2021 Book TheMakingOfTheGlobalYijingInTh

Chinese Culture 4
Benjamin Wai-ming Ng Editor
The Making
of the Global
Yijing in
the Modern World
Cross-cultural Interpretations and
Interactions
Chinese Culture
Globality, Connectivity and Modernity
Volume 4
Series Editors
Tze Ki Hon, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Hok Yin Chan, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
This book series aims to publish monographs and edited volumes that examine how
Chinese culture has been circulated, redeployed and reinterpreted around the world
since the 15th century. In this book series, Chinese culture is understood broadly,
ranging from canonical texts, philosophical/religious systems and aesthetic tastes of
the educated elites to cultural artefacts, festivals and everyday practices of ordinary
people. This broad definition of Chinese culture is to serve two purposes. The first is
to encourage research that views Chinese culture not just as a home-grown construct
serving the Chinese in their native land, but also as a symbol, a site where diverse
meanings can be generated for global conversation and transnational exchanges. The
second is to provide an opportunity to researchers to publish works that examine how
China is used, metaphorically or figuratively, in the recent debates on modernity
and post-modernity. The series welcomes proposals from multiple disciplines in
connection with the study of Chinese culture, including language and literature,
history, philosophy, politics and international relations, media and cultural studies.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10100

Benjamin Wai-ming Ng
Editor
The Making of the Global

Yijing in the Modern World
Cross-cultural Interpretations and Interactions
Editor
Department of Japanese Studies
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
New Territories, Hong Kong SAR
ISSN 2662-9755 ISSN 2662-9763 (electronic)

Chinese Culture
ISBN 978-981-33-6227-7 ISBN 978-981-33-6228-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6228-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore
Pte Ltd. 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
For Richard J. Smith, a Pioneer of Global
Yijing Studies
Foreword: Globalizing and Localizing the Yijing
To my great regret, for reasons of health, I was unable to attend the workshop that
yielded this excellent volume. Fortunately, however, I now have the opportunity and
pleasure to say a few words about why the meeting was so important. But before
doing so, I would like to express my deep appreciation for the scholarly work of
Prof. Benjamin Wai-ming Ng, which has proved so inspirational to me and many
of the contributors to this volume, and to thank him for kindly dedicating the book
to me. Without his pioneering studies of the Yijing’s travels to, and reception in,
Japan, I would never have ventured into the scholarly territory that now seems so
comfortable and meaningful to me.1 This territory consists of the relatively new
field of transnational/global studies and two long-standing subdisciplines of literary
studies, cross-cultural comparative studies and translation studies.
Before proceeding to discuss briefly each of these three fields, it might be well to
point out that the Yijing 易經 goes by a great many transliterated names in Western
languages, including I-ching, I Ching, I Ging, Yi King, Yih-King, and Yi Jing, among
many others. The closest English translation is perhaps Classic of Changes, although
Scripture of Changes also comes close to the mark (Adler 2019). Other common
translations of the title are Book of Changes, Buch der Wanlungen, Livre des muta-
tions, Livre des changements, and Libro de las Mutaciones. The Yijing is also known as
the Zhou Changes 周易 (Zhouyi, Chou-i, Djohi, etc.). Personally, I prefer “Changes”
as the translation of the Chinese term Yi because the plural usage suggests the several
different kinds of change addressed explicitly in the work. This is not, however, a
universally held view. Chen-yang Li (2002, p. 269) argues, for example, that the term
should be rendered in singular form, because Yi, as a Chinese philosophical concept,
“stands for the ontological status of change rather than the ontic acts of change.”
Now, to a brief discussion of the three fields I have just mentioned. By stages,
over the past few decades, the academic world has begun to appreciate the value
of exploring and analyzing the ways that texts, ideas and cultural practices circu-
late within, and especially move beyond, local, regional and national boundaries.
1 The publication of Prof. Ng’s prize-winning The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and Culture (2000)
was a watershed event, followed by his illuminating studies of the Yijing in other parts of East Asia.
See Ng 2017, cf. Yang 1995.
vii
viii Foreword: Globalizing and Localizing the Yijing
I have chosen to call this process “transnationalism”—even though it occurred well

before the rise of modern nation states.2 Isabel Hofmeyr’s (2004) masterful book,
The Portable Bunyan, which discusses the transmissions, translations and transmu-
tations of The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) in Europe, India, and especially Africa,
provides an outstanding example of the creative ways that indigenous populations
“domesticated” John Bunyan’s (1628–1688) text.
In East Asia, similar processes took place. As the works of Prof. Ng and others
have shown, as texts and ideas circulated in this part of the world, they often became
transformed—the product of complex interactions between borrowed elements and
the indigenous culture(s).3 The most obvious factor influencing the spread and circu-
lation of texts and ideas is, of course, language. And one important reason the major
premodern states of East Asia were so freely able to borrow from one another is
that for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, the elites in each culture employed the
same basic written language—that is, “classical Chinese,” also known as “literary
Sinitic.” This form of writing emerged in China more than three thousand years ago
and underwent a number of transformations not only in its home environment, but
also and especially in other parts of East Asia. Outside of China, the most common
term for this language was “Han” [i.e. Chinese] writing 漢文, pronounced Kanbun in
Japan, Hanmun in Korea, and Hán văn in Vietnam. The important point is that regard-
less of how Chinese characters were pronounced, the meanings of each remained
substantially the same.
But, as the studies by Hofmeyr, Ng and others have affirmed, interpretive commu-
nities in places where foreign texts traveled were not simply empty vessels waiting to
be filled. Quite naturally, Japan, the Ryūkyū Kingdom, Korea and Vietnam had their
own cultural traditions, including, of course, their own spoken languages. In these
environments, texts originally written in classical Chinese could be domesticated by
the incorporation of national or local stories, culture heroes and traditions, narrative
conventions, changes in terminology, and so forth (Hayek 2010; 2014, esp. pp. 308–
309). And although in each country, Chinese characters served initially as the only
medium for written communication, they were used in sometimes radically different
ways over time.4
Moreover, in each country, indigenous written languages eventually developed,
complicating the linguistic picture. By the fifteenth century at the latest (and in the
case of Japan much earlier), the Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese had all developed
their own non-Chinese written scripts, each of which reflected the sounds of their
respective spoken languages: kana (仮名) in Japan (and the Ryūkyū Kingdom);
2 For some of my recent reflections on this complex process, see Smith 2019; 2020. The articles in
Qian, Smith and Zhang 2020a and 2020b also address issues of transnational flows in premodern
East Asia.
3 For a few useful works on the spread and circulation of classical Chinese texts in East Asia, in
addition to those of Prof. Ng mentioned in note 1, see Abe 1965; Cai 2002; and Dai 2000. In English,
see, for example, Richey 2013; Abe 1970; Rutgers University 2010; Huang 2015; and Chang and
Kalmanson 2010.
4 See the introductions and individual contributions to the works in Qian, Smith and Zhang 2020a;
2020b.
Foreword: Globalizing and Localizing the Yijing ix
hangŭl (한글) in Korea; and nôm (喃) or chũ, nôm (喃) in Vietnam (Elman 2014).
Texts could be written exclusively in these phonetically based scripts or combined
with Chinese characters. For most of the period from 1600 to 1900 CE, texts were
written exclusively in the kana, hangŭl and nôm vernaculars lacked the exalted status
of classical Chinese, but this prestige did not preclude significant changes in literary
Sinitic-based texts—hence descriptive hybrid terms such as Sino-Japanese, Sino-
Korean and Sino-Vietnamese.5
Comparative studies have long been staples of the academic diet, but compara-
tively few scholars have engaged the Yijing in their comparisons and contrasts. One
reason is that relatively few scholars have mastered the various languages of the
text, which, as indicated above, range from the archaic script of late Shang and early
Zhou dynasties of China (ca. 1000–800 BCE) to classical Chinese of various sorts
that evolved from ca. 300 BCE onward. Another reason is that the cryptic core, or
“basic text” (benwen 本文), of the document is not only extremely ancient, but also
diverse in origins (the line statements, yaoci 爻辭, of the Changes were derived
from a wide variety of sources, including omen verses, poems, proverbs, riddles,
paradoxes and even children’s ditties), and therefore particularly subject to radically
different readings and understandings. Hence, thousands of commentaries have been
written on the book from the late Zhou period onward.
Although self-described as “simple” and “easy,” the Yijing became almost hope-
lessly complex over time, as philologically inclined exegetes analyzed virtually every
line and character of the work, and other scholars of various philosophical persua-
sions identified dozens of cosmic variables and hundreds of symbolic correlations
that seemed to bear on the trigrams, hexagrams and line statements of the basic text.
As the famous late Ming scholar, Diao Bao 刁包 (1603–1669), once remarked, a
child can use the classic, but “a white-haired man cannot fathom it”6 (Smith 2008,
p. 2).
Appended to the basic text of the Changes is a set of sophisticated but not entirely
consistent commentaries known as the Ten Wings (Shiyi 十翼), written by unknown
authors several hundred years after the basic text initially took form in about the
eighth century BCE, possibly earlier. During the last few decades, archaeological
discoveries in China have brought to light several different versions of both parts of
the Changes, complicating rather than simplifying the search for meaning even in the
so-called received version of the classic. (Shaughnessy 2014) And in the intervening
time, as suggested above, great debates took place over the provenance and meanings
of the basic text, and scholars of all persuasions, including Confucians, Daoists and
Buddhists, used the Yijing to advance their own political, social, intellectual and
personal agendas.
5 These expressions generally, but not invariably, refer to borrowed Chinese words and terms used
in both poetry and prose. See the entry on “Sino-Xenic Readings” in Sybesma et al. 2017.
6 A revised paperback edition of Smith’s 2008 work with the same pagination but a new preface and
several minor corrections was issued in 2017.

x Foreword: Globalizing and Localizing the Yijing
Despite these interpretive complexities, and perhaps in part because of them,

the Yijing offers a great many comparative possibilities.7 One sort of comparison,
pioneered by Prof. Ng, has been between the writings of scholars in different East
Asian countries who could read and write the same basic literary language despite
their different pronunciations of individual characters. What were their scholarly
motives, and what were the results of their scholarly investigations? Inspired by
Prof. Ng, I am currently engaged in a systematic comparison of the Yijing-related
writings of the Vietnamese scholar Lê Quý Ðôn 黎貴惇 (1726–1784) and his Korean
counterpart Chŏng Yagyong 丁若鏞 (1762–1836).8
Other comparisons might involve the mechanics of transmission of texts, from
conquest and evangelism to trade and diplomacy.9 Did the circumstances under which
these texts were transmitted influence their reception? What other factors may have
influenced their reception and further circulation? Domestic politics? Perceptions of
the culture of origin?
Another far more ambitious project, which I have attempted in only the most
superficial way, would be to explore affinities between the Yijing and other great
spiritually and metaphysically oriented works, including the Jewish and Christian
Bibles, the Qur’an, the Vedas and various paradigmatic Buddhist writings, such as
the Lotus Sutra, the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra (Smith 2008, pp. 242–249).
What sort of comparisons might be drawn between these diverse classics?
At first glance, the differences between them may seem to be so striking as to
suggest utter incommensurability. What, for instance, would be comparable to the
central significance of hexagrams in any of the above-mentioned works? And where
in the Yijing might one find the elaborated myths and powerful narrative structures
that characterize most other classics of world literature? Unlike the Changes, the
works mentioned above are closely linked to major religious traditions—Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, respectively. By contrast, the Yijing
claims to be based solely on the natural observations of human beings—sages, to be
sure, but mortals nonetheless; the order, or Dao, that is purported to reflect had no
personality or particular identity. Lacking any sort of sustained narrative, the Changes
says nothing of purposeful beginnings or dramatic endings, only of recurrent, cyclical
patterns of change.
There are, however, similarities, which deserve further exploration. One of these
is surely the need for commentaries to clarify and explain obscurities and inconsis-
tencies, especially in the earliest texts. When such works became canonical, as the
Changes did in 136 BCE, the function of scholarly and popular exegesis was not only
explanation but also legitimation. Another effort common to all these hermeneutical
traditions was the use of correlative schemes, ranging from simple homologies to
complicated numerological systems. Such schemes are especially prominent at all
7I have outlined some of these possibilities in Smith 2008; 2012a and several articles and book
chapters—the most recent of which is Smith 2018.
8 Both are discussed briefly in my book chapter titled “The Transnational Travels of the Yijing” in
Smith 2012a and at somewhat greater length in Smith 2020.

9 For discussions of such mechanisms, see the introductions to Qian, Smith and Zhang 2020a; 2020b.
Foreword: Globalizing and Localizing the Yijing xi
levels of Changes exegeses, but they also appear in a variety of Jewish, Buddhist,
Christian, Islamic and Hindu texts, and many endure to the present. Consider, for
example, Kabbalism, which from the time of the Jesuits onward has appeared in
various Western commentaries on the Changes (Henderson 1991; 1998).
Of course most scholars who attempt cross-cultural comparisons outside of shared
or similar linguistic traditions—whether Western (say, Latin or Hebrew) or Asian
(classical Chinese)—must rely on translations. This brings me to my third major
theme. In its travels to the West, the Yijing required (and still requires) transla-
tion into a variety of European languages that differ substantially from classical
Chinese, raising issues of commensurability and incommensurability that are still
hotly debated today.
Initially, Jesuit missionaries played a major role in transmitting knowledge of the
Changes (and other classics) to the West (Smith 2013, pp. 166–192; 2012b). Indi-
viduals such as Joachim Bouvet (ca. 1660–1732) and his colleague Jean-François
Fouquet (1665–1741) represented a development in Western Christianity known as
the Figurist movement, which in China took the form of an effort to find reflections
(that is figures) of the biblical patriarchs and examples of biblical revelation in the
Chinese classics—the Yijing in particular. Eventually, however, their Figurist enter-
prise, like the broader Jesuit evangelical movement, fell victim to harsh criticisms and
vigorous attacks by Chinese scholars as well as members of the Christian community
in China and abroad. Yet, despite the unhappy fate of the Figurists in China, their
writings captured the attention of several prominent European intellectuals in the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries—most notably, of course, Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716). These individuals, in turn, provoked a sustained
and substantial Western interest in the Yijing (including Figurist approaches to the
document) that has endured into modern times.10
The first complete translation of the Changes into a Western language (Latin) did
not appear in print until the 1830s, and within decades of its publication, several addi-
tional translations of the Changes in various European languages appeared (Smith
2016; 2017). Of these, James Legge’s The Yi King (1882) remained the standard
English-language rendering of the Changes until the mid-twentieth century. But in
1924, a German missionary-scholar named Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930) published
a translation of the Changes titled I Ging, Das Buch der Wandlungen, which, when
translated into English by Cary Baynes and published in 1950 as I Ching, The Book
of Changes, became a global sensation.11
In certain respects, Wilhelm’s translation was like Legge’s. It was heavily anno-
tated, produced with assistance from a Chinese scholar and based on the Qing
dynasty’s Balanced [Edition of the] Zhou Changes (Zhouyi zhezhong 周易折中,
1715), which gave the document a decidedly neo-Confucian cast. But Wilhelm’s
translation was far smoother, and it reflected a far more different worldview. Unlike
Legge, Wilhelm made a concerted effort to domesticate the Yijing in various ways.
10 See the discussions in Smith 2016; 2017. Chinese scholars continue to celebrate the connection
between Leibniz (and other Western scientists) and the Yijing. See, for example, Zhang 1996, p. 5.
11 For details, see Smith 2013, pp. 166–192; 2012b.
xii Foreword: Globalizing and Localizing the Yijing
One was to call upon the authority of classical German philosophers and literary
figures, like Kant and Goethe, to illustrate parallel ideas expressed in the Changes.
Another was to cite the Bible for the same purpose. Yet, another was to argue
that the Yijing drew upon “some common foundations of humankind that all our
cultures—unconsciously and unrecognizably—are based.” Wilhelm believed, in
other words, that “East and West belong inseparably together and join hands in mutual
completion.” The West, he argued, had something to learn from China (Lackner
1999).
As the papers of this project abundantly demonstrate, Wilhelm was basically
correct. I will leave a summary of their rich content to the editor of this volume. But
suffice it to say that from a close reading of its various chapters, we have much to
gain in our understanding of the transnational movement of texts and traditions, their
comparative study, East and West, and the complexities involved in translating an
ancient Chinese classical text into sometimes radically different cultures and times.
Richard J. Smith
Department of History, Rice University,
Houston, TX, USA
References
Abe, Yoshio 阿部吉雄. 1965. Nihon Shushigaku to Chōsen 日本朱子学と朝鮮 (Japanese Zhu Xi
scholarship and Korea). Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai.
Abe, Yoshio 阿部吉雄. 1970. Development of Neo-Confucianism in Japan, Korea, and China: A
Comparative Study. Acta Asiatica 19: 16–39.
Adler, Joseph, trans. 2019. The Original Meaning of the Yijing: Commentary on the Scripture of
Change. New York: Columbia University Press.
Cai, Yi 蔡毅. 2002. Zhongguo chuantong wenhua zai Riben 中國傳統文化在日本 (China’s
traditional culture in Japan). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Chang, Won-suk, and Leah Kalmanson, eds. 2010. Confucianism in Context: Classic Philosophy
and Contemporary Issues, East Asia and Beyond. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Dai, Rui-kun 戴瑞坤. 2000. Zhuzi xue dui Zhong, Ri, Han de yingxiang 朱子學對中、日、韓的
影響 (The influence of Zhu Xi’s learning on China, Japan, and Korea). Fengjia renwen shehuio
xuebao 1 (November): 95–115.
Elman, Benjamin A, ed. 2014. Rethinking East Asian Languages, Vernaculars, and Literacies,
1000–1919. Leiden: Brill.
Hayek, Matthias. 2010. L’Invention d’une divination ‘traditionnelle’ aux accents modernes: L’art
de juger de l’aspect des demeures de Matsuura Kinkaku (début xixe s.). Japon Pluriel 8: 319–
327.
Hayek, Matthias. 2014. From Esoteric Tools to Handbooks “for Beginners”: Printed Divination
Books from the Seventeenth Century to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century. In Listen, Copy,
Read: Popular Learning in Early Modern Japan, eds. Matthias Hayek, and Annick Horiuchi,
288–318. Leiden: Brill.
Henderson, John. B. 1991. Scripture, Canon, and Commentary: A Comparison of Confucian and
Western Exegesis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Henderson, John. B. 1998. The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy: Neo-Confucian, Islamic,
Jewish, and Early Christian Patterns. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Foreword: Globalizing and Localizing the Yijing xiii
Hofmeyr, Isabel. 2004. The Portable Bunyan: A Transnational History of The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Huang, Chun-chieh. 2015. East Asian Confucianisms: Texts in Context. Taipei: National Taiwan
University Press.
Lackner, Michael. 1999. Richard Wilhelm: A ‘Sinicized’ German Translator. In De l’un au multiple.
La traduction du chinois dans les langues européennes, eds. Viviane Alleton, and Michael
Lackner, 86–97. Paris: Maison des Science de l’Homme.
Li, Chen-yang. 2002. Fang Dongmei: Philosophy of Life, Creativity, and Inclusiveness. In Contem-
porary Chinese Philosophy, eds. Chung-ying Cheng, and Nicholas Bunnin, 263-280. Malden
& Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Ng, Wai-ming. 2000. The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and Culture. Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i Press.
Ng, Wai-ming. 2017. Dong Ya Yixue shilun: “Zhouyi” zai Ri, Han, Yue, Liu de chuanbo yu yingx-
iang 東亞易學史論: 《周易》在日韓越琉的傳播與影響 (The spread and influence of Changes
scholarship in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Liuqiu [Ryūkyū]). Taibei: Taida chuban zhongxin.
Qian, Nan-xiu, Richard J. Smith, and Bo-wei Zhang. 2020a. Reexamining the Sinosphere: Cultural
Transmissions and Transformations in East Asia. Amherst: Cambria Press.
Qian, Nan-xiu, Richard J. Smith, and Bo-wei Zhang. 2020b. Rethinking the Sinosphere: Poetics,
Aesthetics, and Identity Formation. Amherst: Cambria Press.
Richey, Jeffrey L. 2013. Confucius in East Asia: Confucianism’s History in China, Korea, Japan,
and Vietnam. Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies.
Rutgers University, ed. 2010. East Asian Confucianisms: Interactions and Innovations. New
Brunswick: Confucius Institute.
Shaughnessy, Edward L. 2014. Unearthing the Changes: Recently Discovered Manuscripts of the
Yijing (I Ching) and Related Texts. New York: Columbia University Press.
Smith, Richard J. 2008. Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or
Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in China. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Smith, Richard J. 2012a. The I Ching: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Smith, Richard J. 2012b. How the Book of Changes Arrived in the West. New England Review
33(1): 25–41.
Smith, Richard J. 2013. Mapping China and Managing the World: Culture, Cartography and
Cosmology in Late Imperial Times. London: Routledge.
Smith, Richard J. 2016. Collaborators and Competitors: Western Translators of the Yijing (易經 or
Classic of Changes) in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. In Sinologists as Translators in
the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, eds. Lawrence Wang-chi Wang, and Bernhard Fuehrer,
385–434. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
Smith, Richard J. 2017. Albert Terrien de La couperir’s (1845-1894) Translation of the Yijing, and
the Debates in Europe and Asia over the “Western Origins of Chinese Civilization.”Journal of
Translation Studies, New Series 1(1): 207–240.
Smith, Richard J. 2018. Why the Yijing 易經 (Classic of Changes) Matters in an Age of Globaliza-
tion. In Why Traditional Chinese Philosophy Still Matters: The Relevance of Ancient Wisdom
for the Global Age, ed. Ming-dong Wang, 184–202. London and New York: Routledge.
Smith, Richard J. 2019. The Transnational Travels of Geomancy in Premodern East Asia, c. 1600
- c. 1900, Part I & II. Transnational Asia: An Online Interdisciplinary Journal 2(1). https://doi.
org/10.25613/uxwv-zpzd and https://doi.org/10.25613/i5m7-5d0i.
Smith, Richard J. 2020. The Transnational Travels of the Yijing or Classic of Changes: Perspectives
from the Sinosphere. In Reexamining the Sinosphere: Cultural Transmissions and Transforma-
tions in East Asia, eds. Nan-xiu Qian, Richard J. Smith, and Bo-wei Zhang, 3–41. Amherst:
Cambria Press.
Sybesma, Rint, et al., eds. 2017. Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics, 4 vols. Leiden:
Brill.
Yang, Hong-sheng 楊宏聲. 1995. Bentu yu yuwai: Yixue de xiandaihua yu shijiehua 本土與域外:
易學的現代化與世界化 (The native land and beyond: The modernization and globalization of
Changes studies). Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue yuan.
xiv Foreword: Globalizing and Localizing the Yijing
Zhang, Qi-cheng 張其成, ed. 1996. Yijing yingyong da baike (shangpian) 易經應用大百科 (上篇)
(A practical encyclopedia of the Classic of Changes, vol. 1). Taibei: Dijing qiye gufen youxian
gongsi.
Richard J. Smith is a George and Nancy Rupp Professor Emeritus of Humanities at Rice Univer-
sity, USA. He is a historian of the Yijing and East Asian cultural exchanges. Among his many
books are The I Ching: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2012) and Fathoming the Cosmos
and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I-Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in China
(University of Virginia Press, 2008).
Acknowledgments
The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern World: Cross-cultural Interpretations
and Interactions is the first academic book on global Yijing studies. Its origin can be
traced to “The Yijing and the World Workshop” organized by the Research Centre
for Comparative Japanese Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in May
2019. In my capacity as the director of the Centre, I organized this workshop to bring
established scholars and promising young scholars of the Yijng from Asia, Europe
and the United States together to promote global Yijing studies. The workshop has
established an international research network for future collaboration. This book is
only one of its many tangible results. A more ambitious and long-term research plan
is on the table.
I have been researching the history of the Yijing in Japan from cultural and
comparative perspectives since three decades ago when I was a graduate student
at Princeton University. I am deeply indebted to my dissertation supervisor, the late
Marius Jansen (1922–2000), who taught me how to study Japan in the broader East
Asian context. I am amazed at how the ideas and practices of the Yijing have been
incorporated into different schools of thought, religions and ethics in East Asia. In
recent years, I have broadened the scope of investigation and included East Asia and
Inner Asia and have been putting forward the idea of “the Yijing cultural sphere” in
Asia. I am preparing a monograph on the historical reception of the Yijing in East
Asia and Inner Asia in a comparative approach.
I live in the twenty-first century, but my mind keeps wandering on the things from
the past. Reading premodern texts is a part of my daily life. My academic journey
has never been a lonely one. Along the way, I have been very fortunate to meet
many like-minded scholars, and the one who has inspired me most is Richard J.
Smith. Although he was not able to join the 2019 Workshop, he was kind enough to
write an forward for this volume. This book is dedicated to him for his unparalleled
contribution to the global Yijing studies.
This is my first edited book in English. It would not have been possible without
the help of many wonderful people. In particular, I would like to express my appreci-
ation to Alex Campbell, the editor of Springer, and her very professional publishing
team, to Tze-ki Hon for his constructive comments and unfailing support, to the five
xv
xvi Acknowledgments
anonymous reviewers, to the contributors to this volume and to my research assistant

Heidi Lee.
The Yijing is a book made for the time of chaos and crises. By the time we are
finishing up this project, the coronavirus pandemic has spread around the world, and
we have not yet seen any light at the end of the tunnel. However, we believe in the
logic of change in the Yijing. It reminds us that “When Hexagram Pi (standstill)
reaches its extreme, Hexagram Tai (peace) proceeds.” In other words, if the worst
comes to the worst, things will take a turn for the better. This is the timeless wisdom
that the Yijing shares with the world.
September 2020 Benjamin Wai-ming Ng

Contents
1 Brief Introduction: Welcome to the World of Global Yijing . . . . . . . . 1

Part I Global Understanding of the Multiple Meanings of the

Yijing
2 Zhu Xi’s Conception of Yijing Divination as Spiritual Practice . . . . . 9
Joseph A. Adler
3 Reexamining the English Translation of the Yijing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Dennis Kat-hung Cheng
4 Historicizing the Yijing in the Anglophone World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Li-jing Wu
5 The Problem of Language and Reality in the Xici and Plato’s
Cratylus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Rickard Gustavsson
Part II The Yijing in Christianity and Modernization in Modern

Asia
6 The Early Transmission of the Yijing and the Figurists’
Renditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Ming-che Lee
7 Thomas McClatchie’s Mythological Interpretation
of the Yijing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
John Tsz-pang Lai
8 Nemoto Michiaki’s Use of the Yijing in Meiji State Ideology . . . . . . . 123
9 The Yijing in Twentieth-Century China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Tze-ki Hon
xvii
xviii Contents
Part III The Yijing in Modern Science and Popular Culture in

the West
10 Richard Wilhelm’s Book of Changes and the Science
of the Mind in the Early Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Lu Zhao
11 The Encounter of the “Symbolic Chinese Science of the Yijing”
with Western Modern Science in Interwar France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Stéphanie Homola
12 The Yijing in Early Postwar Counterculture in the West . . . . . . . . . . 197
Geoffrey Redmond
Editor and Contributors
About the Editor
Benjamin Wai-ming Ng is a Professor of Japanese Studies at The Chinese Univer-

sity of Hong Kong, specializing in Tokugawa intellectual history and Yijing studies
in East Asia. He is the author of Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan (SUNY Press,
2019), Dong Ya Yixue shilun 東亞易學史論 (National Taiwan University Press,
2017), and The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and Culture (University of Hawai’i
Press, 2000).
Contributors
Joseph A. Adler Department of Religious Studies, Kenyon College, Gambier, USA

Dennis Kat-hung Cheng Department of Literature and Cultural Studies, The
Education University of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR
Rickard Gustavsson Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong
Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
Stéphanie Homola Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Univer-
sity of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
Tze-ki Hon Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong,
Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
John Tsz-pang Lai Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, The Chinese
University of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR
Ming-che Lee Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation, National Taiwan
Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan
Lu Zhao Global Chinese Studies, New York University Shanghai, Shanghai, China
xix
xx Editor and Contributors
Benjamin Wai-ming Ng Department of Japanese Studies, The Chinese University

of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR
Geoffrey Redmond Independent Scholar, New York, USA
Li-jing Wu Department of Foreign Language Studies, Hefei Normal University,
Hefei, China
Chapter 1
Brief Introduction: Welcome
to the World of Global Yijing
The Yijing was an ancient philosophical and divination text that contains timeless
messages for all ages. Many people may see it merely as an ancient Chinese classic
that has little to do with the digital age. The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern
World has clearly demonstrated that the Yijing is also a book of universal wisdom
that continues to guide human beings in the modern and future world. Its ideas and
practices have survived to the present day and spread to different corners of the world.
This edited volume is not another study of Chinese Yijing, but a pioneering study of
global Yijing, a fast-growing subfield in Yijing studies that has been flourishing in the
last decade.1
This book project aims to bring together established scholars, promising junior
researchers and bright graduate students around the globe to examine the globaliza-
tion and localization of the Yijing from cross-cultural and comparative perspectives,
and focuses on how the Yijing was used to support ideologies, converted into knowl-
edge and assimilated into global cultures in the modern world, from East Asia to
Europe and the United States as well as from the Sinosphere to the British, American
and French cultural and religious traditions.
This book, consisting of three parts and twelve chapters, provides documented
narratives and cross-cultural analyses of the global popularization and local assim-
ilation of the Yijing, highlighting the translation, interpretation, transformation and
application of the Yijing in different cultural traditions. It forcefully demonstrates
how the Yijing acquired different meanings and roles in the global setting. By adding
depth and new dimensions to Yijing studies, this study will become an essential
reading for those who are interested in the Yijing, and a useful reference for students
1 This book coins the term “global Yijing,” but the basic framework of global Yijing studies can be
found in Richard J. Smith’s scholarship (Smith 2013).
B. W. Ng (B)
Department of Japanese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong
Kong SAR
e-mail: waimingng@cuhk.edu.hk
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 1
B. W. Ng (ed.), The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern World,
Chinese Culture 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6228-4_1
2 B. W. Ng
and scholars of Chinese culture, Asian philosophy, East Asian studies and translation
studies.
The “Foreword: Globalizing and Localizing the Yijing” is written by Richard J.
Smith, a leading scholar of Yijing studies and a pioneer of global Yijing studies.2
By introducing the current scholarship on the reception of the Yijing outside China,
Smith pinpoints that the global popularization of the Yijing has never been a one-way
cultural flow from China to the Sinic world, Christendom and beyond, but indeed a
process of cross-cultural adaptations and interactions. Its wisdom and practices have
had an impact on many religious traditions in the world, but at the same time, they
have been localized to flourish on foreign soil.
Part One examines the global understanding of the multiple meanings of the Yijing.
Although commonly regarded as a sacred text among Confucian scholars, the Yijing
is open to interpretation. Scholars and the Yijing are like blind men and an elephant.
In China, there are different schools constructing the understanding of the Yijing from
their own perspectives, such as Han commentaries versus Song commentaries, and
textual meanings (yili 義理) versus images and numbers (xiangshu 象數). China has
been a point of departure for global Yijing studies and thus the first chapter of the book
is on the Yijing in China. Joseph Adler has demonstrated the complexity and richness
of the Yijing through Zhu Xi’s perception of its divination. Zhu Xi, perhaps the most
influential Chinese commentator of the Yijing, strove to understand the Yijing from
a holistic approach by combining text, change of yin-yang, images and divination,
the so-called “four ways of the sages” expounded in the Yijing. Zhu insisted that the
original meaning and principles of the Yijing could only be apprehended through the
ritual of divination.
Searching for the original meaning of the Yijing has been “that noble dream”
among Chinese and non-Chinese scholars (Novick 1988). The multiple meanings
of the Yijing are difficult to be translated into English. Many textual and symbolic
meanings of the Yijing were unfortunately lost in translation. Dennis Kat-hung Cheng
discusses the problems in translating the Yijing into English. In particular, different
meanings and characters of Chinese words pose tremendous challenges for English
translators. Cheng has provided many examples to show that many English transla-
tions are far from being faithful to the original texts, and their translations are more
or less “reinterpretations.”
Li-jing Wu verifies that some Western scholars share “that noble dream” to restore
the original meaning of the Yijing, using James Legge and Edward L. Shaughnessy as
examples. The former located the Yijing within the Shang-Zhou tradition, whereas
the latter saw it as a Western Zhou divination manual. Legge regarded the Yijing
as a book of moral lessons from King Wen and Duke of Zhou and criticized some
Western Christian scholars for using Christian terms and ideas in their interpretations.
Shaughnessy attempted to recover the original meaning of the Yijing as a divination
manual written in Western Zhou China. It is indeed an endless cultural project joined
2 Smithhas been publishing on the Yijing since the 1990s. At first, he focused on the Yijing in late
imperial China. From the 2000s onwards, Smith’s interest in Yijing has turned global (Smith 2003,
2012, 2013, 2018).
1 Brief Introduction: Welcome to the World of Global Yijing 3
by Yijing scholars from past to present. Both Eastern and Western scholars engaged
in the same project of historicizating the Yijing.
Deep and profound meanings in the Yijing cannot be fully comprehended by
studying its texts or images alone. Without the texts, the meaning of the images
cannot be understood and vice versa. Rickard Gustavsson highlights the importance
of images in decoding the text from a cross-cultural comparative perspective, using
the Xici commentary and Plato’s Cratylus as examples. He believes that ancient
Chinese sages invented the semiotic system of trigrams and hexagrams to supplement
language in signifying the profound nature of reality.
Part Two centers around the application of the Yijing in Christianity and modern-
ization in modern Asia. The main theme of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was
the East-meets-West civilizational encounters. The Yijing played a new role in East–
West cultural interactions. Chinese and Japanese scholars cited it in their search for
modernity, whereas Western scholars found commonalities between Chinese culture
and Christianity in their translations and interpretations of the Yijing. The Yijing
found new meanings and roles in cross-cultural interactions between China and Asia
as well as China and the West.
Perhaps there was no other intellectual movement as determined as Figurism in the
late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to link the Yijing and Christianity together.
Ming-che Lee investigates how the Jesuit missionaries used the Yijing to promote
Christianity in Qing China. They regarded the Yijing as a prophetic book containing
the mysteries of Christianity. Hence, the Yijing and the Bible were in agreement with
each other, and studying the Yijing could unlock the encrypted biblical messages. This
Confucian-Christian synthesis cleared the psychological barriers for Qing Chinese
to study the Bible.
John Tze-pang Lai shows us how Thomas McClatchie, an Irish Anglican
missionary in Shanghai, attempted to narrow down the differences between the Bible
and the Yijing in his English translation of the Yijing in 1876. In McClatchie’s mytho-
logical interpretation, the Yijing could be understood in Christian terminology. In the
eyes of McClatchie, the Bible was superior to the Yijing, as the former was the words
of God, whereas the latter was just an ancient text of “pagan Chinese” religion.
His speculation about the Babylonian origins of the Yijing represented an attempt to
understand the Yijing from cross-cultural and comparative perspectives.
In the modern period, Japan and China followed their own paths to modernity.
After two decades of Westernization since the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japanese
political and intellectual leaders chose to build a modern nation based on the emperor-
centered ideology and traditional values. Benjamin Wai-ming Ng demonstrates how
the text and images of the Yijing could be loosely interpreted to uphold the state
ideology in Meiji Japan, using Nemoto Michiaki’s commentary on the Yijing as the
main reference. Nemoto believed that the teaching of the Yijing was in line with the
Shinto doctrine of unbroken imperial succession, as both put absolute loyalty as the
ultimate virtue.
The Yijing also played a role in China’s modernization. Tze-ki Hon outlines how
Chinese scholars used the Yijng as allegories of China’s political modernization in
the twentieth century. For instance, the two revolutionary leaders, Zhang Taiyan
4 B. W. Ng
and Hang Xinzhai, advocated revolution in their reading of the Yijing. Both Zhang
and Hang applied Hexagram Tongren to support China’s transition from an agrarian
empire to a modern nation-state. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China
in 1949, some Chinese scholars attempted to make the Yijing fit for the Communist
ideology, and some described the yin-yang dualism as a form of Marxist dialectical
thinking. The Yijing, or the Classic of Changes, as its name suggests, has changed
over the decades to accommodate new developments in modern China.
Part Three discusses the role of the Yijing in modern science and popular culture
in the Western world. Many post-WWII young people and intellectuals in the West
had a keen interest in the Yijing, regarding it as the Eastern Bible of the New Age
Movement and the source of inspiration for spiritual wisdom. The popularity of
Richard Wilhelm’s translation of the Yijing could only be understood in this particular
historical context. Lu Zhao attempts to contextualize Wilhelm’s translation through
the lens of the rise of the science of the mind in the United States. Wilhelm applied
the unconscious to the Yijing, showing that the human mind could be connected to
the universe. The Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung endorsed Wilhelm’s translation and
asserted that the oracle of the Yijing could tell us about the unconscious.
Likewise, the Yijing craze also occurred in twentieth-century Europe. People
looked for different things that they wanted from it. Stéphanie Homola documents
how the “Symbolic Chinese Science of the Yijing” met Western modern science in
interwar France, using two Chinese scholars in France, Sheng Cheng and Liu Zihua,
as examples. Sheng and Liu tried to narrow down the differences between Chinese
and Western sciences in their explanations of the Yijing. Regarded as a source of
scientific knowledge, the Yijing was given a new character and role in the Western
world.
In like manner, the symbols and philosophies of the Yijing made their way into
Western popular culture and young imaginations. It was a popular reading among the
early postwar generation in the United States. Geoffrey Redmond introduces how
the America’s baby boomers found dreams, comfort, wisdom and inspiration in the
Yijing. The Yijing was incorporated into the hippies’ lives and the countercultural
movement. For example, the Beat Generation used it to advocate the use of drugs
and some claimed that the hexagram arrays depicted the experience of LSD. Some
Americans also turned to it for Asian spirituality and occultism. The Yijing became
a spiritual lifesaver for the lost generation.
The Yijing is an all-time classic that has survived into the modern period. Its
multiplicity and flexibility have allowed people of different generations to interpret
and apply it in their own ways. In the Eastern world, it has been used to promote
Christianity and modernization in China and Japan. In the Western world, it has
enriched modern science and popular culture. The globalization of the Yijing is
proved to go hand in hand with localization in different corners of the modern world,
and this “Eastern Bible” will continue to inspire future generations on a global scale.
The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern World is an attempt to explore the
above-mentioned themes of global Yijing in one edited volume. We hope our readers
will find this book interesting and inspiring. We welcome you to the world of global
Yijing.
1 Brief Introduction: Welcome to the World of Global Yijing 5
References
Novick, Peter. 1988. That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical
Profession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, Richard J. 2003. The Yijing (Classic of Changes) in Global Perspective: Some Pedagogical
Reflections. Education About Asia 8.2 (Fall 2003).
Smith, Richard J. 2012. The I Ching: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Smith, Richard J. 2013. Mapping China and Managing the World: Culture, Cartography and
Cosmology in Late Imperial Times. London: Routledge.
Smith, Richard J. 2018. Why the Yijing (Classic of Changes) Matters in an Age of Globalization.
In Why Traditional Chinese Philosophy Still Matters: The Relevance of Ancient Wisdom for the
Global Age, ed. Ming-dong Wang, 184–202. London and New York: Routledge.
Benjamin Wai-ming Ng is a Professor of Japanese Studies at The Chinese University of Hong

