram 2 Kun 坤 (This
is 33, Chuan 川, in the Mawangdui manuscript): “Dragons fight in
the meadow. Their blood is black and yellow.”17 “The Several Disciples
Asked” quotes this line and adds commentary:
100
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
The Changes says: “The dragon fights in the wild; its blood is black
and yellow.” Confucius said: “This speaks of the great man’s treasur-
ing virtue and effecting education among the people. . . . [T]hat the
sage issues laws and teachings in order to lead the people is also
like the dragon’s markings, which can indeed be called ‘black and
yellow.’ ”18,19
The reference to the dragon having black and yellow blood is one
of the most enigmatic in the Changes and therefore one that was
quite freely interpreted. In general, as in the example at hand, a baf-
fling phrase is made into a rather contrived statement of Confucian
morality.20 While “The Several Disciples Asked” lacks the originality
and stylistic flair of the Lunyu, it is still of considerable interest. As a
commentary, it does little to resolve the obscurities of the Zhouyi, but
it does provide much valuable material regarding how the classic was
interpreted during the early Han. Significantly, we learn that the mor-
alism of the received tradition was already well developed at this time.
101
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
During the year when the guest from Eastern Zhou, Xu Cheng,
presented a gift of ritual meat at Zaiying . . . 24
22. C. Cook 2006 provides transcription, English translation and legible photo-
graphic reproductions of the Baoshan bamboo strips themselves.
23. C. Cook 2006: 83.
24. C. Cook 2006:178.
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R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
In both texts, events are organized by year, and the year is identi-
fied by an important event that occurred during it. Sacrificial offer-
ings are recorded, indicating their importance. Sima Qian’s history
followed a similar annals organization, though providing far more
extended narrative beyond the bare statements of the Spring and
Autumn and the Baoshan.
As in the oracle-bone inscriptions, both the Baoshan and the
Wangshan assume that misfortune, including illness, is due to the
ill-will of spirits or recently deceased ancestors, both assumed to be
sensitive to the least slight. Cook suggests that guilt for ordering
executions, as well as fear of having inadvertently offended local dei-
ties on his many travels, may have been specific sources of anxiety
for Shao Tuo.
A large proportion of divinations were performed to detect
supernatural dangers, as these can only be discovered by means of
divination. Indeed, alleviation of anxiety is a major motivation for
divination in all times, though it not uncommonly has the oppo-
site effect. Travel was particularly fraught, not only because of the
possibility of wild animals or bandits but because each of the car-
dinal directions was thought to harbor specific threats, not only to
the living but also to the souls of the deceased on their postmortem
journey.26
103
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
104
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
105
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
THE GUICANG
34. Several valuable studies on this important text have been published in
English. See Liao 2006; Shaughnessy 2006: 148–149; 157–159; 2014: 141–187; Wen
2003: 584–587.
35. Shaughnessy 2006: 156.
36. Liao 2006: 47.
37. Liao 2006: 47.
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R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
The texts of the extant Guicang are longer and more detailed
than the only surviving divinatory texts that are clearly of Shang
origin, the oracle bones. Stylistically, the surviving Guicang texts are
in narrative form, making them more like Eastern Zhou divinatory
material, such as the Baoshan texts or the Zhouyi anecdotes of the
Zuozhuan, than the Western Zhou portion of the Yijing. Tantalizing
though it is to imagine that the Guicang is at least in part of Shang
origin, given the paucity of material and its unknown editorial his-
tory, such is merely speculative.
The Guicang uses the same hexagram system as the Zhouyi, often
with the same names, indicating that it clearly belongs to the Changes
family. The hexagrams have general statements appended, but no
line texts. Unlike the Zhouyi texts, those of the Guicang refer to a spe-
cific divination with names of participants. Xing Wen speculates that
line texts are absent because the Guicang is about the unchanging,
while the Zhouyi is about change.38 Such explicit philosophizing is
not found in the texts themselves, however. The Zhouyi, too, though
obviously about change, does not provide any metaphysical concept
of change; it is simply a given. The philosophical theories of change
associated with the Zhouyi, such as yin and yang, were added in the
Warring States and later.39 It is also problematic that any divinatory
system could be about the unchanging, given that the purpose of any
divinatory system is to tell what the present situation will change
into.
It is possible that the Guicang was intended as a record of exam-
ples of previous divinations for each hexagram, rather than as a man-
ual for doing new divinations. If this is the case, then the texts would
emphasize the outcome of the divination process, rather than the
process itself. In this case, there would be no reason to incorporate
107
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
the full line texts. Alternatively, some versions of the Changes may
not have included line texts.
Many of the Wangjiatai Guicang phrases refer to supernatural or
mythological events, for example:
While Smith is writing about the Qing dynasty, the earliest divina-
tion texts similarly omit procedural details.
Another example from the Guicang texts seems to record an
actual event, except that it is placed in antiquity. Shaughnessy relates
it to Zhouyi hexagram 7 Shi 師 (Army):
108
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
In antiquity the Son of Heaven Mu sent out troops and had the
stalks divined by Yu Qiang. Yu Qiang [said]: “Not auspicious.” It
says: “The dragon descends from heaven, but the road is long and
far; flying and piercing heaven, so blue its wings.”42
109
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
110
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
GUODIAN
Shaughnessy 2006: 185–256 and Nivison 2009. Both regard the text as authentic and
of significant value in establishing chronology for the Shang and Zhou. It should be
noted that the chronology of the early dynasties is a politically sensitive matter in the
People’s Republic of China, in part because Chinese take understandable pride in the
antiquity of their civilization. Such sensitivity is not unique to China—one can imag-
ine the public outcry that would result if it were claimed that American independence
did not really begin on July 4, 1776.
49. Shaughnessy 2006: 144.
50. S. Cook 2012. This two-volume work includes not only the complete Guodian
corpus but much interesting commentary regarding early Chinese texts.
51. S. Cook 2012, which includes transcription of the Chinese text, itself is a
monumental achievement.
111
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
112
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
55. This manuscript and the circumstances surrounding its discovery are dis-
cussed in S. Cook 2012: 23–26 and Shaughnessy 2014: 38f.
56. Shaughnessy 2014.
57. Pu 2006.
113
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
114
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
of the text written on the strip below it adhered to its back, and
then had to be read there as a mirror image. . . .60
115
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
for those to whom they were subject, one can speculate that they had
left because of oppressive conditions. The oppressor might have been
the dominant male of the household, but it may just as well have
been other women who were rivals for his favor. First wives in polyg-
amous families traditionally resented their younger, more attractive
rivals and used their senior position to abuse them. Sometimes, how-
ever, women of the household formed strong friendships. That all the
women in this passage had left suggests they were aiding each other.
That the women left for a neutral reason, such as going to market,
seems unlikely since there would be no reason to record a routine
event. Furthermore, the fact that their return is “fortunate” sug-
gests some concern that they might not come back. Thus the divina-
tion statement, more than the Zhouyi line phrase, gives us a sense
of Western Zhou life. Attempted escape by slaves and bond servants
must have been common, as it has been in all such societies. We can-
not conclude, however, that the received Zhouyi line text specifically
was about the return of qie; the Fuyang divination statement may
have been the record of a specific divination for which this line was
obtained. Shaughnessy notes that the divination statements are
similar to entries in record books found in other tombs of this era.65
Preserving the responses to divinations was obviously important, as
evidenced by the immense number recorded on the oracle bones, yet
the records are regrettably concise.
A divination statement related to hexagram 61 Zhongfu 中孚 ,
line 5 illuminates the received text in a different way. While Lynn
translates the title as “Inner Trust,” Rutt has “Trying Captives;” the lat-
ter is consistent with the early meaning of fu as captives. Line 5 reads:
九五:有孚攣如,无咎.
116
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
117
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
118
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
LOOTED MATERIALS: ETHICAL
CONSIDERATIONS
71. Translations of later divinatory works derived from the Changes are Nylan
1993 and Sawyer 2004.
119
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
72. See Renfrew 2000 (for the perspective of archaeologists) and Cuno 2010 (for
the perspective of museum curators).
73. Goldin 2013.
120
R e c e n t ly Exc a va t e d M a n u s c r ip t s
121
C hapter 5
122
A n ci e n t M e a n i n g s R e c o n s t r uc t e d
123
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
124
A n ci e n t M e a n i n g s R e c o n s t r uc t e d
5. Nielsen 2003: xvi.
6. Shaughnessy 1983: 14f.
125
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
7. The main basis for reconstruction has been so-called rime (or rhyme) tables,
which classify characters by initial and final sound. The pioneer in the West was the
great Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren. Others have built upon Karlgren’s 1926
and 1957 works. A recent comprehensive, but quite technical, work is Schuessler 2009.
Somewhat more accessible is Sagart 1999.
8. An English equivalent would be writing “here” or even “hair” for “hear.”
9. An example is “net,” in the Zhou a device for catching fish, now short for
“Internet.”
10. In context of “master,” zi by itself refers specifically to Confucius, though of
course not in the Western Zhou.
126
A n ci e n t M e a n i n g s R e c o n s t r uc t e d
127
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
128
A n ci e n t M e a n i n g s R e c o n s t r uc t e d
129
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
18. Rutt 1996: 293. I have been told by several horse breeders that most mares
are not particularly docile.
19. Lynn 1994: 141f.
20. Rutt 1996, 187‒188.
21. Legge 1935: 13.
22. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: 4.
23. Lynn 1994: 129.
130
A n ci e n t M e a n i n g s R e c o n s t r uc t e d
24. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: 4–6 gives useful suggestions in discussing these
terms.
25. A table of these correlations is found in Nielsen 2003: 319.
26. This was proposed by Waley 1933: 125f. and accepted by Kunst and Rutt in
their translations.
27. The former graph 孚 appears more than sixty times in the received Zhouyi, but
the second, 俘, not at all, suggesting that it was not in use in this early period.
131
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
meaning as “captive” fits better with the rest of the associated text.
Some scholars have offered tendentious arguments to explain why
a word meaning “captives” could have come to mean “sincerity”;
however, as is often the case with language drift, we simply cannot
account for the change.
Not all meaning changes are as extreme as with fu. Thus, hui 悔
(trouble) first denoted external misfortune, but later came to refer to
regret as an internal state.28 Here, as with yuan li heng zhen and fu, the
later meaning took on an ethical connotation not apparent earlier.
The restoration of references to sacrifice, though making for
unpleasant reading, often clarifies texts that are obscure in the
received version. An example is hexagram 23 Bo 剝 . Here are lines
1 and 2 of this chapter, followed by Legge’s translation.
