I Ching

The I Ching, historical transcription, today: Yijing (Chinese 易經 / 易经, Pinyin Yìjīng, W.-G. I-Ching - "Book of Changes or Classics of Changes") is a collection of line characters and associated sayings. It is the oldest of the classical Chinese texts. Its legendary genesis is traditionally traced back to the 3rd millennium BC. The work is also commonly known in Chinese as Zhouyi (周易, Zhōuyì - "Transformations of the Zhou").

Name and structure of the collection

Yì Jīng is the spelling in pinyin transcription, which has been recognized as the international standard since 1982. The spelling I Ching is the transcription - now obsolete - used by Richard Wilhelm in his translation. Other possible historical spellings are, for example, according to: Wade-Giles: I-Ching, EFEO: Yi-King, Stange: Yi-King. The translation by Richard Wilhelm, which was decisive for the worldwide reception, was translated into English and published in 1950 by Cary F. Baynes under the title I Ching. Because of the quality of the translation, which is recognized in China research, and because of its great success even among laymen, this translation was published in other European languages.

The oldest layer of the book is called Zhōu Yì (周易, Chou I), "the Yì (change) of the Zhōu (dynasty)." The Zhōu Yì consists of 64 groups of six continuous or interrupted lines (爻, yáo) each. The groups are also called hexagrams. In the conventional arrangement, the Zhōu Yì is divided into two books, the first of which contains the first thirty hexagrams and the second of which contains characters 31 to 64. Each hexagram is represented according to a uniform scheme: An illustration (卦象, guà xiàng), the name (卦名, guà míng), a saying along with a brief explanation (卦辭, guà cí), and an explanation of each stroke (爻辭, yáo cí).

In addition, since the 2nd century BC, the book has contained a series of appended texts called the Ten Wings (十翼, Shí Yì) or "Commentary on the Yì" (易傳, Yì Zhùan), consisting of ten documents in seven sections. They were traditionally attributed to Confucius. Today they are believed to be commentaries by his successors. In some later editions, the first two commentaries have been divided and assigned directly to the individual characters.

Originally, the signs of the oracle part originated from the Chinese oracle practice, closer to the yarrow oracle, whereas the sayings originated from the spell tradition and ritual practice. In the scholarly reception since the 4th century BC, two interpretive traditions existed: The first regarded the work as a manual of divination (e.g., Liu Mu and Shao Yong). The other sought a philosophical interpretation (e.g., Zheng Xuan, Wang Bi, Han Kangbo) and made the book the subject of penetrating philosophical commentary as a source of cosmological, philosophical, and political insights. The popular use of the Zhōu Yì as an oracle book never fell out of use, however, and the understanding of the text as a philosophical "wisdom book" also shaped its European reception.

History and lore

History of origins

The tradition assumes that the principles of the I Ching can be traced back to the "called one" (sheng ren, 圣人), i.e. the ancestor deity, from the Fu Xi clan or the legendary first emperor Fu Xi (伏羲, Fú Xī, ca. 3rd millennium BC); he discovered the eight basic signs. Ji Chang (姬昌, Jī Chāng), who later received the name King Wen (Zhōu Wén wáng, 周文王, 11th century BC), and his son Zhou (Zhōu Gōngdàn; 周公旦) are said to have provided the number of characters, which in the meantime had grown to 64, with instructions for action.

Before the Zhou dynasty, there are said to have been other written traditions of the hexagrams besides the Zhou Yi, the Lian Shan Yi (連山易, Lián Shān Yì) and the Gui Cang Yi (歸藏易, Gūi Cáng Yì), but these have been lost.

Since the discovery of the oracle bones of the Shang period (2nd millennium BC), research has assumed that the I Ching originated from this oracle practice. This reevaluation took place in China already in the last years of the Qing period (end of the 19th century), but was perceived in Europe only since about 1980.

The textual redaction of the I Ching that we have today was compiled in the seventh century CE and published under the title Zhouyi zhengyi (周易正義, Zhōuyì zhèngyì); this edition was the authoritative text for centuries.

Textus receptus and older traditions

For about 10 percent of the standard text, evidence has been preserved since the 2nd century BC, including the epigraphic tradition on stone stelae (see list of stone classics).

In 1973, a silk text (ca. 2nd century BC) containing a version of the I Ching that differed from the standard text was discovered in a tomb at the Mawangdui excavation site near Changsha in Hunan Province and has been known as the Mawangdui Silk Texts (馬王堆帛書, Mǎ wáng duī Bó shū) since its first publication in 1993. According to Edward Shaughnessy, approximately 12 percent (560 characters) of the entire text of the Mawangdui I Ching differs from the surviving form of the text.

In 1977, an excavation at Shuanggudui (雙古堆) near Fuyang (富陽市) in Anhui Province discovered bamboo strips containing fragments of the Zhōu Yì (2nd century BC). Since then, other archaeological discoveries have turned up other older or parallel versions of the Zhōu Yì (the Chu bamboo texts and the Guodian bamboo texts).