Kong, specializing in Tokugawa intellectual history and Yijing studies in East Asia. He is the
author of Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan (SUNY Press, 2019), Dong Ya Yixue shilun 東亞
易學史論 (National Taiwan University Press, 2017), and The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and
Culture (University of Hawai’i Press, 2000).
Part I
Global Understanding of the Multiple
Meanings of the Yijing
Chapter 2
Zhu Xi’s Conception of Yijing Divination
as Spiritual Practice
Joseph A. Adler
Abstract This chapter demonstrates the complexity and richness of the Yijing
through Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 perception of its divination. Zhu felt that both the “image and
number” (xiangshu 象數) and the “meaning and principle” (yili 義理) schools had
shortcomings and attempted to synthesize them. His novel approach was to insist that
the real meaning of the Yijing could only be apprehended through the ritual of divina-
tion, and that the graphic elements (trigrams and hexagrams) were just as important
as the textual elements. This was based on his belief that the Yijing had been created
by Fu Xi expressly for the purpose of divination, and so its original meaning had
to be understood in the context of the Sage’s original intention in creating it. He
further argued that Fu Xi was the first Sage in the “succession of the Way” (daotong
道統), and that Fu Xi’s signal contribution to it was to provide a method—Yijing
divination—by which later people could fully realize the unity of moral principle
and natural principle and thus approach sagehood themselves.
1 Introduction
Despite the steadily increasing body of scholarship in both West and East Asia on the
religious dimensions of the Confucian tradition, it is still not unusual to find Confu-
cianism characterized as fundamentally a socio-ethical tradition in which ritual (li
禮) is primarily a method and legitimation of social control.1 The theme of moral self-
cultivation, especially in the Neo-Confucian movement, is likewise often regarded
as something akin to contemporary humanistic psychology or self-help regimens.
1 Some of the major refutations of this approach are Taylor (1990), Wilson (2002), and Tu and
Tucker (2003–2004).
This essay is adapted from the author’s book chapter, “Divination and Sacrifice in Song Neo-
Confucianism.” (Richey 2008, pp. 55–82).
J. A. Adler (B)
Department of Religious Studies, Kenyon College, Gambier, USA
e-mail: adlerj@kenyon.edu
10 J. A. Adler
Thus, neither ritual nor self-cultivation in Confucianism is commonly understood to

be essentially religious. Yet, Confucian ritual included two particular forms, divina-
tion and sacrifice, which are clearly religious in character and systematically related
to the Confucian theory and practice of self-cultivation.
Divination and sacrifice as a ritual dyad constitute the earliest known form of
Chinese religion—that of the rulers of the Shang dynasty as early as the fifteenth
century BCE. They have continued throughout Chinese history, to the present day,
as central features of popular Chinese religious life. They can be considered a model
of the fundamental Chinese way of orienting the human world to the sacred—a
kind of ritual axis mundi rooting our world in something that transcends it and
thereby making it meaningful. Here I will explore one aspect of the continuity of the
Confucian tradition with this central core of Chinese religiosity by focusing on the
theory of Yijing divination developed by Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), whose version
of the Confucian tradition came to dominate the tradition and exerted tremendous
influence on all levels of Chinese society into the twentieth century.
Zhu was the first to fully integrate the theory and practice of divination into the
Confucian religious process of transformation into a Sage. He understood Yijing
divination to be a ritual aid to the cultivation of “spiritual clarity” (shenming 神明),
or the capacity of the human mind/heart to penetrate into the ultimate source of moral
creativity underlying the phenomenal world.2 Although his philosophy in general,
including his theory of self-cultivation, was heavily influenced by his predecessor
Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107), in regard to the interpretation and use of the Yijing, he
strongly criticized Cheng’s approach. Cheng had written a detailed and influential
commentary on the Yijing in the eleventh century (his only full-length book), using
the textual layers of the Yijing (but not the graphic layer of hexagrams and lines) as the
source of moral guidance. Zhu argued that these textual layers were only intended as
aids in the practice of hexagram divination, which was the Yijing’s original purpose
in the mind of its original creator, the primordial sage Fu Xi 伏羲. Thus, to interpret
the texts independently of their use in divination was to take them out of context and
use them merely as screens on which to project one’s own ideas. Although Cheng’s
ideas were generally fine, Zhu said that this way of using the Yijing neglected the
opportunity to gain access to the mind of Fu Xi, who had first intuited the moral
implications of the yin-yang patterns of the natural world. The method of divination
that Fu Xi had devised, according to Zhu, was the crucial mechanism by which
people of later eras could gain the assistance of the primordial sage in their own
moral cultivation.
Zhu saw in the Yijing trigrams/hexagrams a formal representation of the funda-
mental ordering principle (li 理), which has two dimensions—natural principle (tianli
2 The various methods of self-cultivation promoted by Zhu included intellectual cultivation or “fol-
lowing the path of inquiry and study” (dao wenxue 道問學), spiritual cultivation or “honoring the
moral nature” (zun dexing 尊德性), and practice or putting one’s understanding of li into practice
in moral behavior. The two quoted phrases are from the Zhongyong, Sect. 27. For a fuller delin-
eation of Zhu’s methods of self-cultivation, see Smith et al. (1990, pp. 171–172). For a discussion
of intellectual and spiritual cultivation, see Adler (2014, pp. 81–83). For my understanding of the
word “spiritual,” see ibid, p. 10.
2 Zhu Xi’s Conception of Yijing Divination as Spiritual Practice 11
天理) and moral principle (daoli 道理).3 Because of the extreme difficulty, in Zhu’s
view, of clarifying one’s psychophysical nature (qizhi zhi xing 氣質之性) enough to
enable one to fully apprehend moral principle and put it into practice, he believed that
ordinary humans needed to investigate things, patterns and principles in the natural
world. Since it is often easier to understand natural principle than moral principle,
one can first study the natural patterns and then “extend” them (tuili 推理), or infer
from them, the moral connotations. But ultimately, the natural and moral patterns
are consistent or continuous; they imply each other. This view—that moral value is
inherent, at least incipiently, in the natural world—is one of the bedrock claims of
Confucianism, going back to the pre-Confucian theory of the “mandate of Heaven”
(tianming 天命).
Zhu believed that it was Fu Xi who had first intuited the linkage between natural
principle and moral principle, and that this was the first representation of the Confu-
cian Way (Dao 道). Fu Xi had represented that linkage in the form of the hexagrams,
which were intended to function as a divination method for those who came later.4
This would enable ordinary people—people without his level of “spiritual clarity”—
to learn to detect the most subtle patterns of change, or “incipiencies” (ji 幾) in
the natural and social worlds. By learning to detect those changes and to respond
(ying 應) to them in morally appropriate ways, ordinary people could become more
spiritual (shen 神), authentically (cheng 誠) human, and therefore Sage-like. Zhu
therefore entitled his own Yijing commentary Zhouyi benyi 周易本義 (The Original
Meaning of the Zhouyi, 1188), intending it to provide access for ordinary people
to the “mind of the sage” (Fu Xi). In Zhu’s terminology, the sage’s “human mind”
(renxin 人心) perfectly reflects the “moral mind” (daoxin 道心), which in most
people is obscured by selfish desires and other consequences of our physical nature.
Thus, for Zhu, divination using the hexagrams of the Yijing was part of the process
of self-cultivation aimed at the ultimate goal of becoming a Sage.
2 Divination and Sacrifice
To set Zhu Xi’s theory of Yijing divination in a broader context, let us briefly review
the role of the divination-sacrifice ritual dyad in Chinese religious life. The centrality
of this phenomenon goes back, of course, to the Shang dynasty, when divination and
sacrifice constituted the central linkage between the heavenly and earthly realms in
the religious life of the Shang aristocracy, and the king was the pivotal figure ensuring
3 Although the Neo-Confucian usage of these terms is not consistent, and they are often understood
synonymously, I think this distinction between the descriptive and normative aspects of li is useful.
In general, Confucian usage of tian connotes naturalness, while that of dao has moral connotations.
4 Zhu believed that Fu Xi had created the hexagrams by doubling the trigrams. The more popular
alternative theory was that Fu Xi had created only the trigrams and King Wen doubled them (Adler
2020, p. 3).
12 J. A. Adler
their harmonious co-existence.5 Through sacrifice, the king acknowledged the higher
status of the ancestors and gods, and provided for their needs; through oracle-bone
divination, he received confirmation that their needs were being met and that they
were willing to act in favor of the king, his family, and the state he represented. The
ultimate goal was to ensure the harmony and welfare of the heavenly, earthly, and
social realms (Keightley 1978, 2000).
One of the more remarkable aspects of the history of Chinese religions is the extent
to which these general themes and specific forms of religious practice, divination
and sacrifice are still clearly evident in contemporary Chinese society. Anyone who
has visited a Chinese temple has seen the centrality of divination (especially in the
form of casting “moon-blocks”) and sacrifice (in the form of food offerings to the
deities enshrined in the temple). Offerings to gods in temples are made by ordinary
people and, less frequently, by priests in more elaborate rituals. Sacrificial offerings
are also made in Chinese homes; many families have an altar table or shelf in the
home, holding ancestral plaques on which are written the names and dates of the
ancestors (in most cases, no more than two or three generations back) alongside
images of gods, Buddhas, and/or Bodhisattvas. Offerings of fruit or rice, always
accompanied by burning incense, may be made either daily, weekly, every fifteen
days, on holidays, or on anniversaries of the ancestor’s death. Some extended families
have family or lineage temples (jiamiao 家廟), whose altars hold plaques going back
to their earliest known ancestor. Offerings to ghosts (the dangerous yet pitiable spirits
who lack descendants to worship them as ancestors) in many Chinese communities
are made every fifteen days by householders and businesses, always outside the home
or business.
Oracle bone divination became obsolete during the Western Zhou dynasty (1045–
771 BCE) and was eventually replaced by yarrow-stalk divination using the Zhouyi,
later called the Yijing. Other forms of divination today are more common, espe-
cially the use of “moon-blocks” (jiao 珓 or bei 杯) and “divination slips” (qian 籤)
by worshippers in Chinese temples. More elaborate forms of divination, requiring
the hiring of specialists, include shamanistic spirit-mediums (tongji 童乩) and
palanquin- or chair-divination (jiaozi 轎仔).
Although today’s Chinese communities are worlds apart from the warlike aris-
tocracy of bronze-age China, in certain respects what we would call their religious
goals are quite similar: healthy families with strong connections to their ancestors,
prosperous communities that maintain good relations with the powers of nature and
their deities, and a secure state whose government takes the welfare of its people as
its first and highest duty. Harmony within society, with the natural world, and with
the various types of spiritual beings (gods, ghosts, and ancestors), still pretty much
defines the ideal Chinese state of things.
5 Because of the limitations of the historical record, all we know of Shang religion is that of the
royal family and court. It should not be assumed that common people at that time had the same
beliefs or practices.
3 Confucian Ritual in the Song
3.1 Sacrifice
The forms of ritual that most concerned Confucian scholars throughout the history of
imperial China were those practiced within the family, all of which revolved around
ancestor worship. Indeed, communication and participation with ancestors has been
one of the characteristic features of Chinese culture as a whole for millennia. As
Ebrey (1991b, pp. xv, xiv) has put it, “The mutual dependence of the living and
the dead, of ancestors and their descendants, had been a central feature of Chinese
culture from ancient times,” and “the links of the living and the dead needed to be
renewed on a fixed schedule through offerings and sacrifices to ancestors.”
Family rituals included the capping and pinning of young adult males and females
respectively, marriage, funerals, and a wide variety of rituals that we can collectively
call ancestor worship. Capping and pinning were varieties of late puberty rituals,
transformations into adulthood, described in such classical texts as the Yili 儀禮
(Etiquette and Ritual) and Liji 禮紀 (Record of Ritual), as well as in later ritual
texts up through the Song dynasty. Capping/pinning and marriage were commonly
understood not only as rites of passage, effecting and marking the major transitions
between life stages, but also as rituals that ultimately served the purpose of continuing
the family line. Likewise, funeral rituals, including a series of sacrifices extending
over a twenty-five-month mourning period, were understood as the transformation of
the deceased into an ancestor. When this process was completed and the ancestor was
installed in the family shrine, ancestor worship would involve—at least according
to the normative texts—daily activities such as a respectful “looking-in,” occasional
reports to the ancestor about important family events, regular offerings of food and
wine, and more elaborate sacrificial rituals on specified dates6 (Ebrey 1991b).
Interest in family rituals reached a peak during the Confucian revival of the Song.
Part of the impetus of the Neo-Confucian revival was the view held by many Song
intellectuals that China’s infatuation with Buddhism and Daoism since the fall of the
Han dynasty had contributed to the political weakness of the Song state in relation to
the neighboring nomadic peoples to the north, one of whom, the Jurchen, did in fact
conquer the northern half of Song China in 1127. And so the Neo-Confucian revival-
ists felt that by rejecting the foreign religion of Buddhism, by restoring the family
descent line as the core of Chinese society, and by returning to what they believed were
the original sources of Chinese culture—the wisdom of the ancient sages preserved
6 Zhu Xi’s Jiali 家禮 (Family Rituals) was the most influential ritual text of the last 800 years.
Although it was widely circulated and regarded as the standard to strive for, it is important to bear
in mind that it was a normative, not a descriptive, text. Actual practices varied considerably from
family to family and rarely, if ever, followed Zhu’s recommendations in every detail. For ancestor
worship in particular, see Chaps. 1 and 5, and pp. xx–xxv.
14 J. A. Adler
in the Confucian scriptures (or classics)—the Song state could recover the glory and
success of the early Zhou and Han periods.7
One of the strongest proponents of this view was Zhu Xi, who was born three
years after the Northern Song fell to the Jurchen and the capital was relocated to
the south. He and other like-minded Confucians regarded Buddhism as a threat to
China’s social fabric because of what they claimed was its disrespect for the family.
Since Buddhism encouraged a monastic vocation—which to these Confucian eyes
appeared to go against the very grain of the Chinese social order based on the family—
Buddhism was seen as a serious threat to the social cohesion and strength of Chinese
society and hence to the very survival of Chinese culture. This and the more obvious
threat of invasion constitute a good part of the socio-political background of Zhu’s
efforts to synthesize the teachings of the Confucian tradition, from the earliest mythic
sages right up to his immediate predecessors in the Northern Song period.
Perhaps the most broadly influential book among the many written by Zhu was
his Jiali. The book quickly became authoritative after his death and was republished
in various editions many times during the ensuing Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.
It was part of Zhu’s effort to strengthen the moral fiber of Chinese society by stan-
dardizing the major social rites of passage according to his reconstruction of the
orthodox Confucian forms and principles. His lifelong mission was to construct a
comprehensive system of education and personal moral cultivation—beginning in
the family—by which individuals could approach as closely as possible the ultimate
Confucian goal of sagehood. The larger socio-political goals depended, for him,
upon a class of educated elite comprised of such individuals, who would strengthen
and transform Chinese society through the force of their moral power or virtue (de
德).8 One became a Confucian Sage, according to this system, by transforming one’s
imperfect psychophysical nature into a condition of “spiritual clarity” (shenming),
which would allow one’s inherent Heaven-endowed moral nature to fully express
itself. This was an extremely difficult process, in Zhu’s view, and required all the
help one could muster. As we shall see, he believed that Yijing divination was a
powerful tool that could be employed to this end.
In addition to sacrificial offerings to ancestors within the family, Song Confucians
also made offerings, accompanied by praise and prayer, to earlier Confucian sages.
These were conducted in official Confucian temples; in smaller temples and shrines
to some of the prominent sages of the past, such as Mencius (Mengzi 孟子, who lived
in the fourth century BCE) and Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073); and in Confucian
academies. Education was expanding greatly in the Song, in part because of the
decreasing cost of printing books; the central government was establishing schools
in every county, and many individual Confucian scholars (including Zhu) built and
7 Although Buddhism was criticized as a foreign religion, it should be noted that by this time it had
been practiced in China for about a millennium, and had been more or less Sinified for about five
centuries.
8 Ebrey (1991a, p. 47) has suggested that part of the motivation behind the growing interest in family
rituals during the Song was to legitimatize the social status of those educated elite who did not have
official positions in government—a group that increased in numbers extensively during this period.
ran their own private academies. In these academies, prayers and offerings to the
sages of the past were daily practices.9
3.2 Divination
Just as in the Shang period, Song communication or participation with spiritual beings
through sacrificial offerings was complemented by various methods of divination,
including divining blocks, geomancy, and the hexagrams of the Yijing. Song Confu-
cian attitudes toward these popular forms of divination were mixed, although gener-
ally positive. Divination blocks were commonly used for questions such as selecting
the proper day for a ritual. Some of the more conservative Confucians, such as Sima
Guang 司馬光 (1019–1086) and Cheng Yi, were opposed to geomancy in general
(Ebrey 1997, pp. 75–107) (although Zhu Xi was not) and also to the use of divina-
tion blocks in certain circumstances: when important moral principles were involved,
they felt that the Yijing should be used instead. In general, the Yijing was considered
the most powerful and nuanced oracle, and the one most appropriate for the educated
elite.10
As mentioned above, the primordial sage Fu Xi was central to Zhu’s understanding
of the nature and proper use of the Yijing. Fu Xi was important to Zhu in part because
one of the myths recounting his creation of the Yijing was a paradigm of one of
the central methods in Zhu’s system of self-cultivation, the “investigation of things”
(gewu 格物):
In ancient times, when Baoxi [Fu Xi] ruled the world, he looked up and contemplated the
images in heaven; he looked down and contemplated the patterns on earth. He contemplated
the markings of the birds and beasts and their adaptations to the various regions. From near
at hand he abstracted images from his own body; from afar he abstracted from things. In this
way he first created the Eight Trigrams, to spread the power of [his] spiritual clarity and to
classify the dispositions of the myriad things.11
The purpose of this kind of objective examination of the natural world, or “inves-
tigation of things,” for Zhu, was to fully understand the order or principle (li 理)
9 For more on shrines to past sages and worthies, see Neskar (1996, pp. 293–305). For the religious
aspects of Neo-Confucian academies, see Walton (1993). For education during the Song, see de
Bary and Chafee (1989), Walton (1999), and Lee (2000).
10 Sima Guang wrote a book on family ritual, called the Shuyi 書儀 (Writing and Etiquette), which
Zhu Xi relied on extensively for his Jiali. Cheng Yi, on whom Zhu relied most heavily overall,
discussed family rituals extensively but did not write a book on them (Ebrey 1991b, pp. xix–xx,
37n, 140n, 155n).
11 Xici 繫辭 (“Appended Remarks” appendix of the Yijing), B.2, in Adler (2020, p. 287). In addition
to Zhu’s frequent references to this story, its importance to him is suggested by the fact that sometime
between 1174 and 1183, he composed a series of “big character posters” (dazibao 大字報) quoting
this passage and one other from the Xici (A.11.5). The set of fourteen sheets, each about fourteen
inches high, is in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei (see National Palace
Museum 2000, pp. 86–87). Six of the sheets were on display at the museum during the summer of
2000.
16 J. A. Adler
of things, including the principle of one’s own mind, which is the principle of
being human—the principle of human nature (xing 性).12 Of this, Mencius had
said: “To fully develop one’s mind is to know one’s nature. To know one’s nature
is to know Heaven. Preserving one’s mind and nourishing one’s nature is how one
serves Heaven.” (7A.1) Thus, to cultivate and perfect one’s innate moral nature, in
the Mencian tradition of Confucianism, is clearly a religious matter. It is a way of
relating oneself (or, more precisely, realizing or actualizing one’s inherent relation)
to the unconditioned absolute, Heaven (tian 天). Moreover, this is more than self -
realization; it is to realize the moral potential of the cosmos. Only humans have this
capacity, and therefore this moral responsibility. As the Zhongyong 中庸 (Centrality
and Commonality) puts it:
Only that one in the world who is most perfectly authentic [cheng 誠] is able to give full
development to his nature. Being able to give full development to his nature, he is able
to give full development to the nature of other human beings and, being able to give full
development to the nature of other human beings he is able to give full development to the
natures of other living things. Being able to give full development to the natures of other
living things, he can assist in the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth;
being able to assist in the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth, he can
form a triad with Heaven and Earth.13
But how does divination figure into all this? First, it is important to realize that
because of the scriptural prestige and authority of the Yijing, which at its core is
a divination manual, Yijing divination had always been accepted and practiced by
Confucians. While some Confucians disdained certain popular religious practices,
such as the reliance on spirit-mediums for divination, the unquestioned authority
of the Yijing—and especially the tradition that Confucius himself had written the
appendices or Ten Wings14 —outweighed any rationalistic doubts they might have
had about this form of divination. For Zhu, another compelling point was the story
of the creation of the Yijing by Fu Xi, who was also credited with the invention of
implements for hunting and fishing, animal sacrifice, and the institution of marriage.
Such mythic culture-heroes were regarded as historical characters and the inventors,
12 After quoting the above story of Fu Xi in his Yixue qimeng (Introduction to the Study of the Yi),
Zhu comments: “In the fullness of Heaven and Earth there is nothing that is not the wonder of taiji
太極 [Supreme Polarity, which Zhu identifies with li] and yin-yang 陰陽. It was to this that the
Sage looked up in contemplation and looked down in examination, seeking from afar and taking
from the near at hand. Of course, he could register things in his mind silently and transcendentally
[i.e., seeing things not immediately apparent].” (Adler 2002, p. 15).
13 Zhongyong, Chap. 22, trans. Irene Bloom, in de Bary and Bloom (1999, p. 338), with “authentic”
substituted for “sincere” (cheng 誠). Zhou Dunyi, in his Taijitu shuo 太極圖說 (Explanation of
the Supreme Polarity Diagram), also develops the notion of the uniqueness of human beings, but
grounds it in the cosmology of qi (the psychophysical substance of which all existing things are
composed). In Zhou’s other major work, the Tongshu 通書 (Penetrating Writing), which draws
largely from the Yijing and the Zhongyong, he further develops this idea, defining sagehood in terms
of cheng or “authenticity” (Adler 2014, pp. 203–204).
14 This had been questioned by Confucian scholars since the early Song, and is not given any
credence today.
so to speak, of Chinese culture.15 So Fu Xi’s creation of the hexagrams and divination

method of the Yijing placed that text and that particular method of divination at the
very beginning of the history of Chinese culture. This too added to its prestige and
authority.
More important for Zhu, though, was his theory that Yijing divination could be
used as an aid in the process of self-cultivation. This was an original discovery by
Zhu, and one that he took quite seriously. Yet, many later scholars, both in China and
the West in modern times, have misunderstood his position on this point. To this day,
one still hears or reads statements to the effect that “Zhu Xi considered the Yijing to be
only a divination manual”—i.e. that he did not regard it as a significant component of
the all-important process of self-cultivation. This view is actually an unexamined and
uncritical assumption based on Zhu’s oft-repeated dictum, “The Yijing was originally
created for divination.” But further examination reveals that Zhu meant that the Yijing
was originally created for divination; that this is how it should be used; and that since
the Yijing had been taken seriously not only by Fu Xi but also by King Wen, the Duke
of Zhou, and Confucius, it must be part of the Confucian Dao. And for Zhu, this
meant that it was part of the process of self-cultivation aimed at the ultimate goal of
becoming a Sage.16
To make the Yijing more accessible and useful as a manual of divination, Zhu
wrote a short book entitled Yixue qimeng 易學啟蒙 (An Introduction to the Study
of the Yi, 1186), with extensive commentary on the symbolic and numerological
meanings of the lines, trigrams, hexagrams, and various diagrams associated with
the Yijing. He also provides instructions for the method of divination with yarrow
(milfoil) stalks, developed by him from the sketchy method outlined in the Xici
appendix (Xici A.9.3). His instructions include how to determine which line texts
should be read as the specific prognostication for the situation at hand, based on the
lines that are changing into their opposites (broken to unbroken, and vice versa).17
In the opening lines of his preface to the Yixue qimeng, referring to the story of
Fu Xi’s creation of the Yijing quoted above, he says:
The Sage [Fu Xi] contemplated the images [in heaven and earth] in order to draw the gua,
and cast the yarrow stalks in order to determine the lines. This enables all people of later
ages throughout the world to decide uncertainty and doubt, to settle indecision, and to
be undeluded about following the auguries “auspicious,” “inauspicious,” “repentance” and
“regret.”18 This achievement can be called glorious. (Adler 2002, p. 1)
Here he is announcing the basic themes of his interpretive approach to the Yijing:
the focus on Fu Xi’s original intention in creating it, the original form it took (i.e.
15 The other two earliest figures are Shennong 神農, the “Divine Farmer,” who invented agriculture,
and Huangdi 黃帝, the “Yellow Emperor,” who invented the institutions of government. These three
are called the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang 三皇) and are still worshipped today.
16 I have explored this more thoroughly in Divination and Philosophy: Chu Hsi’s Understanding of
the I-Ching (1984), and in Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching (1990), Chaps. 6–7.
17 For the Yixue qimeng, see Adler (2002).
18 These are some of the formulaic responses that probably constitute one of the earliest textual
layers of the Yijing.

18 J. A. Adler
the lines and gua 卦), and its intended use by later people in using divination (when
necessary) to guide their moral behavior.19
Zhu also wrote a separate set of instructions for the ritual of divination, which is
usually included as an appendix to his commentary, the Zhouyi benyi. In this piece,
he emphasizes the religious character of the ritual, including the proper placement
of a table in a room with a door facing south, burning incense, cleaning the table
and the room, washing one’s hands, and reciting an invocation before the divination.
(Adler 2002, pp. 317–322)
In his commentary, Zhu takes pains to interpret the text according to Fu Xi’s
original intention in creating it—a hermeneutical approach not taken by Cheng and
other Neo-Confucians. As a result, his commentary focuses more closely on the yin-
yang meanings and relationships of the lines and trigrams, i.e. the original layer of
meaning intended by Fu Xi, and on the implications for the diviner. Both the “original
meaning” and “original intention” of the Yijing are emphasized in the Zhouyi benyi.
The “original meaning” (benyi 本義) is the literal denotation of the text, referring to
the structural features, numerological characteristics, and symbolic associations of
the hexagram and its component lines and trigrams. The “original intention” (benyi
本意), or purpose, is divination. We can clearly see both of these in Zhu’s commentary
to Hexagram #14 Dayou 大有 (Great Possession) . The hexagram text for this is
simply “Great possession, supreme success.” Zhu comments:
“Great possession” means the greatness of what one possesses. Li 離 [the upper trigram]
resides above Qian 乾 [the lower], fire above heaven [trigram structure], so everything is
illuminated [meaning of trigram structure]. Also, 6 in the fifth [the broken line in the fifth
position from the bottom] is a single yin occupying the place of honor and is central [in
the upper trigram], while the five yang lines respond to it [line structure], so this is great
possession [meaning of line structure]. Qian is strong and Li is bright [trigram “virtues”].
The one occupying the place of honor [6 in the fifth] corresponds with heaven, so it is a Way
of success [meaning of trigram virtues]. If the diviner has these virtues he will be very happy
and successful [oracular intention]. (Ibid, p. 111)
4 Divination and Sagehood
In his two books on the Yijing, Yixue qimeng and Zhouyi benyi, we see Zhu Xi’s theory
of the Yijing in operation, but the theory itself is mainly to be found in his extensive
recorded conversations and his numerous short essays.20 For the Neo-Confucians,
the ultimate goal of human life was to become a sage. But the vocabulary they used to
describe sagehood shifted from the terminology used by Confucius and Mencius. One
of the more significant terms that entered the lexicon in this respect was “response”
19 Zhu stressed that divination was only to be used when one was unable to decide the correct course
of behavior on one’s own (Smith et al. 1990, pp. 202–204).

20 The conversations, compiled from several sets of verbatim notes taken by his students over the last
twenty years of his life, are found in Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類 (Master Zhu’s Classified Conversations,
1270). The essays are found in the Hui’an xiansheng Zhu wengong wenji 晦庵先生朱文公文集
(Zhu Xi’s Collected Papers, 1532).
(ying 應). This term, particularly in the dyad “stimulus and response” (ganying 感應),
had become prominent much earlier in the Huang-Lao Daoist text Huainanzi 淮南子
(second century BCE). There, the Daoist sage-ruler, or “True Man” (zhenren 真人),
“holds fast to the Responses of the Natural (ziran zhi ying 自然之應).”21 He therefore
“is like a mirror, neither sending [things] away nor welcoming [things], responding
(ying) but not storing.”22 This implies an affinitive correspondence between the sage
and the natural world based on their common constitutive ground of qi 氣 (Le Blanc
1985, p. 208). Zhou Dunyi, who was strongly influenced by Daoism and whom Zhu
later established as the first true Confucian sage since Mencius, defines the Confucian
sage in the following way:
That which is “silent and inactive” is authentic (cheng 誠); that which is “penetrating when
stimulated” is spiritual (shen 神).23 That which is active but not yet formed, between existence
and not existence, is incipient (ji 幾). To be authentic is to be essential, and therefore clear.
Spirit is responsive (ying), and therefore mysterious. Incipience is subtle, and therefore
obscure. One who is authentic, spiritual, and [aware of the] incipient is called a sage.24
In his commentary on Mencius 7A.1 (quoted above), Zhu says:

Mind is a person’s spiritual clarity (shen-ming). It is that by which one embodies the various
principles and responds to the myriad phenomena. (Zhu 1190, 7:1a)
And in his “Treatise on the Examination of the Mind,” Zhu says:

The learning of the sages is to base one’s mind on fully investigating principle, and to accord
with principle by responding to things. (Zhu 1532, 67:19b)
So the sage, according to Zhu, is a person whose mind is sensitive enough to be

able to respond spontaneously and appropriately to even the most subtle, incipient
(ji) changes in the human and natural environment. The response is appropriate to the
situation, or morally correct, because the sage’s inherent nature (xing) is part of the
universal natural/moral order (li)—as is the inherent nature of every human being.
But only the sage has clarified or purified his physical nature (qizhi zhi xing) to the
point where it no longer clouds or interferes with his essential moral nature. That
clarity (ming) renders the sage “spiritual” (shen) so that his responses sometimes
seem superhuman, like those of gods and spirits. But in fact, the sage is nothing
more than fully human, which is why Zhou says, “Sagehood is nothing more than
being authentic (cheng).”25
In Zhu’s reading, authenticity means “actualized principle (li).”26 That is, the
sage’s thought and behavior fully manifest his moral nature, or the natural/moral
order. And that order or principle is one of transformation and creativity. It is seen in
21 Huainanzi 6:6a; trans. Le Blanc (1985, p. 133). See my discussion of ying in Neo-Confucian
thought in Adler (1998, pp. 123–149).
22 Ibid, 6:6b; trans. Le Blanc (1985, p. 135), echoing the earlier Daoist classic Zhuangzi (Chap. 7).
23 Quoting the Yijing, Xici A.10.4 (Adler 2020, p. 279).
24 This is Sect. 4 of Zhou’s Tongshu, entitled “The Sage” (Adler 2014, p. 208).
25 Tongshu, sec. 2 (Adler 2014, p. 207).
26 See Zhu’s comments on Sects. 2–4 of Zhou’s Tongshu (Ibid, pp. 225–242).
20 J. A. Adler
the natural world as “birth and growth” (sheng-sheng 生生),27 and in the sage as his
ability to transform (hua 化) others by the force (or virtue, de) of his moral example,
i.e. to create a humane society.
How then is Yijing divination relevant to the process of becoming a sage? How
exactly does the Yijing work, according to Zhu Xi? Clearly, the concepts of change
(bian 變, or yi 易) and transformation (hua 化, or bianhua 變化) are central to the
Yijing. As an oracle, the Yijing is regarded in a sense as an instrument for the detec-
tion of patterns of change, and those patterns are understood to be based ultimately
on the simplest such pattern—yin-yang alternation or transformation. Of course,
real-life situations are likely to be highly complex iterations or combinations of
this fundamental ordering principle. The process of casting a hexagram enables the
diviner—through the spiritual power of the milfoil stalks28 —to detect patterns of
change that might otherwise be too subtle or complex to perceive. By detecting them
and applying the wisdom of the sages who created the Yijing to interpret the pattern
and directionality of change at the given moment, the diviner can better adapt his
or her behavior to the dynamic exigencies of the situation. Action that is consistent
with the changing flow of events is more likely to succeed because it becomes part of
the normative pattern that constitutes the Dao in Chinese religious cosmology. For
Confucians, this Dao is inherently moral.
So Yijing divination, as Neo-Confucians understood it, is only indirectly or secon-
darily concerned with fortune telling. It is really more about apprehending the present,
or the direction and character of the present flow of events, and choosing one’s course
of action to fit into and make use of the energy of that flow in the most appropriate
(moral) manner. When a hexagram is derived through the manipulation of the yarrow
stalks, it is conceived as an image (xiang 象) or reading of that current, dynamic situ-
ation. Depending upon the numbers yielded by the manipulation and counting-off of
yarrow stalks or the simpler procedure of tossing coins, each line will be designated
as one of four types: changing yang, unchanging yang, changing yin, or unchanging
27 Yijing, Xici A.5.6 (Adler 2020, p. 270).

28 Yijing, Xici A.11.3, A.11.8 (Ibid, pp. 281–282).
yin.29 After reading and interpreting the hexagram text and the line texts for any
changing lines, one then changes those lines into their opposite, yielding a second
hexagram. (If no lines are changing, the situation is deemed to be relatively static
and no second hexagram is derived.) The second hexagram indicates the potential
future state—provided that one’s interpretation of the first hexagram was correct and
one’s subsequent behavior is appropriate to that situation. In other words, the second
represents not necessarily the future, but rather the point toward which the present
situation is tending.
The basic connection between the functionality of the Yiing and Confucian self-
cultivation is expressed in the following passage from the Xici and Zhu’s comment
on it:
The virtue of the milfoil is round and spiritual; the virtue of the hexagrams is square and
wise; the meanings of the six lines change in order to inform. With these the sage purifies
his mind and retires into secrecy. He suffers good fortune and misfortune in common with
the people. Being spiritual, he knows the future. Being wise, he stores up the past. Who is
comparable to this? [It was] the ancients, with broad intelligence and astute wisdom; those
who were spiritually martial and yet non-violent.
Zhu comments:
“Round and spiritual” means the unboundedness of transformation. “Square and wise” means
that things have definite principles…. The Sage concretely embodies the virtues of the three
[milfoil, hexagrams, and lines], without the slightest worldly tie. When there is nothing
happening, then his mind is silent, and no one can see it. When there is something happening,
then the operation of his spiritual understanding (shenzhi 神知) responds when stimulated.
This means he knows what is auspicious and what is inauspicious without divination. “Spir-
itually martial and yet non-violent” means he apprehends principle without recourse to
things.30
Here Zhu points out that this refers to the fully realized sage, not to the ordinary
person. According to him, the sage in fact does not need to resort to divination.
29 The below figure depicts the yin-yang cycle mapped as a day. The four types of lines correspond
to the four stages of the cycle:
1. young yang (in this case midnight to 6 a.m.): unchanging yang line;
2. mature yang (6 a.m. to noon): changing yang;
3. young yin (noon to 6 p.m.): unchanging yin;
4. mature yin (6 p.m. to midnight): changing yin.
30 Yijing, Xici A.11.2 (Ibid, p. 280).