剝床以足 蔑貞凶
剝床以辨 蔑貞凶
one overturning the couch by injuring its legs. . . . the destruc-
tion of all firm correctness, and there will be evil.
one overthrowing the couch by injuring its frame. (The injury
will go on to) the destruction of (all) firm correctness and there
will be evil.29
Given that beds with legs almost certainly did not exist in the Western
Zhou, the reference to the legs of a bed peeling is anachronistic and
highly peculiar. Kunst’s Western Zhou reconstruction translating bo
as “flaying” is, in contrast, quite clear:
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A n ci e n t M e a n i n g s R e c o n s t r uc t e d
Why this is ominous (other than for the ewe) is not stated, but a plausi-
ble explanation is that the choice of a ewe for sacrifice was not pleasing
to the ancestors, hence the unfavorable prognostication. As mentioned
earlier, supernatural beings were inordinately picky about the choice of
sacrificial animal and the mode of killing. Read as describing the skin-
ning of an animal carcass, a frequent event in farming societies, the
phrases make complete sense.31 There have been other readings, such
as that of Gao Heng that the phrases refer to a man in bed with a bad
foot, knee, and so on.32 Despite some disagreement among the experts,
it seems virtually certain that the passage was originally about flaying,
not about damage to a bed or its occupant.
31. This reading does require the substitution proposed by Kunst 1985 of zang
牂 (ewe) for chuang 床(bed). However, the title character of this chapter in both the
received and Mawangdui versions is bo 剝, which means “flaying,” strong evidence that
an animal is the subject of the line texts.
32. Rutt 1996: 317.
33. What repels about animal sacrifice is not only the outmoded religious moti-
vation but that it renders visible what modern society prefers to keep hidden. Not
just modern society: Mencius himself suggested that refined persons should stay away
from the kitchen, lest the suffering of the animals spoil their appetite.
133
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
134
A n ci e n t M e a n i n g s R e c o n s t r uc t e d
IMPORTUNATE WEEDS
135
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
136
A n ci e n t M e a n i n g s R e c o n s t r uc t e d
For anyone who has regarded the Yijing as sagely, the reconstructed
Zhouyi text with its references to human sacrifice and the general
harshness of life in its era can be disillusioning. If there was once a
kinder, gentler stage of human society, it is not that of the Western
Zhou. Yet before concluding that the Zhouyi is an amoral work,
we need to remember that in the Warring States, and possibly by
the Spring and Autumn, the work had become a respected ethical
137
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
authority. This suggests that early roots of moral sensibility might lie
hidden in the Western Zhou layers.
So-called ancestor worship—rituals to prevent anger on the part
of deceased ancestors—can be seen as “proto-ethical.” Implicit in
concern for ancestral approval is the assumption that actions can be
right or wrong. This is also inherent in the notion of the junzi, who
whether or not a prince, is still a person whose behavior is exemplary.
The basic function of the Changes was to regulate action, particularly
by ensuring that it is appropriate for the time when it is carried out.
While this can be pure self-interest, nonetheless, it also assumes that
actions must be chosen properly, even if the ancient ideas of correct-
ness are vastly different from our own.
That divinatory practices were frequent and were directed to
ancestors or spirits also indicates an abiding concern for the transper-
sonal consequences of human actions.47 It was believed that deceased
ancestors were able to affect the well-being of the living. Their wishes
needed to be understood and heeded; divination was how these could
be known. This concern with supernatural consequences anticipated
what became the central idea of Chinese philosophy—that human
flourishing requires living in harmony with cosmic principles.
Already by the time of the oracle bones, divination was a means of
understanding what came to be known as the will of heaven (tian
ming 天命). As Confucius remarked at the conclusion of the Lunyu:
47. The world’s major religions continue to teach that improper acts will be
judged, whether by a personal god, or by an impersonal heaven or karma.
48. Slightly modified from Watson 2007: 142.
138
A n ci e n t M e a n i n g s R e c o n s t r uc t e d
139
C hapter 6
For those who read the Wilhelm-Baynes translation, the Yijing text
must look confusing. In this, the most popular version, the Yijing
text is presented in three segments.1 It begins with the sixty-four
hexagrams, including the hexagram names, hexagram images,
judgment statements, and line statements. Just as readers have
begun to think of the Yijing as a “book of oracles,” giving guidance
about the unknown, they come upon two philosophical essays: the
Shuogua (Explanation of the Trigrams) and the Dazhuan (Great
Commentary). In the two essays, readers are asked to imagine the
hexagrams as metaphors for changes in the natural and human
worlds. Just as they now begin to develop a taste of the Yijing
as a “book of wisdom” about morality and metaphysics, they find
the reappearance of the book of oracles.2 This time, the return
of the oracles not only reaffirms the Yijing as a divination man-
ual; it also introduces five additional commentaries: Tuanzhuan
(Commentary to the Judgments), Xiangzhuan (Commentary to
the Images), Wenyan (Words of the Text), Xugua (Hexagrams in
Sequence), and Zagua (Hexagrams in Irregular Order). Blurring
the line between text and commentary, materials from these five
writings are inserted into each chapter as if they are part of the
core text.
1. Richard Wilhelm presents the Yijing text in three “books”: (I) the text, (II) the
document, and (III) the commentaries. See Wilhelm and Baynes 1967.
2. The terms “book of oracles” and “book of wisdom” are Wilhelm and Baynes
1967: xlix–lviii.
140
THE TEN WINGS
3. Certainly more systematic, the order of the Yijing text in Lynn 1994 is uncon-
ventional. Lynn reverses the order of the received text by putting the Dazhuan,
Shuogua, Xugua, and Zagua ahead of the core text.
4. Aided by recent archaeological discoveries, historians have developed more
accurate dating of the Ten Wings. In general, scholars accept that the Ten Wings were
written by different authors during the Warring States and the Western Han periods,
roughly from the fifth to the second century BCE. For the dates of the Ten Wings, see
Smith 2008: 31–48.
5. Since the 1920s, modern Chinese scholars have focused on separating the
original oracles of the Yijing (also known as the Zhouyi) from the canonized text of
the Western Han period. In the name of critical scholarship, this separation of the
oracles from the commentarial materials is to “clean up” the anachronism in the Yijing
141
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
received text. For consideration of the restored early meanings, see c hapter 5. For a
summary of this modernist approach, see Rutt 1996 and Nylan 2001: 208–224.
6. For a summary of recent archaeological discoveries of the Yijing text, see Smith
2008: 48–56.
7. Lewis 1999: 243–251; see also Nylan 2001: 224–228.
142
THE TEN WINGS
In the received Yijing text, each of the original sixty-four chapters con-
tains three elements: the hexagram images, the judgment statements,
and the line statements. Each hexagram image is an assemblage of
six lines in the shape of either a straight line (—) or a broken line
(‒ ‒). For instance, the images of the first two hexagrams Qian (The
Creative) and Kun (Receptive) are respectively and . Each hexa-
gram is accompanied by a judgment statement that often, but not
always, summarizes the significance of that chapter. For example, the
judgment statement of Qian describes the hexagram with four archaic
words: yuan (beginning), heng (success), li (benefits), and zhen (perse-
verance). In Wilhelm-Baynes translation, the judgment statement is
rendered as “the Creative works sublime success, furthering through
perseverance.”8 The translation has already smoothed over the ambi-
guity and filled in the ellipses. In the original statement, there is no
clear syntax linking the four words. We cannot tell whether the four
words should be read as four separate situations (yuan, heng, li, zhen)
or a pair of two-word phrases (yuanheng lizhen) as we read in Wilhelm’s
translation. (See c hapter 5 for further details.)
Similar ambiguity is also found in hexagram line statements.
The commentary to each line statement explains the characteristic
of a particular hexagram line. For example, the line statement for
the first line of Qian hexagram is: “Nine at the beginning: Hidden
dragon, do not Act.”9 “Nine” refers to the yang nature of the hexa-
gram line, represented by a straight line. “At the beginning” describes
the position of the yang line, which is at the bottom of the hexagram.
“Hidden dragon, do not act” suggests the proper course of action for
someone who is a yang at the bottom of a structure. Although more
concrete, the line statement Wilhelm-Baynes is still full of ambiguity.
It is not clear what “hidden dragon” means and how to avoid taking
an aggressive course of action.
143
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
10. See Dai 1988: 23–29. Dai’s book is one of the best scholarly writings on the
Ten Wings. It offers a detailed discussion of all seven writings of the Ten Wings.
144
THE TEN WINGS
145
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
13. For the translation of the Xiang II comments on Qian, see Wilhelm and Baynes
1967: 373–375.
14. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: 376–377.
146
THE TEN WINGS
147
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
148
THE TEN WINGS
149
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
society. The second half of Xugua begins with 31 Xian (Influence) and
32 Heng (Permanence) that signify the partnership between husband
and wife in creating a family. When reaching 48 Jing (Well), 49 Ge
(Political Change), and 50 Ding (The Cauldron), the story moves from
stabilizing a family to building a stable government. When reach-
ing 63 Jiji (After Completion) and 64 Weiji (Before Completion), the
story ends with human determination to continue to build a sustain-
able society for generations to come.
In Xugua, as mentioned earlier, hexagram 64 Weiji (Before
Completion) is both an end and a beginning. In terms of its posi-
tion, the hexagram stands at the end of the Xugua sequence; in
terms of its function, it symbolizes the need to restart the process
of creation because “things cannot exhaust themselves.”21 Thus, as
the last hexagram of the sequence, Weiji is fittingly “crossing incom-
plete.” Its incompleteness necessitates another round of creation
and generation. As such, the human ending of the Xugua points to
the cosmic beginning of the text, and the linear progression of the
cosmological-cum-political saga turns into endless cycles of genera-
tion and regeneration.
This theme of endless cycles of generation and regeneration
receives further elaboration in the Shuogua (Explanation of the
Trigrams). Thus far, the writings of the Ten Wings that we have dis-
cussed are all directed at images and statements of the oracles. In
contrast, the Shuogua author focuses on the meanings of the eight
trigrams that are paired to form the hexagrams. To the Shuogua
author, the eight trigrams (Qian, Kun, Zhen, Shun, Kan, Li, Gan,
Dui) are abstract symbols with a wide variety of meanings, includ-
ing natural and human forces, animate and inanimate beings, colors
21. Wilhelm is more accurate in translating the Xugua statement on Weiji (wu
buke qiong ye 物不可窮也). By rendering the Xugua statement as “things cannot
exhaust themselves,” Wilhelm captures the double meaning of Weiji as being both
the end and the beginning of the sixty-four hexagram sequence. See Wilhelm and
Baynes 1967: 714. In contrast, usually reliable in translation, Richard John Lynn less
clearly conveys the double meaning of Weiji. His translation of the Xugua statement is
plain: “with which the hexagrams come to an end.” See Lynn 1994: 110.
150
THE TEN WINGS
and products (figure 6.1). Under certain circumstances, the eight tri-
grams can be symbols of the different states of mind: “Qian is strong.
Kun is yielding. Zhen means movement. Shun is penetrating. Kan is
dangerous. Li means dependence. Gan means stand-still. Dui means
pleasure.”22 In another situation, the eight trigrams can be symbols
of different animals: “Qian acts in the horse, Kun in the cow, Zhen in
the dragon, Shun in the cock, Kan in the pig, Li in the pheasant, Gan
in the dog, Dui in the sheep.”23 In yet another situation, the eight
trigrams can be symbols of different parts of body: “Qian manifests
itself in the head, Kun in the belly, Zhen in the foot, Shun in the thigh,
Kan in the ear, Li in the eye, Gan in the hand, Dui in the mouth.”24
By viewing trigrams (and, by extension, hexagrams) as abstract
symbols, the Shuogua author gains freedom in interpreting the
oracles. For instance, the Shuogua author has no need to restrict his
commentary to a particular trigram or a specific group of hexagrams.
