The I Ching (Wade-Giles Wade–Giles was the only system of transcription in the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century, used in several standard reference books and in all books about China published before 1979. It replaced the Nanjing-based romanization systems that had been common until late in the 19th century. It has mostly been replaced by the pinyin), "Yì Jīng" (Pinyin Pinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音 / 漢語拼音), is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin (标准普通话 / 標準普通話). Hànyǔ (汉语 / 漢語) means the Chinese language, and pīnyīn (拼音) means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "), also known as the Book of Changes, Classic of Changes; and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts Chinese classic texts or Chinese canonical texts refer to the pre-Qin Chinese texts, especially the Confucian Four Books and Five Classics (四書五經). All of these pre-Qin text were written in classical Chinese. They can be referred to as jing (經).[1] The book contains a divination Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of a standardized process or ritual. Diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency. Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize system comparable to Western geomancy Geomancy is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand. The most prevalent form of divinatory geomancy involves interpreting a series of 16 figures formed by a randomized process that involves recursion followed by analyzing them, often augmented with astrological or the West African Ifá In traditional Yoruba culture, Ifá refers to a system of divination and the verses of the literary corpus known as the Odú Ifá. Orunmila is the deity associated with Ifa diviniation. In some instances, the name Orunmila is used interchangeably with the word Ifa. Orunmila is claimed to have brought Ifa divination to the world system. In Western The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context (e.g., the time period, the region or social situation). Accordingly, the basic definition of what constitutes "the West" varies, expanding and contracting over time, in relation to various historical cultures and modern East Asia, it is still widely used for this purpose.
The standard text originated from the ancient text (古文經) transmitted by Fei Zhi (费直, c. 50 BC-10 AD) of the Han Dynasty The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms (220–265 CE). It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty (9–23 CE) of the former regent Wang Mang. This. During the Han Dynasty this version competed with the bowdlerised Expurgation is a form of censorship by way of purging anything noxious, offensive, or erroneous, usually from an artistic work. It has also been called bowdlerization, after Thomas Bowdler, who in 1818 published an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's work that he considered to be more appropriate for women and children. He similarly edited new text (今文經) version transmitted by Tian He at the beginning of the Western Han. However, by the time of the Tang Dynasty The Tang Dynasty (June 18, 618–June 4, 907) was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li (李) family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire. The dynasty was interrupted briefly by the Second Zhou Dynasty (October 16, the ancient text version, which had survived Qin’s book-burning Burning of the books and burial of the scholars is a phrase that refers to a policy and a sequence of events in the Qin Dynasty of Ancient China, between the period of 213 and 206 BCE. During these events, the Hundred Schools of Thought were pruned; legalism survived. One side effect was the marginalization of the thoughts of the school of Mozi by being preserved amongst the peasantry, became the accepted norm among Chinese scholars.
The earliest extant version of the text, written on bamboo slips, albeit incomplete, is the Chujian Zhouyi, and dates to the latter half of the Warring States period (mid 4th to early 3rd century BC), and certainly cannot be later than 223 BC, when Chu was conquered by Qin. It is essentially the same as the standard text, except for a few significant variora A variorum is a work that collates all known variants of a text. It is a work of textual criticism, whereby all variations and emendations are set side by side so that a reader can track how textual decisions have been made in the preparation of a text for publication. The Bible and the works of William Shakespeare have often been the subjects of.
During the Warring States period, the text was re-interpreted as a system of cosmology Cosmology , in strict usage, refers to the study of the Universe in its totality as it now is (or at least as it can be observed now), and by extension, humanity's place in it. Though the word cosmology is recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff's Cosmologia Generalis), study of the universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, and philosophy Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the that subsequently became intrinsic to Chinese culture. It centred on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change.