22 J. A. Adler
The sage himself, by virtue of his spiritual clarity, can spontaneously respond to the
incipient signs of good fortune and misfortune, or the subtle tendencies of events,
and thus can know their direction of change. This understanding is non-empirical in
that it does not depend on prior exposure to things. He has the ability to transcend the
usual limitations of cause and effect, e.g. “To hurry without haste, to arrive without
going” (A.10.6), and to know the future. This is one of his god-like characteristics.
The spiritual capacity of both the Yijing and the sage is precisely their capacity to
detect those otherwise undetectable subtle changes. According to the Xici, “To know
incipience (ji) is to be spiritual.” (B.5.11) The Confucian sage, who symbolizes the
potential perfection of human nature, is attuned to the flow of change in the natural
and social environment and responds spontaneously, directly, and appropriately, with
no need for intervening calculation or cogitation.31 For ordinary people, on the other
hand, moral decisions usually require careful thought. It is when they have reached
the limits of their current capacity to know the Way that the use of the Yijing, which
embodies both the spiritual efficacy of the mechanism itself and the wisdom of the
sages who devised it and contributed to the text, becomes appropriate.
The Neo-Confucian understanding of the Yijing developed by Zhu Xi gives ordi-
nary human beings access to the very origin of the Chinese cultural tradition—Fu
Xi’s creation of the Yijing. The “mind of the sage,” which is equivalent to the “moral
mind” (daoxin) that is inherent in all humans but needs to be actualized or expressed
through self-cultivation, is symbolized by Fu Xi’s mind as he surveyed the natural
order, intuited or abstracted from it the moral order, and compassionately created a
device by which ordinary humans could learn to recognize and internalize that same
natural/moral order or principle (li). By learning to understand incipient change and
how best to respond to it, according to Zhu, one can move closer to the goal—perhaps
an unreachable goal, but a goal nonetheless—of manifesting that creative principle
in one’s own action, as a sage.
References
Adler, Joseph A. 1984. Divination and Philosophy: Chu Hsi’s Understanding of the I-Ching. Ph.D.
dissertation. University of California at Santa Barbara.
Adler, Joseph A. 1998. Response and responsibility: Chou Tun-i and Confucian Resources for
Environmental Ethics. In Confucianism and Ecology: The Interrelation of Heaven, Earth, and
Humans, ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker, and John Berthrong, 123–149. Cambridge: Harvard University
Center for the Study of World Religions.
Adler, Joseph A. 2014. Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi’s Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
31 Readers might recognize in this picture the notion of wuwei 無為, or “effortless action,” which
is typically identified with the Laozi. But as Slingerland (2003) has shown, for the Warring States
period, various forms of this spiritual ideal were held by all the classical Confucians as well as
the authors of the Laozi and Zhuangzi. It is also clearly evident in Chan Buddhism and Neo-
Confucianism.
Adler, Joseph A., trans. 2002. Introduction to the Study of the Classic of Change (I-hsüeh ch’i-meng),
by Zhu Xi. Provo: Global Scholarly Publications.
Adler, Joseph A., trans. 2020. The Original Meaning of the Yijing: Commentary on the Scripture of
Change, by Zhu Xi. New York: Columbia University Press.
de Bary, Wm. Theodore, and John W. Chafee (eds.). 1989. Neo-Confucian Education: The Formative
Stage. Berkeley: University of California Press.
de Bary, Wm. Theodore, and Irene Bloom (eds.). 1999. Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd edn, vol.
1. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. 1991a. Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China: A Social
History of Writing about Rites. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, trans. 1991b. Chu Hsi’s “Family Rituals”: A Twelfth-Century Chinese
Manual for the Performance of Cappings, Weddings, Funerals, and Ancestral Rites. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. 1997. Sung Neo-Confucian Views on Geomancy. In Meeting of Minds:
Intellectual and Religious Interaction in East Asian Traditions of Thought, ed. Irene Bloom and
Joshua A. Fogel, 75–107. New York: Columbia University Press.
Keightley, David N. 1978. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle–Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age
China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Keightley, David N. 2000. The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang
China, ca. 1200–1045 B.C. Berkeley: University of California Institute of East Asian Studies.
Le Blanc, Charles. 1985. Huai-nan Tzu: Philosophical Synthesis in Early Han Thought. Hong
Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Lee, Thomas H.C. 2000. Education in Traditional China: A History. Leiden: Brill.
National Palace Museum. 2000. China at the Inception of the Second Millennium: Art and Culture
of the Sung Dynasty, 960–1279. Taipei: National Palace Museum.
Neskar, Ellen. 1996. Shrines to Local Former Worthies. In Religions of China in Practice, ed.
Donald S. Lopez Jr., 293–305. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Richey, Jeffrey L. (ed.). 2008. Teaching Confucianism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Slingerland, Edward. 2003. Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal
in Early China. New York: Oxford University Press.
Smith, Kidder Jr, Peter K. Bol, Joseph A. Adler, and Don J. Wyatt. 1990. Sung Dynasty Uses of the
I Ching. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Taylor, Rodney L. 1990. The Religious Dimensions of Confucianism. Albany: State University of
New York Press.
Tu, Wei-ming, and Mary Evelyn Tucker (eds.). 2003–2004. Confucian Spirituality, 2 vols. New
York: Crossroad.
Walton, Linda. 1993. Southern Sung Academies as Sacred Places. In Religion and Society in T’ang
and Sung China, ed. Patricia Buckley Ebrey, and Peter N. Gregory, 335–363. Honolulu: University
of Hawai’i Press.
Walton, Linda. 1999. Academies and Society in Southern Sung China. Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i Press.
Wilson, Thomas A. (ed.). 2002. On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation
of the Cult of Confucius. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.
Zhu, Xi 朱熹. 1186. Yixue qimeng 易學啟蒙 (Introduction to the Study of the Yi). In Zhouyi zhezhong
周易折中 (The Zhouyi Judged Evenly, 1716), ed. Li Guang-di 李光地. Rpt. Taipei: Zhen Shan
Mei, 1971.
Zhu, Xi 朱熹. 1188. Zhouyi benyi 周易本義 (Original Meaning of the Yijing). Rpt. Taipei: Hualian,
1978.
Zhu, Xi 朱熹. 1190. Sishu jizhu 四書集注 (Collected Commentaries on the Four Books). Rpt.
In Sibu beiyao 四部備要 (The Collection of Important Writings of the Four Categories) edn.
Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1936.
24 J. A. Adler
Zhu, Xi 朱熹. 1270. Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類 (Master Zhu’s Classified Conversations). Rpt. Beijing:
Zhonghua shuju, 1986.
Zhu, Xi 朱熹. 1532. Huian xiansheng Zhu wengong wenji 晦庵先生朱文公文集 (Zhu Xi’s
Collected Papers). Rpt. In Sibu beiyao, entitled Zhuzi daquan 朱子大全, ed. Zhonghua shuju.
Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1936.
Joseph A. Adler is a Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies and Religious Studies at Kenyon
College, USA. He is an expert in Zhu Xi’s philosophy and the Song scholarship on the Yijing. He
wrote Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi’s Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi (SUNY Press,
2014) and translated Zhu Xi’s The Original Meaning of the Yijing (Columbia University Press,
2019).
Chapter 3
Reexamining the English Translation
of the Yijing
Dennis Kat-hung Cheng
Abstract Translation is the ground for the reception of the Yijing outside China,
especially in Anglophone countries across Europe and North America. Essentially,
translation is a reinterpretation of the original text, rather than a technical task
of simply replacing the original language with another language to capture the
verbal meanings. Regarding translation as such, two major challenges should not
be neglected. First is the multiplicity of the meaning(s) of words as a major charac-
teristic of Chinese linguistics, while second is the way to distinguish various kinds
of variations (yiwen 異文, same word written in different forms) accurately. Some
of these variations should be read as alternate forms (yiti 異體) carrying different
sounds and meanings, while some should be read as another character with the
same phonetic structure. By selecting examples from a few English translations of
the Yijing by Western scholars, this chapter attempts to argue about the difficulties
reflected in the diverse translations and to encourage translators to explore further
into the Chinese linguistic context of words and phrases of the original text.
1 Introduction
In recent decades, translation has become an independent discipline with its own
epistemological premises, including the hermeneutic ones, so much so that there
exists the academic field of translation studies. Insofar as hermeneutics is principally
involved with understanding, translation cannot be a simple task of switching from
one language to another. Generally, translators presume that there are ways to capture
the meanings of the translated words accurately, no more and no less. Those who
translated the Yijing or the Zhouyi (Classic of Changes) are no exception, even though
this classic poses many more challenges, primarily because of the metaphoric nature
of the text, which includes not only words but also graphic representations by way of
the trigrams and hexagrams, not to say the numerous graphs and diagrams proposed
D. K. Cheng (B)
Department of Literature and Cultural Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, New
Territories, Hong Kong SAR
e-mail: dkhcheng@eduhk.hk
26 D. K. Cheng
by the philosophers of the Song period. The Yijing is one of the Wujing 五經 (Five
Classics) in the Confucian canon and ranks first among the Sanxuan 三玄 (Three
Mysteries) in the Daoist scriptural tradition. It contains a lot of symbolic language
and metaphors with Confucian as well as Daoist referents. The ambiguity of the
Yijing text does not come from any authorial intent to bedazzle the readers. Instead,
it uses metaphoric language to highlight the inner connections of things and beings as
the ultimate nature of existence. If we take a closer reading of the Yijing, we can see
numerous examples of such linguistic expressions for the purpose of manifesting its
core teaching. For example, the guaci 卦辭 (judgment of the hexagram) of Hexagram
#1 Qian 乾—yuanheng lizhen 元亨, 利貞—should be translated as “grand sacrifice,
in favor of divination,” if we stick to the etymological meanings of the four words. But
if we revisit the commentaries, we see that the line has generally been interpreted
as “ultimately auspicious, in favor of perseverance.”1 The two renderings do not
contradict each other, and indeed, from an interpretive perspective, the two layers of
meaning have been embedded in many commentaries, ever since the appearance of
the classic. Borrowing the terms used in oracle divination, the author of the Guayaoci
卦爻辭 (general and line judgments of the hexagrams) highlights the prosperity
conveyed by the six lines that represent the lifetime career of a junzi 君子, or a
political leader, from being qianlong 潛龍 (hidden dragon) to feilong 飛龍 (flying
dragon), consistently expressing the moral message of #1 Qian. Some translators
have connected the original meanings to those found in the later commentaries. For
example, John Minford’s English translation, I Ching: The Essential Translation
of the Ancient Chinese Oracle and Book of Wisdom, comprises two parts. Part one,
“Book of Wisdom,” elaborates on the morals of the hexagrams of the canonized Yijing,
while Part two, “Bronze Age Oracle,” provides the supposed original meanings for
what he defines as the “oracle period,” which refers to the first half of the first
millennium BCE. However, the case of two layers of meaning being developed in
different historical stages is different from their co-existence that I have just pointed
to.
For most translators, dealing with a word that carries more than one meaning is
to select a linguistic equivalent based on their knowledge of philology as well as the
original text. The process of selection is guided by the ultimate goal of distinguishing
the correct and the incorrect. For instance, once a translator accepts the Shanghai
Museum bamboo-slip version of the Yijing in which Hexagram #48 Jing is written
as “汬” instead of “井” in the received version, he/she definitely may translate the
hexagram as a “Well,” based on the hieroglyphic form of the character. However,
if we refer to the line judgment of the beginning line at the bottom, jiujing wuqin
舊井无禽, and at the same time consult Wang Yinzhi’s 王引之 (1766–1834) Jingyi
shuwen 經義述聞 (Disquisitions on the meanings of the classics heard [from my
father]), the word jing 井 refers to jing 汬 (well) and jing 阱 (trap) simultaneously.2
1 The Wilhelm-Baynes translation reads, “The Creative works sublime success, Furthering through
perseverance.” (Wilhelm 1964, p. 4).
2 The line judgment actually elaborates on a situation emphasizing on the uselessness of the well.
“Jingni bu shi 井泥不食” means that a well which is dried up and filled with mud is not able to
3 Reexamining the English Translation of the Yijing 27
(Cheng 2012, p. 79; Shaughnessy 2014, p. 120) Therefore, in this case, it is not
appropriate to say that one is correct while the other is incorrect. This is a typical
example of polysemy—the coexistence of several possible meanings for a word. This
example shows the importance of understanding the polysemic meanings of words
as a major task in the process of reading and interpretation.
Etymology is linguistic knowledge. However, more than occasionally, such tech-
nical knowledge and the interpretive sensibility that stems from it are ignored by
translators. From the hermeneutic standpoint, language is directly linked to the
reader who interprets, the text that is being read, as well as the all-encompassing
interpretive community and milieu. As a matter of fact, the importance of linguistic
factors has long been discussed by philosophers, especially the German fellows.
For example, Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), who travelled across Europe,
North and Central America, and Russia, believes that “languages are views of the
world.” (Gadamer 1975, p. 401) As pointed out by Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–
2002) (Ibid, p. 431), “language is a central point where ‘I’ and world met or, rather,
manifest their original unity.” Language plays a crucial role in the effort to construct
(or re-construct) a coherent world order in which every aspect of the whole picture is
logical and understandable. Likewise, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) (2012,
pp. 59–60) declares that “language, despite the different concurrently and consec-
utively held views expressed in it, encompasses within itself a single system of
ideas which, precisely because they are contiguous, linking and complementing one
another within this language, form a single whole whose several parts, however,
do not correspond to those to be found in comparable systems in other languages.”
Inevitably, the gap between “this language” and the “other languages” is always
huge, and linguistic knowledge plays a big role in bridging it. In terms of the Yijing
philosophy, the original unity of “I” and the world that Gadamer alludes to is not
static but continuously dynamic; the never-ending interaction of yin and yang is
the universal co-existence and nexus of the binary forces: life and death, positivity
and negativity, happiness and sorrow, auspiciousness and misfortune, and so on.
Language is a medium or a tool that represents the nature of these dialectic phases,
movements and relations. We may say that the language of the Yijing is an example
of the yin-yang philosophy because of the numerous words with infinite meanings
that are often intricately related. A single word may simultaneously develop two (or
more) meanings that are opposite to each other, such as the case of fanxun 反訓
(adverse meanings) in Chinese philology.3 When dealing with the semantic systems
of words and names in ancient Chinese, one should not underestimate the fluidity
of this language in particular. We have to bear in mind the particularity of Chinese
(unlike Indo-European languages)—using fangkuaizi 方塊字 (square character) to
represent meaning via a combination of visual form and audible sound. Sometimes,
provide water for drinking, while “jiujing wuqin 舊井无禽” means that the dried-up well which
has been reused as a trap does not successfully catch prey.
3 For example, qiu 仇 (enemy) and qiu 逑 (spouse) are etymologically one word. Their pronunci-
ations are the same but the written forms are different, while carrying meanings opposite to each
other.
28 D. K. Cheng
there is the borrowing of the sound of one word to express the meaning of another
word, that is, the practice of jiajie 假借. In this light, we know how challenging it is
to translate a Chinese classic into another language, especially one that belongs to
an entirely different language system that is not part of the Indo-European variety.4
The Yijing is among the most studied texts of the Chinese tradition, not only in
China but also throughout the world. As I have discussed elsewhere, translation is the
ground for the reception of the Yijing outside China, especially in Anglophone coun-
tries across Europe and North America. (Cheng 2018, pp. 231–264) This explains
why new English translations have never stopped appearing. Essentially, transla-
tion is a reinterpretation of the original text, rather than a simple replacement of
its language with another that supposedly captures the original verbal meanings. A
translation that involves much interpretation entails two major challenges. The first
is to engage effectively with the multiplicity of meanings of words, which is a major
characteristic of Chinese linguistics. The second is to distinguish accurately various
kinds of yiwen 異文 (variant characters—same words written in different forms).
Some of these variations should be read as yiti 異體 (alternate forms) carrying the
same (or similar) sound and meaning,5 while some should be read as different char-
acters with the same phonetic structure.6 As there are so many English translations
of the Yijing, it is only feasible to focus on some representative examples and reveal
their problematic renderings of the Chinese text. The point to drive home is that
in order for translators to do their job properly and accurately, they must become
familiar with the Chinese linguistic contexts of the words and phrases of the original
text, for precisely the aforementioned reasons. My intention is to revisit the effort of
translating the Yijing from a hermeneutic perspective and rethink the importance of
the linguistic and philological methodology.
2 Issues in the Translations of the Yijing Text
Some Western scholars adopt the methodological premise that the Yijing was a collec-
tion of divination records from the ancient Chinese agricultural society. In this light,
they connect the hexagram names to animals or livestock. In his translation The Book
of Changes (Zhouyi): A Bronze Age Document Translated with Introduction and
4 Some may argue that Japanese and Korean are grammatically agglutinative languages while
Chinese is an isolated language. The grammatical differences between Chinese and the two
languages are obvious. However, in the case of the Yijing, Chinese versions were broadly used
by traditional Japanese and Korean scholars. Via the method of kunyomi 訓読み, learners can
use traditional Japanese pronunciation to read the content of the Chinese version and capture the
meaning of the Chinese characters. (The meaning of sektok 釋讀 in Korean is the same as that
of kunyomi in Japanese.) Translation is not as crucial for East Asian (including Japan, Korea and
Vietnam) learners as it is for Western learners.
5 For example, yu 毓 and yu 育.
6 For example, gai 改 and yi 攺.
Notes, Richard Rutt (1996) translates Hexagram #15 Qian 謙 as “Rat” by referring
to the related word shu 鼸:
Base (6): Scrunching rat. A prince may cross a big river. AUSPICIOUS. (謙謙, 君子用涉
大川, 吉)
(6) 2: Squealing rat. AUSPICIOUS AUGURY. (鳴謙, 貞吉)
(6) 3: Industrious rat. For princes, ultimately AUSPICIOUS. (勞謙, 君子有終吉)
(6) 4: Unfavorable for nothing. Ripping rat. (无不利, 撝謙)
(6) 5: Not rich, because of the neighbors. Favorable for a foray. Unfavorable for nothing. (
不富, 以其鄰, 利用侵伐, 无不利)
Top (6): Squealing rat. Favorable for mobilizing to attack a capital city. (鳴謙, 利用行師征
國)
In the Yijing commentarial tradition, the term junzi 君子 in the beginning line
(Rutt uses the term “base line”) connects to the term qianqian 謙謙 (which is an
adjective) to form a complete phrase qianqian junzi 謙謙君子. But when Rutt reads
the word qian as shu, he has no choice but to detach the term junzi, which he translates
as “a prince,” from qianqian and connect it to the following sentence. Obviously, a
different translation of the hexagram name may lead to a totally different reading or
interpretation on the whole passage. From the etymological perspective, the word jian
兼 is the component that is shared by, and links up, the two characters of qian 謙 and
shu 鼸. I do not know of any convincing evidence that may support Rutt’s decision to
ignore the interpretations in numerous traditional annotations of the word qian and
select shu without any linguistic reference. Rutt might be sharing the assumptions
of the early twentieth-century Chinese scholars of the Gushibian 古史辨 (Critiques
of ancient history), doubting the ancient past movement who cast their skeptical
and critical views on ancient Chinese history, and accordingly, argued that the only
merit of the Yijing was that it was a straightforward historical record of an ancient
agricultural society.7 In the preface of his book, Rutt (1996, p. ix) also shares his
experience of “living in a Korean village community among men who needed no
translation” during the 1950s. Combining his life experience and admiration for the
scholarship of the Gushibian scholars, Rutt refused to adopt inherited interpretations
in the commentarial tradition, and decided to translate the text in his own way. With
the same mindset, he translates Hexagram #16 Yu 豫 as “Elephant,” as he matches
the word with xiang 象 which literally refers to the animal. Not surprisingly, the
rendering of the meanings of the lines becomes awkward and hard to read. If xuyu
盱豫 in the third line is translated as “watchful elephant raising its head,” with the
first word xu 盱 being read as an adjective, then why is mingyu 冥豫 of the top line
translated as “elephant in darkness,” with the first word ming 冥 being regarded as
a noun? Where is the semantic, syntactical, and grammatical consistency? Rutt is of
course not the only scholar inclined to read the Yijing text as a historical record of an
7 In chapter one “The Background: Bronze Age China” of The Book of Changes (Zhouyi) Part I,
Rutt (1996, pp. 9–25, 41–43) gives a comprehensive description on the historical background of
the classic including social customs, economic background, agriculture, warfare and hunting. He
highly praises the contribution of the Yijing scholars of the early twentieth century including Guo
Moruo 郭沫若 (1892–1978) and Li Jingchi 李鏡池 (1902–1975).
30 D. K. Cheng
agricultural society. Minford, in his I Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient
Chinese Oracle and Book of Wisdom, translates #16 Yu as “elation” in Part I but as
“elephant” in Part II. He provides only one argument for using “elephant” as the
translation: “Elephants were hunted in ancient China, and were buried sacrificially.
Their remains have been found at Yinxu.”8 (Minford 2015, p. 574) Obviously, while
archeological evidence is often tremendously helpful, it is grossly inadequate and
one-sided to consider only excavated relics and totally ignore the very pertinent
linguistic factors.
Apart from the cases of qian and yu, there are also other hexagram names read
by scholars as names of animals or livestock. For example, Rutt (1996, p. 256) reads
Hexagram #33 Dun 遯 as tun 豚 and translates it as “Pig.” We should note that in
traditional exegeses, dun 遯 is a variation of the word dun 遁, both meaning “to hide”
or “to flee” and referring to the behavior of recluses.9 In his Unearthing the Changes,
Edward L. Shaughnessy (2014, pp. 104–105) translates dun in the Shanghai Museum
manuscript version, written as , as “piglet.” This is the same way of thinking.10 I
am not saying that the Yijing has nothing to do with the ancient agricultural society.
It is also a fact that livestock is mentioned in hexagrams. For example, pertaining
to Hexagram #26 Dachu or Daxu 大畜 (Big Livestock, or the taming power of the
great), the names of the animals liangma 良馬 (good horse), tongniu 童牛 (young
bull), and fenshi 豶豕 (gelded boar) are mentioned in the lines. But with regard to
the word dun , to the best of my knowledge, it is merely a variation of the written
forms of the words dun 遯 and tun 遁, nothing more and nothing less. All these
varied forms of the character have the same sound and meaning, and therefore must
not be read or translated differently.
Sometimes, translators do refer to important old commentaries for their transla-
tions. For example, in the case of Hexagram #34 Dazhuang 大壯 (The Growth of the
Great), translators have adopted the meaning of zhuang, shangye 壯, 傷也 (injury,
or wound) provided by Ma Rong 馬融 (79–166), which is recorded in the Jing-
dian shiwen 經典釋文 (A Dictionary on the Words and Variations of the Ancient
Classics). Hence, the word zhuang 壯 is translated as “injury” (Rutt) or “wound”
(Shaughnessy and Minford). However, if we refer to the statement juzhi gao, xin
bugu yi 舉趾高, 心不固矣 (When stepping with the toe raised high, there is surely
the lack of confidence) in the Zuo zhuan 左傳 (Zuo’s Commentary of the Spring–
Autumn Annals), then we should know that the beginning line zhuang yu zhi 壯
于趾 actually expresses the moral message of the phrase juzhi gao 舉趾高 in the
8 In I Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Oracle and Book of Wisdom Part II,
Minford (2015, p. 571) also translates qian 謙 as “rats.”

9 According to the Jingdian shiwen 經典釋文 (A Dictionary on the Words and Variations of the
Ancient Classics), the word dun “遯” was also written as “ ” or “遁,” the difference is only the
form/structure of the word, which means three of them carry the same sound and meaning.
10 In footnote 1 on p. 104, Shaughnessy (2014) writes, “For , probably to be read as tun 豚,
‘piglet,’…whereas the Wangjiatai Guicang manuscript gives the hexagram name as . This latter
writing is also attested in the Jingdian shiwen, as well as dun 遁, ‘to move, to flee, or to hide.’”
Shaughnessy is a leading expert in ancient Chinese paleography; however, he did not explain why
he decided to read dun 遯 as tun 豚.
Zuo zhuan, which warns against excessive self-confidence and does not convey the
meaning of “injury of the foot.”
3 From Variation to Polysemy
As I mentioned above, there are numerous variations in the Yijing text, including
the received as well as excavated versions. We may easily identify variations in
some of the early received texts (during or before the Wei-Jin period) in the Jingdian
shiwen, but we will need much more time to compare the Shanghai Museum bamboo
version, the Wangjiatai bamboo version (Wagnjiatai jian 王家台簡), the Mawangdui
silk manuscript (Mawangdui boshu 馬王堆帛書) version, and the various forms of
even one single word. For example, in the case of Hexagram #25 Wuwang 无妄
(The Unexpected), the form in the received text generally appears as “无妄,” but
it is “毋亡” in the Wangjiatai bamboo version, “亡忘” in the Shanghai Museum
version, “无孟” in the Mawangdui silk manuscript, and “无亡” in the Fuyang bamboo
version (Fuyang hanjian 阜陽漢簡). To ordinary readers, these variations are very
confusing, but for Yijing scholars who are well trained in Chinese linguistics and
textual criticism, these variations are the same in terms of sound and meaning; they
vary only in form, that is the hieroglyphic structure of the characters.
For some highly controversial examples, especially for those words that are intrin-
sically polysemic, incorporating all excavated texts and dictionaries may not help.
A case in point is the term yiri 已日 in Hexagram #49 Ge 革 (Reform, or Molting),
the first character of which appears in some versions as “己,” while in some other
versions, it is written as “巳.” There are only very slight differences that separate
the three characters “己,” “已,” and “巳,” which have the different sounds of “ji,”
“yi,” and “si” respectively. Interestingly and consequently, it is not surprising to find
that there are three different interpretations pertaining to the three respective forms
of the one character in the commentarial tradition. In the Han period, major Yijing
scholars, such as Xun Shuang 荀爽 (128–190), Wang Bi王弼 (226–249), and Gan
Bao 干寶 (286–336), tended to read the word as “已” which means “completed”
or “ending.”11 Richard John Lynn’s (1994, p. 445) The Classic of Changes, A New
Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi adopts the version of “已” in
translating the entire statement which appears as “Only on the day when it comes to
an end does one begin to enjoy trust.”
11 Xun Shuang focused on the fifth line and argued that “it had completed in becoming the king”
(五已居位為君). Wang Bi’s interpretation of the line is that “reforms cannot be accomplished by
oneself. Once reform has been completed, the junzi comply with the reform” (不能自革, 革已, 乃
能從之). Gan Bao’s interpretation of the line is that “the day the mandate of Heaven has arrived”
(天命已至之日). The sources of the Han scholars are quoted from Zhouyi jijie 周易集解 by Li
Ding-zuo 李鼎祚 (1996).
32 D. K. Cheng
Later scholars, such as Wang Yinglin12 王應麟 (1223–1296) and Wang Fuzhi13 王
夫之 (1619–1692), read the word as si 巳, which is the sixth among the twelve dizhi
地支 (earthly branches indicating the twelve time-units of one day), representing
the temporal span of 9 am to 11 am.14 Twentieth-century Chinese Yijing scholars,
such as Gao Heng 高亨 (1900–1986) and Zhou Zhenfu 周振甫 (1911–2000), also
read this character as si 巳 but argued that it was a jiajie word to represent the
word si 祀, meaning “sacrifice,” as was the term siri 祀日which means “the day of
sacrifice.” (Gao 1984, vol. 4; Zhou 1993) The English translations by Richard Rutt
and Geoffrey Redmond adopt the version of “巳.” Rutt (1996, p. 272) translates the
hexagram name as “Leather” (pige 皮革) instead of “Reform,” and renders siri nai
fu 巳日乃孚 as “On a sacrifice day, use the captives.” Redmond’s (2017, p. 265) The
I Ching (Book of Changes): A Critical Translation of the Ancient Text translates siri
nai fu as “On a ‘si’ day, sacrifice captives.”
Interpretations regarding the version of jiri 己日 also vary. In his famous work
Ri zhi lu 日知錄, Gu Yanwu 顧炎武 (1613–1682) accepted Zhu Zhen’s朱震 (?-
1138) argument to read the term as “己日,” ji 己of which is the sixth among the ten
tiangan 天干 (celestial stems), each constituting a temporal unit of ten days. (This is
somewhat like using Monday, Tuesday, and the rest of the specifically named days to
count one week.) According to Gu’s explanation, the Yijing espouses the philosophy
of change and praises the idea of zhong 中 (the mean, the neutral, the impartial
or middle point). Metaphorically, the units of the ten celestial stems are successive
cycles that display the rise and fall of a policy or its development process. Jiri (the
day of ji), being the sixth day passing the middle point of the period, serves as a
reminder for the preparation for the changes that are represented by the seventh stem
of geng 庚 (referring to geng 更 with the same sound, which means “reform”). The
interesting point is that Gu offered another related argument that regarded ji 己 as
an association of “改” (normally pronounced as gai) that carries the same sound— “
己” is actually the left part of the hieroglyphic form of “改”—suggesting that “己
日” is actually “改日,” while the character “己” here should be pronounced as “gai”
instead of “ji.” According to Gu, “己” carries two meanings simultaneously: “己日”
(jiri) is the sixth day in the celestial stem system, and also assumes the other form “
改日” (gairi), which means “the day for reform.” Gu’s argument is the one I support,
as it argues on behalf of the character “己” in terms of polysemy.
The example of “己日” is not an isolated case. If we study the other hexagrams of
the Yijing, we will find that polysemy is ubiquitous. Apart from the aforementioned
cases of “井,” “阱,” and “汬,” here are a few more examples:
12 In volume 1 of his Kunxue jiwen 困學紀聞 (A Collection of Audible Knowledge in Endure

Learning), Wang refers to the Han philosophy which takes “巳” as the representation of the exhaus-
tion of the yang air to interpret the term as indicating the increase and decrease of the yin and yang
air (皆陰陽氣數之變).
13 In volume 4 of his Zhouyi neizhuan 周易內傳 (Inner Commentaries of the Zhouyi), Wang argued
that siri 巳日 is on the day at the si 巳 among the twelve shichen 時辰.
14 Ancient Chinese people use twelve shichen to divide the length of twenty-four hours, which
means one sichen is equal to two hours.

1. In the fifth line of Hexagram #3 Zhun 屯 (Difficulty in the Beginning)—zhun

qi gao 屯其膏, the character zhun “屯” simultaneously carries the meaning of
“difficulty” and “gathering, or collecting” (tun 囤).
2. The character xu “需” in the fifth line of Hexagram #5 Xu 需 (Waiting)—xu yu
jiushi 需于酒食 (Nourished with food and wine)—should also be read as ru “
醹,” which directly refers to the nourishment of food and drinks.
3. The character you “祐” in the top line—zi tian you zhi 自天祐之—of Hexagram
#14 Dayou 大有 (Possession of the Great, or Abundant Harvest) corresponds to
the second word of the hexagram name, “you有.” Carrying the same sound, the
two words refer to the plentiful (有) gifts that are the blessings (祐) from heaven.
4. Hexagram #30 Li離 (Fire, or Attaching) has multiple symbolic meanings. The
symbolic meaning related to the nature is “fire.” The fourth line—fenru 焚如—
refers to “fire” that mirrors the symbol of “water” in Hexagram #29 Kan 坎
(Water, or Trap). Simultaneously, the name “Li” carries the meaning of “attach-
ing” (li 麗). The Tuan zhuan 彖傳 (Commentary of the Hexagram) claims that
“li is li” (li, li ye 離, 麗也). It also corresponds with “the setting sun” in the third
line—ruze zhi li 日昃之離.
4 Closing the Hermeneutic Circle?: From Language

to Philosophy in the Yijing
Variations of the word ji 己 of Hexagram #49 Ge, which reflect the complexity
of the interpretation of the texts, not only remind us that philology is essential to
establishing the etymology of words and meaning of the texts, but also lead us to
rethink a series of important questions related to linguistics and hermeneutics: How
should we evaluate interpretations that stem from misreading (e.g. ji 己 reads as yi
已 or si 巳) of the original text? Should these interpretations (as well as the resulting
philosophies) be legitimized as valuable contributions to the commentarial tradition?
Should there be boundaries that delimit interpretations? If Gadamer’s “hermeneutic
circle” does exist, can it ever be closed, at least in some instances?
Essentially, there are two ways of interpreting the texts. One emphasizes loyalty to
the original text. The fundamental premise is the very existence of a text constructed
by words, phrases, sentences, passages and paragraphs. Under no circumstance
should the reader be allowed to betray the text by inserting or replacing words
that suit their own thoughts; nor should they intentionally misread the words or
sentences in order to induce meanings for their speculation. Without challenging
a particular authority, ever since the pre-Qin period, the Yijing commentarial tradi-
tion in China has been pursuing the original meanings based on textual evidential
research. One of the most famous masterpieces is the Jingdian shiwen in which
the author Lu Deming 陸德明 recorded the variations initiated and adopted by the
numerous scholars from the Han dynasty to the Wei-Jin period. On account of the
abundant information provided, users of this source would have the confidence to
compare different versions and then choose and use those they deem the most cogent.
34 D. K. Cheng
However, we should note that the presumption of the existence of original meaning
was a common interpretive premise for the Chinese readers of the classics to begin
with, in spite of the diversity of interpretation. In other words, there was always the
acknowledgment that the original thoughts of the ancient sages were embedded in
the classics.
Modern scholars may not have the same fealty to the ancient sages anymore, and
therefore, recognizing or denying the existence of original meaning is not the crux of
the matter. Nevertheless, when we read the lines of the text and come up with their
meanings, we are dealing with some sort of original meaning as a practical matter.
Setting the question of authorship aside, as long as we recognize the basic textual
settings of the Yijing, including yaoti 爻題 (line titles, such as chului 初六, jiuer 九
二 and liusan 六三) as well as their roles in the constitution of a hexagram (from the
beginning line to the top line), we have to admit that to a certain extent, original mean-
ings do exist in these settings. It is only when we accept these unalterable textual
settings that reading becomes meaningful and productive. Hence, we should not
underestimate these basic reading principles. Ever since the Gushibian (doubting
the ancient past) movement, some Yijing scholars have become too involved in
denying traditional scholarship and boldly speculated about alternative meanings.
For example, in the Fuyang bamboo slip version, Hexagram #23 Bo 剝 (Hitting, or
Splitting Apart) is written as “僕.” The editor Han Ziqiang 韓自強 reads the fourth
yin line “bao chuang yi fu 剝床以膚” as “pu qiang yi fu 僕戕以膚.” He argues that
the word chuang 床, written as “臧” in the Mawangdui silk manuscript, should be an
associative word of qiang 戕 (hurt) which has a similar sound. He then concludes that
“僕戕以膚” means “the slave hurts his/her skin,” while “剝床以足” of the begin-
ning line and “剝床以辨” mean “the slave hurts his/her foot” and “the slave hurts
his/her knee” respectively. The problem is that if #23 Bo is interpreted as “Slave,”
what would then be the meaning of Hexagram #24 Fu 復 (Return), which mirrors
its binary couple #23 Bo? Obviously, Han does not bother to consider the many
interpretations in the long commentarial tradition or the system of meanings of the
sixty-four hexagrams. It would not be difficult for any reader who has any linguistic
knowledge to know the absurdity of Han’s interpretation. Instead of accepting his
speculation, we need to dig into the texts layer by layer, in order to apprehend the
original thoughts embedded in the lines and sentences. Even then, we may still be a
long distance away from the philosophies encased in the text. For cases such as the
words jiri of #49 Ge, given all the evidence I have provided, there is almost no room
for a different interpretation, unless there is new evidence from yet another newly
excavated text. In other words, from a philological point of view, it is not impossible
to say that the hermeneutic circle can be closed.
To scholars of hermeneutics, it is hard to imagine that the hermeneutic loop can be
closed, not only because of the complexity of the interpretation of abstract ideas, but
also because hermeneutic is basically creative, with no delimitation of the possibility
of meanings. Interpretation is never a one- way explanation of a static classic or
text. Instead, from time to time, the person who interprets always brings in new
insights, and makes interpretation a perpetually creative process initiated from the
two-way interaction of the reader and the text. Ever since the Yijing text was authored,
everything in it, including the gua 卦 (including the six-line hexagram and the name),
yao 爻 (lines), ci 辭 (the moral of the lines), as well as the hexagram sequence, has
been found to originate from two signifiers: a broken line representing yin and a solid
line representing yang. Every part in the Yijing develops from nothing but the yin
and yang lines. Only with these two signifiers can the trigrams be constructed, and
further result in the sixty-four hexagrams. People may argue that these two signifiers
are not even Chinese characters but only symbols. Now, the question is: If the general
definition of Chinese characters is a unification of sound, form and meaning, then
what do we mean by wenzi 文字 in Chinese? What would be the difference between
symbols (or signifiers) and characters? It may not be easy to imagine the territory
of wenzi. For example, “冂” and “匚”are nothing for ordinary readers but symbolic
components of many other Chinese characters such as tong 同 and qu 區. However,
both “冂” and “匚”are characters recorded in the Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (General
Dictionary of Words and Characters). “冂” carries the sound “jiong” which refers
to remote areas far away from countryside (Shuowen jiezi says: “邑外謂之郊, 郊
外謂之野, 野外謂之林, 林外謂之冂。”). (Xu 2013, p. 230) “匚” carries the sound
“fang” which refers to a square vessel. (Ibid, p. 641) Some particular cases may
even be more surprising. For example, a simple vertical stroke “丨” is also a Chinese
character, recorded in the Shuowen jiezi, with a core meaning of “linking the lower
and the upper” (下上通也), but it carries two different sounds, differentiated by two
different ways of writing: the one that goes from bottom to top is pronounced as
“chuang,” and the one that goes from top to bottom is pronounced as “tui” (引而上
行, 讀若囟; 引而下行, 讀若退). (Ibid, p. 20) These examples illustrate the fluidity
of Chinese language and provide coordinates for us to rethink the nature of the lines,
trigrams and hexagrams, as well as all the graphs and diagrams authored by later
philosophers.
From a linguistic point of view, there is always a core meaning (or an anchor
meaning) supporting the meaning system of a word family (a set of associative words
which have kinship relations). This core meaning can always be precisely obtained
and pinpointed through philological analysis. However, linguistic analysis will never
limit philosophical interpretation. Essentially, there are two ways of interpretation.
One follows the linguistic pathway to extend new meanings without deviating from
the anchor meaning, while the other follows the interpreter’s philosophical specula-
tion to a new horizon that may not have any connection with the linguistic setting.
The aforementioned examples may not imply that the yin and yang lines are definitely
characters instead of bare signifiers, but at least we may say that there are possibly
philosophic connotations embedded within the line system that includes the trigrams
and hexagrams composed of the broken and solid lines. As we know, the eight
trigrams came to exist in a group, not one by one, to represent systematic thoughts
which are interrelated and interdependent to each other; they are not meant to be
read individually and disparately one by one. If the trigram Qian represents “father”
and Kun represents “mother,” then the other six trigrams would become symbols
representing siblings—three brothers and three sisters. But if Qian and Kun are read
as symbols representing “Heaven” and “Earth,” then the symbolic meaning of the
other six trigrams should be understood as “Fire,” “Water,” “Mountain,” “Thunder,”
36 D. K. Cheng
“Wind,” and “Swamp.” Hence, when two trigrams combine to become one hexagram,
and when the sixty-four hexagrams combine to become thirty-two binary couples,
we can imagine how vast the expanse of interpretive creativity can be. This creativity
is reflected ultimately in the multiple expressions of the hexagram names, judgments
and sequences.
The multiple meanings of the hexagram names point to the fact that the Yijing is
a creative philosophical work with a delicately designed system of meanings, where
there is a core meaning on the one hand, and many extended associated meanings
on the other. Together, they form an organic structure which may be regarded as a
cohort of meanings, in which the fluidity of interpretations is not only possible but
also required. In the nexus of the gua, yao and ci, this fluidity has two characteristics.
The first is the philosophical coherence supported by a linguistic structure based on
the hieroglyphic form of the character and the audible sound. In the theory of the
hermeneutic circle, the philological context of the text serves not only as a medium
transmitting the original meaning assigned by the author to the reader, but also
an abstract, self-contained meaning system embedded within the articulation with
words, phrases and sentences. Hence, reading is a critical intellectual activity that
is related to understanding, which entails indispensable linguistic analysis. The so-
called hermeneutic circle is not a single but multiple circles that exist among the
author, the text (as represented by a specific language), and the reader (inspired, but
at the same time, limited by the boundary of his/her knowledge). Here we may take
note of the co-existence of both the openness and non-openness of interpretation.
Interpretation is open without any presumed limits because “meaning” can never be
confined to what may be called the “original meaning” intended by the author, to the
extent that we give credence to Roland Barthes’s (1915–1980) cogent idea of “The
Death of the Author” (1967) which honors the agency of the reader. (In this sense,
even the various interpretations derived from the misreading of the phrase jiri nai fu
己日乃孚 should also be legitimized as valuable contributions to the commentarial
tradition.) Yet, interpretation is also constrained because the linguistic settings and
contexts of any text are delimited and defined by the language components of the
words and sentences. In view of these two dialectical dynamics, can we ever close,
so to speak, the hermeneutic circle, so that we may arrive at some understanding,
which may be so definitive that it could exclude all other understandings? It seems
that the way to do so is to explore the meanings embedded within the linguistic
structure of the text, especially linking the multiple meanings embedded in the text
to those recorded in the exegeses and commentaries. The key method is to grasp the
core meaning through careful evidential research into the jing 經 (text) proper and
their many zhuan 傳 (commentaries), while bearing in mind that the authors of the
earliest commentaries and exegeses are plausibly the most trustworthy readers of the
original text.
Needless to say, we should never exclude new interpretations, as long as they
do not violate the meanings embedded in and conveyed by the native language of
the text. As mentioned above, in the case of the Yijing, it could be said that the
trigrams, hexagrams, names, line judgments, and so on were at one time all new
elements creatively developed from the basic yin-yang cosmological conception,
represented by two simple symbols “ ” and “ .” Take the first character yuan
“元” of the general judgment—yuanheng lizhen 元亨利貞—of Hexagram #1 Qian,
for example. The jiaguwen 甲骨文 (the oracle bone script) hieroglyphic form of yuan
“元” is actually a human head, the most important part of the human body as well as
the embodiment of our intelligence. This explains why Xu Shen 許慎 (2013, p. 1),
in his dictionary, the Shuowen jiezi, says that yuan “元” means shi 始 (beginning).
Several centuries after the Guayaoci had been authored, the author of the Tuan zhuan
honored #1 Qian as the beginning of all beings (wanwu zi shi 萬物資始). Based on
the hieroglyphic form of a human head, the Tuan zhuan elaborates the greatness of
Heaven:
Great indeed is the qian-yuan (supreme Creative) (dazai qianyuan 大哉乾元)
To which all beings owe their beginning. (wanwu zi shi 萬物資始)
Hence it is the ruler in Heaven. (nai tong tian 乃統天)
The clouds accumulate to release rain. (yun xing yu shi 雲行雨施)
It nurtures the earth to give birth to all beings. (pin wu liu xing 品物流形)
The sun rises and falls continuously. (dai-ming zhongshi 大明終始)
The six lines (representing the development of the nature) can then be accomplished. (liuwei
shi cheng 六位時成)
A junzi selects wisely the proper moment to ride on the creative force to approach heaven.
(shi cheng liulong yi yu tian 時乘六龍以御天)
There are only four characters in the general judgment of #1 Qian, and yet, the
Tuan zhuan developed them into a long passage. Obviously, the author of the Tuan
zhuan embraced the polysemy embedded in the judgments of the images and lines
of the hexagram, inducing and engendering new meanings and messages from the
character yuan “元,” and thus resulting in a poem built on multiple imageries—the
human head, the beginning, the sky with the sun, clouds and rain, and heaven—to
give praise to qian as a major creative force of heaven and for how it penetrates to
nurture all beings in nature.
By extending symbolic meanings of the trigrams and hexagrams, the author of
the Yijing easily borrowed the metaphors of one hexagram and applied them to
another. For example, the author of the Xiang zhuan 象傳 (Commentary on Symbols)
elaborates on the moral message of Hexagram #7 Shi 師 (Army): “Shi is the symbol
of water beneath the earth; a junzi should thus learn to embrace his people and
support his troops (di zhong you shui, shi; junzi yi rongmin xuzhong 地中有水, 師;
君子以容民畜眾). Those troops become a part of the author’s explanation of the
moral message of the hexagram stemmed from the embedded metaphor in the lower
trigram Kan 坎, which carries the meaning of “water” (based on the Shuogua zhuan
說卦傳 [Explaining the Hexagrams]) as well as “troops,” according to part four of
the chapter of “Jinyu 晉語” in the Guoyu 國語 (Discourses of the States), which
states: “Kan is the symbol of troops” (kan, zhong ye 坎, 眾也).
Among the Ten Wings, the Xici zhuan 繫辭傳 (Commentary on the Appended
Judgments) is famous for its creative interpretations. The first two hexagrams Qian
and Kun, which represent “Heaven” and “Earth,” are extended to two different ideas
38 D. K. Cheng
yi 易 (convenience) and jian 簡 (simplicity). Without mentioning or echoing the