Instead, the Shuogua author can indulge in free association in pick-
ing and choosing oracles. Taking full advantage of this freedom, the
Shuogua author addresses broad and general topics about the Yijing,
such as the purpose of the Yijing as a text and how to use the hexa-
grams for moral cultivation.
Regarding the use of the hexagrams for moral cultivation, the
Shuogua author emphasizes the function of the oracles as signs.
According to the Shuogua author, the ancient holy sages invented
the trigrams and hexagrams as symbols to represent changes in the
natural and human worlds. As symbols, the Shuogua author argues,
the trigrams and hexagrams are visual images by which one can
achieve three tasks: “to think through the order of the outer world”
(qiongli), “to explore one’s nature to the deepest core” (jinxing), and
“to arrive at an understanding of fate” (zhiyu ming).25 These three
steps—attaining an understanding of the phenomenal world, one’s
151
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
152
THE TEN WINGS
26. For the history of Western Han canonization, see Nylan 2001: 31–41.
27. Lewis 1999: 241.
28. In discussing the process of canonization, Wolfgang Iser distinguishes two
kinds of canon: an open canon and a closed canon. Whereas the former (e.g., a liter-
ary canon) continues to accept new authors or new texts, the latter (e.g., the Jewish
scripture) is sealed after canonization. See Iser 2000: 13–40.
153
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
154
THE TEN WINGS
warn against the dangers of his times.32 (In alternate versions of this
myth, King Wen wrote the judgments, but the Duke of Zhou wrote
the line texts.) As regards Confucius’s authorship of the Yijing, this
is suggested by the Dazhuan summaries of what “the Master” said
about various hexagram lines. In one of the summaries, the Dazhuan
shows that “the Master” was plausibly Confucius (or a follower of
Confucius), who quoted the first line of Fu 24 (Return) to praise Yan
Hui’s steadfastness in moral cultivation:
The Master said: Yen Hui [Yan Hui] is one who will surely attain
it. . . . [H]e never commits the error the second time. In the
Changes it is said: “Return from a short distance. No need for
remorse. Great good fortune.”33
155
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
156
THE TEN WINGS
157
C hapter 7
Cosmology
Like other classics and scriptures, the Yijing was both blessed and
burdened by canonization. On the one hand, after being recognized
as one of the “Five Classics” of Confucianism in 136 BCE, the Yijing
was blessed by its august status as a revered text. Augmented by state
power, it was taught at the imperial academy, the highest academic
institution in the Chinese empire. Special “erudite scholars” (boshi
博士) were appointed to study the Yijing and to counsel the emperors
on using the classic to govern the country. In supporting the state,
the Yijing was frequently used for a variety of sociopolitical purposes,
such as adjusting calendars, explaining seasonal changes, and design-
ing musical notes.1 Directly tied to rulership, mastering the Yijing
became a route to glory and power; Yijing specialists were regularly
appointed to government positions. As a result, Yijing studies blos-
somed throughout the Han dynasty (206 BCE‒220 CE). During these
four hundred years, special interpretative methods and scholarly tra-
ditions were developed to explicate the Yijing. These methods and
traditions formed a distinctive style of interpretation known today
as the “Han Yi” 漢易 (studies of the Changes of the Han Dynasty), or
the xiangshu 象數 (images and numbers) tradition.”2
On the other hand, the Yijing was burdened by canonization. To
control the interpretation of the classic, the Han emperors authorized
1. For a summary of the uses of the Yijing after canonization, see Nylan
2001: 307–362; Lewis 1999: 337–362.
2. Depending on which historical accounts one use, during the Han dynasty there
were three or five Yijing interpretative traditions. For a summary of the Han Yijing
studies, see Nielsen 2003: 99‒102, 302; Henderson 1991: 38‒50.
158
Cosmology
159
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
8. Queen 1984: 1–53.
9. Queen 1984: 206.
10. Loewe 1994: 121‒141.
160
Cosmology
INTERCHANGEABILITY OF HEXAGRAMS
161
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
strategies was the view that every word in the Yijing is a metaphor
for trigrams and hexagrams. With this view, the Han Yijing scholars
turned the entire Yijing into graphic symbols for “the mutual respon-
siveness of heaven and humanity.” For Meng and Jing, this rule not
only applies to those sections devoted to hexagram images, such as
Xiangzhuan (Commentary to the Images), but also every part of the
Yijing. Even passages that explicitly discuss historical events—such
as the reference to the founding of the Shang and Zhou dynasties in
the judgment text of hexagram 49 Ge (Political Change)—have to be
understood as symbols for trigrams and hexagrams.14
Thus, during the Han dynasty, the accuracy and proficiency of a
Yijing scholar were measured by his ability to interpret the Yijing in
terms of hexagram images—what they considered to be the original
layer of the Yijing. Nevertheless, the goal of such reading was not to
return the Yijing to the Western Zhou oracles, but to take the entire
Yijing text as allegorical symbols. For example, in the Wenyan com-
mentary on hexagram 1 Qian (The Creative), attributed to Confucius,
the fifth line “flying dragon” represents the harmony in nature. It
describes the harmony in nature as “water flows to where it is wet,
and fire goes toward where it is dry.”15 In interpreting the Wenyan
statement, the Han Yijing scholars took every word in the statement
as a symbol of a trigram. So, “water” stands for Kan ; “wet” repre-
sents Kun ; “fire” invokes Li ; “dry” implies Qian . With this
allegorical reading, the Wenyan statement was turned into a medita-
tion on the relationship of these four trigrams and the possibility of
creating a set of hexagrams.16
14. For the historical events described in 49 Ge and 50 Ding, see Wilhelm and
Baynes 1967: 636.
15. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: 382.
16. Li Dingzuo 1988: 1, 17a. (The letters “a” and “b” refer to the traditional pagi-
nation of Zhouyi jieie that has two pages printed together.) Although very few Yijing
commentaries of the Han Dynasty survive, large numbers of excerpts are available in
Li Dingzuo 1988. In this chapter, I use Li’s text as my primary source in discussing the
Han Yijing studies. All translations of Li’s text are mine.
162
Cosmology
163
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
INTERCHANGEABILITY OF THE
HEXAGRAM LINES
164
Cosmology
165
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
HEXAGRAM SYSTEMS
25. The eight pure hexagrams are also called the eight “palaces.” For details about
the system of eight pure hexagrams, see Nielson 2003: 1‒7.
166
Cosmology
increase of the yang force (reading from Fu to Qian), and the gradual
increase of the yin force (reading from Gou to Kun).26 Moreover, the
twelve hexagrams are supposed to be continuous—that is, when
the series ends with Kun, it will begin anew with Fu. Based on these
twelve hexagrams, the Han Yijing scholars took “the return in seven
days” to means the return of the yang force through seven hexa-
grams—namely, six hexagrams (from Gou to Kun) for the six yang
lines to be replaced by the yin lines and an additional hexagram (Fu)
to show the reemergence of the yang force. By equating “seven days”
with seven hexagrams, “the return in seven days” was indeed the
return of the yang force in seven hexagrams.27
Arbitrary as it may seem, the Han Yijing scholars’ interpreta-
tion of “the return of seven days” underscored the importance of
linking one hexagram to others. By linking individual hexagrams
to a web of hexagrams, the Han Yijing scholars confirmed that the
cosmos is orderly, stable, and predictable. Like the hexagrams, the
cosmos is orderly because it is governed by a few simple rules, such
as the ebb and flow of the yin and yang forces. Like the hexagrams,
the cosmos is stable because it follows fixed patterns, such as the
four seasons, solstices, and pitch-pipes. Like the hexagrams, the
cosmos is predictable because one thing will automatically trans-
form into something else based on the predetermined rules and
patterns.
For these reasons, it comes as no surprise that systems like the
“hexagrams of dispersal and accumulation” were crucial to the Han
scholars’ reading of the Yijing. Not only did the twelve hexagrams
show graphically the ebb and flow of the yin and yang forces, they
also clearly laid out the sequence of events. As such, they helped to
reduce the uncertainties in life. Once a person identified a hexagram
in this system (say, Fu), that person could immediately tell what had
happened in the past and what will happen in the future. Accordingly,
26. For a discussion of how commentators used the xiaoxi gua to interpret the
Yijing, see Nielson 2003: 274–276.
27. Li Dingzuo 1998: 6, 3a.
167
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
that person can make plans to solve existing problems and to shape
the future (figures 7.2 and 7.3).
AN ORDERLY COSMOS
168
Cosmology
169
Figure 0.1. Tortoise with trigrams. An allusion to the myth of Fu Xi seeing the trigrams
on the back of a turtle. This is a much later illustration based in part on this myth.
All figures are from Rong Yong, et al. This exists in multiple editions without
usable pagination.
Figure 1.1. The sixty-four hexagrams in circular (heaven) and square (earth) arrange-
ments. They are in the order attributed to Fu Xi.
Figure 1.2. A Daoist fu, or talisman, using trigram imagery. These were usually sold in
Daoist temples. The purchaser, hoping for improved health, good luck, or other ben-
efits, usually burned the paper slip and consumed the ashes.
Figure 6.1. The trigrams as a decorative and auspicious motif in the manner of bronze
mirror backs.
Figure 7.3. Trigrams illustrating the circulation of yin and yang associated with the
hands and feet. Another example of correlative metaphysics applied to the body. These
diagrams show the extreme complexity that developed from the yin-yang theory.
Figure 7.4. Alternative versions of the eight trigrams (ba gua). Scholars fascinated by
the combinatorial possibilities of the diagrams invented elaborate variations thought
to reveal metaphysical truths.
Figure 10.1. Binary sequence of hexagrams. It was this sequence, though with a less
complex diagram, that Fr. Joachim Bouvet sent to Gottfried Leibniz.
Figure 11.1. Yarrow stick method for hexagram selection. This elaborate and
time-consuming method involved repeated sorting of the sticks. This was the earliest
method but details were lost. The later reconstruction in the Song by Zhu Xi probably
does not exactly duplicate the early one.
C hapter 8
Moral Cultivation
1. For a standard account of the history of Han Yi versus Song Yi, see the Yijing
section of Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 1999: 14. For an example of how this Siku guanshu
account is used in studying the Yijing commentaries, see Kidder Smith et al. 1990: 7–25.
171
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
2. For a more nuanced account of the history of Yijing commentaries, see Smith
2008. In this book, Smith shows that in many periods of time (including the Song
dynasty and the Ming dynasty), both the methods of the Han Yi and the Song Yi coex-
isted (Smith 2008: 112–194).
3. Wei-ming Tu argues that the Chinese conception of nature is based on the
notion of “the continuity of being” in which all animate and inanimate beings are
connected together into “a spontaneous self-generating process.” He describes this
self-generating process as having three characteristics: continuity, wholeness, and
dynamism. See Tu 1985: 35–50.