Contents |
History
Traditional view
Traditionally it was believed that the principles of the I Ching originated with the mythical Fu Xi Fu Xi or Fu Hsi (Chinese: 伏羲; pinyin: fúxī; aka Paoxi ), mid 2800s BCE, was the first of the Three Sovereigns (三皇 sānhuáng) of ancient China. He is a culture hero reputed to be the inventor of writing, fishing, and trapping. However Cangjie is also said to have invented writing (伏羲 Fú Xī). In this respect he is seen as an early culture hero A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group who changes the world through invention or discovery. A typical culture hero might be credited as the discoverer of fire, or agriculture, songs, tradition and religion, and is usually the most important legendary figure of a people, sometimes as the founder of its ruling dynasty. The, one of the earliest legendary rulers of China (traditional dates 2800 BC-2737 BC), reputed to have had the 8 trigrams The ba gua are eight diagrams used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each either "broken" or "unbroken," representing a yin line or a yang line, respectively. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often (八卦 bā gùa) revealed to him supernaturally. By the time of the legendary Yu Yu the Great , was the legendary founder of the Xia Dynasty. Occasionally identified as one of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, he is best remembered for teaching the people flood control techniques to tame China's rivers and lakes (禹 Yǔ) 2194 BC – 2149 BC, the trigrams had supposedly been developed into 64 hexagrams (六十四卦 lìu shí sì gùa), which were recorded in the scripture Lian Shan (《連山》 Lián Shān; also called Lian Shan Yi). Lian Shan, meaning "continuous mountains" in Chinese, begins with the hexagram Bound Hexagram 1 is named 乾 , "Force". Other variations include "the creative", "strong action", "the key", and "god". Its inner (lower) trigram is ☰ (乾 qián) force = (天) heaven, and its outer (upper) trigram is the same (艮 gèn), which depicts a mountain (¦¦|) mounting on another and is believed to be the origin of the scripture's name.
After the traditionally recorded Xia Dynasty According to the traditional chronology based upon calculations by Liu Xin, the Xia ruled between 2205 and 1766 BC; however, according to the chronology based upon the Bamboo Annals, it ruled between 1989 and 1558 BC. The Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project concluded that the Xia existed between 2070 and 1600 BC. Because there are no textual records was overthrown by the Shang Dynasty The inscriptions on the oracle bones are divinations, which can be gleaned for information on the politics, economy, culture, religion, geography, astronomy, calendar, art and medicine of the period, and as such provide critical insight into the early stages of the Chinese civilization. One site of the Shang capitals, later historically called the, the hexagrams are said to have been re-deduced to form Gui Cang (《歸藏》 Gūi Cáng; also called Gui Cang Yi), and the hexagram responding Hexagram 1 is named 乾 , "Force". Other variations include "the creative", "strong action", "the key", and "god". Its inner (lower) trigram is ☰ (乾 qián) force = (天) heaven, and its outer (upper) trigram is the same (坤 kūn) became the first hexagram. Gui Cang may be literally translated into "return and be contained", which refers to earth as the first hexagram itself indicates. At the time of Shang's last king, Zhou Wang, King Wen of Zhou King Wen of Zhou original name Ji Chang (Chinese: 姬昌; pinyin: Jī Chāng) (1099–1050 BC) was the founder of the Zhou Dynasty. He was the son of King Ji of Zhou, the third son of King Tai of Zhou, and the favored grandson of his grandfather. He was the nephew of Wu Taibo and Zhongyong, both rulers of the State of Wu at one time is said to have deduced the hexagram and discovered that the hexagrams beginning with Initiating Hexagram 1 is named 乾 , "Force". Other variations include "the creative", "strong action", "the key", and "god". Its inner (lower) trigram is ☰ (乾 qián) force = (天) heaven, and its outer (upper) trigram is the same (乾 qián) revealed the rise of Zhou The Zhou Dynasty followed the Shang Dynasty and was followed by the Qin Dynasty in China. The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history — though the actual political and military control of China by the dynasty only lasted during the Western Zhou. During the Zhou Dynasty, the use of iron was introduced to China, while. He then gave each hexagram a description regarding its own nature, thus Gua Ci (卦辭 guà cí, "Explanation of Hexagrams").