metaphoric meaning of a combination of six yin lines and another combination of
six yang lines in the Guayaoci, the author further touches upon the convenient and
simple manner/nature of Qian and Kun. He argues that the “convenience of Heaven
is easy to know” (乾以易知) while the “simplicity of Earth is easy to function” (坤以
簡能). “Since it is easy to know, it lasts long” (有親則可久), and “since it is easy to
function, it accomplishes big” (有功則可大). “Last[ing] long” represents the moral
of a profound person, while “accomplish[ing] big” represents his career. The author
concludes the morals of these two beginning hexagrams by elaborating on their new
meanings creatively, and interprets how the spirit of “Heaven” and “Earth” creates
impact on the humanistic world by guiding the morality of the profound persons.
Considering the Yiwei’s 易緯 (Latitudes of the Yijing) multiple interpretations of the
word yi 易: jianyi 簡易 (convenience and simplicity), bianyi 變易 (changes), and
buyi 不易 (unchange). The author also echoes the etymological meaning of the word
yi 易 by splitting the meaning of the term jianyi 簡易 to interpret Hexagrams Qian
and Kun.
5 Concluding Remarks
In our present global world with countless transnational and cross-cultural activi-
ties spanning East and West, translation has become an important discipline unto
itself. For a fact, translations in different areas for varying purposes have their own
specific requirements. When dealing with ancient classics, translation is a highly
challenging task ultimately in pursuit of the philosophical meanings embedded in
the literal texts. In this case, language transmits not only literal meanings but also the
philosophical messages ensconced therein. Therefore, language itself is a core part
of philosophy. Translations of an ancient classic such as the Yijing must transcend
the surface verbal meanings and seek to reinterpret the text via both linguistic and
philosophical analyses, although the very beginning of such an endeavor must be the
exploration of the particularities of the original language with a view to revealing the
meaning hidden behind the original text. The Chinese fangkuaizi is a unity of form,
sound and meaning through various combinations. Some contain one hieroglyphic
form carrying one or more sound(s) related to different meanings; some borrow the
form of another character to represent a different sound and meaning; and some have
more than one form carrying a group of inter-related meanings with only one sound.
This chapter reveals how polysemy functions in the Yijing and the commentaries.
Some English translations are wise enough to provide two translations for a hexa-
gram name. Minford even provides two parts with two sets of translation to represent
the meanings of the texts in two chronological stages—the “Bronze Age Oracle” and
“Book of Wisdom.” However, most English translations have failed to disclose and
engage with the linguistic strategies of the Yijing.
The fluidity of Chinese language and the multiplicity of meanings of Chinese
characters should never be underestimated. For translators of the ancient Chinese
classics, especially the Yijing which is a philosophic classic, it may not be totally
effective to just distinguish variations of a character (yiwen) and to locate the sound
and meaning by simply checking old dictionaries, because the language of the text
has more or less become a sort of symbol—the form functioning somehow like
the graphic representation of a trigram or hexagram. Language is no longer just
a medium of carrying or transmitting meaning but a way of portraying a holistic
worldview, wherein there are connections among not only words and sounds, but
also things and beings within the heaven and the earth. In this light, translation is
hermeneutics. Knowing that the hermeneutic circle is a multitude of circles, the
translator navigates the texts to be rendered with due regard to the openness and
constraint of interpretations, producing new meanings that nonetheless pay homage
to the original ones intended by the authors of the exegesis and commentaries. By
selecting examples from a few English translations of the Yijing, this chapter aims
to draw attention to the particular linguistic nature of the ancient Chinese language,
reminding ourselves that since translation is the ground for the reception of the Yijing,
we need to produce good translated versions, which have to probe deeply into the
linguistic contexts of the words and phrases of the original text. To so describe and
prescribe the project of translation is not to criticize the work of particular scholars; it
is to encourage all of us to do a better job, as members of an interpretive community
with a shared future.
References
Cheng, Kat-hung 鄭吉雄. 2012. Zhouyi xuanyi quanjie 周易玄義詮解 (A Philological Approach to
the Philosophies of the Zhouyi). Taipei: Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia
Sinica.
Cheng, K.-H., and 鄭吉雄 . 2018. Zhouyi jieti周易階梯 (Steps to the Changes). Shanghai: Shanghai
guji chubanshe.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1975. Truth and Method. New York: Continuum.
Gao, Heng 高亨. 1984. Zhouyi gujing jinzhu 周易古經今注 (Zhouyi: The Old Classic with a New
Exegesis). Beijing: Chonghua shuju.
Li, Ding-zuo 李鼎祚. 1996. Zhouyi jijie 周易集解 (Comprehensive Interpretations of the Zhouyi).
Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan.
Lynn, R.J. 1994. The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang
Bi. New York: Colombia University Press.
Minford, J. 2015. I Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Oracle and Book of
Wisdom. New York: Penguin Books.
Redmond, G. 2017. The I Ching (Book of Changes): A Critical Translation of the Ancient Text. New
York: Bloomsbury.
Rutt, R. 1996. The Book of Changes (Zhouyi): A Bronze Age Document Translated with Introduction
and Notes. Surrey: Curzon Press.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 2012. On the Different Methods of Translating, trans. Susan Bernofsky.
In The Translation Studies Reader, third edition, ed. Lawrence Venuti, 43–63. Abingdon:
Routledge.
Yi Jing (I Ching) and Related Texts. New York: Columbia University Press.
40 D. K. Cheng
Wilhelm, Richard. 1964. The I Ching or Book of Changes, second edition, trans. Cary F. Baynes.
New York: Stratford Press.
Xu, Shen 許慎. 2013. Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (General Dictionary of Words and Characters). In
Shuowen jiezi zhu 說文解字注 (General Dictionary of Words and Characters with Notes), ed.
Duan Yu-cai 段玉裁. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Zhou, Zhen-fu 周振甫. 1993. Zhouyi yizhu 周易譯注 (Exegesis of the Modern Chinese Translation
of the Zhouyi). Taipei: Wunan tushu chuban.
Dennis Kat-hung Cheng is a Chair Professor of Cultural History at The Education Univer-
sity of Hong Kong. He is an expert in the text and philosophy of the Yijing and early modern
Chinese intellectual history. His books on the Yijing include Zhouyi jitei 周易階梯 (Shanghai guji
chubanshe, 2018) and Zhouyi xuanyi quanjie 周易玄義詮解 (Academia Sinica, 2012).
Chapter 4
Historicizing the Yijing
in the Anglophone World
Li-jing Wu
Abstract The Yijing was first introduced to the West by the Jesuits in the seven-
teenth century. Western scholars not only echoed the seemingly unlimited interpre-
tative possibilities of the book, but also displayed various ingenuities born out of the
Western culture. In this rich interpretative tradition of the Yijing in the West, there is a
process of historicization devoted to restore the book to the time of its formation and
reconstruct the original meaning of the text. This chapter examines this historical turn
in the studies of the Yijing in the English-speaking world. It focuses on two critical
moments of the historicizing process. The first moment is embodied in the Yijing
translation of James Legge (1815–1897) who located the book in the Shang-Zhou
transition and rendered it as a series of moral instructions given by King Wen to his
people. The second moment is represented by the studies of Edward L. Shaughnessy
and Richard A. Kunst who dated the Yijing back to the Western Zhou dynasty and
regarded it as a Bronze Age document. These two moments attempted to historicize
the Yijing so as to rationalize the textual incongruities and resolve the interpretative
uncertainties of the Yijing.
1 Introduction
The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) is known for its difficulty with regard to
the terse and cryptic language texts intertwined with the hexagram configurations,
the indeterminacy of its authorship and exact date of composition, and the histori-
cally accumulated commentaries reading various ideas into the core text ever since
its canonization in 136 BCE.1 It consists of two parts: the Basic Classic (benjing
本經) and the Ten Wings (shiyi 十翼). The Basic Classic includes sixty-four hexa-
gram figures (or graphs), each comprised of six solid and broken lines, and the written
1 As for the detailed discussion of the difficulty of the Yijing, see Smith (1993, pp. 1–15), Shaughnessy
(2014, pp. xiv–xviii) and Li (1997, p. 2).
L. Wu (B)
Department of Foreign Language Studies, Hefei Normal University, Hefei, China
e-mail: thincatalan@163.com
42 L. Wu
texts of hexagram names (guaming 卦名), hexagram statements (guaci 卦辭) and line
statements (yaoci 爻辭) in which miscellaneous omens, historical allusions, natural
and social wisdom, as well as occult divinatory terms are mixed together without
any discernable context.2 Traditionally, the figures were attributed to the legendary
Fu Xi, and the language texts were ascribed to King Wen and Duke of Zhou, but
they are generally forsaken by modern scholars.3 The Ten Wings are seven pieces of
commentary writings commonly known as Xici 繫辭 (Commentary on the Attached
Verbalizations), Tuan zhuan 彖傳 (Commentary on the Judgments), Xiang zhuan
象傳 (Commentary on the Images), Wenyan 文言 (Words of the Text), Shuogua
zhuan 說卦傳 (Explanation of the Trigrams), Xugua zhuan 序卦傳 (Hexagrams in
Sequence) and Zagua zhuan 雜卦傳 (Hexagrams in Irregular Order),4 with the first
three being divided into two parts respectively and thus making up six wings. In the
accepted version of the Yijing, Tuan zhuan, Xiang zhuan and Wenyan are inserted into
the Basic Classic to assist understanding of the texts. The Ten Wings were conven-
tionally considered works of Confucius, which had been constantly contested by
commentators of different times.5 It is generally accepted that the Yijing was orig-
inally used as a divination manual, but starting with the Ten Wings, commentators
have been mixing the philological explications of the texts with various philosoph-
ical, ethical and moral elaborations, making the book a repository of wisdom into
which astronomical, geographical, musical, military, phonetic, mathematical, and
even alchemical ideas all find their ways, as listed by the editors of the Siku quanshu
zongmu 四庫全書總目 (General Catalog for the Complete Collection of the Four
Treasuries)6 (Yong and Ji 1965, p. 1).
2 For the convenience of discussion, these language texts are divided respectively into xiangzhan
zhici 象占之辭 (Image), xushi zhici 敘事之辭 (Narration) and zhenzhao zhici 貞兆之辭 (Prognos-
tication), or the Topic, the Injunction, and the Prognostication and Verification (Li 1978, p. 108;
Shaughnessy 1983, pp. 116–126).
3 It is generally believed that the texts of the Basic Classic are divination recordings of the past
selected and compiled by a court diviner or diviners possibly in the Western Zhou period (1046–771
BCE) (Zhu 2012, pp. 46–51).
4 The translation of the name of each individual Wing is taken from Redmond and Hon (2014,
p. 140) with slight modifications.

5 Now it is assumed that the Ten Wings were compiled by disciples of Confucius or scholars of
the Confucian school during the Warring States and Western Han periods, roughly from the fifth
to the second century BCE. For detailed discussion of the Ten Wings, see Zhu (2012, pp. 54–103),
Redmond and Hon (2014, pp. 140–157), and Smith (2008, pp. 31–48).
6 Commentators of different ages read different implications into the words and phrases of the Yijing,
which are actually interests, anxieties and concerns of their own time. As for the discussion of the
relationships between the cosmos and humans derived from the Xici, see Peterson (1982, pp. 67–
116); for a discussion of the moral interpretations of the hexagram and line statements in the Zuo
zhuan 左傳 (Commentary of Zuo), see Smith et al. (1990, pp. 12–13) and Smith (1989, pp. 421–
478); for the discussion of the complex correlative system between the natural and human realms
and the calendrical, cosmic correspondences in the grouping and arrangement of the trigrams and
hexagrams as seen by the Han exegetes, see Smith (2008, pp. 57–88) and Hon (2019, pp. 1–16); and
for Wang Bi’s 王弼 ideas of human agency, Cheng Yi’s 程頤 and Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 philosophies of
moral metaphysics in the interpretations of the Yijing, see Redmond and Hon (2014, pp. 173–180).
4 Historicizing the Yijing in the Anglophone World 43
Undoubtedly, such a textually eccentric and culturally exotic classic caused intel-
lectual bewilderment when it traveled to the West. Therefore, ever since the Jesuits
introduced the Yijing into the West in the seventeenth century, it had been inter-
mittently understood as “a divinatory text, a philosophical text, simultaneously a
divinatory and a philosophical text, the basis of Chinese Universalism, a collec-
tion of proverbs, a political encyclopedia, an interpretative dictionary, a Bactrian-
Chinese dictionary, a phallic cosmogony, the most ancient historical document in
China, a binary system, the tricks of street fortune-telling,” and so on (Shchutskii
1979, p. 55). The multiplicity of meaning of the Yijing has been grossly enriched
in the process of comprehending, assimilating and adapting its radical otherness.
Thus, not only the Basic Classic, the Ten Wings, the Han facilitation of the book
embedded in the Mawangdui manuscript, Wang Bi’s commentary, and the Neo-
Confucian understanding of Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107) and Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–
1200) found their ways to the West, (Smith 1999, pp. 377–383; Smith 2012, p. xxi)
Christianity, psychology, clinical therapy, divination practice, music, science, mathe-
matics, computers, and even the countercultural movement and New Age Occultism
also related themselves to the studies of the Yijing (Smith 1999, pp. 377–383; Smith
2012, pp. 194–210; Redmond and Hon 2014, pp. 192–236).
Among these diversified interpretations, there are two contrasting and competing
tendencies. One is inclined to globalize the Yijing, appropriating it with the Western
mode of thinking or accommodating it in the Western cultural environment, while
the other is devoted to localize it, confining it to the Chinese origin and striving to
understand it as it is understood by the natives. The former trend has been exten-
sively discussed and profoundly explored—as seen in the Jesuits who explored the
mysteries of Christianity in the Yijing through the lens of Figurism, (Lackner 1991)
in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) who developed the binary number system
with references to the hexagrams and cosmological ideas in the book, (Swetz 2003)
and in Carl G. Jung (1875–1961) who linked his concept of synchronicity to the
oracle techniques of the book. (McEvilly 1968) The latter trend, though widely prac-
ticed and supported by a large number of followers, is less examined and analyzed.
This chapter will discuss the interpretative endeavor in the West in historicizing the
Yijing, that is, to reap a more concrete and definite understanding out of its interpreta-
tive uncertainties by attributing the book to specific authors or locating it in a specific
time. Seeing it as a practical way to localize the Yijing, this chapter will examine the
historical turn of the interpretations of the Yijing in the context of its globalization,
specifically in the Anglophone world, and analyze the co-dependence of its localiza-
tion and globalization. It will highlight two key moments. The first critical moment
appeared during the 1870s in the Yijing translation of James Legge (1815–1897) who
attributed the authorship of the Yijing to King Wen and Duke of Zhou, and thereby
placed the book in the context of the Shang-Zhou transition. In doing so, Legge read
the Yijing as a series of moral instructions given by King Wen to his people. The
second important moment began in the 1980s and was represented by the studies and
translations of Edward L. Shaughnessy, Richard A. Kunst and Richard Rutt among
others, who traced the book back to the Western Zhou dynasty (1046–771 BCE) and
thereby identified it as a Bronze Age document. Although these two moments are
44 L. Wu
separated by more than a hundred years, the two historical approaches are somehow
linked together because both are seeking to return to the earliest times by finding
the original meaning of the text. By investigating the contexts, representations and
significance of the two historic moments, this study intends to assess the strengths
and limitations of the historical approaches in understanding and interpreting the
Yijing and its place in the global–local dynamic of the Yijing travel across time and
space.
2 The Yijing as Moral Teachings of the Shang-Zhou

Transition
James Legge was the first translator attempting to historicize the Yijing among his
contemporaries. Before his translation was published, there was already a complete
version by Thomas McClatchie (1812–1885) who tried to interpret the book from the
Christian perspective. As soon as Legge’s Yi King (1882) was released, Terrian de
Lacouperie (1844–1894) wrote lengthy articles attacking it relentlessly, and promised
to work out his own version with a scientific approach. To some extent, Legge
distinguished himself remarkably from McClatchie and Lacouperie by employing a
“seeing of mind to mind” method and reading the Yijing as moral teachings of King
Wen issued to his people in the time of the Shang-Zhou transition.
McClatchie’s Christianized approach in interpreting the Yijing is manifested in
two contrasting aspects. On the one hand, he employed the so-called “comparative
mythology” as the right key to “open the mysteries” of the Yijing, and compared
the Yijing with works of Greek philosophers and Hindu mythologies to illustrate
the heathen mode of thought (McClatchie 1973, pp. v–vi). When translating Hexa-
gram #1 Qian乾 (The Creative7 ), McClatchie related the Chinese Dragon-King to
“the Neptune of the West” and “the Matsya or Fish Avatara of Vishmu,” which are
respective gods of Greek and Hindu mythologies. He also compared the Junzi 君子
(the Model Man as he translated) to “the Sapiens of the Stoics” which were created
by Greek philosophers (Ibid, p. 2). What’s more, McClatchie managed to find phallic
worship of the early Chinese people in the text of the Yijing. He regarded Qian-Kun
or Shang-te as the phallic God of Heathendom. Qian, or his male portion, is the
membrum virile (male organ), while Qun 坤, or his female portion, is the pudendum
muliebre (female organ), and these two are enclosed in the Great Extreme from
which all things are generated. He associated the phallic God to Linga and Yoni of
the Hindus to confirm it as a general practice of pagan worship (McClatchie 1876,
pp. 257–258). Since the Dragon (long 龍) in #1 Qian is the same as Shang-te, then
“the Dragon is the membrum virile.” (Ibid, p. 261) The phrase of #11 Tai 泰 (Peace)
in the Tuan zhuan—tian di jiao 天地交 (Heaven and earth in communication with
each other)—is translated into “Heaven and Earth having now conjugal intercourse,”
7 Unlessotherwise noted, all the translations of the hexagram names follow the Wilhelm-Baynes I
Ching for the convenience of discussion.
(Ibid, p. 62) which saw Legge as rendering too much “grossness” into a text that
does not have any shadow of it (Legge 1963, p. 224). On the other hand, McClatchie
understood much of the Yijing text in the framework of Christianity. Believing that
Confucian cosmogony was derived from the Yijing, McClatchie (1874, pp. 143, 161)
thought the meaning of the book title denoted that the classic “contains the history
of the various Changes and Transformations which take place during the formation
of the various parts of the Kosmos.” According to McClatchie, Noah, his wife and
six children are compared to the eight trigrams of the Yijing. The Universe dies in
Hexagram #23 Bo 剝 (Splitting Apart) and comes forth anew in Hexagram #24 Fu
複 (Return). After the chaotic flood which destroys the former world, Qian emerges
with his wife and six children, namely his three sons and their three wives, from #2
Qun (The Receptive), also regarded as the Great Receptacle, as in a ship, in which
all things are stored up and preserved from the deluge, and proceeds to form a new
world (McClatchie 1973, pp. xii–xiii, 454–455). McClatchie followed the accepted
Chinese version of the Yijing combining the Tuan zhuan, the Xiang zhuan and the
Wenyan with the Basic Classic, but mistook the author of the Tuan zhuan for King
Wen and that of the Xiang for Duke of Zhou, which is against the commentarial tradi-
tion of China. In a word, McClatchie found in the Yijing so many “sundry things”
that never entered “the minds of Chinese scholars to conceive of them” that Legge
claimed he had followed McClatchie’s translation “from paragraph to paragraph and
from sentence to sentence,” but found nothing he could employ with advantage in
his own translation (Legge 1963, p. xvii).
In contrast with McClatchie’s approach, Lacouperie promised to study and inter-
pret the book in a scientific way. He affirms that the Yijing is “composed of mere
lists of meanings of characters” similar to syllabaries from Babylonia which reflect
the feature of the old Accadian culture (Lacouperie 1883, p. 260; 1882, p. 782).
Therefore, “it is of absolute necessity to separate the commentaries from the text,
and to treat of the latter alone for a scientific study of the contents of the text, and
how it has been made.” (Ibid, p. 788). Lacouperie was proud that he was “the first
among Sinologists to openly disconnect the text from the appendices,” and declared
that a “real and true” translation of the Yijing is possible only after having labored
patiently and extensively for a long time “in paleographical researches and linguistic
studies.” (Ibid; Lacouperie 1883, p. 266). According to him, the greatest number
of the sixty-four chapters of the Yijing are “nothing but mere lists of the different
meanings of the leading characters which is the subject of each chapter,” and “several
of these meanings are often connected, when they are the natural extension by the
evolution of ideas of the primitive meaning.” (Ibid, p. 253). He offered an explanation
of #38 Kui 睽 (Opposition), thinking that it “consists of a vocabulary of the char-
acter 癸 instead of the modern writing 睽.” Regarding the line statement of 38/3,8
jian yu ye, qi niu che, qiren tian qie yi 見輿曳, 其牛掣, 其人天且劓 (One sees the
wagon dragged back, the oxen halted, and the man’s head is shaved, his nose cut off),
Lacouperie claims that the character ren 人 (man) is originally ru 入 (to enter), and
8 38/3
refers to the third line of Hexagram #38, in the similar manner 54/5 refers to the fifth line of
Hexagram #54. The position of lines mentioned in this chapter will follow this pattern.
46 L. Wu
the statement actually indicates five different meanings of the character gui 癸: (1)
to see (jian 見, as in kui 睽); (2) to draw a chariot (yuye 輿曳, as in kui 騤); (3) an ox
yoke (niuche 牛掣); (4) it is in the Heaven (qi ru tian 其入天, as in kui 暌); and (5)
to slit the nose (yi 劓, as in kui 戣) (Ibid, p. 255). Lacouperie spoke very lightly of
the traditional Chinese commentaries and the existing English translations, satirizing
that “we do not know really which is the greater wonder, the marvelous patience of a
hundred generations of Chinamen in piling up distorted and fantastic interpretations,
and building this extraordinary Babel of nonsense and ingenuity, or the courage of
European scholars who believe in it and present the achievement of such an interpre-
tation as a bona fide written book.” (Ibid, p. 253). Unfortunately, Lacouperie did not
accomplish his promised translation of the Yijing, and his ambition to “throw new
light on the written characters of China or on its speech” by discoveries in Accadian
language remained unfulfilled (Legge 1963, p. xix).
Being a “missionary-cum-Sinologist” immersed in both Christianity and Chinese
classics for more than forty years, Legge fully understood the exegetical value and
cultural significance of the Yijing and its commentaries (Girardot 2002a, p. 15).
Therefore, he criticized McClatchie and Lacouperie for their blithe unawareness
of the structural, historical, and authorial problems with the Yijing text, and their
ignorant dismissal of native scholarship, especially the latter’s blatant disregard for
the actual contents of the classic (Ibid, p. 371). The Christian superiority upheld
by McClatchie and the Eurocentric perspective taken by Lacouperie are definitely
obstacles to a true understanding of the scope and method of the Yijing, but blindly
following the traditional Chinese commentaries would not provide any insightful
syntactical connections in illuminating the hidden meaning of the text either. How to
access the Yijing in the culture of Christianity became a problem to Legge. The only
option to make sense of the book, it seemed to Legge, lies in historicizing the text,
that is, to pinpoint a specific time for the Yijing text and bring his mind “en rapport
with that of the author,” which is called the “seeing of mind to mind” method (Legge
1963, p. xv). This method has its root in Legge’s scholastic surroundings, as Girardot
(2002a, pp. 360–361) points out:
In the nineteenth century, scholarship in both Western and Chinese tradition was turning
away from the old commentarial conviction in the undisturbed authority of ancient classical
or sacred books to a contextualized critical, academic, or secular focus on a text’s historic-
ity…the main loci of profound meaning in the past were not classical texts, but the histor-
ical eras that these texts and other source materials illuminated. As Müller also constantly
reminded his audience, the Sacred Books of the East were primarily interesting and valuable
as historical documents—not because of their own intrinsic profundity or sacredness.
Legge, a professor of Chinese at Oxford University, joined the renewed project

of Max Müller (1823–1900) to find historical facts preserved in the Oriental scrip-
tures for “studying the origin and development of religions throughout the world.”
(Ibid, p. 346). He had his newly translated Yi King published as Volume 16 of the
Sacred Books of the East (1879–1891) in relation to Müller’s comparative science of
religion. With regard to this science, Legge developed a comparative concern for his
understanding of Confucianism as a “theistic and moral religion.” (Girardot 2002b,
p. 163). The Yijing ranked high on the lists of Confucian classics; though originating
as a divination manual, it should not be understood as a book of divination. Wrapped
up in the mysterious phraseology were “the teachings of King Wen and his son,” the
Duke of Zhou (Legge 1963, pp. xiii–xv). In order to place the classic in the time of
its origin and achieve his goal of “seeing of mind to mind” with the author, Legge
separated the Basic Classic from the Ten Wings after the fashion of compiling Zhouyi
zhezhong 周易折中 (Equitable Judgments on Interpretations of the Zhouyi). He also
excluded the legendary Fu Xi from the composition of the book, denied Confucius
as the author of the Ten Wings, and ascribed the earliest language texts to King Wen
and Duke of Zhou (Ibid, pp. 5–8). In doing so, he freed himself from the exegetical
bonds forged between the core texts and the commentaries, and confined the texts
exclusively to the time of the Shang-Zhou transition.
It was generally believed that the earliest core texts were primarily used for divina-
tion, but Legge held a fairly low opinion on this practice, claiming it “vain” and
“absurd,” and asserting that “the language of the Appendix (the Ten Wings) on the
knowledge of the future given by the use of the Yi is often incautious, and a cursory
reader may be misled; to a careful student, however, the meaning is plain.” (Ibid,
pp. 41–43). As “a careful student,” Legge managed to avoid the misleading commen-
taries and figure out the “plain meaning” of the text by uprooting it from the divinatory
soil and planting it in the garden of symbolism. He ascertained that both King Wen
and Duke of Zhou were familiar with the practice of divination at their time, but they
were not divining themselves (Ibid, p. 10). King Wen studied the figures (graphs) as
a pretention to “lull the suspicions of his dangerous enemy.” (Ibid, p. 21). During his
time, the kingdom under the sovereigns of the Shang dynasty was “utterly disorga-
nized and demoralized,” and the character of the monarch was “villainous and bad,”
but King Wen, succeeding his father in 1185 BCE, was “a model of all that was good
and attractive” and “conducted himself with remarkable wisdom and self-restraint.”
Though princes and people would have rejoiced to follow him to attack the tyrant,
he shrank from “exposing himself to the charge of being disloyal.” Thus he was
captured and thrown into prison in Youli 羑里. While imprisoned,
He made it (each hexagram) tell him of the qualities of various objects of nature, or of the
principles of human society, or of the condition, actual and possible, of the kingdom. He
named the figures, each by a term descriptive of the idea with which he had connected it
in his mind, and then he proceeded to set that idea forth, now with a note of exhortation,
now with a note of warning. It was an attempt to restrict the follies of divination within the
bounds of reason. (Ibid)
Duke of Zhou, possibly out of filial piety, wrote each line statement in accor-
dance with his father’s intention, which suggested “some phenomenon in nature or
some case of human experience, from which the wisdom or folly, the luckiness or
unluckiness, indicated by it could be inferred.” (Ibid, p. 22). As a result, the Yijing
became an enigmatic and symbolic book “consisting of sixty-four short essays…on
important themes, mostly of a moral, social and political character.” (Ibid, p. 10).
Legge saw in every hexagram a “particular state of affairs” which King Wen and
Duke of Zhou had in mind so as to “make his way with comfort and success through
the Yi.” (Ibid, p. 63). This is the display of the “seeing of mind to mind,” that is, the
48 L. Wu
symbolic characters in the Yijing had constantly brought Legge’s mind “en rapport
with its author,” namely King Wen and Duke of Zhou (Ibid, pp. xv–xvi).
It is comparatively easy for Legge to specify those line statements that are
supposed to indicate real historical anecdotes, which to some extent testifies his
historiographical approach. What he needed to do was to clarify them with seem-
ingly actual happenings in the past. For instance, the line statements of 11/5 and
54/5 include Diyi guimei 帝乙歸妹 which is believed to allude to a historical event.
Legge wrote that Diyi 帝乙 was “the last sovereign but one of the Yin dynasty,
reigned from 1191 to 1155 BC,” and he “was the first to enact a law that daughters of
the royal houses, in marrying princes of the states, should be in subjection to them,
as if they were not superior to them in rank.” (Ibid, pp. 83–84) This partly explains
the statement of 54/5, suggesting that “the sleeves of her the princess were not equal
to those of the (still) younger sister who accompanied her in an inferior capacity.”
(Ibid, p. 182). The line statement of 63/3 Gaozong fa guifang 高宗伐鬼方 and 64/4
Zhenyong fa guifang 震用伐鬼方 are also said to contain historical allusions. So
Legge explains in the note that Gaozong is the sacrificial title of Wu Ding, “one of
the ablest sovereigns of the Shang dynasty, who undertook an expedition against the
barbarous borders of the cold and bleak regions north of the Middle States.” (Ibid,
p. 207). These explanations enhance the impression that the Yijing is a book written
by King Wen and Duke of Zhou to educate and guide their people with reference to
real past events.
As for the hexagram and line statements with no connection to the history of
the Shang and the Zhou dynasties, Legge interpreted them emblematically and this
is where the “seeing of mind to mind” method really works. It is Legge’s way to
domesticate the Yjing into a purely historical text and to explain away different
voices in the text. In this way, King Wen discerned in Hexagram #7 Shi 師 (The
Army) the feudal hosts in the field to fight against the tyranny of the sovereign of
Shang, and laid down the rules of military expedition and principles for warfare
(Ibid, pp. 22–25); he denoted in #16 Yu 豫 (Enthusiasm) “a condition of harmony
and happy contentment throughout the kingdom, when the people rejoiced in and
readily obeyed their sovereign” (Ibid, p. 92); #20 Guan 觀 (Contemplation/View)
“symbolizes the sovereign by a worshipper when he is most solemn in his religious
service, at the commencement of it, full of sincerity and with a dignified carriage”
(Ibid, p. 100); #33 Dun 遯 (Retreat) suggested to King Wen “the growth of small
and unprincipled men in the state, before whose advance superior men were obliged
to retire” (Ibid, p. 128); and in #63 Jiji 既濟 (After Completion) “King Wen was
thinking of the condition of the kingdom, at length at rest and quiet.”9 (Ibid, p. 206).
In the name of this translation method, Legge was justified to add words or even
sentences to reveal what the mind of the writer supplied for itself, and obtained for
himself a “poetic license” to relate hexagrams which lack specific historical contexts
with the ideas and advice from King Wen to various objects and in various conditions
(Hon 2005, pp. 323–324). This is the reason why Legge’s translation was criticized
9 Tze-ki Hon analyzed the first ten hexagrams in great detail to illustrate how Legge transformed
the Yijing from a divinatory text into a historical document, see Hon (2005, pp. 320–323).
by Lacouperie (1883, p. 263) as “writing his own views instead of those of his author”
and “having nothing to do with a sound scholarship,” and by Thomas W. Kingsmill
(1837–1910) (1882, p. 92) as not only intelligible but also making “the author’s plain
words bear any meaning whatever at the fancy of the manipulator.”
However, Legge’s approach of attributing the composition of the language texts
of the Yijing to King Wen and Duke of Zhou, as well as presuming what they had
in mind when writing these statements, would bring the reader back to the historical
scenes of the Shang-Zhou transition on a certain level, though the enigmatic and
symbolic meanings derived from these scenes are mostly hypothetical, lacking solid
evidence. He was the first to insist on understanding the Yijing in its own historical
context instead of in a Christianized knowledge framework or from a Eurocentric
perspective. In this sense, Legge set the stage for later researchers and translators to
read the Yijing as an authentic Chinese text deeply rooted in its own history and with
its unique value.
3 The Zhouyi as a Bronze Age Document
In contrast to the Christianized appropriation of the Yijing by McClatchie and its

proclaimed scientification by Lacouperie, Legge’s historicization of the classic was
the only complete “intelligible translation” in the West and “remained the standard
English version of the Changes until the mid-twentieth century (Girardot 2002a,
p. 366; Smith 2012, p. 185). The publication of Wilhelm and Baynes’ I Ching (1950)
and the popularity it has enjoyed ever since have greatly overshadowed Legge’s
translation, making the Yijing a global property containing timeless wisdom to all
humankind (Ibid, p. 189). In the meantime, the political revolutions in mainland
China since 1949 practically made all the local research findings of the Yijing inac-
cessible to the Anglophone world. After the opening-up of China to the West in the
late 1970s, the historical approach developed at the turn of the twentieth century
was somehow revived and resurrected. Since the 1980s, there have been interpretive
efforts in the English-speaking countries seeking to recover the original meaning of
the Yijing as a divination manual in the time of its composition. The first work was
completed by Edward L. Shaughnessy (1983, p. 13) in his Ph.D. thesis striving to
“address the twin questions of how the Zhouyi came into being and what it meant to
its original composers” using the method of “context criticism.” It was immediately
followed by Richard A. Kunst (1985, p. viii) in his doctoral dissertation pursuing “a
ruthless literal-mindedness” in reconstructing the original meaning of the Yijing text
“closer to that of the relatively simple Western Zhou Chinese people of 3000 years
ago” with the application of a “strict constructionist method.” Though these two
dissertations were not published, the historiographical approach to “return ancient
Chinese text to the immediate historical contexts of their composition and to interpret
their language within the strictures of that context” initiated by Shaughnessy (1992,
p. 587) and Kunst has been adopted by many translators and researchers, among
whom are Richard Rutt, Richard Gotshalk, and Margaret J. Pearson. To some extent,
50 L. Wu
this historical turn appears similar to the previous one in historicizing the Yijing, but
it is fundamentally different in the fact that it was a response to the Cold War China
instead of the late Qing China.
This historical turn appeared first as a response to the philosophization and
psychologization of the Yijing embodied in the Wilhelm-Baynes translation “trans-
forming a text that was originally used in divination into a repository of wisdom” with
universal themes (Ibid). The German I Ging (1924) translated by Richard Wilhelm
(1873–1930) and its retranslation as the I Ching into the Anglophone world by Cary
F. Baynes (1905–1990) have successfully legitimated the book as a source of wisdom
and promoted its practical use for divination in the West, especially with the famous
foreword by C. G. Jung as an endorsement of its credibility in divination (Hacker
et al. 2002, p. XIV). The Wilhelm-Baynes translation separated the Yijing from its
origin and made it a world classic. To Yijing scholars, “it is the best that has ever been
done in the West in the study of the book” (Shchutskii 1979, p. 45); and to the general
public, it reads like a contemporary discourse, gives people advice and instructions,
enables them to make decisions, and offers them a sense of tranquility (McGuire 1974,
pp. 10–13). Therefore, it opens numerous interpretive possibilities in the academic
world as well as the public domain, and has been followed by an endless stream of
other translations, versions, commentaries, and divinatory guidebooks. It is further
correlated with Western occult traditions, penetrating into Western consciousness,
appearing in novels, poems and songs, and spreading widely among the computer-
literate and surfers of the Internet (Hacker et al. 2002, pp. XIV–XV). This seemingly
boundless assimilation and accommodation of the Yijing has distanced it further
from its native tradition, and gradually upset many Western scholars who specialize
in China studies.
As Paul A. Cohen summarized, the Western-centrism embodied in the “impact-
response,” the “tradition-modernity” and the “imperialism” approaches, which were
most influential among American historians in the 1950s and 1960s, had greatly
distorted Chinese past reality. Therefore, a new approach upheld by its practitioners
since the 1970s has “striven empathetically to reconstruct the Chinese past as the
Chinese themselves experienced it rather than in terms of an imported sense of histor-
ical problem.” (Cohen 2010, pp. x–xii). This “China-centeredness” also found its
way in the studies and interpretation of the Yijing, as shown in Shaughnessy’s book
in which he publicly claimed his approach in accessing Chinese ancient history,
zhongzhong xueshu 中中學術 (China-centered research), that is, “to explain the
development of China in terms of its own native factors.” (Shaughnessy 2012, p. 337).
In other words, the second historical turn in the 1980s had its origins also in China, as
seen in Shaughnessy’s (1983, pp. 8–11) dissertation and mentioned by Kunst (1985,
pp. vii–viii). The scholars who enabled this turn were inspired and influenced by a
group of Chinese historians, among whom were the renowned skeptics of the 1920s
led by Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 (1893–1980) and Li Jingchi 李鏡池 (1902–1975) who
challenged the credibility of the earliest history of China and were thereafter called
Gushi bianpai 古史辨派 (School of Debates on Ancient History). They treated the
Yjing as a historical document instead of a sacred classic, and explored its nature,
date of composition, authorship and origin in a comparatively objective way. In the
article “Zhouyi guayaoci zhong de gushi” 周易卦爻辭中的故事 (Stories among the

Hexagram and Line Statements of the Zhouyi), Gu used carvings from the excavated
oracle bones, recordings in the Shijing 詩經 (Book of Songs) and research findings
of Wang Guowei 王國維 (1877–1927) to clarify five stories cited in the line state-
ments. For example, he thought that sang yang yu yi 喪羊于易 (lost sheep at Yi)
in #34 Dazhuang 大壯 and sang niu yu yi 喪牛于易 (lost cattle at Yi) in #56 Lü
旅 actually refer to that Wang Hai 王亥, the ancestor of the Shang dynasty, lost
his sheep and cattle to the ethnic minority Youyi 有易; Diyi guimei in both #11
Tai and #54 Guimei refers to that King Diyi betrothed his daughter to King Wen
(Gu 1982, pp. 1–28). In the article “Zhouyi shici kao” 周易筮辭考 (Investigations
of Zhouyi Divination Language), Li discussed the nature, content and form of the
Zhouyi. He thought that the texts of the Zhouyi were recordings of actual divination
by divining historians, and they were composed in the early Western Zhou dynasty
in very terse and cryptic forms; the contents of the text mirrored as many topics
of the divination in its forming years as traveling, war, sacrifice, marriage, food,
fishing and hunting, family, childbearing, disease, rewards and punishment, and so
on. The hexagram and line statements consist of two different writing styles, namely
prosaic prognoses and rhymed verses. Comparing the Zhouyi with the Shijing, he
thought that the composers of the Zhouyi had possibly collected the then popular
songs and compiled them into the book. As for prognoses, a large portion of them
was selected from the old divining recordings, whereas a small portion was created
by the composers themselves, including stories, poems and aphorisms (Li 1982,
pp. 187–239).10
Gu’s and Li’s articles have had far-reaching influences then and now, and many
acclaimed historical studies of the Yijing are primarily based on their discussions,
among which the earliest forerunner is the article “The Book of Changes” written
by Arthur Waley (1889–1966) who, inspired by the works of Gu and Li, employed
historical and anthropological methods to interpret many of the hexagram and line
statements. Waley claimed that the Yijing is a book of divination instead of a philo-
sophical work, consisting of two separate books—an omen or a peasant’s interpre-
tation, and a more sophisticated divination text. The omen text is in verse form,
and the divination text is in prose style (Waley 1933, pp. 121–122). He proposed
many unconventional interpretations of certain hexagram and line statements. For
example, #4 Meng 蒙 is interpreted as “the dodder, an epiphyte which grows on
10 Other Chinese historians who engaged in the second historical turn include Qu Wanli 屈萬里
(1907–1979), Guo Moruo 郭沫若 (1892–1978), Wen Yiduo 聞一多 (1899–1946) and Gao Heng
高亨 (1900–1986). As historians specializing in the studies of the Yijing, they are divided into three
slightly different groups with regard to their approaches: the first group applied the famous erchong
zhengjufa 二重證據法 (double proof method) proposed by Wang Guowei, combining unearthed
sources with existing paper sources to prove or disprove the credibility of the ancient history depicted
in the Yijing, as seen in Gu’s and Li’s articles; the second group employed historical materialism to
reveal the political and social life as well as the mind of people in early China in the book, as shown
in Guo’s (1982, pp. 32–67) research; the third group used textual criticism to study the Zhouyi text
itself and explore the true meaning of the earliest text used as a divination manual, as shown in the
statements of Wen (1993, p. 189) and Gao (1984, p. 4). Liu Dajun 劉大鈞 has provided a detailed
summary of the three different groups, see Liu (2010, p. 4).
52 L. Wu
bushes,” instead of the traditional explanation “cultivating”; #5 Xu 需 is understood

as “a kind of insect or worm” instead of the conventional “to wait patiently”; #33
Zhun 遯 is “pig” instead of “hide”; #36 Mingyi 明夷 is “the name of a bird” instead
of “damage to the eye”; #25 Wuwang 無妄, which is supposed to be related to the
scapegoat ritual, is interpreted as “the name of a disease as well as the name of the
spirit which causes it”; 25/3 Wuwang zhizai, huo xizhi niu 無妄之災, 或系之牛 is
translated into “The pest wu-wang, if you tie it to a bull, the passer-by will get the
village people’s pest”; and 25/5 Wuwang zhiji, wuyao youxi 無妄之疾, 勿藥有喜 is
“The disease wu-wang needs no medicine for its cure.” (Ibid, pp. 123–132). In the
Wilhelm-Baynes translation, the former line is “Undeserved misfortune. The cow
that was tethered by someone is the wanderer’s gain, the citizen’s loss”; and the
latter one is “Use no medicine in an illness incurred through no fault of your own.
It will pass of itself.” (Wilhelm 1964, pp. 102–103). By comparison, we can find
the obvious difference between these two versions: Wilhelm-Baynes’ translation is
moral-oriented and rich in associations, but Waley’s interpretation is fact-based and
probes into the actual happenings. Wilhelm understands it as unexpected misfortune
or evil befalling a man, connecting with one’s destiny, whereas Waley cites anthro-
pological evidence to support his claim that the rites of the scapegoat were common,
so it is justifiable for him to read the relevant texts in this hexagram as real practice
in the primitive society. Considering that wuwang zhizai 無妄之災 has become a
proverbial phrase in Chinese to mean unexpected misfortune, we may find Waley’s
imagination and ingenuity in the new interpretations more impressive, and his inno-
vative work has illuminated many later translators. After Waley, Nathan Sivin (1966,
p. 293) followed the same historical trend and stressed the new understanding of the
Yijing as a “jumble of straightforward divination judgments and rhymed but not often
truncated proverbs or sayings.” He proposed a new translation of #36 Mingyi. Like
Waley, he also adopted Li Jingchi’s understanding of it as the name of a bird instead of
the traditional “damage to the eye” (Waley 1933, p. 127), or “darkening of the light”
as translated in the Wilhelm-Baynes version (Wilhelm 1964, p. 139). Therefore, the
line of 36/5 Jizi zhi mingyi 箕子之明夷 becomes “Chi-tzu’s Ming-i. Prognostication:
Advantageous”—a bird kept by the historical figure Jizi (Sivin 1966, pp. 296–298).
Waley and Sivin were the pioneers of this historical turn, echoing the prevailing
historical trend in China, but under the dominance of Wilhelm-Baynes’ translation,
their efforts were more or less overwhelmed. It is Shaughnessy and Kunst who really
paved the way for the historicization of the Yijing, or the reconstruction of the original
meaning of the Zhouyi in the West. They generally distinguished between the studies
of the Zhouyi and the Yijing, with the former referring exclusively to the hexagram
and line statements, understood especially within the context of the Western Zhou
dynasty, and the latter reserved for the canonical text inclusive of the Ten Wings,
all of which were regarded as a classic (Shaughnessy 1983, p. 14). Their transla-
tions and research focused only on the Zhouyi, leaving the Ten Wings aside, which
was considered as an obstacle to reaching the correct understanding of the original
meaning.
In his doctoral dissertation, Shaughnessy (Ibid) claims that the method he applies
to study the Zhouyi is “context criticism”:
By context criticism, I intend a historical approach to literary criticism in which the target
text is interpreted within the context of a specific historical time and place. I should like to
make it clear here that context criticism of any text need not refer exclusively to only one
context; e.g., therefore, a context critical approach could equally well be used to study the
Zhouyi within the context of the Spring and Autumn period, to study the Yijing within the
context of the Han dynasty, within the context of the Song dynasty, or with any specified
cultural context. Needless to say, the depth of the criticism will depend on the specificity of
the context. In this study of the composition of the Zhouyi, the context will be shown to be
the royal court of the late Western Zhou dynasty.
Although context criticism is a dynamic method, Shaughnessy targeted it specifi-

cally at “the royal court of the late Western Zhou dynasty,” to be more specific, in “the
last two decades of the ninth century.” (Ibid, p. 49). On the other hand, Kunst (1985,
pp. 2–3) holds that the Zhouyi is a divination manual “of gradual accretion over
centuries and was written down by a single editor in about 800 BCE and subjected
it to extensive polishing”; by nature, “it is an anthology of omens, popular sayings,
prognostication, historical anecdotes, nature wisdom, and the like, which have all
been blended together and structured around a framework of hexagrams.” Kunst
provided a complete translation of the Zhouyi text, which has ever since become a
constant reference for later translators and researchers.
The recovery or reconstruction of the original meaning of the Yijing in the light of
this new historical turn has produced many distinguishable results. Firstly, since the
original text is separated from the later commentaries, many moral, ethical, philo-
sophical, psychological and mystical elements are removed from the interpretations
of the hexagram and line statements, resulting in a number of completely new trans-
lations. Consciously ignoring the traditional commentaries, the interpreters of this
historic moment referred extensively to various resources from inscriptions on oracle
bones and bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties to the Shijing and the
Zhouli 周禮 (Rites of Zhou), to help them resolve the original meaning of the text.
Therefore, many hexagrams are to the largest extent linked with plants, animals, birds,
natural phenomena and human activities. In Hexagram #16 Yu, Kunst understands
it as “elephant,” so mingyu 鳴豫 becomes “a trumpeting elephant,” and mingyu
冥豫 “an elephant in the darkness.”11 (Ibid, p. 271) #18 Gu 蠱 is translated into
“pestilence,” so gan fu zhi gug 幹父之蠱 is “a stern father’s pestilence,” and yu fu
zhi gu 裕父之蠱 “the pestilence of a ‘bathing’ father (whose son currently bathes
in the “Hot Water Valley” of the Mulberry Tree in the East),” and Yu 裕 is replaced
by its homophone Yu 浴 (bathing).12 (Ibid, p. 275) #19 Lin 臨 is translated into
“wailing,” and xianlin 咸臨 is “salting tears of wailing,” ganlin 甘臨 “sweet tears of
wailing,” zhilin 至臨 “wailing to an extreme,” and dunlin 敦臨 “copious wailing,”
but the statement of the fifth line zhilin, dajun zhiyi ji 知臨, 大君之宜吉 is translated
into “Expertly oversee the great ruler’s Yi sacrifice to the soil,” with lin 臨 being
11 Wilhelm-Baynes’ translation is “enthusiasm,” and the related phrases are translated into
“enthusiasm that expresses itself” and “deluded enthusiasm.” (Wilhelm 1964, pp. 67–71).
12 Wilhelm-Baynes’ translation is “work on what has been spoiled/decayed,” and the related line
statements are translated into “setting right what has been spoiled by the father,” “tolerating what
has been spoiled by the father.” (Ibid, pp. 75–78).
54 L. Wu
interpreted as “oversee” without a note.13 (Ibid, p. 277) #27 Yi 頤 becomes “molars”