172
M o r a l C ult iva t i o n
4. See Wang Bi’s essay “Ming Tuan” (Clarifying the judgments). For a translation
of this essay, see Lynn 1994: 25–27.
173
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Thus each of the six positions [in Qian] forms without ever missing
its moment, its ascent or descent not subject to fixed rule, func-
tioning according to the moment involved. If one is to remain in
repose, ride a hidden dragon, and if one is to set forth, ride a flying
dragon. This is why it is said: “When it is the moment for it, ride one
of the six dragons. Here one takes control of the great instrument
(daqi, Heaven) by riding change and transformation.”8
The “six dragons” that are mentioned here are the six yang lines of
Qian. Line 1 is “the submerged dragon”; line 2 is “the emerged dragon”;
line 3 is “the superior man in constant self-strengthening”; line 4 is
5. See Wang Bi’s essay “Ming yao tong bian” (Clarifying how the lines are com-
mensurate with change). For a translation of this essay, see Lynn 1994: 27–29.
6. See Wang Bi’s essay “Ming gua shi bian tong yao” (Clarifying how the hexa-
grams correspond to change and make the lines commensurate with it). For a transla-
tion of this essay, see Lynn 1994: 29–31.
7. “Timely mounting the six dragons” summarizes the end of the Tuanzhuan
statement. Richard Wilhelm translates the complete Tuanzhuan statement as fol-
lows: “Because the holy man is clear as to the end and the beginning, as to the way
in which each of the six stages completes itself in its own time, he mounts on them
toward heaven as though on six dragons” (Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: 371).
8. Lynn 1994: 129. Note that when translating Wang Bi’s commentary on the
Tuanzhuan statement, Lynn does not provide a translation of the original statement.
Therefore, readers cannot tell why Wang Bi discusses “riding one of the six dragons.”
174
M o r a l C ult iva t i o n
175
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
right order. Yet, ideal as Jiji may appear, Wang Bi urges caution and
introspection in this seemingly ideal situation.9
Conversely, despite its ominous title, “Before Completion,” Wang
Bi considers Weiji promising. On the surface, Weiji is clearly hampered
by the wrong order of all six of its lines. All of the yang positions
(lines 1, 3, and 5) are occupied by yin lines, and all the yin positions
(lines 2, 4, and 6) are occupied by yang lines. With the wrong order,
the six lines are incapable of forming a cohesive and supportive team.
Yet, for Wang Bi, it is precisely this imperfect order that gives Weiji
the drive, the impetus, and the vitality to push forward.10
176
M o r a l C ult iva t i o n
Cheng Yi’s and Zhu Xi’s commentaries played different roles in present-
ing a philosophy of moral metaphysics. For Cheng Yi, the moral phi-
losophy of the Ten Wings spoke directly to educated elites, who, in every
instance, have to choose between acting righteously and acting for pri-
vate benefit. Constantly under pressure to make difficult decisions or to
negotiate competing claims, the literati could find moral lessons in the
Ten Wings to be the da ren 大人 (great men)—the moral persons who
know the pattern of the universe, and know how to apply it in daily
life.11 For this reason, Cheng Yi’s commentary is full of detailed instruc-
tions for resolving specific problems, such as how to handle oneself
in factional politics, how to befriend like-minded colleagues, and how
to serve the government under an arrogant ruler.12 As Kidder Smith
points out, being morally didactic, Cheng Yi’s commentary “reflects
how eleventh-century China provided enormous opportunities for lit-
eratus advancement into real power—as politicians, within a vigorous
economy, as litterateurs, as members of influential families, etc.”13
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
14. For the significance of Cheng Yi’s inclusion of Xugua into the sixty-four hexa-
grams, see Hon 2005: 121–129.
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M o r a l C ult iva t i o n
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180
C hapter 9
For Chinese, the history of their country in the last century is filled
with revolutions: the Revolution of 1911, the May Fourth Movement
(1915–1923), the Communist Revolution of 1949, and the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Though not consid-
ered a revolution, the opening up initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979
has once again transformed life for Chinese. Although all are distinct
in their own right, these events are linked together historically in
a teleology of continuous revolution. According to this narrative,
twentieth-century China began with a political revolution to trans-
form the imperial state into a nation-state; then it underwent an
intellectual revolution to replace Confucianism with modern science
and democracy; finally it developed a socialist revolution to drasti-
cally change the socioeconomic structure of the nation. The under-
lying theme is that China’s modernization could only be achieved
by severing its ties with the past, particularly through a complete
restructuring of the country’s political, cultural, and social systems.1
This saga of “continuous revolution” includes the Yijing. The
Yijing was inextricably tied to the imperial system after being can-
onized as a Confucian classic in 136 BCE. Supported by the lite-
rati and sustained through voluminous commentaries, the Yijing
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THE YIJING A S CHINA ENTERS THE MODERN AGE
4. For a summary of this change in the study of the Yijing, see Smith 2008: 199–201.
5. This historical view of linear progression was popular in China since the late
nineteenth century. For the origin of this view, see Schwartz 1964.
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From the 1920s to the 1990s, the historicization of the Yijing went
through three stages, with each stage increasingly distancing the
Yijing from the Confucian tradition and more closely linking it to the
quest for modernity. The first (and the widely celebrated) attempt
at historicizing the Yijing was the Doubting Antiquity Movement
(Yigupai 疑古派) in the mid-1920s. Led by the historian Gu Jiegang
顧頡剛 (1893–1980), this movement reexamined ancient texts to
critique the imperial tradition. Its goal was to show the hypocrisy
of imperial officials who fabricated textual evidence to support the
imperial orthodoxy.6 In 1931, Gu and his cohorts published essays
on the Yijing in the third volume of Gushi bian 古史辨 (Debates on
Ancient History)—the flagship publication of the movement.
What made the Yijing essays in this collection a new departure
was that they all followed Gu’s method of tracing historical gene-
alogy. Instead of viewing the Yijing as a coherent text, the authors
of these essays carefully examined various segments of the text.
Through meticulous studies, they demonstrated that the received
Yijing text was composed by multiple authors and compiled over a
long span of time.7 One of their discoveries was that the Zhouyi, the
original sections, had nothing to do with the Confucian tradition. In
fact, some authors went so far as to argue that the Ten Wings was not
composed or even edited by Confucius. They showed that many ideas
6. For a study of the Doubting Antiquity Movement, see Schneider 1971. “Ku
Chieh-Kang” in Schneider’s book title is a different transliteration of the name “Gu
Jiegang.”
7. For instance, to show that the received Yijing text was composed by a host of
authors, Gu Jiegang compared the stories in the hexagram statements. See Gushi bian
3: 1–84.
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THE YIJING A S CHINA ENTERS THE MODERN AGE
Soon afterward, this broad picture of ancient China was filled in with
details. Based on the findings of the Yijing scholars, the Communist
185
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
11. See Guo Moruo, “Zhongguo gudai shehui yanjiu 中国古代社会研究” (Studies
of Chinese ancient society[1929]), in Guo 1982: 1, 6–314, esp. 32–89.
12. See Guo 1940. The book also appears in Guo 1982: 1, 377–404.
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THE YIJING A S CHINA ENTERS THE MODERN AGE
13. See Li Jingchi 1978: 1–19. Although Li’s book was published in 1978, it was
completed in 1963. Due to political reasons, the book was not published until the late
1970s.
14. See Li Jingchi 1978: 8.
15. See Li Jingchi 1978: 151–177. See also Gao 1963: 1–5.
16. See Jin Jingfang, “Yi Tong 易通”(Explaining the Changes [1945]), in Jin
1987: 8–132, esp. 37–38, 124–26.
17. For a summary of the 1960s debate, see Liao 2001: 259–273.
18. See Li Jingchun 1961: 1–5. In the opening section of this book, Li Jingchun
quoted Mao Zedong’s essay “On Contradiction” (Maodun lun) to justify his search for
dialectical thinking in ancient China.
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The inconsistency was even more glaring when viewed from the
Marxist historical perspective. According to the Marxist view of his-
tory, modern dialectical thinking first appeared in Hegalian ideal-
ism and was perfected in Marxist materialism. The latter emerged in
industrial society, where the distinctions between subject and object,
inner and outer, private and public are clearly defined and diamet-
rically opposite. Hence, modern dialectical thinking is essentially a
tool to overcome the alienation of modern life in which the workers
are separated from the fruits of their labor. According to the logic
of linear progression, the alienation of modern life would not have
existed in the tribalism of the Zhouyi times, nor could the yin-yang
polarity be truly dialectical when the concept was mainly applied to
fortune-telling. To end the discussion before it went out of control,
the Communist cadres created two new terms: “primitive dialectics,”
to refer to the yin-yang polarity in Zhouyi divination, and “modern
dialectics,” to refer to the Marxist analysis of the socioeconomic
structure of an industrial economy.19
YIJING FEVER
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THE YIJING A S CHINA ENTERS THE MODERN AGE
tomb of a lord who died in 168 BCE of the Western Han period (206
BCE–9 CE), the Mawangdui Yijing was written on silk. What made
this discovery exciting was that the manuscript contained the entire
Yijing text—the images of the sixty-four hexagrams, the hexagram
and line statements, some commentarial materials that were simi-
lar to the Ten Wings—and yet the sequence of sixty-four hexagrams
was completely different.21 Rather than beginning with Qian and Kun
and ending with Jiji and Weiji as in the received text, the Mawangdui
Yijing manuscript started with Qian and Pi and ended with Jianren
and Yi. In addition, the sixty-four hexagrams are arranged into eight
sequences based on the trigram images.22
This different arrangement of the hexagrams not only called into
question the authority of the received Yijing, but also cast doubt on
traditional commentarial interpretations of the text that were based
on the received hexagram sequence, such as the Xugua (Hexagrams in
Sequence). More importantly, it drew attention to the complex pro-
cess of canonizing the Yijing, since it had circulated in multiple ver-
sions. Above all, the Mawangdui manuscript reopened the Marxist
debate about the history of ancient China, particularly the exact cir-
cumstances in which China evolved from tribalism to feudalism.23
In addition to the new archaeological discoveries, “Yijing fever”
was possible because of the momentous changes in China after the
launch of the opening-up policies of Deng Xiaoping. These quickly
transformed China from a stagnant and insular country into an eco-
nomic power in the global capitalist system. This rapid economic
growth not only led to a robust print market, but also produced a
large number of readers who could afford to buy books. In many
respects, “Yijing fever” was a result of this bloom in the print mar-
ket. By reintroducing an ancient text that could be applied to a wide
variety of topics such as fengshui, self-help, and human psychology,
21. While the entire work is present, some characters are illegible.
22. For a translation of the Mawangdui Yijing manuscript, see Shaughnessy 1996.
23. For a succinct summary of the significance of the Mawandui Yijing manu-
script, see Li Xueqin 2008.
189
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
190
THE YIJING A S CHINA ENTERS THE MODERN AGE
191
C hapter 10
In its journey to the West, the Changes has followed a winding path,
as it did in China, where there were always diverse traditions of inter-
pretation. In this chapter we shall examine several of the directions
that Yijing interpretation has taken outside its native country.1 We will
begin with the tradition of scholarly study, which is the primary sub-
ject of the present book, then consider the main modes of the classic’s
adaptation to other Western ways of thought, particularly psychology,
divination practice, and occultism. While the focus of this chapter is on
the West, many of the ideas, particularly the scientific and psychologi-
cal approaches have also made the return journey back to China.
