Original I Ching: An Authentic Translation of the Book of Changes

Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

www.tuttlepublishing.com

Copyright © 2011 Margaret J. Pearson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yi jing. English

The original I ching: an authentic translation of The book of changes / by Margaret J.

Pearson Ph.D.-- 1st ed.

      p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN: 978-1-4629-0019-0 (ebook)

I. Pearson, Margaret. II. Title.

PL2478.D58 2011

299’.51282--dc22

2011010712

Distributed by

First edition

15 14 13 12 11       5 4 3 2 1       0411TP

Printed in Singapore

TUTTLE PUBLISHING® is a registered trademark of Tuttle Publishing, a division of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

Frontispiece: The history official Ban Zhao (d. 116) lecturing to her students. A great scholar, she worked in the imperial history bureau and taught palace ladies and the scholar Ma Jung (d. 166). Ma and his student Zheng Xuan (d. 200) were among China’s greatest exegetes. Some of his footnotes have been used in preparing this translation.

This is one of the few extant pictures of a woman scholar in early China. The painting is an early copy of an original attributed to Gu Kaizhi (d. 406). This image is from a photograph of the entire scroll by Benrido, Japan in 1965, and published in 1966 by the Trustees of the British Museum.

To Phyllis Pearson, my mother and first teacher

and to Jean Musser, who introduced me to Chinese literature,

and Professor Carol Thomas, who has advised me

since I began my doctoral studies

Contents

Acknowledgments

If you want to see far, it is better to climb a hill than to stand on your toes. Xunzi wrote this, probably not long before China was first unified in 221 BCE, and it remains true today. I could never have attempted this translation without the resources and insights provided by other scholars, most notably Lou Yulie, K.C. Chang, Richard John Lynn, Edward Shaughnessy, and David Keightley.

Several scholarly communities supported this endeavor. Clare Hall, Cambridge University, welcomed me as a Visiting Fellow in 1997, thanks to the sponsorship of Michael Loewe and the support of David Knechtges. Many sections of this work were first presented to the Clare Hall Women’s Group, where I received warm support, especially from Asian women scholars. Professor Xinzhong Yao was one of the first to recognize the importance of this difficult task.

My first effort, to translate hexagram 44, was presented at one of the text reading seminars of the Needham Research Institute. I am grateful for the comments I received there, especially from Professors Michael Nylan and Michael Loewe. Mark Lewis, then at Cambridge University, validated my first tentative reinterpretations of key passages. Professor Lynn gave me helpful and encouraging comments on my analysis of hexagram 44, first published in Oracle: the Journal of Yijing Studies (London, 2000). The Needham Research Institute provided office space and intellectual community over several years, while I worked on the life of the great Chinese scientist Zhang Heng. In 2005, I led a discussion of his use of the Changes at another text reading there. In the past few years, membership in the Early China Seminar at Columbia University, capably led by Li Feng and David Branner, enabled me to continue to learn more about the best recent scholarship on early China and its texts.

In preparing the translations, I have relied on the work of many other scholars. My primary Chinese sources include Lou Yulieh’s Critical edition of the Works of Wang Bi with explanatory notes (Wang Bi ji jiaoshi, Beijing, 1980), an inspiring breakthrough in Yijing studies, for he pruned away many commentaries and focused attention on the oldest portions of the text, usually referred to as the Zhou Changes (or Zhouyi). This edition also helped distinguish between Zhouyi and later versions, and separated Wang Bi’s contributions from others’. I also used Guo Linzong’s Paihua Yijing (Taipei, 1999). which was also based on this text. Two Chinese-Chinese dictionaries published in the 1990s were particularly helpful: the Zhouyi Dacidian (Canton, 1993) and Liu Xinlong’s Xin pien jiaguwen zidian (Beijing, 1993). The first provided meanings only from Yijing, Shijing, Zuozhuan, and other early works, a very welcome tool for etymological focus. The second provided beautiful images and interpretations of the earliest forms of crucial characters. While some of Liu’s conclusions may be controversial, given the fragmentary nature of the evidence he used, I consider most of them valid alternatives, and have used them here.

For an understanding of the changing nature of yin, I am particularly grateful for the pioneering work of Vitaly A. Rubin (1982), Alison Black (1989), and Lisa Raphals (1998). Conversations with Professor Nylan at Clare Hall in 2005 encouraged this revisionist approach. I believe that her chapter on yin/yang thought in the revised Cambridge History of China for the Qin and Han eras supports the general direction described by Raphals, Black, and Rubin which I have used as the rationale for this translation. This does not mean, however, that these scholars have reviewed this translation or would agree with every word of it. At the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society in 2010, I presented my arguments on the positive and ungendered meaning of yin. I am grateful for the comments from my listeners there.