(Ibid, p. 293) (Wilhelm-Baynes, hereafter referred to as WB or simply Wilhelm:
The Corners of the Mouth/Providing Nourishment); #30 Li 離 is translated into “a
lia bird (lyrebird)” (Ibid, p. 299) (WB: The Clinging/Fire); #31 Xian咸 is “cut off”
(Ibid, p. 301) (WB: Influence/Wooing); #36 Mingyi 明夷 is understood as mingzhi
鳴雉 and translated into “The Calling Pheasant” (Ibid, p. 311); and #60 Jie 節 is
understood as “joint” (Ibid, p. 359) (WB: Limitation). If we regard Wilhelm’s inter-
pretations as an amalgamation of the historically accumulated explanations mingled
with the Western perspective and the modern way of English expression, we can find
its clear distinction from Kunst’s understanding. Kunst tried all means to break away
from the traditional exegetics both in China and in the West, in order to render it
understandable. Later translators such as Richard Rutt and Richard Gotshalk were
to a certain degree inspired by Kunst’s practice and tried to associate the hexagrams
with concrete objects or phenomena. Rutt was very thorough in using direct words
to convey the meaning of the Zhouyi, as seen in the hexagram names he translated,
which carry simpler and clearer meanings than Wilhelm’s translation. For example,
#2 Kun 坤 is translated into “earth” (WB: The Receptive); #11 Tai 泰 is “great”; #12
Pi 否 is “bad” (WB: Standstill/Stagnation); #15 Qian 謙 is “rat”; #16 Yu 豫 is “ele-
phant”; #18 Gu 蠱 is “mildew”; #23 Bo 剝 is “flaying” (WB: Splitting Apart); #30
Li 離 is “oriole”; #31 Xian 咸 is “chopping” (WB: Influence/Wooing); #36 Mingyi
明夷 is “crying pheasant”; #37 Kui 睽 is “espy” (WB: Opposition); #49 Ge 革 is
“leather” (WB: Revolution/Molting); #54 Guimei 歸妹 is “Marriage” (WB: The
Marrying Maiden); #60 Jie 節 is “juncture”; #61 Zhongfu 中孚 is “trying captives”
(WB: Inner Truth) (Rutt 1996, p. 223). Relying heavily on the works of Gao Heng,
Li Jingchi, Shaughnessy and Kunst, Richard Gotshalk’s translation of the Zhouyi has
a lot in common with the interpretations of these scholars. We may also cite some
of his translations of the hexagram names: #4 Meng is translated into “Dodder”; #15
Qian “Hamster”; #16 Yu “Elephant”; #25 Wuwang “Pestilence”; #31 Xian “Cutting
off”; #33 Dun “Piglet”; and #36 Mingyi “Calling Pheasant.” (Gotshalk 1999, pp.
iv–v). We can see the general resemblance of these translations in laying bare the
original meaning of the Zhouyi text so that it becomes more reasonable, acceptable
and comprehensible.
Secondly, the interpreters of the 1980s made a lot of textual adaption and rear-
rangement for the sake of a better understanding of the hexagram and line statements.
Kunst tended to use homophones to replace the accepted Chinese characters to make
them more rational. In #15 Qian, what is conventionally understood as “modesty” is
now interpreted as “hamster,” because Kunst uses another character Xian 鼸 as the
equivalent. So mingqian 鳴謙 becomes mingxian 鳴鼸 “a grunting hamster”; laoqian
勞謙 “a toiling hamster”; and huiqian 撝謙 “a tearing hamster.” (Kunst 1985, p. 269)
#20 Guan 觀 is translated by Kunst as “observation” or “observe.” The third, fifth
and top lines all contain the phrase guan wo sheng 觀我生 and Kunst reads sheng
13 Compare Wilhelm-Baynes’ translation “approach” and the related lines “joint approach,” “com-
fortable approach,” “complete approach,” “wise approach,” and “greathearted approach.” (Ibid,
pp. 78–81).
生 (birth) as sheng 牲 (sacrifice). So the third line guan wo sheng, jintui 觀我生, 進
退 is translated into “Observe whether our sacrificial victims advance or withdraw”;
the fifth line guan wo sheng, junzi wujiu 觀我生, 君子無咎 “Observe our sacrificial
victims: no misfortune for a noble”; and the top line guan qi sheng, junzi wujiu
觀其生, 君子無咎 “Observe their sacrificial victims: no misfortune for a noble.”
(Ibid, p. 279). If we compare it with Wilhelm’s translation of the hexagram name
“Contemplation/View,” the relevant line statements are interpreted respectively as
“Contemplation of my life, decides and choice between advance and retreat,” “Con-
templation of my life, the superior man is without blame,” and “Contemplation of
his life, the superior man is without blame.” (Wilhelm 1964, pp. 82–85). Wilhelm’s
translation is full of connotations and associations, but Kunst’s translation focuses
more on facts. Li (1981, p. 42) said that using war captives as sacrificial victims
was a common practice in the early period of the Zhou dynasty, so Kunst’s transla-
tion possibly refers to the fact that what they observe was actually human captives
killed alive as sacrificial victims. The second and third lines of Hexagram #23 Bo 剝
contain a phrase bochuang 剝床. Wilhelm (1964, pp. 93–95) interprets it as “splitting
the bed” since bo is understood as “splitting apart,” and bochuang yizu 剝床以足
becomes “The leg of the bed is split,” bochuang yibian 剝床以辨 “The bed is split
at the edge,” bochuang yifu 剝床以膚 “The bed is split up to the skin,” which are
difficult to understand. Kunst (1985, pp. 284–285) uses the homonym yang 牂 to
replace chuang 床; therefore, the above line statements would become “Flay a ewe
starting with the legs,” “Flay a ewe starting with the knees,” and “Flay a ewe starting
with the skin (of the upper body),” and the bewilderment previously encountered is
immediately eliminated. Kunst stressed the oral tradition of the Yijing in which a
lot of protographs were kept. Since the number of the protographs was extremely
limited, they were widely borrowed as phonograms and homonyms to remind people
of what was already known (Ibid, pp. 84–85). It is this assumption that validates his
replacement of many characters in the text that obscure its meaning.
Unlike Kunst changing the characters that cause interpretative difficulties,
Shaughnessy managed to rationalize the arrangement of the Zhouyi text. In order
to illustrate the internal logic in the hexagram and line statements, Shaughnessy
made many adjustments to reveal the “original format of the text.” In #52 Gen 艮,
the hexagram statement gen qi bei 艮其背 (glare at his back) is quite the same as
many of the line statements, such as 53/1 gen qi zhi 艮其趾 (glare at his feet), 53/2
gen qi fei 艮其腓 (glare at his calf), 53/3 gen qi xian 艮其限 (glare at his midsection),
53/4 gen qi shen 艮其身 (glare at his body), and 53/5 gen qi fu 艮其輔 (glare at his
cheeks). Since the logic of the line statement is indisputably progressive from bottom
to top (from feet to cheeks), so Shaughnessy (1983, pp. 121–122) thinks it is very
likely that the phrase “glare at his back” must have originally followed the fourth
line “glare at his body,” which at some point in time was misplaced as the hexagram
statements. According to Shaughnessy (Ibid, pp. 167–168), the topical precedent,
around which each hexagram was structured, was consciously and systematically
elaborated by an editor or editors, thereby producing the six related line statements,
so the editor’s thought was included in the process of selection and organization.
56 L. Wu
In other words, the rationalization is more of the editor’s thought than of Shaugh-
nessy’s, and his job is to right the wrongs of the later compilers and do justice
to the intentions of the original composers. This in a way reminds us of James
Legge’s “seeing of mind to mind” method in translating the Yijing. Shaughnessy
(Ibid, p. 137) thinks that the line statement is composed of four constituent parts—
the topic, the injunction, the prognostication, and the versification; they may occur
independently or in any combination. He made some adjustments of the word order
in his discussion of the compiling principles of the line statements. In the fourth line
of #17 Sui 隨, the accepted text reads suiyouhuo, zhenxiong, youfu zaidao, yiming
hejiu 隨有獲, 貞凶, 有孚在道, 以明何咎; Wilhelm (1964, p. 74) translates it into
“Following creates success. Perseverance brings misfortune. To go one’s way with
sincerity brings clarity. How could there be blame in this?” Shaughnessy (1983,
p. 232) changes it into youfu zaidao, yiminghejiu, suiyouhuo zhenxiong 有孚在道,
以明何咎, 隨有獲, 貞凶, and provides this translation: “There is a captive in the
road, with an alliance what harm is there, in the chase there is a capture, divining:
inauspicious.” This change not only alters the sequence of the characters but also
changes the meaning of the statement. Shaughnessy made this adjustment to first suit
his rational structuring of the line statements. More importantly, he adapted it to suit
his interpretation of this hexagram, which tells a gradually developing story: Some
slaves escaped because of the change in office, and the chase was announced imme-
diately; the slaves were captured and used as sacrifice by the king. If the accepted
sequence is kept, “in the chase there is a capture” is put at the beginning, and “there
is a captive in the road” is put after it, then it would not suit the process of setting,
problem, complication, climax and resolution as described by Shaughnessy (Ibid,
p. 229).
Thirdly, these interpreters gathered a lot of textual evidence to read the Yijing hexa-
gram and line statements historically. Gu Jiegang’s interpretation of #54 Guimei
provides the context of the marriage of Diyi’s daughter and King Wen of Zhou.
According to Gu, Diyi’s daughter was King Wen’s principal lady, but then she was
succeeded by the lady of Shen, who later became the mother of King Wu. Shaugh-
nessy developed this story into a coherent narrative by finding a plausible solution
to this unfortunate marriage in Guimei. The line statements begin with a reference to
the “marrying maiden” accompanied by her younger sisters (first line). The phrase
“the lame is able to walk” (first line) and “the blind is able to see” (second line)
may be symbolic allusions to the reversal of fortune in the cases of the secondary
wife of King Wen or the lady of Shen. King Wen’s problem is stated in the fourth
line “the marrying maiden misses her time,” which indicates some fault with the
primary bride, the daughter of Diyi. The contrast of the two wives is directly shown
in the fifth line “the primary bride’s sleeves are not as fine as the secondary bride’s.”
Here the lady of Shen’s clothing is said to be more beautiful, which symbolizes her
future prominence as King Wu’s mother. The top line “The lady holds the basket: no
fruit; the man stabs the sheep: no blood” suggests that King Wen’s marriage with the
Shang princess had an unsuccessful outcome. The marriage failed precisely because
she failed to produce the necessary heir for King Wen. The fruitless basket was the
notion of a barren woman, and “the basket” in the early Han dynasty was a conven-
tional euphemism for the vagina. “The man stabs the sheep” also carries some sexual
symbolism. Thus, the primary bride’s basket holding no fruit implies that she was
barren and produced no offspring. Shaughnessy went further to suggest that #53 Jian
漸 serves as a xing 興 (evocation) of #54 Guimei. Its third line reads “The wild goose
advances to the land: the husband is on campaign but does not return, the wife is
pregnant but does not give birth,” while the fifth line reads “The wild goose advances
to the hillock: the wife for three years is not pregnant.” It clearly indicates marital
difficulty, especially the presumed inability of the Shang princess to bear a son in
#54 Guimei. So the juxtaposition of #53 Jian and #54 Guimei was assumed to be
intentional, and the composer of #53 Jian used it as an evocation to introduce #54
Guimei (Ibid, pp. 239–244; Shaughnessy 1992, pp. 587–599). In a similar way, when
translating #44 Gou 姤, Margaret J. Pearson based her assumption almost entirely
on Gu’s and Shaughnessy’s evidence. She bestows a high social position to the elite
women in the Zhou dynasty, rendering the hexagram line nü zhuang wuyong qu nü
女壯, 勿用取女 into “The Women is great. Do not grab the woman. A royal bride
was met with great ceremony, not taken by force.” Then she explains that “this hexa-
gram may celebrate the royal marriage that resulted in the birth of the founder of the
Zhou dynasty, King Wu. According to the Shijing, his father honored the princess
who was his bride by going to meet her.” Placed in this context, all the images in
the line statements are interpreted as conception and the stages of pregnancy, as well
as the risks during the period of gestation, because the influence of the queen rests
on the possibility that her son becomes the next ruler of the country. Therefore, the
second line “A fish is in wrappings” is said to indicate conception, and the fourth
line “Wrappings but no fish” suggests that the woman is without a fetus. The fifth
line is translated as “She protects the babe within, just as a gourd is protected by
being wrapped in flexible willow twigs. You hold great beauty within you. If you
miscarry, this is Heaven’s will.” (Pearson 2011, pp. 176–178). We may compare it
with Wilhelm’s (1964, p. 173) translation: “A melon covered with willow leaves.
Hidden lines. Then it drops down to one from heaven.” Wilhelm connects this line
with a situation in which a strong, superior, well-poised man tolerates and protects
the inferiors in his charge, while Pearson strives to connect it with the pregnancy and
miscarriage of a woman so that it fits the context she creates for the royal bride.
These historical critics are supposed to interpret the Zhouyi within the context of its
composition. However, in the case of #25 Wuwang 無妄, when explaining it as devel-
oped omens, Shaughnessy (1983, p. 197) adopts Waley’s interpretation and willingly
justifies his comparative evidence from various sources like ancient Mesopotamia,
Melanesia and Eastern Europe as “fresh insight,” claiming that they do not violate the
concerns of context-based criticism but instead indicate the context better. Actually,
this method of analogy was extensively used by Wilhelm and Baynes to illustrate
the wisdom of the Yijing that speaks to anyone, in anytime and at any place, and
was originally scorned and abandoned by Shaughnessy and his contemporaries. In
explaining #54 Guimei, Shaughnessy makes full use of allusions and symbols. In
fact, Hellmut Wilhelm (1905–1990) rationalized the image of the fifth line, pointing
out that the primary bride would be dressed in the clothing of her Zhou groom, while
her handmaiden would be dressed in their own Shang clothing, indicating the cultural
disparity of the two, which seems very plausible, but it was rejected by Shaughnessy
58 L. Wu
who insisted on explaining the entire hexagram in a metaphorical way within the
context of the poem “Daming” 大明 in the Shijing. Generally speaking, those histor-
ical critics were devoted to uprooting the Yijing text from the universal themes and
redirect it to its original historical contexts. But the materials they possessed, however
rich they seemed to be, were always insufficient in interpreting the original meaning
of the text. Therefore, they had to resort to ways similar to how their predecessors
had done it. Shaughnessy was constantly aware of the dilemma, as he says in the
dissertation, “I consider the Book of Changes to be the product of the human mind,
however inspired, the meaning of which changes with each new mind it encounters.”
(Ibid, p. 15). Though his initial aim was to put the Zhouyi in the historical context
of its composition and understand its original meaning, this aim, after many years
of endeavor, is hardly achieved, as he writes with pity in the preface of his newly
published book:
In 1913, when Richard Wilhem began his now celebrated translation of the Changes, he
and his mentor, Lao Naixuan, could approach the text with the confidence that it not only
encapsulated all the world but that it was moreover intelligible. Now, a hundred years later,
we are still learning just how little we really know about the Changes and the world that
produced it. Paradoxically, each new discovery both adds a little bit to what we know and
also undermines a little bit of what we knew (Shaughnessy 2014, p. xx).
Maybe this is the dilemma all contextual critics have to face when they are
determined to settle the meaning of the Yijing text once and for all.
The complexity of the Yjing has resulted in the diversity of its interpretations.
However many there are, the researches and translations of the Yijing in the West
have been conveniently divided into the School of Text and the School of Practical
Use (Hon 2010, p. 80). The former focuses on investigating historical evidence to
scrutinize the intrinsic or original meaning of the language text, while the latter is
more interested in the illustration of the Ten Wings, exploring the universal wisdom
in the classic and connecting it with various human conditions. To some extent,
James Legge, Edward L. Shaughnessy, Richard A. Kunst and Richard Rutt belong
to the first school. Their approaches in historicizing the Yijing share similarities
in the fact that both separate the Basic Classic from the Ten Wings and strive to
recover the meaning of the earliest core text; and both bring the Yijing back to its
roots—the historicity of the Shang-Zhou transition or the Western Zhou dynasty—to
provide concrete context in demystifying and rationalizing the hexagram and line
statements. However, the two historical moments stirred up by these scholars are
fundamentally different in terms of their targeted audiences, subject matters and the
ways to read the Yijing. Whereas the first moment was prompted in the framework
of comparative science of religions to rectify the Christianized accommodation and
the proclaimed scientification of the Yijing, the second moment was a response to the
philosophization and psychologization of the classic. In a sense, the historical turn in
the interpretations of the Yijing witnessed the shift in the English-speaking countries
from a Eurocentric and unified culture to a diversified and multicultural world that
respects every civilization for the sake of its own uniqueness.
The historical turn in the interpretations of the Yijing reflects to some extent the
tension of the global–local dynamic when the classic travels outside China. Scholars
attempting to historicize the Yijing distinguish themselves from the widespread
efforts to accommodate the culturally exotic classic and insist on understanding
the book as an authentic Chinese text deeply rooted in its own history and with
its own unique value. Whether knowing it or not, Thomas McClatchie, Terrian de
Lacouperie, Richard Wilehlm and Cary F. Baynes joined their efforts in globalizing
the Yijing, making the classic speak to the Western audience in one way or another,
while the interpretations embedded in the two moments of the historicization of the
Yijing shared a common goal in bringing the book back to its Chinese origin, and to
varying degrees communicating with their Chinese counterparts. Too much global-
ization of the Yijing, as displayed in the works of McClatchie and Lacouperie, will
turn the book into a text unrelated to its historical origins. Conversely, too much
localization, as shown in the translation of the Mawangdui manuscripts, will make
the Yijing confined to its time. The way to go is to achieve a balance between global-
ization and localization, preserving the book’s historical uniqueness while extending
its meaning, especially the notion of coping with change, to readers around the world.
Only with a global–local balance can the Yijing remain a world classic with its unique
Chinese characteristics, and a Chinese text with global impact.
References
Cohen, Paul A. 2010. Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent
Chinese Past. New York: Columbia University Press.
de Lacouperie, Terrien. 1882. The Oldest Book of the Chinese (the Yh-King) and Its Authors. The
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (New Series) 14 (4): 781–815.
de Lacouperie, Terrien. 1883. The Oldest Book of the Chinese (the Yh-King) and Its Authors
(Continued). The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (New Series)
15 (3): 237–289.
Gao, Heng 高亨. 1984. Zhouyi gujing jinzhu 周易古經今注 (Modern Notes to the Ancient Classic
Zhouyi). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.
Girardot, Norman J. 2002a. The Victorian Translation of China. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press.
Girardot, Norman J. 2002b. James Legge and the Strange Saga of British Sinology and the Compar-
ative Science of Religion in the Nineteenth Century. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (3rd
Series) 12(2): 155–16.
Gotshalk, Richard. 1999. Divination, Order, and the Zhouyi. New York: University Press of America.
Gu, Jie-gang 顧頡剛. 1982. Gushibian 古史辨 (Debates on Ancient History), vol. 3. Shanghai:
Shanghai guji chubanshe.
Guo, Mo-ruo 郭沫若. 1982. Zhouyi shidai de shehui shenghuo 周易時代的社會生活 (Social Life
in the Forming Days of the Zhouyi). In Zhongguo gudai shehhui yanjiu 中國古代社會研究
(Studies of Ancient Society in China), collected in Guo Moruo quanji 郭沫若全集 (Collected
Works of Guo Moruo), vol. 1, ed. Guo moruo zhezuo bianji chuban weiyuanhui 郭沫若著作編
60 L. Wu
輯出版委員會 (Committee of Publication for Guo Mo-ruo’s Works), 32–67. Beijing: Renmin
chubanshe.
Hacker, Edward, Steve Moore, and Lorraine Patsco. 2002. I Ching: An Annotated Bibliography.
London: Routledge.
Hon, Tze-ki. 2005. Constancy in Change: A Comparison of James Legge’s and Richard Wilhelm’s
Interpretations of the Yijing. Monumenta Serica 53: 315–336.
Hon, Tze-ki. 2010. Jinnianlai chutu wenwu dui oumei yixue de yingxiang 近年來出土文物對歐美
《易》學的影響 (The influence of the recent archeological findings on the studies of the Yijing in
the West). In Zhouyi jingzhuan wenxian xinquan 周易經傳文獻新詮 (A New Interpretation of
the Documents on Zhouyi Text and Commentaries), ed. Zheng Ji-xiong 鄭吉雄, 79–88. Taibei:
Taida chuban zhongxin.
Hon, Tze-ki. 2019. Chinese Philosophy of Change (Yijing). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-change/. Accessed 29 May 2019.
Kunst, Richard A. 1985. The Original “Yijing”: A Text, Phonetic Transcription, Translation, and
Indexes, with Sample Glosses. Ph.D. diss., University of California Berkeley.
Lackner, Michael. 1991. Jesuit Figurism. In China and Europe: Images and Influences in Sixteen to
Eighteen Centuries, ed. Thomas H. C. Lee, 129–150. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
Legge, James. 1963. The I Ching, 2nd ed. New York: Dover Publications.
Li, Jing-chi 李鏡池. 1978. Zhouyi tanyuan 周易探源 (Investigation into the Origin of the Zhouyi).
Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.
Li, Jing-chi 李鏡池. 1981. Zhouyi tongyi 周易通義 (A Comprehensive Understanding of the
Zhouyi). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Li, Jing-chi 李鏡池. 1982. Zhouyi shici kao 周易筮辭考 (Investigations of Zhouyi Divination
Language). In Gushibian (Debates on Ancient History), vol. 3, ed. Gu Jie-gang, 187–236.
Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.
Li, Xue-qin 李學勤. 1997. Preface. In Boshu zhouyi yanjiu 帛書周易研究 (A Study of Mawangdui
Manuscript of the Zhouyi), ed. Xing Wen 邢文. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe.
Liu, Da-jun 劉大鈞. 2010. Ershi shiji de yixue yanjiu jiji zhongyao tese 二十世紀的易學研究及
其重要特色 (The Studies of Yi in the Twentieth Century and their Main Features). Zhouyi yanjiu
1: 3–12.
McClatchie, Thomas. 1874. Confucian Cosmogony: A Translation of Section Forty-nine of the
Complete Works of the Philosopher Choo-Foo-Tze, with Explanatory Notes. Shanghai: American
Presbyterian Mission Press.
McClatchie, Thomas. 1876. Phallic Worship. In The China Review: Or Notes and Queries on the
Far East, vol. 4, no. 4. Hong Kong: China Mail Office.
McClatchie, Thomas. 1973. A Translation of the Confucian [Yijing] or the Classic of Change with
Notes and Appendix. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, reprinted by Cheng Wen
Publishing Company, Taipei.
McEvilly, Wayne. 1968. Synchronicity and the I Ching. Philosophy East and West 18 (3): 137–149.
McGuire, William. 1974. The ‘I Ching’ Story: An ancient text becomes a publishing phenomenon.
Princeton Alumni Weekly (May 7): 10–13.
Pearson, Margaret. 2011. The Original I Ching. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing.
Peterson, William J. 1982. Making Collections: “Commentary on the Attached Verbalization” of
the Book of Change. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42 (1): 67–116.
Redmond, Geoffrey, and Tze-ki Hon. 2014. Teaching the I Ching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rutt, Richard. 1996. Zhouyi, The Book of Changes: A New Translation with Commentary. Richmond,
Surrey: Curzon Press.
Shaughnessy, Edward L. 1983. The Composition of Zhouyi. Ph.D. diss., Stanford University.
Shaughnessy, Edward L. 1992. Marriage, Divorce, and Revolution: Reading between the Lines of
the Book of Changes. The Journal of Asian Studies 51 (3): 587–599.
Shaughnessy, Edward L. 2012. Hewei zhongzhongxueshu 何謂“中中學術”? (What is China-
centered research?). In Xing yu xiang: zhongguo gudai wenhuashi lunji 興與象: 中國古代文化
史論集 (Evocations and Images: Collected Papers on the History of Ancient Chinese Culture) 興
與象: 中國古代文化史論集 (Evocations and Images: Collected Papers on the History of Ancient
Chinese Culture), ed. Edward L. Shaughnessy, 318–328. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.
Yi Jing (I Ching) and Related Texts. New York: Columbia University Press.
Shchutskii, Iulian K. 1979. Researches on the I Ching, trans. William L. MacDonald, Tsuyoshi
Hasegawa, and Hellmut Wilhelm. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Sivin, Nathan. 1966. The Book of Change by John Blofeld. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 26:
290–298.
Smith, Kidder. 1989. Zhouyi Interpretation from Accounts in the Zuozhuan. Harvard Journal of
Asiatic Studies 49 (2): 421–463.
Smith, Kidder. 1993. The Difficulty of the Yijing. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 15:
1–15.
Smith, Kidder. 1999. Contextualized Translation of the Yijing. Philosophy East and West 49 (3):
377–383.
Smith, Kidder, Peter K. Bol, Joseph A. Adler, and Don J. Wyatt. 1990. Sung Dynasty Uses of the I
Ching. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Smith, Richard J. 2008. Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing and its Evolution
in China. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Swetz, Frank J. 2003. Leibniz, the Yijing, and the Religious Conversion of the Chinese. Mathematics
Magazine 76 (4): 276–291.
Waley, Arthur. 1933. The Book of Changes. Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 5:
121–142.
Wen, Yi-duo 聞一多. 1993. Zhouyi yizheng leizuan 周易義證類纂 (A Categorized Compilation of
the Meaning and Illustrations of the Zhouyi). In Wen Yiduo quanji 聞一多全集 (The Complete
Works of Wen Yiduo), vol. 10. Wuhan: Hubei renmin chubanshe.
Wilhelm, Richard. 1964. The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Cary F. Baynes. Princeton:
Yong, Rong 永瑢, and Ji Yun 紀昀. 1965. Siku quanshu zong mu 四庫全書總目 (The General
Catalog for the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.
Zhu, Bokun 朱伯崑, ed. 2012. Yixue jichu jiaocheng 易學基礎教程 (An Introduction to the Studies
of the Yijing). Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe.
Li-jing Wu is an Associate Professor of English language and literature at Hefei Normal Univer-
sity, China. His research interests lie in the interpretation of the Yijing in the West and the trans-
lation of the Yijing by Western missionaries in China. He wrote several articles on the Yijing
including “Liyage Yijing zhongde ‘di’ yu jieshizhe de “qianjin” wenti” 理雅各《易經》中的 “帝”
與解釋者的 “前見”問題 (Xueshujie, 2015).
Chapter 5
The Problem of Language and Reality
in the Xici and Plato’s Cratylus
Rickard Gustavsson
Abstract As a text organized on a system of signs, the Yijing is one of the earliest
Chinese sources of semiotic ideas. This is seen not only from the use of hexagrams in
the earliest part of the book but also in the rich meta-discourse on signs and language
in the classical commentaries (Ten Wings). This chapter investigates the issue of how
language relates to reality in a cross-cultural study focusing on the Xici commentary
and early Greek philosophy, with particular focus on Plato’s Cratylus. While taking
language as a point of departure, it goes beyond a narrow linguistic focus to explore
the worldviews of Plato and the Xici authors respectively. In particular, it aims to
clarify what implications the respective ontological assumptions in these texts have
for their way of dealing with the question of how language relates to reality. In
regard to the Xici, this study argues that the text may be understood as rooted in this
issue, and that the semiotic system of trigrams and hexagrams are invented to solve
this fundamental problem, and make up for the inability of language to describe the
profound nature of reality.
1 Introduction
For more than two thousand years, the Yijing has shaped important parts of the
Chinese intellectual tradition, being often regarded as one of the foremost Confucian
classics.1 Indeed, it has left its mark on such diverse fields as divination, politics,
cosmology, art and medicine. Its uniqueness lies in that it is the first attempt in the
Chinese tradition to devise a system of signs to convey truths about the world. For
this reason, the Yijing can be said to represent the beginning of semiotics in China;
it is also the most classical text on this subject in the Chinese tradition (Lu 2008,
1 Throughout this chapter, the Yijing refers to the text that was canonized in 136 BCE and includes
both the early Western Zhou text (the sixty-four hexagrams and their corresponding statements)
and the Ten Wings commentaries. My usage follows Redmond and Hon’s (2014, pp. 14–16).
R. Gustavsson (B)
Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
e-mail: sgustavss2-c@my.cityu.edu.hk
64 R. Gustavsson
p. 170). Despite its pioneering aspect, the Yijing is a complicated text. Its sixty-four
hexagrams, which comprise the basic unit of signs in the text, exist not in isolation
but are bound with the linguistic statements that accompany the signs.
Both classical and modern scholarship has explored the hexagrams in depth.
However, the role of language in the Yijing, including its relationship to the hexa-
grams, remains largely unexplored. Explicit references to language are sparse, not
only in the hexagram and line statements, but also in most of the associated commen-
taries (specifically, the tuan 彖 and the xiang 象 commentaries). More elaborate
discussions of language are found in the Xici 繫辭 (Appended Statements) commen-
tary, where several relevant passages can be found. This chapter will offer a cross-
cultural interpretation of the conception of language in the Xici by a comparison
with Greek philosophy, Plato’s Cratylus in particular. Using these contrasts, it will
highlight how the Xici authors view the relationship between language and the hexa-
grams, arguing that the hexagrams and trigrams cannot be fully understood without
clarifying their relationship to language.
In the Cratylus, Plato addresses the question of whether the Greek language’s
words exist by nature or convention, and what constitutes the “correctness of names.”
Beneath such surface concerns of the Cratylus lies the epistemological question of
whether names can provide insight into the actual things they designate. Certainly,
compared to the Cratylus, the Xici is not as obviously centered on issues of language.
This chapter will demonstrate that the latter text is rooted in the same issues of
language’s relation to reality. From this vantage point, it explains how the semiotic
systems of trigrams and hexagrams may be invented to mitigate fundamental prob-
lems related to how linguistic signifiers relate to their signified counterparts.2 While
linguistic concerns act as a point of departure, it goes beyond a purely linguistic
focus, juxtaposing the worldviews of Plato and the Xici authors respectively. It will
clarify how the differing ontological foundations of Plato and the Xici authors affect
their handling of the relationship between language and reality.
Neither ancient Greece nor China had a general notion of language.3 Both texts
explore different facets of discourse and speech while never subsuming those facets
under a general conceptual categorization. In fact, the linguistic units dealt with in
the two texts are somewhat different. The Cratylus is mainly concerned with the
notion of onomata (translated as “names” or, more loosely, “words”), which is the
closest we may come to a conception of language in ancient Greece. As a linguistic
unit, onomata mainly refers to nouns, proper names and adjectives (Sedley 2013).
In contrast, the Xici is concerned mainly with yan 言 (speech) and ci 辭 (statements,
remarks, or phrases). Yan refers to a more general sense of speaking or expounding,
while ci is typically used in a narrower sense to mean the statements juxtaposed to the
Yijing’s hexagram and line figures. From this brief overview, it may seem that Plato’s
2 While much scholarship exists on texts from early China that explicitly engage in discussions of
language, such as the notion of zhengming 正名 (the proper use of names) in the Analects and
Xunzi, Mohist logic, and mingjia 名家 (School of Names), this chapter aims to broaden the scope
of this research by showing how texts less obviously focused on language issues may still contain
rich information on this subject.
3 For a brief discussion of this notion in regard to early China, see Geaney (2018), pp. xxiii–xvi.
5 The Problem of Language and Reality in the Xici and Plato’s Cratylus 65
onomata and the Xici’s yan and ci are too dissimilar to yield fruitful comparisons.
However, our luxury of hindsight brings with it a wider conceptual framework, which
will aid us in the cross-cultural comparisons that follow.
Methodologically, this chapter demonstrates how using such a comparative
perspective may help to develop novel insights into well-studied texts. Understanding
how different cultural frames may alter the perception of texts is important, since
texts, such as the Yijing, have been widely translated and discussed in our multi-
cultural world. While this study emphasizes the differences in linguistic thought
between the Xici and the Cratylus, it is not my intention to deny the existence of
similarities between the two, nor to make broad generalizations about Chinese or
Grecian traditions. Rather, beginning with their shared problems in conceptualizing
signs and language, it aims to elucidate how each text goes about resolving those
problems.
2 The Philosophical Context of Ancient Greece
Pre-Socratic thinkers—who flourished from the late sixth to mid-fifth centuries BC—
were chiefly interested in cosmology and ontology. That is, they wanted to understand
the stuff of the universe, how things within it came into being and passed away. As
such, they left us little in terms of a true philosophy of language. However, some
of their assumptions about the world and the nature of language laid the founda-
tion for the Greek philosophy of language to come later (Modrak 2009, p. 640).
For instance, Plato’s Cratylus centers around the relationship between reality and
language; the work grapples with whether the relationship is governed by nature or
convention. According to Andreas Graeser (1977, p. 362), this problem can be traced
back to the ontological view, held by many pre-Socratic philosophers. For instance,
Parmenides’s ontological thesis that change, as perceived by the senses, is an illu-
sion, and that genuine reality is of an immutable nature, had a significant impact on
subsequent Greek thinkers. (Curd 2009, p. 34) Furthermore, Parmenides’s postula-
tion implies a distinction between appearance and reality; the world, as it appears
to our senses with its constant changes and alterations, is not the world of genuine
reality. Graeser (Ibid) holds that this view suggests that language may somehow be
innately deceptive. If our ever-changing sensorial perceptions both inform and form
our linguistic creations, then those linguistic creations cannot, by definition, capture
reality. While language may express appearance, it cannot express reality. In this
way, the ontological distinction between reality and appearance reflects the interplay
between constructs of language and constructs of reality.
Unlike the early pre-Socratics who concerned themselves with questions of nature
and the cosmos, the sophists were, instead, especially intrigued by techniques of
persuasive speech and argumentation. They focused mainly on questions related
to human affairs, including ethics, politics and rhetoric. While the sophists’ focus
was more immediately tied to the practicalities of life, they were also fascinated by
the nature-convention dichotomy. According to Rachel Barney (2009, p. 84), this
66 R. Gustavsson
dichotomy indeed has its origin in the above-mentioned distinction between reality
and appearance. However, the sophists applied the nature-convention distinction
mainly to ethics and politics. To them, central issues were to be found when thinking
about morality and other social norms. They wondered if these social norms were
grounded in the nature of things or mere products of human customs.
Besides morality, many texts testify to the sophists’ captivation with the workings
of language. Their discussions on this topic range from rhetoric and literary criticism
to what would nowadays count as linguistics, grammar, and philosophy of language.
One of the most important sophistic texts on language is Gorgias’ On Not Being.
In it, he argues that there exists a gap between objects, our thoughts about them,
and our linguistic descriptions of them. Following this, he reaches the conclusion
that language cannot be a means of communicating the truth about things, nor can it
faithfully represent our ideas of them. (Ibid, p. 94).
Another position typically associated with the sophists is relativism, especially
as it relates to morality. While the relativist label has been contested as an appro-
priate description of the sophists as a group (Bett 1989), Protagoras’ famous dictum
from the opening of his Truth, “Man is the measure of all things,” is typically taken to
mean that there is no absolute truth, only that which individuals deem to be true. This
interpretation strongly suggests that Protagoras had relativist inclinations. Addition-
ally, Plato ascribed such a position to Protagoras. In the Cratylus, Plato refers to
Protagoras’ relativism as a potential (and undesirable) consequence of Hermogenes’
conception of names, as conventional creations could, for that reason, be altered
based on individual preferences:
Let’s see, Hermogenes, whether the same also seems to you to hold of the things that are. Is
the being or essence of each of them something private for each person, as Protagoras tells
us? He says that man is “the measure of all things,” and that things are to me as they appear
to me, and are to you as they appear to you. Do you agree, or do you believe that things have
some fixed being or essence of their own? (Cratylus, sec. 386a)4
Regardless of how accurate it is to ascribe the relativist position to the sophists