In the scholarly, or sinological, approach, the classic is studied
for its intrinsic interest and as a source of knowledge about the lan-
guage and history of China. Inevitably, scholars are influenced by
their own philosophical and religious predispositions. However, it
is not only scholars who have been fascinated by the Yijing. Many
people approach it seeking spiritual and artistic inspiration, and
they may or may not have an interest what it meant or how it was
used in its native Chinese context. The Yijing would almost certainly
have remained an obscure area for sinological study were it not for
those who, beginning with the immensely influential psychologist
C. G. Jung, sought to present the Yijing as having something to offer
contemporary women and men.
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T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
2. Culture heroes could be entirely mythical, like Fu Xi, or actual historical per-
sonages, like King Wen, who were idealized.
3. For a discussion of evidenced-based philology in late Qing China, see Elman
2001 and Makeham 2008.
4. Western culture has also re-examined itself, in part due to awareness of the
ways of China.
193
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
194
T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
195
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T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
This ancient Classic not only gives us with great clearness the
material system set up at Babel, and which is found with more or
less minuteness in all Heathen Philosophical writing throughout
the world, but in it we find the most ancient form of Triplication,
namely, that of both the Great Father and the Great Mother, thus
making a family of Eight principal deities. . . .8
7. McClatchie 1876: iv.
8. McClatchie 1872: 152.
9. McClatchie 1876: vi. The comparison with stoicism is not altogether off the
mark because both philosophies emphasize virtue and its development through assid-
uous self-cultivation.
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
to make the Chinese classics, which they knew well, into concealed
forms of the Christian revelation. McClatchie responded in the
opposite way, regarding the Chinese as benighted heathens who were
ignorant of the true God.
Though it is more apparent in his articles than in his translation,
McClatchie also seemed troubled by what seemed to him sexual sym-
bolism. There is perhaps a hint of such symbolism in the different
titles of the Qian and Kun hexagrams in the Mawangdui version—
respectively, Jian (Key, really “door bolt”) 鍵 and Chuan (Flow), as
translated by Shaughnessy. However, while one can see how these
might be analogous to male and female genitalia, this symbolism
does not recur in the rest of the Zhouyi. In this it differs from the
roughly contemporaneous Shijing, or Book of Songs, which does con-
tain frequent rather direct references to sexuality.10 Clearly, Bronze
Age Chinese were quite capable of employing overt sexual symbolism
when they wanted to.
James Legge, who must be considered as one of the greatest
translators of the Chinese classics, produced the first usable English
version of the Yijing. He was a missionary in China for many years
and eventually became the first professor of Chinese at Oxford
University. Legge’s Christianity had an insistent quality somewhat
akin to that of McClatchie, his fellow Scot. Unlike McClatchie, he
approached translation with an objective spirit and did not impose
his pet ideologies upon the text, though he expressed them freely in
his prolix introductions to some of the other classics. As a result of his
critical approach, his translations are still useful, while McClatchie’s
are merely a curiosity. If there is a fault in Legge’s versions, it is not
inaccuracy but their ponderous and verbose style.
Richard Wilhelm has unquestionably been the most influential
translator of the Yijing, through his German version, rendered into
English by Cary F. Baynes. Though Wilhelm also came to China as a
10. These were later explained by the prudish Confucian literati as metaphors rep-
resenting the love of officials for their ruler. The Zhouyi does contain sexual references,
though these are infrequent. An example is hexagram 18 Gu discussed in c hapter 5.
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T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
199
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
ancient book: “May the same joy in pure wisdom be the part of those
who read the translation as was mine when I worked upon it.”15 Yet
Wilhelm’s appreciation of Chinese philosophy did not lead him to
renounce Christianity, of which he remarks on the last page of his
memoir: “Jesus, while accepting and affirming life, has created in
man that inner attitude which alone is . . . [t]he only means to enable
man not to be crushed.16
Wilhelm’s attitude toward the classic is perhaps the predominant
one among its admirers today: It is seen as a work of sagely wisdom,
but not one that competes with other religions. Wilhelm began his
introduction to his translation with these words:
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T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
Eber also notes that Wilhelm’s intent was to communicate what the
Changes meant to Chinese. He clearly regarded it as spiritual in that it
201
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
202
T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
203
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
While Watts was not referring here to the Yijing, he clearly expresses
the mind-set of the time, including the tendency to present all the
religions of Asia as basically the same. Whether Watts really believed
this is not clear, he was unquestionably well-read on Asian religion.
However, the claim that these traditions were not really religion was a
way to make them appealing to the many Westerners who were disil-
lusioned with their own traditions—as Watts, an ordained Episcopal
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T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
Without doubt, Carl Jung has been the most influential Western
commentator on the Yijing. In his 1949 foreword to the now-iconic
Wilhelm-Baynes translation, Jung begins with a modest disclaimer,
“I am not a sinologue,” then goes on to warn the reader:
If the meaning of the Book of Changes were easy to grasp, the work
would need no Foreword. But this is far from being the case, for
29. For a general critique of Western adaptations of Buddhism, see Sharf 2005.
205
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
206
T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
207
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
208
T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
209
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
The I Ching can give you a mirror of the hidden forces at work in
your unconscious. . . . What we call the unconscious, the ancient
world called the world of gods and spirits.39
SYNCHRONICITY
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T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
211
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
45. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: xxvi–xxxiii. The name of hexagram 50 Ding (鼎)
refers to a specific type of ritual bronze vessel, a cauldron, widely cast in the Shang and
Zhou with a technology imitated in later dynasties. The prognostication is auspicious
as the bronze vessel was used for ritual commemoration of favorable events, such as
enfeoffment of nobles.
46. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: xxvii.
47. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: xxxii.
48. Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: xxxv–xxxviii.
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He goes on to remark, “The less one thinks about the theory of the
I Ching, the more soundly one sleeps,”51 which hints at something
supernatural, but does not claim this explicitly. His phrase is sugges-
tive in the same way as is Hamlet’s famous, “There are more things
in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philoso-
phy.”52 Both imply a hidden reality without saying anything about
its nature.
As a physician, Jung had a scientific background, yet he had
grown up in an atmosphere of spiritualism. As a university stu-
dent, he frequently attended séances conducted by his maternal
cousin, Helene Preiswerk, in which she seemed to be taken over
by the personalities of different deceased relatives.53 His frequent
attendance at her séances made him more comfortable with such
phenomena and led to his granting them an important place in
his psychological theories. It also accounts for his evident ambiv-
alence about the objective reality of the supernatural. Despite
ours being a nominally scientific age, it can be argued that the
ambivalence Jung displays toward the supernatural is widespread
under the surface of modern culture. Numerous examples could
be given, from psychic hotlines, to the current best-seller status
of novels involving the paranormal. Despite all the psychological
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
explanations of the use of the Yijing, there are probably many who
believe, or would like to believe, that there is something mystical
about it.
Though we must grant Jung an important place in the long
history of Yijing exegesis, this does not mean that psychology is
what the Yijing is really about, no more than we should consider
the reconstructed Western Zhou meanings, or Zhu Xi’s readings, or
Shao Yong’s numerology, or any other specific interpretive frame-
work as what it was really about. As a scriptural work, the Yijing
is about all these, and more. Perhaps the most mysterious thing
about the Yijing is its adaptability in fitting into cultures remote
from each other in time and space. Whether the psychological
Yijing is its final incarnation we cannot know, even by consulting
the classic itself.
While the concept of synchronicity has found its way into pop-
ular culture, others have sometimes made the concept into some-
thing much more extravagant than did Jung himself. For example,
F. David Peat:
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Though it cannot be said that the Yijing has entered the mainstream
of contemporary psychotherapy, some psychologists do find a place
for it. One example is John Suler who discusses the application of
the Yijing in psychotherapy, though not as a divinatory method to
induce synchronicities. Instead, he suggests using the eight trigrams
as visual symbols to represent the process of psychotherapy. Thus he
uses the Changes as it was in China, as a correlative scheme, though
with new associations. In his conception, the trigrams are given psy-
chological meanings. Thus Xun 巽 (wind) refers to the need to be
gentle and gradual in psychotherapy; 29 Kan坎 (The Abysmal) is
descent into the depths of the unconscious; Gen艮 (mountain)
represents times when therapist and client seem to be stuck; Zhen 震
(thunder) is shock; Qian 乾 (heaven) is the fundamental life
drive; and so on.55 Once again we see the flexibility of the Changes in
adapting itself to entirely new modes of thought radically different
from those of the Western Zhou, or even the late Qing. Suler’s asso-
ciations are plausible, but differ fundamentally from those of tradi-
tional China in that they are personal, not culture-wide.56
It is plausible that the Yijing could be useful in psychotherapy—if
therapist and client find it consistent with their values and beliefs.
Many are attracted to alternative therapies and see their use as an
indication of open-mindedness on the part of the therapist. Others
may be put off by its seemingly unscientific nature; still others may
feel it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Many are simply not
interested. That the Yijing might be an effective tool in clinical psy-
chology need not imply any mysterious mechanism. Methods of
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
216
T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
the Chinese saw it, of course. It also ignores the function of the oracle
to help the inquirer accord with the realities of society. The reference
to the “Cosmic Whole” and “love” are New Age additions, more char-
acteristic of A Course in Miracles than the Yijing. Nevertheless, Hanna
Moog writes that she had a spiritual breakthrough when she realized
that the Yijing was not about change but about “transformation.” The
implication is that they have understood aspects of the classic that
its commentators in traditional China missed. Certainly, if these New
Age notions were present, the Chinese commentators did miss them.
In his foreword to Anthony and Moog’s adaptation of the
Yijing, Brian Donohue extols what is offered as a new interpreta-
tion: “Change is movement confined to the outer plane of experience,
while transformation is movement on the inner plane, to which the
outer plane responds spontaneously.”58 The language here is new, but
the underlying idea is not. The Yijing does not refer to inner and outer
planes. However, the received interpretation of 61 Zhongfu (Inner
Truth), which turns on the reading of fu (孚) as “sincerity,” implies
recognition that one’s inner state should be consistent with one’s
outer behavior—that, after all, is what sincerity is. This is one of the
goals of self-cultivation in both Confucian and Daoist practice.59
Anthony and Moog’s central idea seems to be one prominent
in Western thought since Rousseau, that society sets up prohibi-
tions that inhibit us from following our “inner truth.”60 Their I Ching
guides one in developing the “outer or inner No against injustices and
encroachments into his inner space.”61 A recurrent theme is overcom-
ing the “ego,” identified with the “hidden dragon” in line 1 of hexa-
gram 1 Qian and elsewhere.
The notion of individuals being oppressed by their “ego” (which,
in their usage, is actually closer to Freud’s concept of the “superego”)
and by society is quite contrary to Confucianism, which does not see
217
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
In China, the Yijing was not just edifying reading, it was the basis
of a practice that could have major importance in guiding one’s life.