When King Wu of Zhou King Wu of Zhou or King Wu of Chou was the first sovereign, or ruler of the Chinese Zhou Dynasty. Various sources quoted that he died at the age of 93, 54 or 43. He was considered a just and able leader. Zhou Gong Dan was one of his brothers, son of King Wen, toppled the Shang Dynasty, his brother Zhou Gong Dan The Duke of Zhou was the brother of King Wu of Zhou in ancient China. Only three years after defeating the Shang Dynasty King Wu died, leaving the task of consolidating the dynasty's power to the Duke of Zhou. Instead of assuming the throne himself, however, he served as regent for King Wu's son, taking care of him until he was old enough to rule is said to have created Yao Ci (爻辭 yáo cí, "Explanation of Horizontal Lines") to clarify the significance of each horizontal line in each hexagram. It was not until then that the whole context of I Ching was understood. Its philosophy heavily influenced the literature and government administration of the Zhou Dynasty The Zhou Dynasty followed the Shang Dynasty and was followed by the Qin Dynasty in China. The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history — though the actual political and military control of China by the dynasty only lasted during the Western Zhou. During the Zhou Dynasty, the use of iron was introduced to China, while (1122 BC-256 BC).
Later, during the time of Spring and Autumn During the Spring and Autumn period, China was ruled by a feudal system. The Zhou Dynasty kings held nominal power, but only directly ruled over a small Royal Demesne, revolving around their capital . They granted fiefdoms over the rest of China to several hundred hereditary nobles (Zhuhou 諸侯). These were descendants of members of the Zhou (722 BC-481 BC), Confucius His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. These values gained prominence in China over other doctrines, such as Legalism or Taoism (道家) during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). Confucius' thoughts have been developed into a system of philosophy known as is traditionally said to have written the Shi Yi (十翼 shí yì, "Ten Wings"), a group of commentaries on the I Ching. By the time of Han Wu Di Emperor Wu of Han , (156 BC–March 29, 87 BC), personal name Liu Che (劉徹), was the seventh emperor of the Han Dynasty in modern day mainland China, ruling from 141 BC to 87 BC. Emperor Wu is best remembered for the vast territorial expansion that occurred under his reign, as well as the strong and centralized Confucian state he organized. He (漢武帝 Hàn Wǔ Dì) of the Western Han Dynasty The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms (220–265 CE). It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty (9–23 CE) of the former regent Wang Mang. This (c. 200 BC), Shi Yi was often called Yi Zhuan (易傳 yì zhùan, "Commentary on the I Ching"), and together with the I Ching they composed Zhou Yi (周易 zhōu yì, "Changes of Zhou"). All later texts about Zhou Yi were explanations only, due to the classic's deep meaning.