Early stages of this twelve-year project received financial support from Skidmore College and the Mellon Foundation. Fongyee Walker provided useful information on terms and images common to both Yijing and Shijing, the subject of her research at Cambridge University. John Moffett generously shared his knowledge of the Zuozhuan and of the many women involved in divination depicted in this late Zhou text. Sally Church helped in many ways, particularly with early drafts on yin. Elizabeth Childs-Johnson, Constance Cook, and Anne Kinney reviewed drafts of the introduction. Jeff Howard reviewed the entire manuscript and helped in many ways, as he did with my dissertation. These scholars have helped me identify mistakes and infelicities. Those that remain are mine alone.

Helmut Wilhelm, Jack Dull, and Hok-lam Chan guided my first steps into sinology as a graduate student at the University of Washington. Carol Thomas led me towards valid cross-cultural comparisons with early Greek history. Her tact and scholarly expertise also enabled me to complete my doctoral dissertation that included the first translation of another early Chinese text into any language. Most recently, the skillful editing of Michael Ochs and the support of my scholarly friend Carol Ochs have been crucial in bringing this task to completion.

I am indebted to the thousands of students I have taught over the last thirty years, and particularly to the hundreds introduced to the Changes in a course I taught every year. The papers they wrote relating what they learned from the Changes to their own lives and dilemmas have taught me much. Particular thanks go to the students who helped me revise the instructions for consulting the book.

I have been fortunate to learn much from many, but I am also quite aware that I have probably made errors, an inescapable reality in the difficult task of reinterpreting a text nearly three thousand years after its creation. While I have tried to emulate the work of my former teacher Burton Watson and of D. C. Lau, their scholarship is greater than mine, as is their command of English precisely suited to accurately conveying Chinese thought. I have dared to undertake this task in large part because I believe that all women who read the Changes deserve at least one translation by a woman scholar with knowledge of Chinese language and history. And, of course, I welcome suggestions for improving the text. As Confucius said, when I am in a group of three, I always have two teachers.

Introduction

The Book of Changes (I Ching or Yijing) is unlike any other book in its structure and its origins, yet its purpose is universal: to provide good counsel to its users in making the decisions that respond to and create change. As such, it has become a compendium of wisdom used by people of many cultures and eras.

The text is very old, and it is closely associated with the Zhou dynasty, founded around 1050 BCE. The earliest core text, translated here, is, therefore, usually referred to as the Zhou Changes (Zhouyi), to differentiate it from the later, longer work, elaborated and developed with multiple commentaries and addenda, representing centuries of efforts to fully comprehend the meaning of the core text. However, the text also includes phrases used in earlier divinations by the preceding Shang dynasty (circa 1600–1050? BCE). More on this history below.

In structure, the book has sixty-four sections, each associated with a six-line figure (hexagram) of solid and broken lines. This figure is named, and represents both a human situation and an object. The reader is encouraged to see similarities between the two, a type of reasoning which is discussed below.

Each hexagram is composed of two three-line figures (trigrams), which represent natural objects: sky, earth, wind, mountain, water, thunder, fire, and lake. Immediately following the name are one or more brief statements that are generally referred to as judgments; these are followed by brief statements associated with changing lines. Most statements have words of advice appended, such as misfortune, good fortune, this is effective, or this is not effective. Finally, there is a brief image (xiang).

The book has been used for millennia for both decision-making and as a basis for philosophical speculation. Its concepts undergird most of East Asian thought and had a profound influence on the theories of Carl Jung and his followers. In various forms, it is consulted by Asians and westerners, in temples, homes, and therapists’ offices. Its study remains a mainstay of attempts to understand Chinese culture.

Thus this book is neither purely prophetic nor purely philosophical. While its appropriate use has been controversial for centuries, common sense suggests that no major decision should be made on the basis of the advice of any one person or book. However, over the centuries, many have found that consulting the Changes can encourage thoughtful decision-makers to see aspects of situations to which they had been blind. The natural images in the Changes, when considered as analogous to recurring human situations, can provide fruitful images for meditation as people search for ways through—or out of—their specific dilemmas.

So, consulting or meditating on parts of the Changes can function as part of the endless quest for knowledge of the self and of others, which, as Confucian philosopher Xunzi declared, is what makes us fully human. It can also provide practical knowledge that leads to action. Well-considered and timely actions are more likely to help work toward a more gracefully ordered set of sociological systems. Therefore, the wisdom of the Changes, properly used, can lead us toward a life that is refined in purpose, pure in virtuous understanding, and that allows us to live in the present and derive our purposes from [understanding] the past, according to Xunzi.

The Changes expresses a belief that different conditions require different responses, and that we are never entirely alone,