Jung praised it highly, declaring, “[F]or lovers of self-knowledge, of
wisdom, if there be such, it seems to be the right book.”62 Since then,
psychological approaches to the Yijing have usually recommended
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T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
63. For detailed discussion, see chapter 11, also Hacker 1993: 133‒150 and Rutt
1996: 145‒201. The easiest to follow is probably Whincup 1986: 223‒231.
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
The Yijing has inspired artistic creation, both in the modern West
and in traditional China. A well-known composition for the guqin
64. Also see the excellent website “Calling Crane in the Shade,” www.biroco.com/
yijing (accessed 4/15/14). This includes book reviews and links to much important
material, such as the Harvard-Yenching concordance.
65. See Bernardo 2012.
66. Nonetheless, these immense—and basically selfless—efforts made by some
devotees of the Changes testify to its magnetism.
220
T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
221
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
While historical and textual study of the Yijing need not consider
whether, or how, it works for divination as a contemporary practice,
this question inevitably arises. F. David Peat, who clearly admires
the Changes, summarizes possible mechanisms. The first of these he
describes as “a conventional answer . . . that the readings . . . form a
screen onto which the questioner projects various concerns, beliefs,
and questions.”72 Peat likens this projection theory to Victorian
tea-leaf readings. The comparison is not entirely appropriate, how-
ever, because an Yijing response consists of a specific diagram and
text, while the meaning of tea leaves is entirely created by the imagi-
nation of the reader.73
Stage psychics—as well as diviners—use a technique termed
“cold reading.” Vague statements are made that a high proportion of
people will feel apply to them. They then follow-up on the responses
of their subjects, offering further statements that are likely to res-
onate with most people.74 When a suggestion is off the mark, it is
quickly dropped and an alternative is offered. Research has shown
71. The best of those representing the actual Yijing is probably that of Paul Iki,
which includes three plastic coins with the characters for yin and yang, as well as a
“Tableau Initiatique,” all very mysterious seeming.
72. Peat 1987: 143.
73. Both are akin to what psychology terms a “projective test.” The subject is given
an image that has no precise meaning and asked to describe what it means to him or
her. The Rorschach ink-blot test is the most notorious example—notorious because
it has been used in criminal prosecutions and custody disputes. Never convincingly
validated, the Rorschach is little more than divination. This is not merely a recent aber-
ration; in the past, divination was often used to determine guilt or innocence.
74. Typical phrases include: “You’ve been under a great deal of stress lately,” or
“You are worried about a relative who is ill.” Most people are stressed, and many have
elderly relatives with health issues.
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T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
223
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
This view can combine with any of the others but, notably, requires
nothing nonrational for its plausibility. To open a book at random,
whether the Bible, favorite poetry, or a self-help guide, in the hope
of finding guidance or inspiration is a common, perhaps universal,
behavior. The skeptical critics of Yijing divination seem to assume
that those who employ it credulously accept whatever it tells them.
In actuality, most probably employ ordinary common sense to accept
some answers and ignore others.
Perhaps the final word on the practice of Yijing divination is that
of Gregory Whincup, who remarks:
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T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
It is true that both physics and the Yijing are about change, but the
notion that everything is in a state of continual change is neither
new, nor specific to the Yijing. Impermanence was being taught
2,500 years ago by Shakyamuni Buddha in Asia and by Heraclitus in
Greece. Indeed, this is one of the earliest philosophical ideas we know
of. It is hardly a discovery of modern physics.
Capra also refers to Niels Bohr’s idea of “complementarity,”
suggesting that it was anticipated by yin and yang.80 In actual-
ity, this was not a coincidence. Bohr had a long-time, if super-
ficial, interest in Chinese thought and even chose for his crest
the yin-yang symbol. That Bohr described physics in language
225
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
The first Westerner to make any connection between the Yijing and
science seems to have been Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716). Leibniz
was the inventor, or discoverer, of the base 2, or binary, number sys-
tem, in which all numbers are represented by two digits, 0 and 1. In
226
T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
contrast the decimal system requires ten separate symbols for digits
(0 through 9).82
As already discussed, Joachim Bouvet noted a similarity
between one of Shao Yong’s arrays of the hexagrams and his friend
Leibniz’s binary system.83 He wrote to Leibniz with a copy of the
diagrams, a document that is still in existence.84 Leibniz was math-
ematically gifted—he was one of the inventors of the calculus—
and agreed with Bouvet’s finding of analogy between the binary
number system and the Yijing hexagrams and trigrams (gua). Both
binary numbers and Yijing trigrams and hexagrams use sequences
of elements with two possible values—0 and 1, or broken and solid,
respectively.85 While Leibniz found metaphysical significance in the
fact that all possible numbers could be represented as strings of
0s and 1s, he also made important contributions to mathematics.
Shao Yong, on the other hand, was only interested in metaphysi-
cal implications and did not seem to recognize the potential math-
ematical use.86
Even in the West, the binary system was no more than a mathe-
matical curiosity until the twentieth century when the development
of electrical circuitry led to the recognition that numbers could be
represented by current flow being turned on or off. From this we
have computers, smart phones, the Internet, and all the other trans-
formations of human life wrought by information science. Neither
Leibniz, nor Fu Xi, nor Shao Yong ever imagined the use of the
82. As the word “digit” implies, the base-10 system is natural to human cognitive
processing because we have ten fingers, no doubt the first computing device.
83. The binary system seems to have been discovered separately by others, but it
is Leibniz who, rightly or wrongly, is usually given the credit.
84. Smith 2012: 178.
85. With the Yijing, this is not strictly accurate because as early as the Zuozhuan,
there were actually four types of lines—each solid or broken line can either be chang-
ing or unchanging. To fully specify a type of the line of a hexagram, four numbers were
necessary: 6, 7, 8, and 9. These were always written in base-10 notation. Nonetheless,
when fixed or changing are not considered, the hexagrams are assembled from binary
elements.
86. Smith 2012: 178f. Mathematics reached a high degree of development in
China. However, Shao Yong’s interest was numerological.
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
binary system for data processing.87 The person credited with recog-
nizing the binary system’s potential for electrical data processing is
Claude Shannon (1916–2011), whose MIT master’s thesis was the
first report of this, one of the most influential scientific discoveries
of all time. There is no reason to think that Shannon was inspired by,
or even knew of, the Yijing.
From the time of Bouvet and Leibniz to the present, many have
sought an underlying mathematical or metaphysical principle that
determined the standard hexagram order attributed to Fu Xi. Some
have devised a new ordering that they propose to be the “real” one.
Given the propensity of the human mind to seek patterns in sensory
experience, it is easy to imagine that the order of hexagrams con-
tains a great secret. Much mental effort has been expended over the
centuries trying to discover what this secret might be, but Rutt’s con-
clusion to his discussion of the received order sums up the situation
well: “The question of what was the original order is not of primary
significance, and is logically dependent on the question as to whether
there ever was an original order.”88
Nonetheless, great efforts have been made to find an underlying
mathematical principle underlying the received order of the hexa-
grams. A recent example is Richard S. Cook’s 642-page work Classical
Chinese Combinatorics. In his abstract, Cook claims: “This study
resolves the ancient enigma of the classical Chinese Book of Changes
hexagram sequence . . . attest[s]to a high degree of mathematical
sophistication, previously unrecognized in a work of this antiquity.”89
Cook’s book is filled with complex equations, likely to be intimi-
dating even to those with mathematical background. The back cover
87. While it is sometimes claimed that Shao Yong’s diagram inspired Leibniz’s
discovery of binary notation, this is incorrect. Leibniz had developed the system some
years before Bouvet’s letter.
88. Rutt 1996: 117. While diagrams of the hexagrams arrayed in the standard
order are common in Chinese books, the numbering is a Western innovation. Chinese
referred to them by name only. If, as seems likely, the earliest forms were on bam-
boo strips, there may not have been a standard order until long after the original
composition.
89. R. Cook 2004–2006: ix.
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T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
230
T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
eyelid moves, as does wind, and the lower is still, like the earth. By a
similar mode of thought, the human jaw, and thus nutrition, is rep-
resented by hexagram 27 Yi , with mountain above and thunder
below.93 This latter attribution is an obvious one, since the hexagram
does resemble an open mouth.94
Needham is careful to point out that the sort of correlative
thought exemplified by these hexagram associations was not lim-
ited to China: “If this kind of argument tempts one to despair, one
must remember that our European forefathers . . . were not much bet-
ter. . . .”95 Needham concludes his discussion with a phrase that has
been much quoted: “The Book of Changes was a system for pigeon-holing
novelty and then doing nothing more about it. Its universal system of
symbolism constituted a stupendous filing-system.”96 In contrast to
the system of hexagrams, Needham considered the yin-yang and five
phase systems conducive to science. Thus he correlates yin and yang
with the negative and positive charges of electrodynamics. This asso-
ciation is an intuitive one, but really does nothing more than add yet
another correlation to the yin-yang system.97
The question of whether the Yijing anticipated science or inhib-
ited it has no ultimate answer; it is always dubious to try to explain
why something did not happen. It is possible that, as Needham
argues, the convenience of the “stupendous filing-system” inhibited
curiosity that might otherwise have led to science rather than meta-
physics. But this sort of counterfactual speculation is not really very
enlightening. If the Yijing had been lost in the Qin emperor’s book
burning, would China have been better off? There is no way to know.
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
98. See Huff 1993. For a more complete account of the relation between science
and the thought of traditional China, see Redmond 2008.
99. Needham (SCC II) 1956: 304–351.
232
T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
233
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
234
T H E Y I J I N G’S J O U R N E Y TO T H E W E S T
235
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
was an essential, though not the only, source of their appeal. Although
the term was coined to refer to the various European occult move-
ments, it can be extended to include other forms of unconventional
spirituality, including the religions and philosophies of Asia, exoteric
or esoteric, as well as beliefs and practices of indigenous peoples. The
Yijing, as a divination manual, was entirely orthodox in China. Yet
one suspects that many now-established scholars of Asian religion
and philosophy were originally attracted to these subjects because of
their apparent exoticism.
A great variety of what might be termed “pseudo-Yijings” have
been produced as part of the revival of nonmainstream spirituality.
One recent example is the Toltec I Ching, which is actually an entirely
new fabrication. There is minimal connection with the Chinese text
and less with Toltec culture, the supposed predecessor of the Aztec
civilization. No writings from that culture, if there were any, have
survived. Thus, like the Mesopotamian theory of McClatchie, the
Toltec I Ching is essentially fantasy.
The Yijing, approached with a serious interest, is an immensely
challenging text. Engagement with it offers not only possible philo-
sophical and spiritual inspiration but also deepened knowledge of an
ancient culture radically different from our own. New Age versions of
the Yijing offer none of these benefits. Unfortunately they have pro-
liferated and far outnumber scholarly ones.103 These borrow the title
and the sixty-four–section format, as well as bits of verbiage, but
otherwise have nothing to do with the Chinese classic. The I Ching
does not replace the Zhouyi or Yijing.
103. Examples are Karcher 2005; Sloane 2005; Ramirez-Oropeza 2009. There are
many others, including at least three entitled The Lover’s I Ching.