Modernist view
In the past 50 years a "Modernist" history of the I Ching emerged based on research into Shang and Zhou dynasty oracle bones Oracle bones are pieces of bone or turtle plastron (underside) bearing the answers to divination chiefly during the late Shang Dynasty.They were heated and cracked, then typically inscribed using a bronze pin in what is known as oracle bone script. The oracle bones are the earliest known significant corpus of ancient Chinese writing, and contain, Zhou bronze inscriptions and other sources, (Marshall 2001, Rutt 1996, Shaughnessy 1993, Smith 2008). In the 1970s, Chinese archaeologists discovered intact Han dynasty-era tombs in Mawangdui Mawangdui is an archaeological site located in Changsha, China. The site consists of two saddle-shaped hills and contained the tombs of three people from the western Han Dynasty. The tombs belonged to the first Marquis of Dai, his wife, and a male who is believed to be their son. The site was excavated from 1972 to 1974. Most of the artifacts from near Changsha Changsha is the capital city of Hunan, a province of south-central China, located on the lower reaches of Xiang river, a branch of the Yangtze River. Its municipality covers an area of 11,819 sq. kilometers and has a population of 6,017,600 (2003 intercensal estimate), the urbanized area has around 2.7 million people, Hunan Hunan (Chinese: 湖南; pinyin: Húnán) is a province of China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, meaning "south of the lake"). Hunan is sometimes called 湘 (pinyin: Xiāng) for short, after the Xiang River which runs through the province province. One of the tombs contained the Mawangdui Silk Texts The Mawangdui Silk Texts are texts of Chinese philosophical and medical works written on silk and found at Mawangdui in China in 1973. They include the earliest attested manuscripts of existing texts such as the I Ching, two copies of the Tao Te Ching, one similar copy of Strategies of the Warring States and a similar school of works of Gan De and, a 2nd century BC new text version of the I Ching, the Dao De Jing The Tao Te Ching or Dao De Jing (simplified Chinese: 道德经; traditional Chinese: 道德經; Mandarin Pinyin: dàodéjīng; Wade-Giles: Tao Te Ching; Jyutping: dou6 dak1 ging1[ Listen] ), whose authorship has been attributed to Laozi (simplified Chinese: 老子; traditional Chinese: 老子; pinyin: Lǎozǐ), is a Chinese classic text. Its name and other works, which are mostly similar yet in some ways diverge from the received, or traditional texts preserved historically. This version of the I Ching, despite its textual form, belongs to the same textual tradition as the standard text, which suggests it was prepared from an old text version for the use of its Han patron.
Rather than being the work of one or several legendary or historical figures, the core divinatory text is now thought to be an accretion of Western Zhou divinatory concepts. As for the Shi Yi commentaries traditionally attributed to Confucius, scholars from the time of the 11th century AD scholar Ouyang Xiu Ouyang Xiu (1007 – September 22, 1072), was a Chinese statesman, historian, essayist and poet of the Song Dynasty. He is also known by his courtesy name of Yongshu, and was also self nicknamed The Old Drunkard 醉翁, or Householder of the One of Six 六一居士 in his old age. Due to the multi-faceted nature of his talents, he would be onward have doubted this, based on textual analysis, and modern scholars date most of them to the late Warring States The Warring States Period , also known as the Era of Warring States, covers the period from 475 BC to the unification of China under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC. It is nominally considered to be the second part of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, following the Spring and Autumn Period, although the Zhou Dynasty ended in 256 BC, 35 years earlier than the period (403 or 475 BC-256 or 221 BC), with some sections perhaps being as late as the Western Han The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms (220–265 CE). It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty (9–23 CE) of the former regent Wang Mang. This period (206 BC-220 AD).
Structure
The text of the I Ching is a set of oracular statements represented by 64 sets of six lines each called hexagrams The most commonly known sequence is the King Wen sequence. A totally different sequence was found in the Mawangdui Silk Texts. The hexagrams are also found in the Binary sequence, also known as Fu Xi sequence or Shao Yong sequence (卦 guà). Each hexagram is a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines (爻 yáo), each line is either Yang In Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin yang is used to describe how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. The concept lies at the heart of many branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of (an unbroken, or solid line), or Yin In Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin yang is used to describe how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. The concept lies at the heart of many branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of (broken, an open line with a gap in the center). With six such lines stacked from bottom to top there are 26 or 64 possible combinations, and thus 64 hexagrams represented.
The hexagram diagram is composed of two three-line arrangements called trigrams (卦 guà). There are 23, hence 8, possible trigrams. The traditional view was that the hexagrams were a later development and resulted from combining the two trigrams. However, in the earliest relevant archaeological evidence, groups of numerical symbols on many Western Zhou bronzes and a very few Shang oracle bones, such groups already usually appear in sets of six. A few have been found in sets of three numbers, but these are somewhat later. Numerical sets greatly predate the groups of broken and unbroken lines, leading modern scholars to doubt the mythical early attributions of the hexagram system, (Shaugnessy 1993).