as a whole, we can say that their strong emphasis on rhetoric elevates the role of
language. This is especially true when considering the function of language to convey
truth. In Plato’s mind at least, Protagoras’ relativism entails the idea that reality is
a subjective construction at least partly shaped by an individual’s use of language.
Thus, the sophistic discussions on language and ethics, informed by earlier thinkers’
separation of reality and appearance, helped to set the stage for Plato’s Cratylus,
which centers around the issue of the correctness of names, and focuses particularly
on the dichotomy of nature and convention in regard to language. Furthermore, the
epistemological contentions on the reliability of language raised by Gorgias are also
addressed in the Cratylus. In it, Plato wonders whether studying names actually
provides genuine knowledge of things.
4 Mytranslations follow C. D. C. Reeve’s (Cooper and Hutchinson 1997). For reference, Benjamin
Jowett’s and David Sedley’s translations have also been consulted.
3 Language and Metaphysics in Plato’s Cratylus
Despite their fascination with the use of language as a means of persuasion, the
sophists did not explicitly meditate on the nature of language. The first philosopher
to recognize and investigate language as a philosophical problem was Plato, doing
so primarily in the Cratylus (Borgmann 1974, p. 19). In this dialogue, Socrates
discusses the correctness of names with two interlocutors, Hermogenes and Cratylus.
Cratylus holds that names are naturally linked to their objects; to him, a name is an
encoded description of the object it designates. In contrast, Hermogenes holds that the
correctness of names arises purely from linguistic convention. Throughout the whole
investigation, the degree to which the study of names results in genuine knowledge
about things is questioned. Indeed, the line of inquiry comes naturally from Plato’s
definition of names as tools:
SOCRATES: Don’t we instruct each other, that is to say, divide things according to their
natures?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: So just as a shuttle is a tool for dividing warp and woof, a name is a tool for
giving instruction, that is to say, for dividing being.
(Cratylus, sec. 388c).
Thus, the Cratylus’s central issue is the philosophical function of names, rather
than their actual use in daily communication. This framework directly relates to the
above issue of how language relates to reality. To develop his analogy of comparing
names to tools, Plato starts by postulating the existence of a name-maker, a craftsman
who deliberately coins a language’s vocabulary. He continues by surmising that the
name-maker must collaborate with an expert user of his handiwork—the philosopher.
The philosopher guides the name-maker in forming his work, by helping to look at
the reality of things and see how to best embody it in a substrate of available letters
and syllables.
To investigate this philosophical significance of names, Plato engages in a lengthy
etymological analysis of Greek words. For example, while discussing two possible
names of Hector’s son, Socrates says:
Well, let’s investigate why [Astyanax] is more correct [than Skamandrios]. Doesn’t Homer
himself suggest a very good explanation when he says:
He [Hector] alone defended their city and long walls? (Iliad xxii, p. 507)
For because of this, you see, it seems correct to call the son of the defender ‘Astyanax’ or
lord of the city (astu anax) which, as Homer says, his father was defending. (Cratylus, sec.
392d–e)
Thus, to Socrates, the name “Astyanax” derives from astu anax (lord of the city),
bears a natural fitness with Hector’s son, and is the correct name. After providing an
extensive analysis of names, Socrates wonders how the primary names, which form
other names, get their meanings. Socrates answers himself by postulating that words
derive their meanings from the imitative significance of their sounds. For example,
he asserts the sound “r” to be a tool for imitating motion and hardness (as it is
68 R. Gustavsson
produced by the vibration of the tongue); while “i” discloses that which is small and
penetrating, “l” conveys gliding and softness. (Ibid, sec. 426c-427c).
The etymologies in the Cratylus demonstrate how words can be reduced to obfus-
cated descriptions of objects. Initially, the dialogue seems to support the Cratylus’
naturalist thesis. However, as Plato continues to investigate the nature of insights
conveyed by names, he discovers conflicts. Ultimately, he finds that which names
reveal mainly resides in the Heracletean worldview of constant flux. For example,
in Sections 402e-403a, three different etymologies are offered for “Poseidon.” Two
of these identify him with seas and earthquakes, thus suggesting features of fluidity
rather than those of immutability. Another example comes from Section 409c, where
astra (stars) are supposedly derived from astrapē (lightning), presumably because
of their shared twinkling and motion. (Sedley 2003, p. 106) Regardless of how well
names may capture the objects they represent, if they do so within a flux cosmology,
then they can never account for the Platonic Forms. This highlights a fundamental
conflict between Platonic and Heracletean metaphysics, ultimately causing Plato to
reject the study of names as a philosophical method.
Following this, the dialogue concludes with Socrates arguing that the study of
names is an unreliable tool for achieving knowledge about things:
SOCRATES: […] Haven’t we often agreed that if names are well given, they are like the
things they name and so are likenesses of them?
CRATYLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: So if it’s really the case that one can learn about things through names and that
one can also learn about them through themselves, which would be the better and clearer
way to learn about them? Is it better to learn from the likeness both whether it itself is a good
likeness and also the truth it is a likeness of? Or is it better to learn from the truth both the
truth itself and also whether the likeness of it is properly made?
CRATYLUS: I think it is certainly better to learn from the truth.
SOCRATES: How to learn and make discoveries about the things that are probably too large
a topic for you or me. But we should be content to have agreed that it is far better to investigate
them and learn about them through themselves than to do so through their names.
CRATYLUS: Evidently so, Socrates.
(Cratylus, sec. 439b).
The dialogue suggests that Plato’s ultimate goal was to assert a gap between names
and things. His discussion of language assumes a metaphysical hierarchy wherein
names are secondary to the things they designate. This subordination of names forms
Plato’s attempt to discredit the sophistic elevation of language, Protagoras’ notion
of truth-relativism in particular. This Platonic gap between language and reality
further increases in Plato’s doctrine of Forms. Following it, Plato seems to imply
that reality must be fixed and immutable. From such an angle, the central questions
and conclusions of the dialogue are closely related to Plato’s metaphysical views.
(e.g. Kahn 1973).
Plato’s metaphysical conceptions, especially those of his middle-period dialogues,
pioneered a dualistic ontology, wherein there exists a realm of true being, beyond
that of sense and appearance. In that sense, Plato was the first person to look beyond
nature for its explanation. (Brisson 2009, p. 213) In Platonic postulations of a reality
lurking behind or above the sensate world, the Forms become transcendent entities,
independent of the sensible objects whence they manifest. They exist outside of space
and time, and yet are the blueprints of the observable world. Unlike sensible reality,
the Forms are unchanging and eternal; the transcendent realm of true being derives
from them, a stability unknown to the constantly changing sensible world.
Insisting on such a strong metaphysical hierarchy, Plato is unable to fully reconcile
the gap between language and reality. Indeed, by means of language and signs, Plato
can only hint at reality, evoking some qualities associated with true being, such as
permanency or universality. In terms of non-linguistic signs, those of Mathematics
(Arithmetic and Geometry) provide some degree of resemblance to the timeless
reality of transcendent Forms, and they were integral in Plato’s system of learning.
Ultimately, however, true being can only be grasped directly by the intellect. It resists
conveyance by any set of signs. As the Cratylus asserts, names root themselves in the
sensible world by mimicking the movement of air in the articulation of sounds. As
such, no matter how well names succeed in conveying such movements or combine
their basic elements to attempt to reveal the objects they designate, they remain
incapable of reaching beyond the world of sensate reality. To convey true knowledge,
names would have to not only carve out objects in the sensible world, but also reach
the higher form of existence wherein things and knowledge about them reside.
To Plato, language has clear limitations because names are based on the unstable
world of appearances. In fact, names are arguably unable to satisfy Plato’s philosoph-
ical demands because they are meant to name objects in the sensate world to function
in daily communication. By postulating a transcendent realm of true being, Plato
arguably reaches an impasse in considering the epistemological capacity of names,
insofar as they would then be tools revealing both the mundane sensate world and
metaphysical truths at once. Thus, although names are ultimately said to be signifiers
of Forms,5 names themselves cannot convey information about Forms, especially not
linguistically, where they are associated with the sensible world of transformation.
In this way, one may conclude, based on the final part of the Cratylus, that names
are nothing but poor imitations of the Forms, and that their epistemological value
is equal to that of sensible objects at best. Predicated on such a metaphysical bifur-
cation, Plato’s system expands rather than bridges the gap between language and
reality. While this is helpful in undermining the sophists and politicians, it reduces
the philosophical value of language, pushing the shores of truth and reality beyond
the horizon of the sensible world.
5 The word “man,” for example, does not signify any specific man but refers to the Form of a man.
70 R. Gustavsson
4 The Philosophical Framework of the Xici
Similar to their counterparts in ancient Greece, early Chinese thinkers also gave
much attention to language. In the Confucian school, language philosophy was
mainly discussed in terms of zhengming 正名 (proper use of names), to which
Confucius, and Xunzi in particular, devoted considerable attention. Names here are
treated as normative signs, intrinsically linked to certain socio-political functions.
Owing to their social function, appropriately assigning names is therefore consid-
ered paramount to preserving social order in the Confucian worldview. Contrary to
Confucians, Daoists were skeptical of language since, to them, the Dao (the Way)
was beyond any possible linguistic formulations. To the Daoists, this inadequacy of
names could set false distinctions and lead people astray. Besides these two primary
philosophical groups, the so-called mingjia 名家 (School of Names) and the Mohists
were specially devoted to the philosophical analysis of language.6
In the Yijing, language is dealt with on different levels. Some issues tackled are
practical, including the role of speech in stimulating fortune and misfortune, the
standards for correct speech, and the semantic relationship of words. Other subjects
are more philosophical or hermeneutical, such as the extent to which language can
convey meaning and a hierarchy of signs. Granted that explicit reflections on language
are sparse in the hexagram and line statements, it shows that from the perspective of
the Xici, issues concerning language are fundamentally important to the Yijing.
Of the various layers of the Yijing text, the Ten Wings are significant in providing
the sixty-four hexagrams and their respective statements with a moral and metaphys-
ical framework, hence transforming the Yijing from a divinatory work to a philosoph-
ical classic. Of the Ten Wings, the Xici plays a paramount role in the transformation
of the Yjijng into a philosophical classic. Textually speaking, the Xici is divided into
two parts and is unique among the Ten Wings in three ways (Hon and Redmond
2014, p. 154). First, it acknowledges the Yijing’s multiple mantic and philosophical
heritages. Second, owing to such a diverse authorship, the text’s various applications,
in the divinatory, political, and moral realms, are acknowledged. Third, due to its
rich textual body, the Xici considers the Yijing to be an all-encompassing source of
knowledge. To be sure, it is the part of the Ten Wings with the most elaborate philos-
ophy. As a result, it has received more attention in the commentarial tradition than
any other single Wing. (Smith 2008, p. 38) We find here more references to language
compared to any other Wing. Before plunging into the philosophy of language and
signs, however, we must understand the Xici’s worldview, particularly its differences
to Platonic metaphysics.
The Xici is dated at around 300 BC (Smith 2008, p. 38), and was only one of several
contemporary commentarial materials—some of the others were not included in the
6 For some overviews of the philosophy of language in early China, see, for example, Hansen (1975);
or Shen (2013), pp. 17–38.

Ten Wings.7 According to Graham (1989, pp. 108–111), the late fourth century
ushered great and lasting intellectual change for Chinese philosophy. During the
period, Chinese thought entered what he labels a “metaphysical crisis,” which he
contrasts with the social crisis of the fifth and sixth centuries. In the fourth century,
Chinese intellectuals added a new dimension to the philosophical discourse by
seeking to supplement their moral theories with metaphysical accounts of the world,
including speculations on cosmology and human nature. Chiefly important among
these issues was the relationship between men and the cosmos (tian 天), namely the
growing worry that the natural order of things in the cosmos was based on principles
that were fundamentally different from those governing human conduct and society.
This crisis was not unlike that of the Grecian sophists’ discussions on nature and
convention in regard to morality. In early Chinese philosophy, nature was typically
understood in a normative sense—a common way of justifying moral and polit-
ical principles involved and seeing them as extensions of the natural order of things.
Hence, the philosophical milieu of the fourth century, wherein the Xici was compiled
and finalized, exalted attempts to bridge the gap between the moral and the natural
world. Besides this, the authors of the Ten Wings were also tasked with transforming
the Yijing into an authoritative text that could be used outside of divination. To these
dual ends, the Xici, clearest of any Wing, highlights how the hexagrams and their
lines constitute a microcosm that reveals the processes of change at play in the natural
world (Smith 2008, p. 38).
Seeing their work as a product of the metaphysical crisis of its time, the Xici
authors felt the need to justify morality by bridging the gap between society and
the cosmos. To them, the Yijing text itself exemplifies this by grounding itself in
the normative patterns of heaven and earth. This notion of tianren heyi 天人合一 (a
continuity between the natural and the human8 ) is an important theme of the Xici. For
instance, it declares: “The Yijing is modeled on the principles of heaven and earth,
and shows us therefore, without rent or confusion, the course (of things) in heaven
and earth.” (Xici, I.4) While the idea of linking society to nature is an important theme
of the Xici, which has implications for how they deal with the issue of language, it is
not my purpose here to discuss the relationships between cosmic patterns and men’s
social institutions. Instead, I will summarize only the natural philosophy that came
out of these explorations.9 This worldview, I will argue, does play a crucial role
in shaping the problem of language and signs in the Xici. For our present purpose,
the central questions are: What is the world to the Xici authors? And how do they
construe the reality that has to be dealt with and described by language?
In contrast to Plato, the Xici authors do not postulate a fundamental split between
appearance and reality, but operate on what we may call an immanent worldview.
7 For discussions of recent archeological materials of Yijing texts, including commentarial materials
not included in the Ten Wings, see Smith (2008), pp. 48–50; and Redmond and Hon (2014),
pp. 93–121.
8 My rendering follows Ames’ (2015).
9 For other accounts of the Xici’s worldview, see, for example, Ames (2015); Gao (1961); and Zhu
(2003), pp. 100–112.

72 R. Gustavsson
To them, the world is ultimately how it appears, and they do not look to some
transcendent realm lying beyond the sensible world. Furthermore, the Xici authors
do not set up stability and impermanence as criteria of a thing’s essence or reality.
Seeking to elucidate the meaning of a text dealing with the contingencies of the
natural world, they see change and uncertainty as self-evident. Indeed, change and
uncertainty are assumed to be at least as real as anything seemingly stable and
permanent. The Xici elaborates on this changing nature of the world in a number
of key passages: “Generation and regeneration are what we call change.” (Xici, I.5)
“With heaven and earth having their positions thus fixed, change operates in their
midst.”10 (Xici, I.7) The position of change as the underlying principle of reality is
arguably best captured in a famous passage describing the movement of the Dao:
The alteration of yin and yang is called the Dao. That which allows the Dao to continue
to operate is goodness [shan 善], and that which allows it to bring things to completion is
nature [xing 性]. (Xici, I.5)
The same idea is used to explain the root of change: “The hard and the soft displace
each other to generate change and transformation.” (Xici, I.2).
The constant flux in this world is not seen as something to be overcome through
finding a more stable reality. Rather, change, through the patterned alternations of yin
and yang, is the root of goodness, sprouting the most essential and profound parts of
existence. Herein, an important point of overlap with the Greek tradition is the idea
of an underlying order governing the observable changes in the world, which itself
displays a higher degree of stability and regularity than the fluctuating phenomena
through which it manifests. Therefore, although reality is characterized by change, it
maintains an element of constancy, creating an order behind the seemingly unstable
world. This idea is captured in one of the Xici’s opening lines: “Movement and rest
have their regularities; the hard and the soft are thus differentiated.”11 (Xici, I)12
Unlike Plato, the Xici authors do not place the source of this underlying regularity
outside of the sensible world. Yin and yang are not abstract entities governing the
myriad of phenomena from outside. Rather, they appear intrinsically bound up with
the phenomena. The previous passages testify this conception with their extensive use
of binary concepts to describe the world. As Roger Ames (2015, p. 3) observes, “[t]he
correlative, bipolar, and dynamic tensions inherent in a world so defined circumscribe
the domain within which the processes of change take place. And it is these same
tensions that are the source out of which the novelty which attends these processes
is produced.” The interaction of yin and yang sets the framework through which
change unfolds itself and creates a discernable pattern by which it can be understood
and handled. This patterned change through binary oppositions is what creates the
world:
In consequence of all this, as hard and soft stroke each other, the eight trigrams activate each
other. It [the Dao] arouses things with claps of thunder, moistens them with wind and rain.
10 Unless otherwise indicated, my translations follow Lynn’s (1994) with my own modifications.
11 My own translation. My interpretation follows Huang and Zhang’s (2004, p. 493).
12 I base my reading on Kong Yingda’s version of the Xici in the Zhouyi zhengyi.
Sun and moon go through their cycles, so now it is cold, now hot. The Dao of qian forms
the male; the Dao of kun forms the female. Qian has mastery over the great beginning of
things, and kun acts to bring things to completion. (Xici, I.1)
Another much-quoted passage deals with the same cosmological scheme:

Therefore, in change there is the great ultimate (taiji 太極). This is what generates the
two modes [of yin and yang]. The two basic modes generate the four images, and the four
basic images generate the eight trigrams. The eight trigrams determine good fortune and
misfortune, and good fortune and misfortune generate the great enterprise. (Xici, I.11)
The term taiji 太極 refers to the undifferentiated state of the nascent cosmos.
By providing a single source of origin, taiji reconciles the two opposing notions of
yin and yang. (Zhang 2002, p. 179) Despite a seeming dualism, all binary entities
operate within a common framework. Nowhere in the Xici is a sharp metaphysical
hierarchy between these entities postulated. There is no clear split between reality
and appearance. The closest thing of this sort arises in a distinction between “what
is above form” and “what is below form”: “That which is above form pertains to the
Dao; that which is below form pertains to concrete objects (qi 器).” (Xici, I.12).
However, in all likelihood, that “above form” refers to the principles governing
the transformation of concrete objects. According to Zhang Dainian (2002, p. 18),
“‘what is above form’ is the formless inasmuch as it appears in what has form. It is
the abstract as opposed to the concrete, or ‘what has form.’ What is above form is the
norm of the abstract; what is below form is concrete things.” This norm—or principle
through which the concrete unfolds—cannot be reduced to a specific form. But that
does not imply that it is transcendental or stands in a sharp dualistic relationship with
the sensible world of immediate objects. As in the case of other binary concepts,
there is no ultimate duality between the visible and the invisible; they make up two
aspects of the same reality in a complementary relationship rather than one of sharp
duality.
Even with the absence of a metaphysical split between the sensible and the tran-
scendental, the Xici authors see the changing reality as difficult to grasp. As such,
human beings must contend with a world of constant movement and transformation,
shaped by countless factors with intertwining relationships ranging from abstract
celestial phenomena and concrete earthly objects to human actions and social orga-
nizations. According to the Xici, this vastness and wholeness of the universe are
mimicked and visualized in the sixty-four hexagrams:
As a book, the Yijing is something which is broad and great, complete in every way. There
is the Dao of heaven in it, the Dao of man in it, and the Dao of earth in it. It brings these
three potencies together and then doubles them. This is the reason for there being six lines.
What these six embody are nothing other than the Dao of the three potencies. Since the Dao
consists of change and action, we refer to it in terms of the “moving lines” (yao 爻). Since
the moving lines consist of different classes, we refer to them as “things” (wu 物). Since
these things mix in together, we refer to these as “patterns” (wen 文). (Xici, II.10)
Despite the lack of an appearance-reality distinction in the Xici, the complexity

and subtlety of change are so intricate that it becomes almost wholly unpredictable.
Indeed, this subtlety is assumed to be inexpressible through the alternation of yin and
74 R. Gustavsson
yang. In the Xici, this trait is typically spoken of as shen 神 (marvelous or numinous),
or shenhua 神化 (marvelous transformations): “That which is unfathomable in [the
movement of] yin and yang is called the marvelous.” (Xici, I.5) Although marvelous,
this aspect is not entirely outside the realm of human knowledge. It can be grasped
through careful investigation and cultivation: “One who knows the way of change
and transformation knows what the marvelous does.” (Xici, I.9) “To exhaust the
marvelous and to know transformation are the perfection of virtue.” (Xici, II.5)
In sum, the Xici authors do not see reality as split between a sensible world of
appearance and a transcendental world of true being. Although they share with the
Greeks an attempt to come to terms with change, the Xici authors do not solve this
problem by seeking a truth which remains constant throughout change. Their basic
assumption is that change is ontologically real, not mere appearance. As such, the
only constancy in the world (besides change itself) is the ying-yang pattern through
which such change operates. Even though this pattern of yin-yang alternation may
not fully capture all the minute aspects of change and transformation, it is a useful
framework for us to come to terms with constant change in the universe. From this
vantage point, we can now explore more deeply how the Xici authors approached the
problem of language.
5 Language and Reality in the Xici
The standard referents to language in the Xici are yan and ci. According to Jane
Geaney (2018, p. 94), as in metalinguistic terms in early China, yan and ci are
different from ming 名 (name), which arguably corresponds better to the Greek
onomata. While ming is consistently used referentially to highlight external things,
yan and ci refer to the speaker’s state of mind: “speaking [yan] and phrasing [ci]
give voice to an internal aspect, whereas ming does not.” The expressive feature
of yan and ci is elaborated in remarkable ways in the Xici. The elaboration is part
of the Yijing’s enduring legacy to language philosophy and semiotics in pre-modern
China. As mentioned already, ci typically refers to the hexagram and line statements.
I will argue here that the Xici’s discussion of the relationship between the hexagrams
and hexagram statements is based on a realization of language’s shortcomings in
conveying profound reality. To this end, juxtaposing language with hexagrams is a
way to solve this problem.
In a passage outlining the meaning of some divinatory terms throughout the text,
the Xici’s statements are so defined:
There are hexagrams that deal with decrease and those that deal with growth [of the Dao]
and there are appended statements (ci) that impart a sense of danger and those that impart
a sense of ease. The statements, in fact, in each case indicate the direction that should be
taken. (Xici, I.3)
Relating to the passage, the “direction that should be taken” refers to how the state-
ments inform the reader’s suggested paths toward fortune and away from misfortune.
We see here the revelatory and guiding function of ci, which uncovers the divina-
tory messages of the hexagram and line figures. Ci makes more intelligible the subtle
suggestions of the hexagrams and figures, exposing their relevance to human conduct
and well-being. Indeed, the Xici authors do not see language as an abstraction sepa-
rated from the semiotic system wherein it appears. Rather, they see language as a
vehicle for conveying the message of the hexagrams; language is typically given a
complementary or secondary role to the hexagrams themselves. This relationship is
expressed clearest in the following Xici passage:
The Master said, “Writing does not exhaust speech, and speech does not exhaust ideas. If this
is so, does this mean that the ideas of the sages cannot be discerned?” The Master said, “The
sages established images in order to express their ideas exhaustively. They established the
hexagrams in order to exhaust the true nature of things and artifice. They attached statements
(ci) to the hexagrams in order to exhaust their sayings. They let change occur and achieve
free flow in order to exhaust the benefit involved. They made a drum of it, made a dance of
it, and so exhausted the potential of its numinous power.” (Xici, I.12)
On the surface, this passage somewhat echoes the skeptical view of language in the
end of the Cratylus insofar as it acknowledges language’s limitations in conveying
meaning. Through its hierarchical ordering of signs, the passage shares with both
Plato’s and some of the sophists’ recognition of the dichotomy of linguistic form
and meaning, and more importantly, a contention in the expression of ideas and
the ideas themselves. Furthermore, since the ideas of the sages are based on the
deeper workings of nature, the hierarchy can be understood as rooted in the same
gap between language and the world as we find in the Cratylus. Thus, Plato and the
Xici authors seem to rest on similar philosophical ground, especially in regard to their
considerations for the relationship between language and reality. That stated, they do
find different ways of dealing with the gap that separates language from the world.
While language alone has clear limitations, by situating it in the semiotic system of
the Yijing which juxtaposes language with the hexagrams, the Xici authors arrive at
a more positive conclusion than Plato, where language regains its value and plays
a partial yet vital role in conveying the message of the sages. I will argue that this
positive conclusion is interlinked with the immanent worldview of the Xici, which
do not separate what we see from what is transcendentally real.
However, the fact that language philosophy in the Xici operates on an immanent
worldview does not make it less difficult to capture the signified object in a system of
linguistic signs. To the Xici authors, the sage creators of the trigrams and hexagrams
clearly understood the world’s vastness, deeply perceiving not only the manifold
changes in the natural and human worlds but also the interactions between those
worlds. This perception of the world as well as the deeper understanding it fosters is
referred to as yi 意 in the above passage. The sages’ creation of the trigrams results
from realizing language’s shortcomings in conveying the complexities and changes
of nature. The Xici gives this account of the creation of the trigrams:
When in ancient times Bao Xi (Fu Xi) ruled the world as sovereign, he looked upward and
observed the images in heaven and looked downward and observed the models of the earth.
He observed the patterns on birds and beasts and what things were suitable for the land.
Nearby, adopting them from his own person, and afar, adopting them from other things, he
76 R. Gustavsson
thereupon made the eight trigrams in order to become thoroughly conversant with the virtues
inherent in the marvelous and the bright and to classify the myriad things in terms of their
innate natures. (Xici, 2.2)
The hexagrams here are seen as mimetic of the natural world, but they are not
pictographic representations of the shapes of objects. Instead, they convey objects
and situations in terms of the yin-yang constitutions. Ontologically, trigrams and
hexagrams present things as dynamic processes rather than static objects. This way
of signification matches the sages’ perception of the changing world of complex
interactions in a more directly accurate way than language would allow. Only so can
they convey “the marvelous and the bright” and “classify the myriad things in terms
of their innate natures.”
Besides this account of the creation of the hexagrams, we also find a number of
definitions of the trigrams and hexagrams; they are often subsumed under the general
notion of xiang 象. In the Xici, the term xiang refers to two primary concepts: First,
various means of representations, such as images, symbols and figures, including
those in the trigrams, hexagrams and lines of the Yijing; second, the actual phenomena
that these figures represent, which are especially applied to celestial objects. (Nielsen
2003, p. 308) My discussion here, however, concerns the former usage cases, wherein
xiang denotes representations to convey meaning. This is elaborated in the following
passages that elucidate the link between xiang and the sages’ profound perception
of things:
The sages had the means to perceive the mysteries (ze 賾) of the world and draw comparisons
to them with analogous things, made images out of those things that seems appropriate. This
is why these are called images (xiang). (Xici, I.8)
The Yijing consists of images. The images (xiang 象) are semblances (xiang 像) […] The
lines are imitations of movements that takes place in the world, and this is why “good fortune”
and “misfortune” come about and “regret” and “remorse” appear. (Xici, II.3)
Qian being unyielding shows to men how easy it is. Kun being yielding and therefore shows
to men how simple it is. The lines imitate this. The images reproduce this. (Xici, II.1)
In the first passage, we see explicitly how the hexagrams were created to match the
sages’ profound world vision. They do so by means of the iconic representations of
movement (yin-yang alternation) in the broken and unbroken lines. This is exempli-
fied by the qian and kun hexagrams in the last passage. To the Xici authors, these
two hexagrams exemplify a uniform and consistent movement by being composed of
only broken or unbroken lines. Qian is a symbol of unyielding strength; therefore, it
is constant and effortless (“easy”). Similarly, kun is consistently yielding, and since
complications often arise from conflicting forces and interests, kun being without
resistance makes it “simple.”13 To the Xici authors, these lines, and their resultant
trigrams and hexagrams, manage to directly capture the sagely perception of the
world in a way that language cannot fully do. Furthermore, the yin-yang movements
expressed through the lines reveal the direction of events, becoming both the basis
13 Formy interpretation of this passage, see Huang and Zhang (2004), p. 531; and Wilhelm (1967),
pp. 627–628.
for divination and a source for understanding how humans may best participate in
these metaphysical processes.
Following this, we may say that in the Xici, the problems of conveying the
complexity and subtlety of the changing world are solved by introducing the trigrams
and hexagrams. These additional semiotic units capture the nature’s workings, on
which the sages’ perceptions are based. The trigrams are invented to compensate for
the shortcomings of language. In this sense, the whole semiotic project of the Yijing
is rooted in the problem of bridging language and the workings of nature. If language
alone could convey the profundity of nature, the invention of a system of trigrams
and hexagrams would be unnecessary. Furthermore, the whole project assumes that
nature is the seat of truth and authority. If the sages ventured to find a Platonic-like
truth that was not immanent in the workings of nature, then there would have been
less motivation to invest time in devising a complex system of signs—such a system
would only light the shadowy world of appearances, rather than that of true being.
With the motivation and function of the trigrams and hexagrams having been
explained, what then is the role of language in the Yijing? Does language still serve
some significant function after the invention of the trigrams?
Recall that the ultimate goal of the Yijing was not (only) to philosophize the
complex operations of nature. The Xici authors did not merely aim at setting up an
ontological system, but also wished to apply the hexagrams’ knowledge to human
life and society, so as to create a more reliable model for human behavior, rooted
in the normative patterns of nature. Following these practical concerns, the Yijing’s
most crucial information is arguably not the hexagrams themselves, but the state-
ments showing precisely how the knowledge contained within the hexagrams bears
on human life. It is from these critical statements that language retains its impor-
tance. Aided by the hexagrams, the language of the Xici unburdens itself from the
complexities of the natural world. It is not forced to undertake the impossible task of
describing the indescribable. Instead, it works to clarify the message of the hexagrams
and links that information to human conduct. The Xici authors place the hexagrams
between language and the nature’s workings, bridging the gap between language and
the intricacy of the world. By doing so, they assign language a role more suited to
its semiotic capacity. That capacity is to uncover the hexagrams’ divinatory signif-
icance, which provides explicit guidance for human action. For instance, the Xici
reads:
The sages set down the hexagrams and observed the images [made manifest by them]. They
appended statements to the lines in order to clarify the auspicious and inauspicious [signified
by them]. (Xici, I.2)
Differentiating the auspicious and the inauspicious depends on the statements. (Xici. I.3)
What allows the superior man to find himself anywhere and yet remain secure are the images
[manifest in the hexagrams]. What he ponders are the statements [appended to the lines].
Once he takes action, he observes the change [of the lines] and ponders the prognostications
involved [in that movement]. (Xici, I.2)
Although the trigrams and hexagrams certainly explore and convey meanings
beyond those of language, they are ambiguous symbols in need of clarifications. It is
78 R. Gustavsson
true that they bridge the gap between semiotics and the deeper workings of nature.
Nonetheless, they only solve part of the greater problem. Since the hexagrams are
iconic representations of abstruse meanings, they are inherently somewhat obscure—
or, better yet, they are abstruse representations of the more abstruse. To become
meaningful to social life, the hexagrams must be complemented by language. While
the nature’s complex patterns, interactions and transformations are conveyed through
the hexagram symbols, the language in the explanatory remarks transforms this
into information that becomes truly intelligible to humans. It does so by unveiling
how the complex patterns of yin and yang expressed in the hexagrams bear upon
future events and situations, and what behavior people should adopt to deal with
these situations in the most auspicious way. As such, the purpose of language in
the Yijing’s semiotic system is to retrieve the knowledge of hexagrams and explain
its real-life applicability. This act lends true value to the Yijing by demystifying its
moral, political, cosmological and divinatory significance.
Furthermore, by unshrouding the divinatory meaning of the hexagrams, the state-
ments instigate action: “Probing the mysteries of the world to the utmost is obtained
from the hexagrams; drumming people into action all over the world is obtained
from the statements.” (Xici, I.12) Kong Yingda 孔穎達 (574–648) comments on this
statement, remarking:
Gu 鼓 (drum, or stimulation) means to bring forth all movements under heaven. In movement,
there is success and failure, which is obtained from the hexagram and line statements. It is
called to observe the statements in order to understand the success and failure [of movements].
(Zhouyi Zhengyi, scroll 11, p. 274)
Language shows how people should comport themselves through clusters of

complex movements toward the most auspicious outcomes. Shen Xiaolong (2013,
p. 20) contends that this passage shows the Xici authors’ awareness of the political
significance of language and reflects their understanding of how important it is to
regulate language in a well-ordered society. Such a political importance of language
is already embedded in the Confucian project of the proper use of names (zheng-
ming) and is handled in the Xici. For instance, the greater disposition of a society is
assumed in the Xici to correspond to the inclination of its ruler’s every utterance:
The Master said, “The noble man might stay in his chambers, but if the words he speaks are
good, even those from more than a thousand li (miles) away will respond with approval to
him, and how much the more will those who are nearby do so! If he stays in his chambers
and his words are not good, then those from more than a thousand li away will go against
him, and how much the more will those who are nearby do so! (Xici, I.8)
Furthermore,
The Master said, “As for how disorder arises, well, what one says is considered the steps to it.
If the sovereign is not circumspect, he will lose his ministers; if a minister is not circumspect,
he will lose his life; and if the initial stage of any matter is not kept circumspect, harm will
result. This is why the sovereign takes circumspection as a caution and is not forthcoming.”
(Xici, I.8)
Given this political function of language, appending statements to the hexagrams

is crucial in making the Yijing a Confucian classic. It can function comprehen-
sively, providing beyond metaphysical ruminations, and clear guidance for people
and society. The latter practical function arises from the appropriate arrangement
of lines, hexagrams and language, which together deliver the means to explore the
nature’s patterns and deal with the uncertainties of human life.
6 Conclusion
The role of language in the semiotic system of the Yijing is to retrieve the deeper
knowledge of the hexagrams and bring out their divinatory meaning, so as to make
the information hidden therein relevant to human life. However, while this language
can disperse the dense cloud of mystery that obscures the meaning of the hexa-
grams, some ambiguity still remains. The statements themselves are short, opening
them to unstable interpretations that can be applied to many situations. These situ-
ations can occur in different locations and across different times, conforming to the
Xici authors’ conception of the Yijing’s “vastness and greatness” and the notion of
change and uncertainty as intrinsic features of the world. For the text to retain an
all-encompassing quality and be adaptable to the diverse levels of human society, it
should be open to multiple interpretations that can suit people of differing capabilities
in different situations. It is this universally practical positioning that turns the text
into a classic. As the Xici itself asserts, the text has multiple meanings for readers to
choose: “The benevolent see it and call it benevolence, and the wise see it and call it
wisdom.” (Xici, I.5) In order to reflect the dynamics and complexities of a changing
world, language needs to retain a certain degree of ambiguity and polysemy, and the
Yijing as a whole needs to retain a certain hermeneutic openness.
Ultimately, it is this same ambiguity and hermeneutic openness that make the
Yijing adaptable to a wider context through which it can be engaged in a cross-cultural
dialogue. The translation and reception of the Yijing in a global and multilingual world
inevitably revolve around such a cross-cultural understanding of the work. This study
has attempted to lay a foundation for further cross-cultural dialogues between the
Yijing and other textual or philosophical traditions. By highlighting the similarities
and differences between the studies of language and signs in the Xici and Plato’s
Cratylus, my goal is to expand our scholarly horizons, so that we may understand
the Xici beyond the confinement of the Yijing and its native Chinese tradition. By
viewing a subject through such a lens of differences, one can accurately appreciate
its true uniqueness. Indeed, juxtaposing the Xici to the Platonic worldview, even just
this briefly, begins to shed new light on the Yijing’s distinctive philosophy and its
related ways of seeing. Facilitating such dialogue across boundaries will ultimately
prove an enriching experience for our understanding of both the Yijing itself and our
collective human past.
80 R. Gustavsson
References
Ames, Roger. 2015. The great commentary (Dazhuan 大傳) and Chinese natural cosmology.
International Communication of Chinese Culture 2 (1): 1–18.
Barney, Rachel. 2009. The sophistic movement. In: A companion to ancient philosophy, eds. Mary
Louise Gill, and Pierre Pellegrin, 77–97. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Bett, Richard. 1989. The sophists and relativism. Phronesis 34 (2): 139–169.
Borgmann, Albert. 1974. The philosophy of language historical foundations and contemporary
issues. Hague: Nijhoff.
Brisson, Luc. 2009. Plato’s natural philosophy and metaphysics. In: A companion to ancient
philosophy, eds. Mary Louise Gill, and Pierre Pellegrin, 212–231. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Cooper, John M., and D.S. Hutchinson, eds. 1997. Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing Company.
Curd, Patricia. 2009. Parmenides and after: unity and plurality. In: A companion to ancient
philosophy, eds. Mary Louise Gill, and Pierre Pellegrin, 34–55. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Gao, Heng 高亨. 1961. Shi tan Zhouyi Dazhuan de zhexue sixiang 試談周易大傳的哲學思想
(A Preliminary Discussion of the Philosophy of the Great Commentary in the Zhouyi). Xueshu
yuekan 11: 17–22
Geaney, Jane. 2018. Language as bodily practice in early China: a chinese grammatology. Albany:
State University of New York Press.
Graeser, Andreas. 1977. On language, thought, and reality in ancient greek philosophy. Dialectica
31 (3–4): 359–388.
Graham, A.C. 1989. Disputers of the Tao: philosophical argument in ancient China. Illinois: Open
Court Press.
Hansen, Chad. 2008. Ancient Chinese theories of language. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 2 (3):
245–283.
Homer. 2012. The Iliad, trans. Anthony Verity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hon, Tze-ki; Redmond, Geoffrey. 2014. Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Huang, Shou-qi 黃壽祺, and Zhang, Shan-wen 張善文. 2004. Zhouyi yizhu 周易譯注 (An
Annotated Translation of the Zhouyi). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.
Kahn, Charles H. 1973. Language and Ontology in the Cratylus. In: Exegesis and Argument:
Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos, eds. Edward N. Lee, Alexander P. D.
Mourelatos, and Richard Rorty, 152–176. Assen: Van Gorcum and Co.
Kong, Ying-da 孔穎達. 2017. Zhouyi zhengyi 周易正義 (The Correct Meaning of the Zhouyi).
Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe.
Lu, Sheldon. 2008. I Ching and the origin of the Chinese semiotic tradition. Semiotica 170: 169–185.
Lynn, Richard John. 1994. The classic of changes: a new translation of the I Chingas interpreted
by Wang Bi as interpreted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press.
Modrak, Deborah K. W. 2009. Philosophy of Language. In: A companion to ancient philosophy,
eds. Mary Louise Gill, and Pierre Pellegrin, 640–663. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Nielsen, Bent. 2003. A companion to Yijing numerology and cosmology. London and New York:
Routledge.
Plato. 1997. The Cratylus, trans. Reeve, C. D. C. Plato, Cratylus: Translated with Introduction
and Notes, reprinted in Plato, Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper. Indianapolis and Cambridge:
Hackett.
Redmond, Geoffrey, and Tze-ki Hon. 2014. Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Plato’s Cratylus. 2013. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 edn.), ed.
Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/plato-cratylus/. Accessed
20 November 2019.
Sedley, David. 2003. Plato’s Cratylus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shen, Xiao-long 申小龍. 2013. Zhongguo gudai yuyanxue shi 中國古代語言學史 (The History of
Chinese Linguistics). Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe.
Smith, Richard J. 2008. Fathoming the cosmos and ordering the world: The Yijing (I-Ching or
classic of changes) and its evolution in China. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Wilhelm, Richard. 1967. The I Ching or book of changes, trans. Cary F. Baynes. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Zhang, Dai-nian. 2002. Key concepts in Chinese philosophy, trans. Edmund Ryden. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
Zhu, Bo-kun 朱伯崑. 2003. Yixue jichu jiaocheng 易學基礎教程 (A Basic Course of Study on
the Yijing). Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe.
Rickard Gustavsson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chinese and History at City
University of Hong Kong. His academic interests include Han philosophy, Song Confucianism,
and Chinese linguistics. His dissertation is about the discourse of language and writing in the Song
dynasty. He has published academic papers in Orientaliska Studier, Journal of Yong Sinology, and
Filosofisk tidskrift.
Part II
The Yijing in Christianity
and Modernization in Modern Asia
Chapter 6
The Early Transmission of the Yijing
and the Figurists’ Renditions
Ming-che Lee
Abstract The Yijing, a divinatory and philosophical ancient Chinese classic, has
secured an idiosyncratic position in Western sinology. This chapter looks at the
motives, strategies and ideologies with which the early Jesuit missionaries introduced
the Yijing to the West, particularly with reference to the European biblical exegesis
tradition. This study investigates how the Jesuit scholars appropriated the Yijing text
and doctrines at multiple levels to facilitate the Confucian-Christian synthesis in order
to proselytize the Chinese gentry by mitigating the incommensurability between
Christianity and Confucianism. Some of them penetrated, interpreted, rendered and
rewrote the Yijing based on their Figuristic ideologies to reduce passive resistance
from the dominant Christian beliefs. However, the Figurists’ radical accommodating
approach and deliberate emphasis on the esoteric revelation of the Yijing’s “biblical
truth” sarcastically halted its reception from the European literati. All in all, the
Figurists’ endeavor did grant the Yijing, then in a peripheral position, access to the
European literary polysystem. It was their unprecedented attempt that had brought
about the bilateral communication between China and the West from the seventeenth
to mid-eighteenth centuries.
1 Introduction
This chapter is intended to explore the motives, approaches and ideologies adopted
by the early Jesuit missionaries to create a cultural alliance between the Yijing and
Christianity as a means to facilitate the Confucian-Christian synthesis. Yijing scholars
used to describe this phenomenon by specifying factors leading to it mostly from
historical perspectives. However, little academic attention has been paid to addressing
This chapter is adapted from the author’s article published in Compilation and Translation Review
13(1) (2000): 71–114.
M. Lee (B)
Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei,
Taiwan
e-mail: mingchelee520@gmail.com
86 M. Lee
this issue from perspectives of translation studies, such as Even-Zohar’s polysystem