236
C hapter 11
Readers Guide
237
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
which it is being used. The guide below is intended to clarify the advan-
tages and disadvantages of each of the major translations. Because of
the terseness and ambiguity of classical Chinese, a literal word-for-word
translation would be all but incomprehensible. As a result, words not
present in the Chinese original have to be added to make it intelligi-
ble in English. These same factors also create difficulties for modern
Chinese readers. Most need a translation into the contemporary form
of the language to be able to make much sense of the text.
Despite these difficulties, several excellent translations are avail-
able, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Given the large
degree of uncertainty about many of the meanings in the Zhouyi and,
to a lesser extent, the Ten Wings, it is not surprising that versions by
equally expert scholars read quite differently. These differences are
due not only to the ambiguities in the Chinese original, but also to
the individual translator’s literary style, philosophical outlook, and
choice of a certain Chinese historical period and interpretive school
as the basis of the translation.
It has been said, only half facetiously, that one cannot understand
a classical Chinese text unless one already knows what it means.
There is some truth in this—the literati of premodern China did not
read the classics in isolation but had the help of tutors who explicated
the texts as their pupils memorized them. The text served essentially
as an aide-mémoire, understanding of which required oral teaching
based on the rich commentarial tradition. When this system of clas-
sical education was abolished in the early twentieth century as China
entered the modern world much, but fortunately not all, of the oral
lore of the Changes was lost. The oral traditions were still alive in the
time of Legge and Wilhelm who were able to rely upon traditionally
educated Chinese informants. As a result, their understanding of
the Changes includes much of the oral material that had been passed
down to the Qing. Additionally, many written commentaries survive,
from the Han onward, though most are from the Tang and later.1
1. Smith 2008 provides an immensely learned and detailed account of the surviv-
ing commentaries over the ages.
238
Re aders GUIDE
239
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
240
Re aders GUIDE
8. Modern scholarship has shown that these three Chinese intellectual traditions
often overlapped. Nonetheless, some interpreters regarded themselves as specifically
Buddhist or Daoist. Some, like Zhu Xi, changed their intellectual affiliation during
their lifetimes.
241
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
9. Legge 1899: xiii.
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243
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
14. The translation of da shi as “master” is not to be confused with the set phrase
in the Lunyu, 子曰, often translated into English as “The Master [meaning Confucius]
said . . . ”
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dominant in the Han and remained popular later. Despite being enti-
tled The Essentials of the Yi Jing (2003), this is really an advanced work
for those already familiar with the text who are curious regarding
the alternative tradition of interpretation by line positions. Stephen
L. Field’s detailed review gives further information about this divina-
tory approach.15
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
more useful for those who engage the text entirely in English, as it is
based on the wording of the Wilhelm-Baynes translation.
At least two versions provide the supposedly equivalent English
words beside each character of the original. Bradford Hatcher’s The
Book of Changes: Yijing Word by Word (2009) prints each character, its
pinyin transliteration, its number in Mathew’s dictionary, multiple
possible English meanings and references to appearances of the same
character elsewhere in the text. A similar character-by-character ver-
sion with English equivalents is Daniel Bernardo’s Yi Jing (I Ching)
(2012). The latter has less information but is somewhat easier to
use. It has the advantage of including the Grammata Serica Recensa
numbers as well as those of Mathews. Both are compilations of dic-
tionary definitions but the glosses are not historical. These works are
convenient for initial reference but by their nature do not indicate
which of the possible translations are the most apt.18 At least two
Chinese-language concordances exist. That of the Harvard-Yenching
library has been the standard for many years but uses an idiosyn-
cratic system for locating characters. The newer concordance of the
Chinese University of Hong Kong is much more straightforward to
use and currently definitive.
18. The most useful dictionaries for Zhou Chinese are: Ricci, Dictionaire Ricci de
characteres chinois, p. 1999; and Schuessler 1987, 2007, 2009. Karlgren 1957 has the
honor of being the first Chinese-English dictionary of the ancient language but is now
considered dated.
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Online Versions
The Yijing can be found online in multiple versions, both English and
Chinese. Several, including the Chinese text of the Harvard-Yenching
edition, can be found athttp://www.biroco.com/yijing/. Legge’s
bilingual version is searchable and available onctext.org. These were
meticulously edited and are reasonably authoritative. Additional use-
ful material is atHermetica.info. More recently created online texts
cannot be assumed to be completely correct without comparison to
an edited one.
The Changes is more tightly structured than other early Chinese texts,
but unless the structural principles are recognized it is a very confus-
ing read. With persistence, however, the book starts to make sense.
The following explanations are meant to make it easier to appreciate
the fascination of this ancient work, while reducing frustration. It
19. I Ching productions and U.S. Games Systems 1971. The texts are derived from
Legge, The cards. See Legge 1971.
247
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
will be most useful if read together with one of the standard transla-
tions such as Legge, Lynn, or Wilhelm-Baynes.
The Zhouyi, the early core of the Book of Changes is less bewildering if
one keeps in mind that it was not meant to be read in sequence as a con-
tinuous narrative. It does not present a sustained argument like a mod-
ern nonfiction work. Nor is it a collection of anecdotes like the Lunyu or
Zuozhuan, nor an assembly of philosophical ideas like the Daodejing of
Laozi. A divination manual is actually a sort of reference book. Indeed,
an early Western interpreter mistook the work for a Chinese dictionary.
The work no doubt was read in diverse ways—for spiritual inspiration,
as a way to reflect on antiquity, or to be able to quote phrases to impress
others. Those composing commentaries would also consider the book as
a whole. For divination, however, usually only the diagram and or a few
line or judgment texts were considered to be the response to the ques-
tion at hand. These were selected by one of several random processes
(discussed in the following section). Thus a divination response would
consist of one hexagram and one or a few phrases. For those wanting
more information, there were ways of selecting additional hexagrams
and texts; but, then as now, these more elaborate methods were mostly
for enthusiasts.
Reading the Changes chapter-by-chapter and line-by-line, as one
would most other books, can sometimes induce a feeling of cognitive
dissonance because the texts often seem unrelated or even contra-
dictory. In some chapters the line texts do have a logical order—for
example in describing an action starting at the feet and moving up
the body, as in hexagrams 31 Xian咸 (Influence, or Reciprocity20)
and 23 Bo 剝 (Splitting Apart or Flaying21). The lines often refer
to successive stages of a process, or in later interpretation, to per-
sons of progressively higher social rank. Lines can also be related by
use of consistent imagery, such as the dragons in 1 Qian 乾 (The
Creative). What often confuses beginners is that some lines within a
22
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23. Orally derived material, as much of the Zhouyi must have been, often puts set
phrases together even when not consistent. This is discussed in relation to the Shijing
by C. H. Wang 1974: 14–34 et passim.
24. Use of lines for interpretation is not mentioned in the Zhouyi. The systems
that are documented are much later innovations. Lynn contains many examples of
Wang Bi’s interpretive use of line positions.
25. The English translation of Chung Wu provides detailed interpretations of the
hexagrams based on line and trigram positions. Although it does not give sources for
these, it does give a clear sense of this method. Field’s 2004 review is also useful.
249
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
26. A more cumbersome method using changing lines was used in the Zuozhuan
divinations, described in c hapter 2.
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251
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
All chapters have six line texts, except 1 Qian and 2 Kun, both
of which have an extra phrase, not referring to a specific line. Rutt
divides the line statements into four components: oracle (principal
theme); indication (the problem); prognostic; and observation (com-
ment or modification of the prognostic).29 He identifies four types of
prognostic, following traditional Chinese schemes: ji 吉 (auspicious),
li 厲 (dangerous), jiu 咎 (misfortune), and xiong 凶 (disastrous).
Fortunately for the user of the Yijing, ji is by far the most common
prognostic, occurring 147 times. Although xiong, the worst prognos-
tic, occurs 88 times, nonetheless the Yijing is for the most part opti-
mistic. It warns of danger with the presumption that this will help
the junzi or da ren to attenuate or avert it.
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It is with the addition of these appendices that the Zhouyi became the
Yijing. The Ten Wings are of later origin and stylistically quite different
from the texts of the Zhouyi proper. In commenting on the hexagrams
and texts, they express the understanding of their own era, not neces-
sarily that of the Western Zhou. Although the Ten Wings seem origi-
nally to have been separate from the Zhouyi itself (as in the Mawangdui
silk manuscript, for example), most later editions of the Yijing divide
some of the texts to place the phrases with the part of the Zhouyi chap-
ter to which they refer. This arrangement has been attributed to Bi
Zhi (ca. 50 BCE–10 CE). It has the advantage of placing related texts
together, but the disadvantage of conflating textual layers composed
half a millennium apart. Serious study of the Yijing requires reading in
both formats; both are available in English translation.30
30. English editions are available in both formats. The Ten Wings is translated in inte-
gral form in Legge 1899, available as a 1963 Dover reprint. Song’s 1935 edition of Legge’s
1882 translation places the relevant commentary with the Zhouyi text. The online version
of the Chinese Text Project (http://ctext.org/book-of-Changes) combines the formats
(accessed 10/29/14). Lynn and Wilhelm-Baynes place the pertinent Ten Wings passages
with the Zhouyi text. Lynn’s organizational scheme is clear; that of Wilhelm Baynes is not.
Though the latter is the easiest for most beginning readers, distinguishing the different
text layers is difficult. A useful guide to the latter is Marshall 2001: 151–154.
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
are divided into the same two sections. The “Daxiang” 大象 consists
of two lines for each hexagram: the first specifies the two trigrams
of which it is composed, while the second is a moralistic statement
referring either to a junzi (prince), king, lord, or da ren (great man).
The “Xiaoxiang” 小象 consists of terse glosses on each line text based
on the words or the line position.
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Scholars of the Yijing generally agree that actually using it for divi-
nation gives a more complete understanding of the classic. Doing
so does not require any particular beliefs about whether divination
“works” or not; it can simply be an experiment. The nature of divi-
nation as a pervasive human activity is discussed in chapter 1. To
get the most out of this experiment, it is best to ask serious ques-
tions and carefully ponder whether the response is helpful. There
is no need to worry much about what interpretation is correct; the
point is to discover what the experience of consultation is like. While
some Yijing methods are ponderous, others can be done in just a few
255
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
31. Many translations include a section explaining how to use the Changes for
divination. Clearest is that of Whincup 1986: 223–31. More detailed is Hacker 1993:
132–150. Those of Wilhelm and Baynes 1967: 721–724 and Lynn 1994: 19–22 are
rather concise. Carl Jung’s examples of his actual consultations of the Changes are of
interest; see c hapter 10 and Jung 1949: xxi–xxxvii.
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32. This is akin to how a psychotherapist would discuss a client’s issues, by help-
ing to clarify the possible effects of each course of action, rather than make the deci-
sion for the client.
33. The idea that the Changes should not be troubled with annoying questions is
already present in the Zhouyi, hexagram 4 Meng (Youthful Folly).