When a hexagram is cast using one of the traditional processes of divination with I Ching, each yin and yang line will be indicated as either moving (that is, changing), or fixed (unchanging). Sometimes called old lines, a second hexagram is created by changing moving lines to their opposite. These are referred to in the text by the numbers six through nine as follows:
- Nine is old yang, an unbroken line (
—θ—) changing into yin, a broken line (— —); - Eight is young yin, a broken line (
— —) without change; - Seven is young yang, an unbroken line (
———) without change; - Six is old yin, a broken line (
—X—) changing into yang, an unbroken line (———).
The oldest method for casting the hexagrams, the yarrow stalk method, was gradually replaced during the Han Dynasty by the three coins method and the yarrow stalk method was lost.[2] With the coin method, the probability of yin or yang is equal while with the recreated yarrow stalk method of Zhu Xi (1130–1200),[3] the probability of old yang is three times greater than old yin.[4]
There have been several arrangements of the trigrams and hexagrams over the ages. The bā gùa The ba gua are eight diagrams used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each line either "broken" or "unbroken," representing yin or yang, respectively. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to is a circular arrangement of the trigrams, traditionally printed on a mirror, or disk. According to legend, Fu Xi Fu Xi or Fu Hsi (Chinese: 伏羲; pinyin: fúxī; aka Paoxi ), mid 2800s BCE, was the first of the Three Sovereigns (三皇 sānhuáng) of ancient China. He is a culture hero reputed to be the inventor of writing, fishing, and trapping. However Cangjie is also said to have invented writing found the bā gùa on the scales of a tortoise's back. They function like a magic square with the four axes summing to the same value, using 0 and 1 to represent yin and yang: 000 + 111 = 101 + 010 = 011 + 100 = 110 + 001 = 111.
The King Wen sequence The King Wen sequence of the I Ching or Yi Jing (易經) is a series of sixty-four binary figures (hexagrams), each composed of 6 lines, either solid (yang 陽) or broken (yin 陰) is the traditional (i.e. "classical") sequence of the hexagrams used in most contemporary editions of the I Ching.
Trigrams
The eight trigramsThe solid line represents yang, the creative principle. The open line represents yin, the receptive principle. These principles are also represented in a common circular symbol (☯), known as taijitu Taijitu is a term which refers to a Chinese symbol for the concept of yin and yang (Taiji). The taijitu consists of a symmetrical pattern inside a circle. One common pattern has an S-shaped line that divides the circle into two equal parts of different colors. The pattern may have one or more large dots. The classic Taoist taijitu (pictured right), (太極圖), but more commonly known in the west as the yin-yang In Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin yang is used to describe how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. The concept lies at the heart of many branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of (陰陽) diagram, expressing the idea of complementarity of changes: when Yang is at top, Yin is increasing, and the reverse.