theory, Gadamerian hermeneutics, and Lefevere’s rewriting formula. Observing the
issue from a position following the “cultural turn” in translation studies, I have
conducted a study to pursue this matter further to re-examine the politics and ideolo-
gies engaged in the earliest transmission and translation of the Yijing in the West
through a socio-cultural prism.
Polysystem theory, developed in the 1970s by Itamar Even-Zohar (1939-) and
Gideon Toury (1942–2016), emphasizes that translated literature operates as part of
the cultural, literary and historical system of the receptor language, and the position
it occupies determines what translation strategies are to be employed. If the trans-
lated literature assumes a lower position within the polysystem strata (i.e. the Yijing
in the West), it is subordinated to the literary norms of the target system (i.e. the
Christianity-governed Europe). Hans-Georg Gadamer’s (1900–2002) philosophical
hermeneutics specifically justifies the significance of the reader/translator’s fore-
structural prejudices (i.e. the Jesuit missionaries’ interpretation of the Yijing corpus)
capable of providing the correct understanding of a given text’s meaning. For him,
the criterion for meaning is both the author’s and the reader/translator’s intention.
André Lefevere’s (1945–1996) rewriting theory draws our attention to other cultural,
social and political factors, deeming translation as a manipulative literary practice
undertaken in the service of powers (i.e. the Roman Church/Kangxi 康熙 Emperor’s
(1654–1722) patronage and French Figurism), which is sometimes exemplified in
the distortion of translated literature. When it comes to the translation and dissemi-
nation of the Yijing on its initial journey to the West, one must take into account the
socio-political factors and relevant ideological concerns as a whole to examine the
complex process of the two-directional cultural assimilation. Combining the three
contemporary translation theories, this article is dedicated to providing a different
angle on this issue, which previous Yijing scholars had sparingly resorted to.
The first part of this chapter, on the grounds of available literature, outlines the
content and cultural significance of the Yijing as well as its early encounter with the
West, including a brief history of their cultural collision, Matteo Ricci’s (1552–1610)
adaptation legacy, and the features characterizing the early exegesis of the Yijing
based on Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory and Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneu-
tics. The second part provides an overview of how the Figurist approach influenced
the Jesuits’ prejudiced perception and epistemological rendition of the Yijing, partic-
ularly the French Jesuits’ Figuristic translations pursuant to Lefevere’s rewriting
formula. The third part presents a comparative analysis of the translation of a specific
gua 卦 and the conflicting effects of the counter-Figurism renditions. The final part
deals with the Jesuits’ “two-directional domestication” labor through translating the
Yijing for evangelism in China, as well as a brief discussion of this phenomenon
followed by a conclusion which summarizes this sophisticated bilateral assimilation
and its unparalleled cultural significance.
6 The Early Transmission of the Yijing and the Figurists’ Renditions 87
2 The Yijing’s Early Encounter with the West
The Yijing, or previously known as the Book of Changes, has long served as a
philosophical and ethical discernment tool to guide one’s life or to govern state
operations in feudal China. It encompasses the original Zhouyi corpus and the ten
Confucianism-based Appendixes (Shiyi 十翼, or Ten Wings, commentaries of the
Zhouyi). The Zhouyi is comprised of sixty-four hexagrams (gua) conceived out of the
eight trigrams (bagua), with a specific guaci 卦辭 (or tuan 彖, denoting “judgment”
or “explanation”) attached to illuminate the immanent meaning of a given hexagram.
Each hexagram has a name (guaming 卦名) characterized by an object, a circum-
stance, a quality, an attitude, an emotion, an interaction, etc. For example, Hexagram
#21 Shihe 噬嗑 (Gnawing Through) represents the image of an open mouth with
an obstacle between the lips, implying that one must bite through the obstacle to
achieve success. However, the pictorial correlation between each guaming and its
corresponding image seems to have been arbitrarily assigned without symbolic or
lexical cohesions.
The Yijing’s influence had expanded to pre-modern East Asia, such as Korea
and Japan, where the Yijing was purposefully incorporated by local elites into their
cultural context. For example, the dominant principles applied in the Korean alphabet
system Hangul (invented in 1443) are remarkably congruent with those prevailing in
the Yijing, such as yin-yang and taiji (the supreme ultimate). Likewise, the genesis of
numerous Japanese gengō 元号 (an imperial era name used to number years during an
emperor’s reign) also originated from the Yijing. For example, Jōji 貞治 (1362–1368)
is derived from the treatise on the first-Six yaoci 爻辞 of Hexagram #57 Xun 巽 (Pene-
trating): li wuren zhi zhen, zhi zhi ye 利武人之貞, 志治也 (it would be advantageous
for him to have the firmness of a brave soldier—his mind would in that case be well
governed). (Legge 1964, pp. 338–339) In a nutshell, in China and the Sinosphere,
the Yijing has been dealt with as a divination manual or guidelines on governing a
country. However, given the later influence of the Neo-Confucianism (a philosophy
developed ca. 1000 AD as a renaissance of Confucianism in response to the ideas of
Daoism and Buddhism), the book has generally been viewed as an esteemed Chinese
classic unveiling the humanistic elements that are supposedly inherent in Confucian
doctrines. It should be noted that the Yijing and its derivative figures and diagrams
are the primary source from which the Neo-Confucian cosmology is drawn.
Although it remains unclear as to when exactly the earliest arrival of the Yijing
in the West took place, there is a consensus unanimously reached by Yijing scholars
in China and abroad: The Yijing embarked on its journey to the West no later than
the last decade of the sixteenth century. During the seventeenth to mid-eighteenth
centuries, in order to win converts and promote their missionary propaganda, the
Jesuit missionaries made grandiose efforts to identify affinities between the Holy
Writ and the canonized Confucian classics. In fact, one pivotal catalyst generating
modern academic sinology in the early nineteenth-century Europe was precisely their
intellectuals’ discovery and investigation of the Yijing.
88 M. Lee
2.1 A Brief History of the Yijing Meeting the West
As far back as 1585, Juan González de Mendoza (1545–1618), a Spanish Catholic

bishop, compiled the earliest Western encyclopedic history of China, Historia de
las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China (The History
of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the Situation Thereof).1 The two-
volume book is a Spanish missionaries’ joint account of what they observed about
China in the sixteenth century for the curious European reader. It should be noted that
González de Mendoza himself did not visit China, and the first volume of his book
is chiefly sourced from the field report of an Augustinian missionary Martin de Rada
(1533–1578) in 1575. According to González de Mendoza (2010, p. 39), the notion
of “heauen,” symbolized by a Chinese character “in the first caract or letter of the
crosse row” (= 天), is generally understood among the Chinese people as “the creator
of all things visible and inuisible.” In Chapter 5 “Of the Opinion They Haue of the
Beginning of the World, and of the Creation of Man” of the second book of the first
volume, he depicts a supreme being “Tayn” (taiyi 太乙 = taiji 太極) as a “resident
of heaven,” who “by his great science did separate heaven and earth” and “create a
man of nothing.”2 (Ibid, p. 50) He also sketches out the heroic inventor “Ocheutey”
(also named “Fuh-he-te” in the original footnote as an equivalent to Fu Xi) who
“was the inuentor of many things and ordained marriage, and to play on many and
diuers instruments.” (Ibid, p. 52) According to the renowned Chinese scholar Wang
Bi’s 王弼 (226–249) Zhouyi zhu 周易注 (Commentary on the Zhouyi), Fu Xi is
the one who formulated the pristine bagua and the derivative sixty-four hexagrams.
However, modern scholars incline toward treating the bagua’s sagely authorship with
skepticism due to recent advances in archaeology and paleography.
The first scholar to rationally introduce the Yijing to the West is probably the
Portuguese Jesuit missionary Álvaro de Semedo (1585–1658), whose Chinese name
was Zeng Dezhao 曾德昭 renamed from Xie Wulu 謝務祿. (Zhang 1998, p. 124)
He authored a long “exact account” of the affairs of China under the title Relaçao
da pragaçao da fé no reyno da China e outros adjacentes (Relations between
Preaching on Faith in the Kingdom of China and Other Adjacent Countries), which
was published in 1641 and translated into English in 1655 entitled The History of That
Great and Renowned Monarchy of China. As the beginning of Chapter 10 “Of the
Books and Sciences of the Chinesses” goes, Semedo (1655, pp. 47–48) sketches out
the three ancient Chinese sages, Fohi (Fu Xi), Xinon (Shennong 神農), and Hoamsi
1 This two-volume book was first published in Rome in 1585 and was translated at Richard Hakluyt’s
suggestion in 1588, becoming the first detailed account of China available in English. The quotes
cited here are from the 1853 translation published in London, which was reprinted in 2010 by the
Cambridge University Press. Interested readers can see He Gaoji’s 何高濟 Chinese translation,
Zhonghua Da Diguo Shi 中華大帝國史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998). His version is worth
reading for its detailed expository gloss.
2 González de Mendoza (2010, p. 50) seemed to deify “Tayn” by assigning him supernatural power
to create the first man called “Panzon,” who, according to the original footnote, is an equivalent
to “Pwan-koo, the Adam of the Chinese.” “Pwan-koo” is the transliteration of “Pangu 盤古,” the
creator of all in some versions of Chinese mythology.
(Huangdi 黃帝), recognizing them as the first three kings to present “their moral and
speculative sciences, by way of mystical, even and odd numbers, and other ciphers
and notes [emphasis added].” According to Semedo (Ibid, p. 48), an outstanding
Zhou King “Checuam” (Jichang 姬昌, King Wen’s name) published “these numbers
and ancient notes, and made a booke of them, intitled Yechim.” Semedo opines that
the Yekim, coupled with the Ten Wings, ranked top among the Confucian Wujing 五
經 (Five Classics), believing that the five sacred books were composed by the revered
master Confusio (Confucius):
But returning to the Bookes which he published, they are these following; The first is called
Yekim, and treateth of his naturall Philosophie, and of the generation and corruption of
things; of Fate, or Judiciary Prognostication from these and other things, and from naturall
principles; Philosophizing by way of numbers, figures, and symbols, applying all to moralitie
and good government.3 (Ibid, p. 49, emphasis added)
Semedo is also the first European missionary paying exceptional attention to

Neo-Confucianist scholars’ perspective on the Yijing’s philosophical system. These
alternative thinkers became prominent during the Song and Ming dynasties trying to
resume the notion of the Confucian Daotong 道統 (transmission of the true way) via
their re-interpretation of the Yijing. One of their central theses was to use taiji rather
than Shangdi 上帝 as the genesis of all creations. For example, in Zhou Dunyi’s 周
敦頣 (1017–1073) Taiji tushuo 太極圖說 (The Explanation of the Diagram of the
Supreme Ultimate), the famous opening phrase “wuji er taiji 無極而太極 (limit-
less ultimate then supreme ultimate)” demonstrates their atheistic and materialistic
orientation over which the Jesuit exegetes expressed anxieties. (Mungello 1989,
pp. 305–307).
In 1658, the Italian Jesuit Martino Martini 魏匡國 (1614–1661) published a Latin
work titled Sinicæ Historiæ Decas Prima: res à gentis origine ad Christum natum
in extrema Asia, sive magno Sinarum imperio gestas complexa (The First Decade of
the History of China: Covering the Events That Took Place in Extreme Asia, or in
the Great Empire of China—Since the Origin of the [Human] Race Until the Birth
of Christ), which is the first-ever historical document in the West encompassing a
chronological outline of Chinese history that demonstrates the reliability and validity
of the ancient Chinese history. (Mungello 1989; Pfister 1932) Its first chapter briefly
depicts Chinese mythology and the Yijing, asserting that Fu Xi (ca. 2952 BC) was the
very first Chinese ruler who composed the original Zhouyi around six hundred years
prior to the Genesis Deluge (ca. 2348 BC), which harshly challenged the Christian
creationism. His book is the earliest in the West recognizing the significance of the
Yijing, in which a table with the sixty-four hexagrams in the Xiantian baguatu 先天
八卦圖 (The Anterior-heaven Arrangement of the Eight Trigrams) was printed for
the first time in Europe, albeit awkwardly backwards and upside down. (Lundbæk
3 It seems that Semedo used two transliterations “Yekim” and “Yechim” to denote the original corpus
Zhouyi and the compilation work Yijing respectively.

90 M. Lee
1991, pp. 31–32) Martini claimed that Fu Xi was the originator of the eight emblem-
atic figures based on Hetu luoshu 河圖洛書 (Yellow River Chart and Luo River
Document).4
In 1763, the German scholar Johann Heinrich Schumacher (n.d.) published an
insightful treatise Die verborgenen Alterthümer der Chineser aus dem uralten canon-
ischen Buche Yeking untersuche (The Hidden Antiquities of the Chinese from the
Ancient Canon Yeking Examined). Working in a way similar to Martini’s historical
interpretation, Schumacher managed to historicize the Yijing based on its documen-
tation of partial pre-Western Zhou occurrences in Hexagrams #11 Tai 泰 (The Great
Arrives), #53 Jian 漸 (Gradual Advance), #62 Xiaoguo 小過 (Small Excess), and #63
Jiji 既濟 (After Completion). (Shchutskii 1979, p. 21) As the Soviet sinologist Iulian
K. Shchutskii argues in his Researches on the I Ching (1979), by the late 1800s, the
Yijing had undergone a transformation from a purely mantic text to a composite of
oracular-philosophical literature, making it constantly encountered in Chinese philo-
sophical writings with enormously different interpretations. To summarize, by the
mid-eighteenth century, the Yijing had been apprehended in the West at least in three
dimensions—prophetic, philosophical, and historical. Unfortunately, the mainstream
opinion among the missionaries in late dynastic China seemed to dismiss the Yijing as
a book of witchcraft, which appeared “insane,” “heretic,” and “superstitious” without
profound teachings.5 (Wilhelm and Wilhelm 1979, p. 8).
2.2 Ricci’s Accommodation and Synthesis Policy
In imperial China, the heterodox non-Confucian teachings should be exclusively

blended in conformity with the orthodox Confucianism, taking the form of a
syncretism of systems (particularly Daoism and Buddhism). In a similar vein, Matteo
Ricci promulgated his accommodation method (an attempt to sinicize or indigenize
Christianity by permitting Chinese Christians to sustain traditional rites and ancestor-
worshipping practices) and carefully handled the combination of this pagan but
dominant Chinese philosophy with Christianity by initiating the investigation on the
Yijing, quoting “di chu hu zhen 帝出乎震” (God comes forth in Zhen)6 in his 1603
book Tianzhu shiyi 天主實義 (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven), disclosing
4 Legend has it that Fu Xi found a celestial dragon-horse and a tortoise bearing mystic markings
emerging from the Yellow River and the Luo River, and transcribed them into the eight symbols.
According to the Xici 繫辭, the “sages took advantage of” the documents and “imitated them (by
means of the Yijing)” so as to “inform men (in divining of the lines making up the diagrams)” (河
出圖, 洛出書, 聖人則之). (Legge 1964, p. 374).
5 This pejorative viewpoint was shared by distinguished missionaries like Nicholas Longobardi 龍
華民 (1559–1654), Gabriel de Magalhāes 安文思 (1609–1677), Louis le Comte 李明 (1655–1728),

and Claude de Visdelou 劉應 (1656–1737). (Witek 1982, p. 457).
6 This quote is from Shuogua 說卦 (Commentary on trigrams). Shuogua elaborates on the eight
trigrams and the particular image inherent in each of them. As a Protestant missionary, Legge’s
rendering of Di 帝 (the supreme ruler) as “God” could be seen as a legacy of Ricci’s accommodation
approach. Ricci (1985, p. 123) explained the Western views over the existence of the Judeo-Christian
his unshakeable view that the Judeo-Christian God was the creator of myriad things.
In this catechism, Ricci quoted the Yijing six times, laying extra emphasis on the
Confucian philosophical commentary Xici 繫辭. At the same time, he put forward the
remarkable similarities shared by Confucianism and Christianity in order to convert
the Chinese literati and imperial court: “the Lord of Heaven [emphasis added] created
heaven, earth, and the myriad things, and controls and sustains them […]. Thus this
is the Lord of Heaven, the one our Western nations term Deus.” (Ricci 1985, p. 70).
Ricci’s adaptation strategy was to accept the Chinese loan-terms Di 帝 (sovereign
emperor) and Shangdi 上帝 (the highest deity) as the semantic equivalents of Deus
for its divine attributes and qualities. (Kim 2004, p. 2) Furthermore, he avoided crit-
icizing fundamental Confucian doctrines and sought to interpret things that seemed
to contradict his holy faith. In that case, Ricci’s attempt was drawn from the re-
interpretation of the Yijing to reveal and confirm the “solid fact” that the Chinese had
been worshipping the monotheistic God from the very beginning of their history.
In other words, he proposed a Confucian-Christian synthesis within the orthodox
paradigm of Chinese syncretism to facilitate the harmony between Christianity and
Confucianism. According to Ricci, Confucianism should be construed as a kind of
philosophy based on natural laws (which is observable in the Confucianized Yijing
commentaries), rather than a deity-worshipping religion filled with transcendental
elements.
Paradoxically, Ricci was later astounded to find the Neo-Confucian master Zhu
Xi’s (1130–1200) philosophical writings short of terms like Shangdi, which was an
awkward departure from his adaptation policy. Although Ricci quoted the Yijing to
justify the ancient Chinese’s awareness of the biblical God, he clearly renounced
any equivalence between the “Taikieo” (taiji, the fundamental doctrine of the Yijing
incorporated into Neo-Confucianism) and the Christian God. One must bear in mind
that the early Latin translations for taiji, “radix prima” (primary source), “summa
origo” (highest origin), and “verum inexhauribilis” (true infinity), exemplified the
status of taiji at least as a competitive candidate to be used as the proper name for
the Christian God. (von Collani 2007, p. 237) To sum up, Ricci was very vigilant
and flexible in his meditative attempt to synthesize Christianity and Confucianism.
Despite his supple stance, his method was deprecated by a few of his coetaneous
Jesuits and a majority of non-Jesuit missionaries.
2.3 Characteristics of the Early Exegesis of the Yijing
According to Roger Hart (2013, p. 57), French linguist Émile Benveniste saw the ties
between language and thought as “coextensive, interdependent, and indispensable
God in a conversation with his Chinese scholar friends: 易曰: 「帝出乎震。」夫帝也者, 非天之
謂, 蒼天者抱八方, 何能出於一乎? The Book of Changes has the following: “This word Sovereign
[Lord] emerges from Chen in the East. This word ‘Sovereign’ or ‘Emperor’ does not connote the
material heavens. Since the blue sky embraces the eight directions, how can it emerge from one
direction only?”.
92 M. Lee
to each other.” His kernel argument asserts that linguistic form is not exclusively
for the practice of transmissibility; it is, in a broader sense, “for the realization
of thought.” (Benveniste 1973, p. 56) The philological barriers and philosophical
incommensurability between the Yijing and the biblical dogmas had made it far
more complex and difficult to alleviate the heavily culture-loaded foreignness of the
subject matter to which the Yijing relates. The canonized Yijing, replete with unfath-
omable religiosity and impenetrable symbolism, appears obscure and occult, making
it exceedingly difficult to comprehend and translate, for “it is ancient, multi-layered
and often almost hopelessly ambiguous.” (Smith 2015, p. 385) In fact, during its
early travels to the West, the concerns over how to render metaphysical concepts like
tian 天, Shangdi, or taiji into varied European languages kindled a lasting academic
wrangle among the Western intelligentsia. Since the Jesuit missionaries were in the
vanguard of introducing the heretical Yijing to the Western readership who barely
had access to the original, their interpretive attempt can be understood in the sense
of intercultural textualization to expand the Yijing’s cultural influence by shaping
a reader-friendly image of the canon per se. As postulated by functionalist Itamar
Even-Zohar, there is a linkage between translated literature in the receiving literary
polysystem and its translation norms. He negates the concept of equivalence, consid-
ering translated literature as an ongoing dynamic mutation determined by the given
social, cultural, and historical framework. (Even-Zohar 1990; Munday 2001) Their
hierarchical relations would have been established from the very beginning, setting
the socio-literary status of the translated literature. When assuming a central position,
translated literature holds sway as a major source of alternative/innovatory repertoire
and as a primary element in the formation of new models and poetics for the target
culture. When translated literature occupies a peripheral position (i.e. the Yijing) in a
stable, well-established and self-sufficient literary system (i.e. the Christian culture),
the foreign items are more likely to be adapted to fit the mainstream target norms
to maximize the chance of the translation being accepted, otherwise the imported
texts may be deemed irrelevant or even threatening and would end up meeting with
passive resistance.
One must bear in mind that meaning is not diachronically stable. As Gadamer
(1976) puts it, all interpretation is situational and subservient to a specific time-framed
context, and thus the reading activity is literally engaging the reader in a dynamic
relationship with the text at a given time in a particular culture. The early conflict-
laden encounter between the Yijing and the West somehow vindicates the inference
that the Jesuit missionaries’ hermeneutic reconstruction and integration tasks were by
no means a simple communicative activity. It is necessary to acknowledge the “legit-
imate prejudices” applied in their exegesis, which provided a justified hermeneutical
horizon to bring their a priori perception of the Yijing into play. Borrowing Martin
Heidegger’s “fore-structures” of understanding, Gadamer employs the term “preju-
dice” (Vorurteile) to demonstrate how translators (simultaneously interpreters) may
inherit the prejudgment from their past in the process of acculturation to constitute
a “historical reality” and the “correct understanding.” (Schmidt 2006, pp. 100–101)
It was precisely their ideological preconceptions that had made possible the mani-
fold operations of power and interpretation embodied in the acculturation of the
Yijing into Christianity. Before I proceed to discuss the early Jesuit translations, we
should note that translating the Yijing would inevitably involve a three-stage produc-
tion: intersemiotic, intralingual and interlingual translation. (Jakobson 2000) Inter-
semiotic translation refers to non-verbal signs (images of gua) being expounded by
verbal signs (guaci and yaoci); intralingual translation denotes the rewording or para-
phrasing of the obsolete Yijing text mainly from Confucianist and Daoist perspectives
within the language of Chinese; and interlingual translation involves the exagger-
ated affinities between Christianity and Confucianism advocated by certain Jesuit
translators in response to the “double cultural imperative” from China and the West.
(Liu 2005, pp. 4–5; Standaert 1999, pp. 354–357) When juxtaposed between the
authoritative Roman Church and the predominant Confucian intellectuals, the Jesuit
translators preaching in China where Confucianism occupied a predominant posi-
tion were bound to vacillate between the two of them in identifying their paradox-
ical similarities. As identified under Michel Foucault’s asymmetrical savoir-pouvoir
conceptual lens, the Roman Church and the Kangxi Emperor’s political intervention
(patronage: power) and the Jesuit missionaries’ proactive participation (expertise:
knowledge/ideology) imposed in the transcoding of the Yijing disclosed a certain
degree of biased subjectivity governing the Jesuits’ idealization of China.
3 Jesuit Translations and Figurism
The first translator of the Yijing, according to some Chinese scholars (Wang 2015,
p. 39; Yang 1996, p. 65), is the French Jesuit Nicolas Trigault 金尼閣 (1577–1628),
who published in China a Latin version of the Confucian Five Classics entitled
Pentabiblion Sinense quodprimae atque adeo Sacrae Auctoritatis apud illos est (The
Chinese Five Classics: The First Sacred Books of China, 1626). Unfortunately, his
translation is long lost. Trigault was a loyal adherent of Matteo Ricci’s accommo-
dation approach, and made sure that the ideology dictating his translation was in
line with that of Ricci’s. According to The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven,
Ricci believed that the messages of the supreme God had long since been revealed in
ancient Chinese classics, so the Jesuit missionaries’ top priority was to consolidate
this specific faith: wu Tienzhu, nai gu jingshu suocheng Shangdi ye 吾天主, 乃古
經書所稱上帝也 (our Lord of Heaven refers to the Shangdi mentioned in ancient
Chinese classics). Ricci’s goal of uniting Christianity and Confucianism was echoed
by his translation collaborator Xu Guangqi 徐光啟 (1562–1633, a Chinese scholar-
bureaucrat and Catholic convert) who accepted essential Christian doctrines by reca-
pitulating Ricci’s thoughts as buru yifo 補儒易佛 (supplementing Confucianism
and replacing Buddhism with Christianity). According to Anna Seo (2012, p. 112),
“Christology” is the core of Xu’s understanding of Tianzhu 天主 (the supreme ruler
of Heaven), and the ultimate goal of Confucianism is to realize Confucian ideals by
worshipping Tianzhu in awe and veneration. The cardinal argument of bu Ru yi Fo is
to amplify the similarities between Confucianism and Christianity while inflating the
differences between the latter and Buddhism (e.g. to eliminate the Buddhist idolatry
94 M. Lee
materials) so as to seek the psychological recognition of the Chinese literati and the
European missionaries in China.
The first printed translation of Wujing had to wait until 1687, when the first Euro-
pean translation (in Latin) of the Zhouyi was included in a Jesuit compilation entitled
Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, sive, Scientia Sinensis (Confucius the Philosopher
of China) published in Paris. The book has a Chinese title Xiwen Sishu zhijie 西文四
書直解 (The Literal Exegesis of the Four Books in a Western Language), compiled
jointly by Flemish Jesuit Philippe Couplet 柏應里 (1623–1692), Austrian Jesuit
Chrétien Herdtrich 恩里格 (1625–1684), Italian Jesuit Prospero Intorcetta 殷鐸澤
(1626–1696), and Flemish Jesuit François de Rougemont 魯日滿 (1624–1677). This
book has an appendix of the sixty-four hexagrams with a brief explanation for each.
Chapter 6 introduces the dyad ying-yang, the figures of bagua, the sixty-four hexa-
grams, and the concept of taiji. Chapter 7 elaborates on the first fourteen guaming
and their corresponding guaci. In chapter 8, Intorcetta made the first-ever attempt to
translate a specific gua in plain Latin—#15 Qian 謙 (Humility). Although the four
Jesuit authors appeared defensive of Ricci’s accommodation approach, in contrast to
Ricci, they were more critical of the Yijing in two aspects. (Lundbæk 1983; Mungello
1989) First, they tended to be conservative and suspicious of the sagely authorship
of Fu Xi and the antiquity of the Chinese chronology. Second, they denounced the
Yijing as the worst superstition for its detrimental impact over the Neo-Confucian
philosophy, for the materialistic concept of taiji developed in the Yijing would jeop-
ardize the Jesuits’ fusion efforts. Simply put, in their eyes, the notion of taiji could
sabotage the logocentric Christology.
3.1 The Role and Impact of Figurism
Another perspective to look at the Yijing was initiated by a number of learned

sinophily French Figurists. Figurism is an intellectual and theological movement
subject to the censorship tactics led by Joachim Bouvet 白晉 (1656–1730), Jean-
François Foucquet 傅聖澤 (1663–1740), Joseph Henri 663–1740), Joseph Henri-
Marie de Prémare 馬若瑟 (1656–1736) and Jean-Alexis de Gollet 郭中傳 (1664–
1741). Its origin is grounded on the Christian apologetics called prisca theologia
(ancient theology), whose main argument was that certain archaic pagan texts contain
vestiges of the biblical revelation, for Christianity is the only perennial religion across
all human civilizations. (Standaert 2001, pp. 668–669) During the late Renaissance
in the seventeenth century, adherents of the revived Figurism endeavored to estab-
lish a profound association between the Chinese anthropology, language, religion
and philosophy (particularly in the Yijing) with Christianity traditions. For example,
the German Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) claimed in his famous
1667 treatise China Illustrata that the Chinese were descended from the sons of
Ham, that Confucius was Hermes Trismegistus/Moses, and that the Chinese script
writing system originated from the Egyptian hieroglyphs. He identified Fu Xi as
the sage who had acquired the pictorial writing formula from Noah’s descendants.
On the other hand, the French clergyman Paul Beurrier (1608–1696) claimed that
the Chinese were among those peoples who had received the pre-Christian revealed
theology, and Fu Xi himself was the offspring of Noah. According to Beurrier, the
eight symbolic guas were divine revelations by the supreme Christian God. (Wang
2015, p. 38) As a consequence, the Chinese were erroneously believed to possess the
biblical knowledge, and the Yijing in particular was identified as a repository housing
such sacred knowledge due to its mystical attributes.
It can be surmised that Figurism evolved out of a hermeneutic need for the West
to comprehend an exotic culture and to compliment the Chinese literati’s insufficient
perception of the original meaning of their sacred scriptures. In a narrower sense,
“the Chinese antiquity did not belong to the Chinese exclusively but to early mankind
as a whole.” (Lackner 1991, p. 135) As such, Figurism was by nature a preconceived
interpretive attempt to make the Chinese aware of the distanciation separating their
own understanding and the classics in question. Sometimes Figurist scholars even
favored the accuracy of Chinese chronicles over that of the Bible.
The first recorded instance of the term “Figurism (Figurisme)” perhaps stemmed
from a letter written by the French humanist Nicolas Fréret (1688–1749) dated
December 1732, which revealed the defamatory views of other Jesuit opponents
for its affinities with Europe’s typological biblical exegesis that “Christ is prefig-
ured in the Old Testament by means of letters, words, persons and events.” (Lackner
1991, pp. 130–133; Mungello 1989, pp. 309–310) The original purpose of Jesuit
Figurism was to identify biblical patriarchs and figuras (figures, or signs) mentioned
in symbolical and allegorical forms in ancient Chinese annals, particularly the Yijing,
such as the fall of the rebellious angels as revealed in Hexagram #37 Jiaren 家人
(Household) and the virgin birth of Jesus by his mother Mary as implied in the fifth-
Six yaoci of Hexagram #11 Tai 泰—Di Yi guimei 帝乙歸妹, ([king] Ti-yi’s [rule
about the] marriage of his younger sister). (Legge 1964, p. 82).
The analysis of Chinese characters was also widely used by Figurists. For example,
Foucquet claimed that yi 易 was a combination of ri 日 (representing “the Father” and
the creator of light) and yue 月 (representing “the Son” and the humanity), so that “yi”
can be deemed as the Hypostatic Union (the union of Christ’s humanity and divinity
in one existence). Sometimes Figurism is nicknamed “Yijingism,” because in Figurist
discourses, there exist close ties between the Yijing and the Christian configuration
of the biblical figures and doctrines. That said, the Figurist movement fell victim to
bitter derogation from the Chinese gentry and their Christian counterparts in China
and Europe. The untenable Figurist speculations intensified suspicions in Rome,
leading to Figurism being rejected by the Holy See and severely criticized by fellow
Jesuit missionaries. Many of their manuscripts ended up being refused publication
in Europe and have been forgotten ever since.
96 M. Lee
3.2 French Figurists and Their Translations
The key contributor of the Figurist movement was one of the five French royal math-
ematicians (Mathématiciens du Roi), Joachim Bouvet, who was sent by Louis XIV
to the court of China. As an ardent admirer of the Yijing, Bouvet immersed himself
in the metaphysical propositions of the Yijing, spending the last twenty years of his
life studying the book under the tutorial and patronage of the Kangxi Emperor. In
his letter dated 3 November 1714, Bouvet indicated that it was the Emperor who
“imposed the really hardest work on me to depict the hidden doctrinal principles
of the Yijing suppressed for a long time [emphasis added].” (cited in von Collani
2007, p. 253) Bouvet considered the Yijing philosophy highly similar to those found
in Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophical systems. The book’s legitimate principles
regarding Chinese philosophy accorded incredibly with Christian doctrines in the
most profound sense. Bouvet was pleased to find “prefigurations of Moses, Enoch and
other biblical figures, even Christ himself, in Yijing.” (Rutt 1996, p. 62) For example,
the prevalent term daren 大人 (great man) in the recurring yaoci phrase, lijian daren
利見大人 (it will be advantageous to meet with the great man), indisputably beto-
kened the Messiah. In July 1710, the Kangxi Emperor urged Bouvet twice to finish
the translation of the Yijing. However, Bouvet and his collaborator Foucquet never
completed the full translation of the Yijing during the rest of Kangxi’s reign. Bouvet
and Foucquet authored a number of essays dedicated to their investigations and reflec-
tions on the Yijing in classical Chinese compiled under the title Yixue zongzhi 易學
總旨 (General Principles of Yijing Studies), and presented it to Kangxi. Two years
later, Bouvet re-rendered Yixue zongzhi into Latin titled Idea generalis doctrinæ libri
Yè Kim (General Idea of the Doctrinal Yijing), which was a brief exposition of the
Yijing philosophical principles. The values of this book are mainly manifested in two
aspects. First, the covert meanings of specific numbers in the bagua are unconcealed
by their corresponding Chinese characters that can be broken down into semantic
indicators. For example, the three unbroken lines of trigram qian 乾 represent the
Trinity and number 3 (三); Heaven (天) can be dissected into man (人) and number
2 (二); number 8 (八) denotes the eight surviving people boarding Noah’s Ark.7
Moreover, Bouvet’s research findings to a certain extent facilitated Li Guangdi’s
李光地 annotated compilation work entitled Yuzuan Zhouyi zhezhong 御纂周易折
中 (The Imperially Commissioned Balanced Compendium on the Zhouyi, 1715).8
Interestingly, Li’s work was substantially based on Zhu Xi’s Zhouyi benyi 周易本義
7 They are Noah and his wife, his three sons and three daughters-in-law. Another archetypal example
is the Chinese character chuan 船, which is composed of zhou 舟 (boat) and eight persons (八 and
口). According to Bouvet, Noah (father) and his wife (mother) represent trigram qian (乾卦 = yang,
masculinity) and trigram kun (坤卦 = ying, femininity), while the three sons symbolize trigrams
zhen, kan and gen (震, 坎 and 艮), and the three daughters-in-law embody trigrams xun, li, dui
(巽, 離 and 兌). In other words, these eight survivors indicate the pristine bagua. (Standaert 2001,
p. 675).
8 Li Guangdi was a Neo-Confucian courtier under Kangxi’s reign, part of whose work was to under-
score similarities between Confucianism and teachings of Daoism and Buddhism. His exceptional
interest in Western science brought light to his collaboration with Bouvet under Kangxi’s patronage.
(The Original Meaning of the Zhouyi), which influenced Jean-Baptiste Régis’ 雷孝

思 1723 Latin translation of the Yijing in line with the metaphysical Song orthodoxy
with which the superstitious and esoteric elements involved in Daoism and Buddhism
were abandoned. Second, the Yijing and the Bible share considerable similarities in
terms of divinity and philosophical configurations. For example, Bouvet argues that
the doctrines of the Yijing are in all respects compatible with the Christianity dogmas
(wu bu he yu tianjiao 無不合於天教). (Han 2004, p. 321) In his 1712 book, an illus-
trative example is provided: the Chinese character 需 in Hexagram #5 Hsu (Waiting)
resembles the image of clouds approaching downwards from the heaven, symbolizing
the image of “God” on auspicious clouds descending from the sky. The fifth-Nine
yaoci of #5 Hsu stresses that xu yu jiushi, zhen ji 需于酒食, 貞吉 ([its subject]
waiting amidst the appliances of a feast; through his firmness and correctness there
will be good fortune) (Legge 1964, p. 67), which, in Bouvet’s interpretation, refers
to the holy bread and wine (the flesh and blood of Jesus = salvation) eaten at the
Holy Communion. (Chen 2017, p. 191).
Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare was another French Jesuit Figurist investi-
gating the Yijing obviously for evangelical purposes, as shown in the following two
examples.
According to de Prémare’s translation, both the “Saint” (shengren 聖人) and “the
Great man” (daren 大人) were the equivalents of Jesus Christ, whose incarnation and
salvation were figuristically expounded. In light of either denotative or connotative
sense, de Prémare’s rendering is absolutely imprecise and incoherent in compar-
ison with traditional Confucian interpretations. In contrast, with the assistance of the
late-Qing progressive thinker-translator Wang Tao 王韜 (1828–1897), James Legge
(1815–1897) translated the enigmatic original, which was “designedly wrapped up
in mysterious phraseology” (Legge 1964, p. xcv) in a literal and intelligible manner.9
The salient difference identified here shows that de Prémare was trying to manipulate
and process the Yijing text to influence the way the target audience read the work. In
other words, he and his fellow Jesuits were preparing adapted foreign texts appro-
priate for the target language readership to “make them fit in with the dominant,
or one of dominant ideological and poetological currents of their time.” (Lefevere
2004, p. 8) According to André Lefevere, translation takes the form of “refraction” or
“rewriting” involving social factors and institutional forces to systematically dictate
Li’s memorial dated 10 August 1712 showcases the mystique of certain numbers in Chinese tradi-
tion. For example, “9” represents “Heavenly Rulers (Tian-huang 天皇),” “8” emblemizes “Earthly
Rulers (Di-huang 地皇),” and “7” denotes “Human Rulers (Ren-huang 人皇).” The Heaven-Earth-
Human (Tian Di Ren 天地人) is a sophisticated Chinese trinity representing the three elements of
the universe .
9 Wang Tao was one of the earliest journalists in modern China, who used to be a traditional
Confucianist scholar but became a social reformist after the Opium War. In August 1854, he was
baptized as a Christian convert. During his refuge in Hong Kong from 1862 to 1867, he was
commissioned by the London Missionary Society to help James Legge translate traditional Chinese
classics, including the Book of Documents and the Bamboo Annals. In November 1867, he was
invited by Legge to visit Scotland and assist him in translating other Confucian classics, including
the Book of Songs and the Book of Rites. In spring of 1870, they completed the translation of the
Book of Changes.
98 M. Lee
the reception or rejection of the translated literature, such as patronage and ideology.
Patrons (the church and the court with power) must count on “professionals” (Figurist
bilingual translators with knowledge) to bring the translated literature (the Yijing) in
accord with their ideology (Figurism, or Confucian-Christian synthesis), as under-
stood in the aforementioned Foucaultian sense. In Lefevere’s (2004, p. 9) parlance,
translation is “the most obviously recognizable type of rewriting, and potentially
the most influential” adaptation reflecting a dominant ideology to function in the
receiving culture. However, the Figurists’ overtly visibile renderings were to some
extent against the interests of the Roman Church for fear of pagan contamination.
Their abusive and unrestrained over-accommodation was bound to result in a defen-
sive suppression from the conservative Chinese intellectuals and a dismissive rejec-
tion by other Christian denominations in China, especially their rival Dominican and
Franciscan missionaries.
4 Different Renditions of Hexagram #15 Qian
As previously discussed, Prospero Intorcetta was the first missionary to translate