34. Whincup 1986: 227.
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Coins
This is the simplest and most widely used method. It requires three
coins of any denomination, but imitation Chinese cash coins, avail-
able cheaply in virtually any Chinatown souvenir shop worldwide,
are preferred. The three coins are tossed at once. Heads, or the side
with fewer Chinese characters, counts as yin, assigned the number
2; and tails are yang, assigned the number 3. The numerical values
are added up and yield 6, 7, 8, or 9, the numbers that refer to each
of the four line types. Six such tosses are carried out to generate the
full hexagram. The lines are selected in order, beginning with the
lowest line.
35. Whincup 1986: 226–228 provides detailed instructions for this method,
which he attributes to Gao Heng.
36. Yarrow sticks have been bundled with a much-criticized pseudo-translation by
“Wu Wei.” This nom de plume is the term for “nonaction” in the Daodejing adopted pre-
tentiously by Chris Prentiss, an entrepreneur who runs private alcoholism treatment
centers in Southern California. The yarrow sticks are sometimes available separately.
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Beads
The bead method uses sixteen beads of four different colors, based
on the there being four kinds of line with the probabilities having
the common denominator 16. There will be one bead of a particular
color for changing yin; three for changing yang; five for fixed yang;
and seven for fixed yin. The beads can be kept in a small Chinese
silk purse and are selected without looking. The corresponding line
is noted, and the bead is returned. This process is repeated a total
of six times to produce a hexagram. While this method is almost
as quick as the coin method, it has a more contemplative quality
and is more atmospheric, especially if Chinese imitation cloisonné
beads are used. The probabilities are as follows:
6 Changing yin 1 in 16 1 in 16 2 in 16
7 Fixed yang 5 in 16 5 in 16 6 in 16
8 Fixed yin 7 in 16 7 in 16 6 in 16
9 Changing yang 3 in 16 3 in 16 2 in 16
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
Remainders
This method draws numbers from one’s surroundings. These can be
license plates, fares on taxi meters, temperatures, airplane flight or
seat numbers, the Dow Jones industrial average, or any other num-
ber one happens to notice at the time of the inquiry. The first number
is then divided progressively by 8 until there is a remainder of the
numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7. The 0 is counted as 8. One then counts
around the bagua until the number is reached, beginning with the
top. The process is then repeated on another number for the upper
trigram; this can be another from one’s surroundings, or the date or
time.
The arithmetic is easier than it sounds. One subtracts multiples
of 8 until a manageable number is left, then calculates the remainder.
As a simple example, suppose the number selected is 47. Dividing by
8 leaves a remainder of 7, designating the last trigram before the top
as one goes around clockwise.38 There are variants of this method as
well, all based on different ways to select the number.39
Other Methods
Other than the physical manipulation, the major difference between
methods is the number of changing lines obtained. The two sets of
dice seen by the present author use different systems. One has two
dice of eight sides each, upon which are embossed the characters for
the trigrams. A third die has six sides and is used to decide which
line is changing. In this method, the number of lines that change is
decided by the inquirer. Another set has the usual six sides; each die
has two fixed yin and yang lines and one changing line for each, giving
38. A clear explanation of the process with a diagram showing how to use one’s
palm and fingers to pick the appropriate trigram is available in Huang 2000: 175–178.
39. Hacker 1993: 133–150 provides explanations of this and other methods
without the mystification present in most treatments of Yijing numerology. Sources
by and for practitioners include Da Liu 1979: 23–27 et passim and Huang 2000, whose
account is the most detailed available in English. The latter two are not historically
based. An example of the extremes to which Yijing numerology can be taken is Onvlee
and Shapiro 2011, filled with tables of numbers and diagrams unlikely to be compre-
hensible to any besides its authors.
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Hexagram Transformations
Since answers from the Yijing tend to be enigmatic themselves, those
consulting it often want more specific or complete advice. To meet
this need, a variety of methods were developed for generating addi-
tional hexagrams.43 Only the use of changing lines was part of stan-
dard use. When one line is changing there are six possibilities. Here is
an example, using Qian (heaven) for the initial hexagram:
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TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
While Chinese who were steeped in the Changes would have recalled
the titles for each hexagram, few now have this sort of memorization
ability. Fortunately, virtually all major translations provide a table to
find the hexagram based on its trigrams.
The next most common method was that of nuclear hexagrams.
A second hexagram is produced by using lines 2, 3, and 4 as the lower
trigram and 3, 4, and 5 as the upper one. As an example, let us sup-
pose the hexagram initially selected is 26 Daxu (Taming Power of
the Great). Its nuclear trigrams generate 54 Guimei (The Marrying
Maiden).44 Here are the two side by side:
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263
C hapter 12
As we have seen, use of the Yijing in both China and the West has
followed two paths, or Ways (in the sense of the Chinese word Dao).
On the one hand, there is critically rigorous scholarship aimed at
deepening our knowledge of the origins of the classic and its power
to reinvent itself many times over more than 2,000 years of commen-
tarial history. The other Way of the Changes is as a practice—an aid
to decision making and an inspiration for spiritual growth. These two
can overlap—some modern practitioners become scholars, and some
who began as scholars become practitioners.
Though the received Yijing has been the subject of thousands of
commentaries,1 much remains to be discovered. Many of the areas
we have covered in this introductory work provide opportunities
for more extended treatment. While English-language scholarship
is extensive, as evidenced by the size of our bibliography, far more
has been done in East Asia, not only in China, but also in Japan and
Korea. Very little of this scholarship has been translated into English,
so there are plentiful research possibilities for those who know these
languages. Even in China, much remains to be fully explored. The
excavated manuscripts, now the subject of intense study, still contain
secrets to be revealed by assiduous scholars. Archaeology in China
has blossomed beginning in the 1970s and continues to expand our
knowledge of life and society in the Zhou. It is to be hoped that fur-
ther discoveries will contain records of actual divinations with the
Yijing, surprisingly rare in currently available sources. Study of gender
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PREDICTING THE FUTURE OF THE YIJING
issues is still at an early stage.2 Though the bagua and yin-yang (taiji
太極) symbols are now seen everywhere, from early Chinese printed
books, to the Korean flag, to martial arts T-shirts—and even the
Salem cigarette package—we still do not have a complete account of
the Yijing in visual culture.
Even though there are several excellent English translations (and
more than a few bad ones), we need more that are historically situ-
ated, as are Lynn’s and Rutt’s. There remains a gap between scholarly
translations and popular ones. While we have important versions
of the reconstructed Western Zhou meanings, there is room for one
suitable for nonspecialists.3 A particularly conspicuous need is for
translations that connect the Yijing text to the interpretations of the
major Song theorists, particularly Zhu Xi. Considered by some the
most influential Chinese philosopher after Confucius, Zhu’s views on
the Changes and his philosophy in general have not received suffi-
cient study in English.4 Shao Yong’s complex numerological theories
also deserve to be available to anglophone readers.
Yijing divination continues to be practiced in both China and the
West, though perhaps it is no longer “cool” as it was in the hippie era.
Recently astrology and tarot seem to be more widely popular. Many
diviners’s street stalls in the Yau Ma Tei area of Hong Kong offer
western-type tarot readings. Perhaps the obscurity of the Changes
deters those accustomed to the near-effortless, predigested informa-
tion of the Internet. Yet the Yijing, particularly through the still-fresh
translation of Wilhelm and Baynes, continues to have many devoted
to its use. It has already had a lasting influence on psychotherapy,
and has inspired music, visual art, and literature.
While the Changes entered popular culture as the I Ching, its real
place is perhaps—as described by Carl Jung—“appropriate only for
thoughtful and reflective people who like to think about what they do
2. A valuable compilation on gender in early China is Linduff and Yan Sun 2004.
3. Those of Kunst and Rutt are difficult for nonspecialists and not easily available.
4. Joseph Adler’s important study (2014) is a step in the right direction. Hon
(2005) is a detailed study of the Song commentators on the Yijing.
265
TEACHING THE I CHING (BOOK OF CHANGES)
5. Jung 1950: xxxiii.
266
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Electronic Media
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Index
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Index
Peat, David F., 214, 222–224 Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian),
philology. See context criticism 37, 42, 73
Pi (Obstruction, hexagram 21), 66, 218 Shijing (Classic of Songs), 39, 44–45, 65,
Plato, 28 76, 125, 134, 198
Pound, Ezra, 17 Shun, King, 31, 52, 154
psychology, 204–218 Shuogua (Explanation of the Trigrams),
psychotherapy, 215–218 109, 140–153, 254
punishment, 131–133 Siku quanshu (Four Treasures of the
Emperor),•xi
Qian (Heaven, hexagram 1), 76–82, Sima Qian, 37, 40, 42, 73
128–131, 143–147, 149, 162–163, Smith, Kidder, 177
174–175, 178, 217, 248 Smith, Richard J., x, 6, 25, 73, 108
Qian Lucan, 6–7 Socrates, 22
Qin Emperor, 38, 41, 231 Song dynasty, ix, 171–180
Qing dynasty, 38, 41 Songyi (Studies of the Changes of the
quantum physics, 225–226 Song dynasty), 171–180
soul travel, 28–29
Raphals, Lisa, 21 space, 144–147
Records of the Grand Historian. See Shiji Spring and Autumn Annals, 102–103, 139
Ricci, Matteo, 195–198 Spring and Autumn period, 15, 44,
Rutt, Richard, x, 15, 18, 83–84, 99–100, 64–65, 89, 95, 102–103, 105,
116–117, 129–130, 136–137, 195, 137–138
201–204, 242, 265 Sui (Follow, hexagram 17), 68–69
Suler, John, 215
sacrifice, 47–49, 133–134 Sun (Decrease, hexagram 41), 105, 149
sage, 30–33, 52–62 synchronicity, 210–214
Samdasanni, Sonu, 239
san cai (three potencies), 152, 156 Tai (Peace, hexagram 11), 66, 164
science, 224–235 Ten Wings,•xix, 3, 14, 31, 34, 37, 41,
self-cultivation, 32–33, 171–180 46, 53–56, 62, 99, 109, 140–157,
sexuality, 134–135 161–172, 177–179, 183–185,
shamanism, 28–29 187, 189, 203, 240, 241, 245, 249,
Shang dynasty, 12, 28, 57–63 253–255
Shang-Zhou transition, 57–63 tianming. See mandate of heaven
Shangdi (high god), 199 time, 144–147
Shanghai Museum manuscript, 93–95, three potencies. See san cai
113–114, 119–121 tortoise, 104
Shangshu (Classic of Documents), 48–49, Tu, Wei-ming, 172
57–61, 94, 102 Tuanzhuan (Commentary to the
Shannon, Claude, 228 Judgments), 140–153, 251, 253
Shao Yong, viiii, 10, 179, 196, 221, 228,
232, 265 urtext, 93
Shaughnessy, Edward L., x, 6, 40, 76–77,
95, 99–101, 108–110, 113–117, Waley, Arthur, 50, 135–136
125, 242 Wang, Aihe, 58–59
Shi (Army, hexagram 7), 108–109 Wang Bi, viii, 10, 18, 41, 79, 90–91, 130,
shi class, 49–51, 64–66. See also literati 173–176, 241
288
Index
289
Index
290