In the following lists, the trigrams and hexagrams are represented using a common textual convention, horizontally from left-to-right, using '|' for yang and '¦' for yin, rather than the traditional bottom-to-top. In a more modern usage, the numbers 0 and 1 can also be used to represent yin and yang, being read left-to-right. There are eight possible trigrams (八卦 bāguà The ba gua are eight diagrams used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each line either "broken" or "unbroken," representing yin or yang, respectively. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to):
| Trigram Figure | Binary Value | Name | Translation: Wilhelm[5] | Image in Nature (pp.l-li) | Direction (p.269) | Family Relationship (p.274) | Body Part (p.274) | Attribute (p.273) | Stage/ State (pp.l-li) | Animal (p.273) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ☰ | 111 | 乾 qián | the Creative, Force | heaven, sky 天 | northwest | father | head | strong | creative | dragon |
| 2 | ☱ | 110 | 兌 duì | the Joyous, Open | swamp, marsh 澤 | west | third daughter | mouth | pleasure | tranquil (complete devotion) | sheep |
| 3 | ☲ | 101 | 離 lí | the Clinging, Radiance | fire 火 | south | second daughter | eye | light-giving, dependence | clinging, clarity, adaptable | pheasant |
| 4 | ☳ | 100 | 震 zhèn | the Arousing, Shake | thunder 雷 | east | first son | foot | inciting movement | initiative | horse |
| 5 | ☴ | 011 | 巽 xùn | the Gentle, Ground | wind 風 | southeast | first daughter | thigh | penetrating | gentle entrance | fowl |
| 6 | ☵ | 010 | 坎 kǎn | the Abysmal, Gorge | water 水 | north | second son | ear | dangerous | in-motion | pig |
| 7 | ☶ | 001 | 艮 gèn | Keeping Still, Bound | mountain 山 | northeast | third son | hand | resting, stand-still | completion | wolf, dog |
| 8 | ☷ | 000 | 坤 kūn | the Receptive, Field | earth 地 | southwest | mother | belly | devoted, yielding | receptive | cow |
The first 3 lines of the hexagram, called the lower trigram, are seen as the inner aspect of the change that is occurring. The upper trigram (the last three lines of the hexagram), is the outer aspect. The change described is thus the dynamic of the inner (personal) aspect relating to the outer (external) situation. Thus, hexagram 04 ¦|¦¦¦| Enveloping, is composed of the inner trigram ☵ Gorge, relating to the outer trigram ☶ Bound.
Hexagram lookup table
|
Upper → Lower ↓ |
☰
Qian Heaven |
☳
Zhen Thunder |
☵
Kan Water |
☶
Gen Mountain |
☷
Kun Earth |
☴
Xun Wind |
☲
Li Flame |
☱
Dui Swamp |
| ☰
Qian Heaven |
01 ䷀ | 34 ䷡ | 05 ䷄ | 26 ䷙ | 11 ䷊ | 09 ䷈ | 14 ䷍ | 43 ䷪ |
| ☳
Zhen Thunder |
25 ䷘ | 51 ䷲ | 03 ䷂ | 27 ䷚ | 24 ䷗ | 42 ䷩ | 21 ䷔ | 17 ䷐ |
| ☵
Kan Water |
06 ䷅ | 40 ䷧ | 29 ䷜ | 04 ䷃ | 07 ䷆ | 59 ䷺ | 64 ䷿ | 47 ䷮ |
| ☶
Gen Mountain |
33 ䷠ | 62 ䷽ | 39 ䷦ | 52 ䷳ | 15 ䷎ | 53 ䷴ | 56 ䷷ | 31 ䷞ |
| ☷
Kun Earth |
12 ䷋ | 16 ䷏ | 08 ䷇ | 23 ䷖ | 02 ䷁ | 20 ䷓ | 35 ䷢ | 45 ䷬ |
|
☴ Xun Wind |
44 ䷫ | 32 ䷟ | 48 ䷯ | 18 ䷑ | 46 ䷭ | 57 ䷸ | 50 ䷱ | 28 ䷛ |
|
☲ Li Flame |
13 ䷌ | 55 ䷶ | 63 ䷾ | 22 ䷕ | 36 ䷣ | 37 ䷤ | 30 ䷝ | 49 ䷰ |
|
☱ Dui Swamp |
10 ䷉ | 54 ䷵ | 60 ䷻ | 41 ䷨ | 19 ䷒ | 61 ䷼ | 38 ䷥ | 58 ䷹ |
The hexagrams
The text of the I Ching describes each of the 64 hexagrams, and later scholars added commentaries and analyses of each one; these have been subsumed into the text comprising the I Ching.
In the table below, each hexagram's translation is accompanied by a form of R. Wilhelm translation (which is the source for the Unicode names), followed by a retranslation.
Hexagram table references
The hexagrams, though, are mere mnemonics for the philosophical concepts embodied in each one. The philosophy centres around the ideas of balance through opposites and acceptance of change. UnicodeIn Unicode, monograms cover code points U+268A (⚊) and U+268B (⚋), digrams cover code points U+268C to U+268F (⚌ ⚍ ⚎ ⚏), trigrams cover code points U+2630 to U+2637 (☰ ☱ ☲ ☳ ☴ ☵ ☶ ☷), hexagram symbols cover code points U+4DC0 to U+4DFF. The Tai Xuan Jing extension of the Yi Jing characters, based on the Canon of Supreme Mystery (Chinese: 太玄經; pinyin: Tài Xuán Jīng) by Yáng Xióng (Chinese: 揚雄/扬雄; Wade-Giles: Yang Hsiung; 53 BC-18 AD), range from U+1D300 through U+1D356. Their Chinese aliases most accurately reflect their interpretation;[6] for example, the Chinese alias of code point U+1D300 (𝌀) is "rén", which translates into English as man and yet the English alias is "MONOGRAM FOR EARTH". Five additional digrams cover code points U+1D301 to U+1D305 (𝌁 𝌂 𝌃 𝌄 𝌅) and eighty–one tetragrams cover code points U+1D306 to U+1D356. Implications of the title
The I Ching is a "reflection of the universe in miniature". The word "I" has three meanings: ease and simplicity, change and transformation, and invariability.[7] Thus the three principles underlying the I Ching are the following:
Note that the character "易" combines the pictograms for the sun (日) and moon (月), and is thus symbolic of the interplay between Yin (阴: feminine) and Yang (阳: masculine), the forces that Taoists believe drive the universe. PhilosophyYin and yang, while common expressions associated with many schools of classical Chinese culture, are especially associated with the Taoists. Another view holds that the I Ching is primarily a Confucianist ethical or philosophical document. This view is based upon the following:
Both views may be seen to show that the I Ching was at the heart of Chinese thought, serving as a common ground for the Confucian and Taoist schools. Partly forgotten due to the rise of Chinese Buddhism during the Tang dynasty, the I Ching returned to the attention of scholars during the Song dynasty. This was concomitant with the reassessment of Confucianism by Confucians in the light of Taoist and Buddhist metaphysics, and is known in the West as Neo-Confucianism. The book, unquestionably an ancient Chinese scripture, helped Song Confucian thinkers to synthesize Buddhist and Taoist cosmologies with Confucian and Mencian ethics. The end product was a new cosmogony that could be linked to the so-called "lost Tao" of Confucius and Mencius. Binary sequenceIn his article Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire (1703) Gottfried Leibniz writes that he has found in the hexagrams a base for claiming the universality of the binary numeral system. He takes the layout of the combinatorial exercise found in the hexagrams to represent binary sequences, so that ¦¦¦¦¦¦ would correspond to the binary sequence 000000 and ¦¦¦¦¦| would be 000001, and so forth. The binary arrangement of hexagrams is associated with the famous Chinese scholar and philosopher Shao Yung (a neo-Confucian and Taoist) in the 11th century. He displayed it in two different formats, a circle, and a rectangular block. Thus, he clearly understood the sequence represented a logical progression of values. However, while it is true that these sequences do represent the values 0 through 63 in a binary display, there is no evidence that Shao understood that the numbers could be used in computations such as addition or subtraction. Richard S. Cook states that that the I Ching demonstrated a relation between the golden ratio (aka the division in extreme and mean ratio) and "linear recurrence sequences" (the Fibonacci numbers are examples of "linear recurrence sequences") :
DivinationMain article: I Ching divinationIn China the I Ching had two distinct functions. The first was as a compendium and classic of ancient cosmic principles. The second function was that of divination text. As a divination text the world of the I Ching was that of the marketplace fortune teller and roadside oracle. These individuals served the illiterate peasantry. The educated Confucian elite in China were of an entirely different disposition. The future results of our actions were a function of our personal virtues. The Confucian literati actually had little use for the I Ching as a work of divination. In the collected works of the countless educated literati of ancient China there are actually few references to the I Ching as a divination text. Any eyewitness account of traditional Chinese society, such as S. Wells Williams The Middle Kingdom, and many others, can clarify this very basic distinction. Williams tells us of the I Ching, "The hundred of fortune- tellers seen in the streets of Chinese towns, whose answers to their perplexed customers are more or less founded on these cabala, indicate their influence among the illiterate; while among scholars, who have long since conceded all divination to be vain..". (The Middle Kingdom, vol. 1, p. 632) Symbolism
The Flag of South Korea contains the Taiji symbol, or tàijítú, (yin and yang in dynamic balance, called taegeuk in Korean), representing the origin of all things in the universe. The taegeuk is surrounded by four of the eight trigrams, starting from top left and going clockwise: Heaven, Water, Earth, Fire. In addition, the Republic of Korea Air Force aircraft roundel incorporates the Taiji in conjunction with the trigrams representing Heaven. The flag of the Empire of Vietnam used the Li (Fire) trigram and was known as cờ quẻ Ly (Li trigram flag) because the trigram represents South. Its successor the Republic of Vietnam connected the middle lines, turning it into the Qián (Heaven) trigram. (see Flag of the Republic of Vietnam). InfluenceMain article: I Ching's influenceThe I Ching has influenced countless Chinese philosophers, artists and even businesspeople throughout history. In more recent times, several Western artists and thinkers have used it in fields as diverse as psychoanalysis, music, film, drama, dance, eschatology, and fiction writing.[9] Prior to the Tokugawa period (1603–1868 AD) in Japan, the I Ching was little known and used mostly for divination until Buddhist monks popularized the Chinese classic for its philosophical, cultural and political merits in other literate groups such as the samurai.[10] The Hagakure, a collection of commentaries on the Way of the Warrior, cautions against mistaking it for a work of divination.[11] CommentaryEarly Chinese civilization, as with western civilization, accepted various pre-scientific explanations of natural events, and the I Ching has been cited as an example of this. As a manual of divination it interpreted natural events through readings based on symbols expressed in the trigrams and hexagrams. Thus any observation in nature could be interpreted as to its significance and cause. This might be compared to the Roman practice of basing decisions on the state of animals' livers. While usually sympathetic to the claims of Chinese culture and science, Joseph Needham, in his second volume of Science and Civilization in China (p. 311) stated: "Yet really they [Han dynasty scholars] would have been wiser to tie a millstone about the neck of the I Ching and cast it into the sea".[12] Abraham (1999) states that Confucius' ten commentaries, called the Ten Wings, transformed the I Ching from a divination text into a "philosophical masterpiece". It was this form of the I Ching that inspired the post-Warring State Taoists. It has influenced Confucians and other philosophers and scientists ever since.[13] However, Helmut Wilhelm in his Change/Eight Lectures on the I Ching, cautions: "It can no longer be said with certainty whether any of the material—and if any, how much—comes from Confucius' own hand".[14] Translations
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Categories: I Ching | Chinese philosophy | Chinese thought | Taoist texts | Confucian texts | Chinese classic texts | Divination | Chinese books of divination | Chinese traditional religion | Esoteric schools of thought | Confucianism
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Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:06:02 GMT+00:00
app updated with new features and new I Ching books Appmodo Southborough, MA Flat Earth Studio today is pleased to announce a major update for Yi Jing , with new features and new book content for additional purchase ...
leegiat
Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:30:00 GM
He was then forced to explain: ' It is for Gua imagery from the . Yi Jing. if you know what I means...'. Me:' Why put it here?' (Of course, I can't be too specific on why it is the North West Sector as I am just a clueless client). ...