Hexagram #15 Qian 謙 into Latin, which is included in Couplet’s 1687 book.10
His translation positively related the ethical value implied in #15 Qian to the core
virtue of “humilitas (humbleness)” widely highlighted by Christians. Despite that,
he refrained from interpreting this profound idea from a theological perspective.
Echoing this viewpoint, the French sinologist Claude de Visdelou, known as a disloyal
Jesuit with a critical attitude against Figurism and the Yijing, translated #15 Qian in
a similar manner. In his science-prone opinion, the Yijing, based on Li Guangdi’s
1715 imperial edition, was a purely superstitious book filled with hexagrams which
simply embodied matters of nature and human life. He was banished to Macau by
the offended Kangxi Emperor in 1707 for openly rejecting the Jesuit accommodation
position (over the Rites Controversy). De Visdelou recalled the line statements of #15
Qian from memory, preserving the first adequate description of #15 Qian in his 1728
manuscript Notice du livre chinois nommé Yi-King ou Livre canonique des change-
ments, avec des notes (Manual of the Chinese Book Named Yi-King or Canonical
Book of Changes with Notes) and appending a sample translation, which is the earliest
known hexagram translation into a modern European language (French).11 It should
be noted that the Kangxi Emperor died in December 1722, and de Visdelou created
his translation mainly because Hexagram #15 was the locus classicus (authoritative
subject) for accommodationists. (Rutt 2013, p. 64) De Visdelou described the Qian
image as a mountain ⁃⁃ – (gen 艮) beneath the earth --
-- -- (kun 坤), which resembles a great
⁃⁃
10 Inthe first part of the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, there is a very long introduction called
Proemialis Declaratio (written by Intorcetta and revised by Couplet), in which there are detailed
descriptions of Hexagram #15 Qian.
11 De Visdelou’s complete French translation of Hexagram #15 Qian is included in Richard Rutt’s
(2013, p. 64) Zhouyi: A New Translation with Commentary of the Book of Changes.
man submitting himself to other people in possession of less virtue. According to

him, humility could overcome everything (L’humilite surmonte tout), and the humble
man could use humility to cross the great river (l’honnete homme humble, humble,
se serve de l’humilite pour traverser le grand fleuve). His translation is a quantum
leap if compared with Intorcetta’s version, because it for the first time included usual
extracts from three of the Ten Wings—Tuan zhuan 彖傳 (Commentary on the Deci-
sion) and Xiang zhuan 象傳 (Commentary on the Symbols, including Da xiang 大
象 and Xiao xiang 小象). De Visdelou also invented the terms trigramme and hexa-
gramme to represent the three-line and six-line diagrams, a precious legacy inherited
by all translators afterwards.
De Visdelou’s rendition was apparently philosophical, which was followed suit
by Jean-Baptiste Régis’ (1834, pp. 443–445) interpretation of the Qian translation:
“Humility, or humbleness, is going deep into the soul.” By comparison, Bouvet
rendered #15 Qian more religiously as God humbling himself by the incarnation
of his son who “humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a
cross.” (cited in von Collani 2007, p. 275) The following citation by von Collani is
the English translation of Bouvet’s explanation (Kien was the seventeenth-century
French transliteration of Qian):
The 15th hexagram, “kien kua” [Qian gua 謙卦], is the mountain, buried below the earth,
a symbol of the divine majesty, emptied by incarnation of his human figure. Modesty is the
principle of persistence in justice; the righteous holds out till the end of his life. […] By
means of his holy humbleness, the righteous persists in holiness till the end and in this way
gains justice. All peoples on earth voluntarily submit to his divine example. (Ibid)
Although Intorcetta, Visdelou, Régis and Bouvet all rendered Hexagram #15 Qian
based on the general Christian virtue “humility,” the former three inclined toward
its moral values, while Bouvet emphasized its Christological connotation which was
consistent with his figuristic ideology. The translation of #15 Qian was a perfect
example displaying the dynamic complexity of mixed ideologies employed by Jesuit
missionary translators. They both deviated from traditional Confucian understanding
of #15 Qian by looking at it from either a philosophical or a figuristic perspective.
Whichever stance they prioritized, they were virtually fulfilling the same task—
creating a friendly image of the Yijing text and bringing the Chinese author closer to
the European readership.
100 M. Lee
5 Counter-Figurism Translations
Ironically, the first complete significant translation of the original Zhouyi (which
was deemed more authentic) in a Western language (Latin)12 was conducted by
three desperate counter-Figurism Jesuit missionaries—Jean-Baptiste Régis, Pierre-
Vincent de Tartre 湯尚賢 (1669–1724), and Joseph-Marie-Anne de Moyriac de
Mailla 馮秉正 (1669–1748). They unanimously decried the Figurist belief that the
Christian faith had long been preserved in ancient Chinese classics. (Smith 2015,
p. 416) In fact, as an adversary of Figurism, Régis recognized the Yijing’s sacred
status as holy as the Old Testament at least since 1715. (von Collani 2007, p. 260)
Régis and his collaborators launched their translation work in 1707, but the prelimi-
nary draft was not finished until 1723. The final version was expanded and edited by
Régis, based on Li Guangdi’s imperial edition and the Manchu translation. (Régis
1834, p. 80) Unfortunately, Régis’ manuscript had been left unnoticed at the Royal
Library in Paris until the German Orientalist Julius von Mohl edited the printed
version in 1834 (in Stuttgartiae) and 1839 (in Tubingue) titled Y-King antiquissimus
Sinarum liber quem ex Latina interpretation (Y-King: An Ancient Chinese Book in
Latin Interpretation). This edition severely criticized Figurism, quoted and discussed
Neo-Confucian concepts, and cited “the authority of the Church fathers and Western
philosophers for comparative purposes.” (Rutt 1996, p. 181) It is generally agreed
that Régis’ edition offered an academic access through which later sinologists could
proceed with a rather holographic investigation of the Yijing. As Legge (1964, pp.
xcv-xcvi) comments: “Their version is all but unintelligible […] and their view of the
text […] was an approximation to the truth.” Régis’ edition could serve as a perfect
material for further comparative analysis.
Antoine Gaubil 宋君榮 (1689–1759), acclaimed as one of Europe’s greatest sinol-
ogists in the eighteenth century, was another Jesuit opposing the Figurist approach.
He quoted the Yijing occasionally in his 1732 scientific writing Histoire Abrégée
de l’Astronomie Chinoise (The Abbreviated History of Chinese Astronomy) and
deliberated the drawbacks of Figurism in his 1732 book Traité de la Chronologie
Chinoise (Treatise on Chinese Chronology). His reflections in the course of trans-
lating the Yijing were well-preserved in his correspondence with fellow European
scholars (which was published in 1970). Gaubil (1970, p. 497) describes himself
hampered in the boredom of the archaic ambiguity of the text, but he still managed
to nearly finish the full translation of the Yijing (particularly the Ten Wings, entitled
12 James Legge (1964, p. xcvi) claims in the “Translator’s Preface” of his 1882 English edition
(Legge made his first attempt to translate the Yijing in 1854 but he did not fully render it until 1870):
“When I first took the Yi in hand, there existed no translation of it in any western language but that
of P. Regis and his coadjutors.” According to my previous discussion, his claim is not completely
correct.
Le I-King) from a scientific perspective around 1741, which, published in 1752, was
the very first comprehensive French translation.
The doctrines subsumed in the Yijing, in spite of their unfixed meaning, appar-
ently played a crucial part in the Jesuit translators’ promulgation of the book to justify
their proselytizing motif by virtue of philosophical or religious considerations. Their
labor was termed “double domestication.” (Smith 2012, p. 171) The double burden
refers to the Jesuits’ endeavor to bring Christianity to China while legitimatizing
their evangelical agenda to earn the approval of their European supervisors. Their
task was mainly intended to make the Yijing appear as familiar to the Europeans as
the Bible to the Chinese. To be more precise, the Jesuits’ rendering the Yijing text
was more of a double cultural penetration under the bilateral intellectual confronta-
tion than communication. Another impetus urging the double domestication was to
facilitate later missionaries’ understanding of the Chinese language and philosophies
in canonical Confucian literature. With their meticulously manipulated translation
and exegesis, they had lowered the almost unsurmountable lexical, religious, cultural
and even political thresholds, making the Yijing more intelligible and accessible to
the European academia.
On the other hand, for Bouvet and other Figurist missionaries, the most effi-
cient way of preaching Christianity in China was to convert the Kangxi Emperor
by convincing him that the ancient Chinese classics had de facto preserved biblical
history and teachings. This strategy made it easier to domesticate the Chinese court
and intellectuals. Their investigation of the Yijing could be construed as the optimal
political capital to win the most important imperial patron’s endorsement. As Bouvet
noted, if the Kangxi Emperor had doubted the presupposed compatibility between
Confucianism and Christianity, it would have been impossible for Christianity to
even exist in China. In other words, Bouvet’s work was fundamentally under the
acquiescence of the Chinese court (the patronage).
The pioneering transmitters/translators’ first-hand observation and reading of the
Yijing, though somewhat slanted against the exotic Lacanian Other, had exerted
significant influence on their double-domestication approach. For instance, the
controversies over proper-name translation, incompatible philosophies and divinity-
related issues fell into a nearly insoluble impasse. The intercultural exchange between
China and the West was laid under the interventional surveillance of the Roman
Church (the institutional power), which had the final say over what and how to
translate the Yijing in favor of the Christian interests to the greatest extent.
According to Philip E. Lewis (1985), the impasse of ultimately being faithful
to the original can be solved through the aggressive translator’s creative “abusive
fidelity.” Put differently, the translators’ authorial interference can be acceptable
because they know precisely what should be preserved or abused in reproducing the
source text’s meaning, as their intervention is “under the guise of a paradoxically
abusive fidelity.” (Arrojo 1997, pp. 24–26) Thus, the inescapable flawed repetition
of interpretative transcoding is inextricable from the translator’s subjective ideology.
102 M. Lee
Since the shaping of meaning involves multifarious ties with language, culture and
thought, the translator as a target language mediator agent shall subjectify the re-
production of the non-static original via intentional or unwitting interference, i.e. the
translator’s ideology and the authoritative patronage. A good exemplar is the early
Jesuit translation of Tian 天 (Hexagram #1 Qian 乾, which represents masculinity
or the primal element from which everything derives) as Heaven, a term laden with
Christian deistic connotations.
Matteo Ricci recognized the Confucian conception of #1 Tian and advocated the
term Tianzhu as the proper name of God, which was inherited by later Jesuits and
remains in circulation today among Chinese and Korean Catholics. (Cawley 2013,
pp. 300–301) It can be concluded that the acculturation of Christianity in China
(through paralleling the Yijing with the Bible) and the domestication of the Yijing
in the West (through the Figurist approach) somehow epitomized the sophisticated
bilateral assimilation. Given that, their rewriting and biased interpretation of the
Yijing shall be legitimized on this matter.
The overview of the early transmission and translation history of the Yijing indi-
cates that the book had undergone multilayered redaction and exposition at multiple
levels. Its outlandish format, oracular peculiarities and philosophical references with
pre-history Chinese cosmology made it a daunting task to decipher and render the
hexagrams and figures of gua in alignment firstly with the Figurist ideology, and
secondly with the counter-Figurism theorization. As noted by Lawrence Wang-chi
Wong and Bernhard Fuehrer (2015, p. X), these Jesuit missionaries “might have their
own agendas” and “might have manipulated the texts,” whereby some of them might
have appeared inadequate or questionable in harnessing the intricacy of the Chinese
language and Chinese people’s condensed way of thinking, “yet they were no doubt
the pioneers in intercultural exchanges and communication between China and the
West.” Without them, the journey of the Yijing to the West could have never been
realized.
The translation history of the Yijing reminds us that exegesis never occurs in a
vacuum. There exists no stable or dominant interpretation of a canonized text. The
early Jesuit translations, either loosely faithful to or theologically twisted against the
original Yijing text, had functioned as a mouthpiece to voice their viewpoints or as a
tool to address ideological problems they encountered when preaching Christianity
in China. Through the early Latin and European vernacular translations, the Western
audience began to foster the awareness of the importance of the Yijing in various
dimensions, particularly among the Enlightenment intellectuals.
Table 1 A Comparison of de Prémare’s and Legge’s translations of hexagrams Pi and Ding13

Hexagram Original text Translation
Pi 否九五: 休否, 大人吉。其亡其亡, 繫 de Prémare’s translation
Hexagram no. 12 于苞桑。 The evil is extinguished
The fifth-Nine yaoci The Great Man has brought about
good fortune. Alas! He has
perished! He has perished! He has
been hung from a tree!
(as cited in Lackner 1991,
pp. 140–141)
Legge’s translation
In the fifth NINE, undivided, we
see him who brings the distress
and obstruction to a close,—the
great man and fortunate. (But let
him say), ‘We may perish! We
may perish!’ (so shall the state of
things become firm, as if) bound to
a clump of bushy mulberry trees.
(Legge 1964, pp. 84–85)
Ding 鼎聖人亨以享上帝, de Prémare’s translation
Hexagram no. 50 而大亨以養聖賢。 The Saint sacrifices himself to the
Tuan 彖 commentary Supreme Lord (shang-ti), and, at
same time, he sacrifices himself in
order to nourish the Saints and the
Sages. (as cited in Lackner 1991,
p. 141)
Legge’s translation
The sages cooked their offerings in
order to present them to God, and
made great feasts to nourish their
wise and able [ministers]. (Legge
1964, p. 255)
In summary, the Chinese canon Yijing, then at a peripheral position in the

European literary polysystem, was transmigrated through the Jesuit missionaries’
rewriting operation based on Figurist or counter-Figurism ideologies. Either way,
their Confucian-Christian synthesis had brought the Yijing closer to the Western audi-
ence. The Figurists’ radical accommodation approach and deliberate emphasis on the
esoteric revelation of the Yijing’s “biblical truth” sarcastically halted its reception by
the European literati, while the fabricated and distorted image of China was rejected
13 His Latin translation manuscript was titled Selecta quaedam vestigia praecipuorum religionis
christianae dogmatum ex antiquis sinarum libris eruta (Selected Religious Teachings of Ancient
Chinese Books Unearthed). It was completed in 1724 but was not published until 1837. Its French
translation by A. Bonnetty and P. Perny was published in 1878. The English version cited here was
translated by Michael Lackner in 1991.
104 M. Lee
by the Chinese intellectuals. That said, it was the Jesuit missionaries who had made
possible the re-interpretations of the Yijing empowering the cultural communications
between China and the West during the seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries. We
must not forget that all translations are motivated by a specific skopos, an ideology or
a mixture of them. Given that, the early transmission and translation of the Yijing had
shed unrivaled light on the mutual understanding between the two great civilizations
in a barely repeatable manner.
References
Arrojo, Rosemary. 1997. The “Death” of the Author and the Limits of the Translator’s Visibility.
In Translation as Intercultural Communication: Selected Papers from the EST Congress, Prague
1995, ed. Mary Snell-Hornby, Zuzana Jettmarová, and Klaus Kaindl, 21–32. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Benveniste, Émile. 1973. Problems in General Linguistics, trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek. Miami:
University of Miami Press.
Cawley, Kevin N. 2013. De-constructing the Name(s) of God: Matteo Ricci’s Translational
Apostolate. Translation Studies 6 (3): 293–308.
Chen, Xin-yu 陳欣雨. 2017. Baijin yixue sixiang yanjiu: yi Fandigang tushuguan jiancun Zhongwen
yixue ziliao wei jichu 白晉易學思想研究: 以梵蒂岡圖書館見存中文易學資料為基礎 (A
Research of Joachim Bouvet’s Thoughts about the Yijing: Based on Yijing-related Manuscripts
Preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Library). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe.
Even-Zohar, Itamar. 1990. The Position of Translated Literature Within the Literary Polysystem.
Poetics Today 11 (1): 45–51.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1976. Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. David E. Linge. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Gaubil, Antoine. 1970. Correspondance de Pékin: 1722–1759(Letters from Beijing: 1722–1759)
(Letters from Beijing: 1722–1759). Geneve: Librairie Droz.
González de Mendoza, Juan. 2010. The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the
Situation Thereof , vol. 1, trans. Robert Parke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Han, Qi 韓琦. 2004. Zai lun Baijin de Yijing yanjiu 再論白晉的易經研究 (Revisiting Joachim
Bouvet’s Yijing Studies). In Zhongwai guanxishi: xin shiliao yu xin wenti 中外關係史:新史料
與新問題 (The History of Foreign Relations of China: New Materials and New Problems), eds.
Ron Xin-jiang 榮新江, and Li Xiao-cong 李孝聰, 315–323. Beijing: Kexue chubanshe.
Hart, Roger. 2013. Imagined Civilizations: China, the West, and their First Encounter. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Jakobson, Roman. 2000. On Linguistic Aspects of Translation. In The Translation Studies Reader,
ed. Lawrence Venuti, 113–118. London: Routledge.
Kim, Sangkeun. 2004. Strange Names of God: The Missionary Translation of the Divine Name and
the Chinese Responses to Matteo Ricci’s “Shangti” in Late Ming China, 1583–1644. New York:
Peter Lang.
Lackner, Michael. 1991. Jesuit Figurism. In China and Europe: Images and Influences in Sixteenth
to Eighteenth Centuries, eds. Hong-qi Li, and Thomas H. C. Lee, 129–150. Hong Kong: The
Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
Lefevere, André. 2004. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. Shanghai:
Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
Legge, James, trans. 1964. I Ching: Book of Changes, eds. Ch’u Chai, and Winberg Chai. New
York: University Books.
Liu, Yun-hua 劉耘華. 2005. Quanshi de yuanhuan: mingmo qingchu chuanjiaoshi dui rujia jingdian
de jieshi ji qi bentu hueiying 詮釋的圓環: 明末清初傳教士對儒家經典的解釋及其本土回
應 (Hermeneutic Circle: Missionaries’ Interpretation of Confucian Classics and the Indigenous
Response in Late Dynastic China). Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe.
Lewis, Philip E. 1985. The Measure of Translation Effects. In Difference in Translation, ed. Joseph.
F. Graham, 31–62. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Lundbæk, Knud. 1983. The Image of Neo-Confucianism in Confucius Sinarum Philosophus.
Journal of the History of Ideas 44 (1): 19–30.
Lundbæk, Knud. 1991. The First European Translations of Chinese Historical and Philosophical
Works. In China and Europe: Images and Influences in Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, ed.
Thomas. H. C. Lee, 29–43. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
Munday, Jeremy. 2001. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. London:
Routledge.
Mungello, David E. 1989. Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology.
Honolulu: The University of Hawai’i Press.
Pfister, Louis. 1932. Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les jésuites de l’ancienne mission
de Chine: 1552–1773(Biographical and Bibliographical Notes on the Jesuits of the Ancient
Mission in China: 1552–1773) (Biographical and Bibliographical Notes on the Jesuits of the
Ancient Mission in China: 1552–1773). Shanghai: Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique.
Régis, Jean-Baptiste. 1834. Y-king, antiquissimus Sinarum liber quem ex latina interpretationep(Y-
king, The Ancient Chinese Book with English Interpretation), the Ancient Chinese Book with
English Interpretation). Stuttgart: Sumptibus J. G. Cottae.
Ricci, Matteo. 1985. The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, trans. Douglas Lancashire, and Peter
Hu Kuo-chen. Taipei: The Ricci Institute.
Rutt, Richard. 1996. The Book of Changes (Zhouyi): A Bronze Age Document Translated with
Introduction and Notes. London: Routledge.
Rutt, Richard. 2013. Zhouyi: A New Translation with Commentary of the Book of Changes. London:
Routledge.
Schmidt, Lawrence K. 2006. Gadamer’s Theory of Hermeneutic Experience. In Understanding
Hermeneutics, ed. Lawrence K. Schmidt, 95–115. London: Acumen.
Semedo, Álvaro. 1655. The History of that Great and Renowned Monarchy of China. London: John
Crook.
Seo, Anna. 2012. Xu Guangqi’s Thought on Supplementing Confucianism with Christianity. Lingua
Cultura 6 (1): 108–116.
Shchutskii, Iulian K. 1979. Researches on the I Ching, trans. William L. MacDonald, and Tsuyoshi
Hasegawa. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Smith, Richard J. 2015. Collaborators and Competitors: Western Translations of the Yijng in the
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. In Sinologists as Translators in the Seventeenth to Nine-
teenth Centuries, eds. Wang-chi Wong Lawrence, and Bernhard Fuehrer, 385–434. Hong Kong:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
Standaert, Nicolas. 1999. Jesuit Corporate Culture as Shaped by the Chinese. In The Jesuits:
Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, eds. John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey,
Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy, 352–363. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Standaert, Nicolas ed. 2001. Handbook of Christianity in China, Volume One: 635–1800. Leiden:
Brill.
von Collani, Claudia. 2007. The First Encounter of the West with the Yijing: Introduction to and
Edition of Letters and Latin Translations by French Jesuits from the 18th Century. Monumenta
Serica 55: 227–387.
Wang, Hong-chao. 2015. Religion, Politics and Culture: The Figurists and the Study of the Book of
Changes by Foreign Missionaries in China. Literatures in Chinese 128: 37–44.
Wilhelm, Hellmut, and Richard Wilhelm. 1979. Understanding the I Ching: The Wilhelm Lectures
on the Book of Changes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
106 M. Lee
Witek, John W. 1982. Controversial Ideas in China and in Europe: A Biography of Jean-François
Foucquet, S. J., 1665–1741. Rome: Institutum Historicum S. I.
Wong, Lawrence Wang-chi, and Bernhard Fuehrer. 2015. Sinologists as Translators in the
Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
Yang, Hong-sheng 楊宏聲. 1996. Xifang Yijing yanjiu de qingxiang ji sikao (shang) 西方《易經
》研究的傾向及思考 (上) (The Inclination of the West’s Understanding of the Yijing, Part 1).
Zhonghua Yixue 17(6): 64–66.
Zhang, Xi-ping 張西平. 1998. Yijing zai xifan zaoqi de chuanbo《易經》在西方早期的傳播 (The
Early Transmission of the Yijing in the West). Zhongguo Wenhua Yanjiu 22: 124-126
Ming-che Lee is a Ph.D. student of the Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation at
National Taiwan Normal University. His main research interests are the translation of the Yijing
into English and European languages and the translation of Taiwan literature into English and
Japanese. He had his article “The Early Transmission and Renditions of the Yijing: The Jesuits’
17th to mid-18th-Century Translation Strategies and Ideologies” published in Compilation and
Translation Review (March 2020).
Chapter 7
Thomas McClatchie’s Mythological
Interpretation of the Yijing
John Tsz-pang Lai
Abstract The Yijing captured considerable attention from Catholic missionaries in

the early Qing era, as well as Protestant missionaries in the late Qing and Republican
periods. This chapter attempts to examine the distinct mythological interpretation of
the Yijing produced by the leading Protestant missionary Thomas McClatchie (1814–
1885), an Irish Anglican missionary in Shanghai who published the first English
translation of the classic in 1876. McClatchie’s pioneering attempt to introduce the
Yijing to the English-speaking world from a mythological perspective came off as one
of the earliest encounters between Christian theology and Chinese mythology amid
the rise of the comparative study of mythology during the late nineteenth century.
With this Christian encounter with Chinese mythology, McClatchie also expanded
the possibilities of diversified interpretations of the ancient Chinese classic. This
study carries out a close textual comparison between the original and translated
texts in an effort to offer some explanations for the translation phenomena of these
complicated cross-cultural activities, as well as to yield insights into the approaches
to negotiating religious terms and concepts.
1 Introduction
As Smith (2008, p. 1, 2012, p. 211) rightly remarks, the Yijing (Classic of Changes)
“deserves to be considered one of the great works of spiritually inspired world liter-
ature,” with its multifarious identities as “a book of philosophy, a historical work,
an ancient dictionary, an encyclopedia, an early scientific treatise, and a mathemat-
ical model of the universe.” With far-reaching impacts on Chinese religion, philos-
ophy, politics and medicine, this highly venerated and influential Chinese classic had
captured considerable attention and imagination from Catholic missionaries in the
early Qing era, as well as Protestant missionaries in the late Qing and Republican
periods. This study attempts to examine the distinct mythological interpretation of the
J. T. Lai (B)
Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, New
Territories, Hong Kong SAR
e-mail: johntpl@cuhk.edu.hk
108 J. T. Lai
Yijing made by Thomas McClatchie (1814–1885), an Irish Anglican missionary in

Shanghai who published the first English translation of the classic in 1876. According
to McClatchie (1874, p. 143), the Yijing “contains the history of the various Changes
and Transmutations which take place during the formation of the various parts of the
Kosmos.” This classic occupied a uniquely important position in traditional Chinese
culture as being “the Chinese authority on Cosmogony, and the doctrines of the
Chinese philosophers are derived from this source.” (McClatchie 1856, p. 405).
2 Overview of the Missionary Studies of the Yijing
Existing scholarship on the Yijing has already mapped out certain general features of
Christian missionary interpretations and studies of the classic. Among these works,
Claudia von Collani’s provides the most systematic and lucid account of the history
of Yijing translations by French Jesuit missionaries to China from the eighteenth
century onwards. Making good use of some rare archival materials, von Collani
(2007) carefully examines Joachim Bouvet’s (1656–1730) views and the Figurist
approach regarding the Yijing, as well as early Jesuit missionaries’ interactions with
their Chinese contemporaries, particularly within the context of the Chinese Rites
controversy among Catholic missionaries. Adopting another method, Smith (2001)
argues that Jesuit interpretations of the Yijing, like their “accommodation strategy,”
must be viewed within the broad historical and comparative perspectives of cross-
cultural transmission. On the basis of an informed description of the textual char-
acteristics and venerated status of the Yijing, Smith goes on to scrutinize the Jesuit
enterprise of interpreting this Chinese classic through analyzing some of Bouvet’s
writings, which emphasizes the affinities between the Bible and the Yijing. Employing
yet another approach, Richard Rutt drew upon the works of twentieth-century histo-
rians, philologists and archaeologists to produce a new translation of the Yijing that
conveys a modern understanding of the ancient oracles in relation to Bronze Age
politics and warfare. Rutt’s (2002, pp. 60–82) succinct survey of Yijing translations
into European languages from the seventeenth to the twentieth century offers useful
and important background information for a more meticulous study of certain trans-
lations. Overall, compared to Protestant interpretations and translations of the classic,
the majority of scholarly output regarding the Yijing focuses on the history of works
produced by the Jesuits, particularly Bouvet. Meanwhile, Norman Girardot’s monu-
mental monograph offers fascinating insights into the life and work of James Legge
(1815–1897) as one of the most important nineteenth-century cross-cultural pilgrims,
missionary sinologists, and translators of Chinese classics. Regarding Legge’s Yijing
translation, Girardot (2002) discusses Legge’s views on the divinatory dimension
of the classic, as well as investigates the distinctive feature of Legge’s “paren-
thetical translation” by supplementing his commentarial exposition of the symbolic
meaning of this mysterious text. Tze-ki Hon compared the similarities and differ-
ences of the Yijing translations produced by two Protestant missionaries, Legge and
Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930), regarding their personal backgrounds, interpretative
7 Thomas McClatchie’s Mythological Interpretation of the Yijing 109
frameworks, and purposes of translation. Hon (2005) explains how Legge basically
regarded the Yijing as a historical document authored by King Wen and the Duke of
Zhou to construct a new socio-political system in ancient China, while Wilhelm trans-
formed the Yijing from a mysterious text into a “book of wisdom.” Lastly, through
providing a succinct overview of the three stages of understanding the Yijing in the
English-speaking world, namely from the “book of religion” to the “book of oracles
and wisdom” to the “book of history,” Wu and Hon (2018) outline the interpretative
approaches of McClatchie, Legge and Wilhelm during the first two stages of Protes-
tant translations. Yet, despite a wealth of literature on Legge’s work, no systematic
research has hitherto been undertaken to investigate McClatchie’s translation of the
Yijing, which was quickly eclipsed by Legge’s translation published six years later
in 1882 and has long since been overlooked and overly criticized.1
3 McClatchie’s Mythological Interpretation of the Yijing
To fill in this aforementioned research gap, this chapter attempts to scrutinize

McClatchie’s mythological interpretation of the Yijing. More exhaustive research
and substantial textual analyses deserve to be undertaken to unearth the theological
presumptions and religious agenda behind McClatchie’s interpretive approach, as
well as to examine the contested receptions of these interpretations both within and
outside missionary communities. I have discovered certain rare collections of primary
texts—including the first edition of McClatchie’s (1876a) translation deposited in
the Library of Congress, and his personal papers in the Church Missionary Society
Archives at the University of Birmingham—and a comprehensive analysis of these
invaluable materials would take current scholarship to new heights. Instead of making
value judgments on the orthodoxy of the interpretation, more emphasis will be placed
on the complexity of understanding a religious text in a cross-cultural milieu, as
well as the interpretative strategies adopted by McClatchie, through highlighting the
important roles of the translator as an agent and a manipulator of translation.
Close textual comparisons between the original and translated texts will be made in
an effort to offer some explanations for the translation phenomena of these compli-
cated cross-cultural activities, as well as to yield insights into the approaches to
negotiating religious terms and concepts. The major research questions that this
paper addresses are: What theological and religious presumptions did McClatchie
have when constructing his distinctive interpretive framework of the Yijing? And how
did these interpretations relate or respond to the “Term Question” of the late Qing
period, and how were they debated within and outside missionary communities?
1 The author’s recent discovery of Legge’s original texts and notes of the Yijing in the New York
Public Library would enable a more in-depth investigation of Legge’s understanding of the classic,
theological positions, and the intertextual connections between previous translations.
110 J. T. Lai
3.1 Qian and Kun: “Phallic God of Heathendom”

and “Hermaphroditic Shang-Te”
Prior to the publication of his EnglishYijing, McClatchie wrote a highly provocative

article titled “Phallic Worship” to illustrate his interpretation of its core notions. In
particular, McClatchie (1875,1876, p. 257) takes the first two hexagrams Qian 乾 and
Kun 坤 together to represent the “phallic God of Heathendom”: “Kheen-khwăn or
Shang-te is evidently the phallic God of Heathendom … Kheen or his Male portion
is the membrum virile, and Khwăn or his Female portion is the pudendum muliebre.”
Based on this interpretation, McClatchie (1876a, p. 346) subsequently translates the
passage “乾, 陽物也; 坤, 陰物也; 陰陽合德, 而剛柔有體” from the sixth chapter
of Xici xiazhuan 繫辭下傳 (Commentary on the Appended Judgments, Part II) as:
“Khëen is the membrum virile, and Khwǎn is the pudendum muliebre (the sakti
of Khëen). The energy of this Yin and this Yang uniting, the Hard and Soft obtain
substance.” The terms yangwu 陽物 and yinwu 陰物, literally “yang object” and “yin
object,” were understood as signifying the male and female sexual organs,2 expressed
in his Latin rendering as membrum virile and pudendum muliebre respectively, which
in turn might have referred to Yang and Yin together as energies of fertility or cosmic
powers of creativity. McClatchie (Ibid, p. 304) further personifies Qian and Kun as
the “Great Generator” and “Capacious Generatrix” respectively in his translation of
the passage “夫乾, 其靜也專, 其動也直, 是以大生焉。夫坤, 其靜也翕, 其動也闢,
是以廣生焉。” from Chap. 6 of Xici shangzhuan 繫辭上傳 (Commentary on the
Appended Judgments, Part I), which he renders as:
With regard to Khëen, his Rest is undivided attention, his Motion is straight forward, and
thus he is the Great Generator. As to Khwǎn, her Rest is closing together, her Motion is
opening and hence she is the Capacious Generatrix.
As perceived by McClatchie, the “Great Generator” Qian is the “chief god,”3

while the “Capacious Generatrix” Kun is the “chief goddess” of both ancient Chinese
mythology and “paganism.”4 In short, McClatchie interprets Qian and Kun as the
“phallic God,” from which all things are generated and governed through their union.5
McClatchie further elaborates the intercourse between Qian and Kun by referring to
physical and architectural representations of the “round hillock” and “square altar”
of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, as well as the union of Chinese pagodas with
their “square” platforms.6
2 McClatchie (1874, p. 152) offers a similar interpretation of yangwu and yinwu as the “male organ
of generation” and “female organ of generation.”.
3 McClatchie (1876a, p. 304) provides a footnote: “This ‘Mind’ or chief god is the Membrum virile.”.
4 McClatchie (Ibid, p. 304) provides a footnote: “This chief goddess is the Padendum [Pudendum]
muliebre.”.
5 McClatchie (Ibid, p. 306) provides a footnote: “The term ‘Change’ includes both the combinations
and the transmutations of Khëen and Khwǎn or the twofold Air (氣) which generates and governs
all things.”.
6 “The physical emblem of the masculine power is seen in the “round hillock” or altar at Peking,
sacred to Heaven, and that of the female power in the square altar sacred to Earth. In pagodas these
Regarded as a term equivalent to the united Qian-Kun, Shang-te 上帝 (also

Shangdi) is identified by McClatchie to be the “Supreme Emperor” or a
“hermaphroditic” deity, the chief of all “heathen” Chinese gods. His translation
of Hexagram #16 Yu 豫 as Shangdi would inform his rendering of the passage “先
王以作樂崇德, 殷薦之上帝, 以配祖考” from Tuan zhuan 彖傳 (Commentary on
the Decision) as: “By it the ancient Kings invented music, lauded virtue and offered
numerous sacrifices to the Supreme Emperor (Shangdi) with whom they paired their
own ancestors.” (Ibid, p. 86) Furthermore, he considers Shangdi or Heaven to be
a “gigantic Man”7 with Qian as its “head,” based on his literal interpretation of
the corporeal symbolism expressed by the eight trigrams in Shuogua zhuan 說卦傳
(Discussion of the Trigrams).8
McClatchie (Ibid, p. 388) further elucidates:
The Great Monad (太一) or Shang-te, divides himself into two in order to form the world:
‘Dividing he formed Heaven and Earth.’ As Confucius states that Heaven is ‘the head’ of this
gigantic deity, it is evident, therefore, that the process of arranging, the world from Chaos
commences by severing Shang-te’s head from his body [emphasis added]: this head then
mounts aloft and becomes the animated Kheen or Heaven.
In other words, McClatchie (1874, p. 395) interprets Qian as the “head” or “mind,”
and Kun the “body” of the “hermaphroditic” Shangdi, the “Supreme Emperor” of
the Chinese “pagan” gods, or the chief “Demon-God,” the twofold soul of the world,
who is either “Demon (Kwei [Gui 鬼]) or God (Shin [Shen 神]).”
3.2 Shangdi: “Linga and the Yoni of the Hindus”
McClatchie (1872) adopts a distinct mythological approach of interpreting the Yijing

as a classic of “Chinese paganism” that also encapsulates a form of “pagan material-
ism” through making comparisons with Hindu, Babylonian and Greek mythologies.
McClatchie (1876a, p. 400, footnote 3) identifies a parallel to Shangdi within Hindu
mythology by drawing an analogy between the “Hermaphroditic Shang-te” and the
“Linga and the Yoni of the Hindus,” stating that: “In these two powers of nature which
together constitute the Hermaphroditic Shang-te we have evidently the Linga and the
Yoni of the Hindus.” In Hinduism, Linga constitutes an abstract representation of the
deity Shiva, while Yoni represents the goddess Shakti; together they symbolize the
two are frequently united, the tower itself representing the masculine power, and the square on
which is stands the female power.” (Ibid, p. 304, footnote 3).
7 “This Heaven or Shang-te is a gigantic Man.” (Ibid, p. 386) McClatchie (1856, pp. 403–404, 1876a,
p. 403) further argues that the First Man, or “lesser Shang-te,” is Pwan-koo [Pangu 盤古] and Fuh-
he [Fu Xi 伏羲] who is a “re-appearance of Pwan-koo,” and “Pwan-koo and Fuh-he therefore are
equally Khëen or Heaven, the Great Father and ancestor of the human race.”.
8 “Kheen is the head, Khwan is the bowels, Chin is the feet, Seuen is the thighs, Kan is the ears, Le
is the eyes, Kan is the hands, and Tuy is the mouth.” (Ibid, p. 386).
112 J. T. Lai
union of the masculine and feminine principles responsible for the creation and regen-
eration of all existences in this world.9 Along this line of interpretation, McClatchie
(Ibid, p. 346) supplements his explanation of yinwu as “pudendum muliebre” with
the note “the sakti of Khëen” to liken Kun to Sakti [Shakti], the Hindu “Mother
Goddess” propelling the movement of the entire universe (Moor 1968, pp. 64–66).
Furthermore, he identifies a similar kind of “triplication” of “pagan deities” in both
Chinese and Hindu mythologies: the triplication of Shangdi into the sancai 三才, the
“Three Powers of Nature” (Heaven, Earth, and Man), was just like that of Brahma
into “Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.” McClatchie (1876a, p. 400) states:
This mystical triplication of Shang-te, therefore, merely means that this Supreme Emperor
(Shangdi) who is Monad and Chaos, begat three sons who succeeded him in the government
of the world. Thus also Brahma who is ‘the Great one’ or Monad, and is styled ‘the first
male,’ triplicates into ‘Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva,’ which in natural philosophy are ‘earth,
water, and fire.’10
Regardless of the validity of his argument, the analysis that McClatchie puts
forward might, in all likelihood, prove a pioneering attempt to embark on a
comparative study of Chinese and Hindu mythologies in the nineteenth century.
3.3 Shangdi: “Jupiter” and “Bel of Ancient Babylon”
In addition to Hindu mythology, McClatchie further compared Shangdi with the

deities of Roman and Greek mythologies. From his rendering of Hexagram #50
Ding 鼎, McClatchie (Ibid, p. 232) translates the passage from the Tuan zhuan “
聖人亨以享上帝, 而大亨以養聖賢” as: “The Sages now cooked offerings in order
to sacrifice to the First Emperor (Shangdi 上帝), and the great cooking (of oxen)
was performed, to nourish Sages and Worthies.” Intriguingly, McClatchie appends
9 “There can be no creation without the relation of opposites…The union of a perceiver and a
perceived, of an enjoyer and an enjoyed, of a passive and an active principle, of a male and a female
organ, is essential for creation to take place. The union of Supreme Man and Nature is represented in
the copulation (maithuna) of the lord-of-sleep (Śiva) and Faithfulness (Sati), that is, Energy (Śakti).”
(Danielou 1981, pp. 222–223) For a contemporary discussion of Linga and Yoni in McClatchie’s
time, see Moor 1968, pp. 299–309.
10 “The name given by the Indians to their Supreme Deity, or Monad, is Brahm…He is represented
as the Vast One, self-existing, invisible, eternal, imperceptible, the only deity, the great soul, the
overruling soul, the soul of all beings, and of whom all other deities are but portions…He triplicates
himself into three persons or powers, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the Creator, the Preserver, and the
Destroyer, or Reproducer.” (Cory 1837, pp. 14–15) “Brahma is the primary creator god in Hindu
mythology…Brahma creates a cosmic golden egg (arbhiranyagha) from his seed. After a time in
the primordial waters, Brahma takes form from the egg as the cosmic man Purusha…He copulates,
masturbates, and thinks things into being. Sometimes the elements of creation develop animisti-
cally from dismembered or sacrificed parts of his body.” (Leeming 2005, p. 53) “[T]he Hindu
Trimûrti is personified in the world of ideas by Creation, Preservation and Destruction, or Brahmâ,
Vishnu and Shiva; in the world of matter by Earth, Water and Fire, or the Sun.” (Blavatsky 2011,
pp. 102–103).
a footnote regarding the “First Emperor” to be “The Chinese Jupiter, the Emperor
of gods and men.”11 To elaborate his understanding of Jupiter, McClatchie (1856,
p. 406, 1874, p. 145) argues that Shangdi corresponds to the “Devouring Jupiter
of the Stoics,” while being “the identical Jupiter of the West.” Shangdi shares a
number of features of Jupiter who, particularly, is the “Light,” “ethereal Fire,” “Mind
of the world which framed all things in it, and containeth the whole world,” and
“the highest of Heaven’s nine spheres.” McClatchie (1876b, p. 61) puts forth this
statement: “the mighty Jupiter ruling on high, the monarch of Gods … most august
Ether, life supporter of all.” In another article titled “The Symbols of the Yih-King,”
McClatchie (1872, pp. 155–156) also asserts that Jupiter is the “title of both Caelus
and Terra” and that Qian and Kun [Shangdi] are the “same deities as the Caelus and
Terra of the Greeks and Romans.”12 The hermaphroditic deity Shangdi, the twofold
soul of the cosmos, is thus considered the Chinese counterpart of Jupiter, king of
the Roman gods, or of Zeus in Greek mythology. For most English readers who
would be familiar with both mythologies, McClatchie’s attempt can be viewed as a
domesticating translation approach to “minimize the strangeness of the foreign text
for target language readers.” (Venuti 1998, pp. 240–244).
In conjunction with Jupiter and Zeus, McClatchie (1876a, p. 388) further connects
Shangdi with Bel or Baal in the Babylonian and Chaldean mythologies:
In this we have a clear connection established between the Shang-te of Confucius and the Bel
of ancient Babylon … There is little doubt that he was the recognised head of the Babylonian
Pantheon, and therefore properly identified by the Greeks with their Zeus or Jupiter.
Baal, signifying “lord” or “master,” was the god of fertility or the Lord of the
Earth, one of the chief gods worshipped by many ancient Mesopotamian commu-
nities.13 Encyclopedia Britannica (2019) Through interpreting Shangdi in the Yijing
as the “First Emperor,” McClatchie considers the principal Chinese deity to be an
equivalent of the Hindu Linga and Yoni, the Roman Jupiter, the Greek Zeus, and
the Babylonian Baal. He concludes that Shangdi is “the same Being as the ‘Great
Father,’ worshipped by the whole Pagan world under the different designations
of Jupiter, Baal, Osiris, Brahm, &c.” (McClatchie 1856, p. 404) These equivalen-
cies undoubtedly raise the question of what theological and religious presumptions
McClatchie had when constructing his distinctive hermeneutic framework of the
11 Itis worth noting that Legge (1882, p. 255) comments on McClatchie’s translation here, “‘God’
is here Shang Tî, which Canon McClatchie translates ‘the First Emperor,’ adding in a note, ‘The
Chinese Jupiter, the Emperor of gods and men!’”.
12 “In the Beginning was the Chaos, which gave Birth to Terra, or the Earth; then was born Love, the
fairest of the Immortals. Chaos engendered Erebus and Night. From whose Union was born Ærber
and the Day. Terra (or the Earth) bore Cælus (or Heaven) and, by her Marriage with Cælus, she
brought forth Oceanus, (the Ocean) and with him Cæus, Creius, Hyperion, Yapetus, Thea, Rhea,
Tethys, Phebe, Saturn, and several other Children.” (Winder 1745, p. 89).
13 “Marduk, in Mesopotamian religion, the chief god of the city of Babylon and the national god of
Babylonia; as such, he was eventually called simply Bel, or Lord… [In Babylon] Marduk’s [Bel or
Baal’s] star was Jupiter…Marduk was later known as Bel, a name derived from the Semitic word
Baal, or “lord.” Bel had all the attributes of Marduk and his status and cult were much the same.”
(Encyclopedia Britannica 2016).
114 J. T. Lai
Yijing, which differed drastically from mainstream interpretations produced by both

Chinese scholars and his sinologist missionary contemporaries.
4 The Rise of Comparative Mythology and Religion
While writing his English translation of the Yijing and other related works,
McClatchie was apparently informed and inspired by embryonic ideas regarding
the comparative study of religion and mythology in the late nineteenth century.
McClatchie (1856, p. 368) highlights the striking similarity of different mythological
systems that “no one who takes the trouble to investigate the various Mythological
systems of the Heathen world, can fail to be struck with the very remarkable similarity
which exists between them.” Keeping abreast of relevant European scholarship, his
writings make direct references to a number of these works, including Introduction
to the Science of Religion (1873) by Max Müller and The Hindu Pantheon: The Court
of All Hindu Gods (1861) by Edward Moor. In adopting a mythological interpreta-
tion of the Yijing, McClatchie was also likely influenced by the views that British
anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) espoused in his two-volume work
Primitive Culture (1871). Tylor maintained that all races of mankind belong phys-
ically and psychologically to a single species. Moreover, in the second volume of
Religion in Primitive Culture, Tylor (1958) attempts to offer explanations of the
world by elucidating his principal argument about animism, the belief in souls or
spirits existing in and inhabiting all things, as the essence and most basic foundation
of all religions. In this light, inanimate objects or impersonal beings are perceived
not as “things” but spiritual or personal beings (Strenski 2006, pp. 91–116). As Paul
Radin (1958, p. ix) remarks, Tylor was the first anthropologist to adequately demon-
strate that “many of the concepts, beliefs, and rites of what might possibly called the
Paleolithic-Neolithic phase of man’s history are to be found not only in the Egyptian
and Sumerian-Babylonian but in the Greek, Roman, and Christian religions as well.”
With Tylor’s notion of animism in mind, McClatchie (1876a, p. 294) translates
the passage “天尊地卑, 乾坤定矣” from the first chapter of Xici shangzhuan as:
“Heaven is honourable, Earth is lowly, and these establish Khen and Khwǎn.”
Supplementing this translation, McClatchie (Ibid) adds a footnote explaining:
Khen and Khwǎn are the twofold soul of Heaven and Earth, the former being the rational
portion or Mind, and the latter the sentient or irrational portion. Of this twofold soul (or
Shang-te), the visible Heaven and Earth are the twofold body, Heaven being the head and
Earth the feet.14
Just as McClatchie understands Qian and Kun to be the “twofold soul (or Shang-
te)” of the physical and visible Heaven and Earth, he also interprets jing 精 and qi 氣
as the “inferior soul” and “superior soul” respectively of all things, as demonstrated in
14 “Heaven and Earth are corporeal, Khen-Khwǎn (Light and Darkness) are incorporeal: Heaven
and Earth are the body of Khen-Khwǎn, and Khen-Khwǎn are the nature of Heaven and Earth.”
(McClatchie 1874, p. 71).
his translation of the passage “精氣為物, 遊魂為變, 是故知鬼神之情狀” from the

fourth chapter of Xici shangzhuan: “Subtile Air and Ether form things, and the rational
soul (i.e. the Ether) rambling produces change; it is thus that the forms of demons
and gods are ascertained.”15 Through producing an English translation of the Yijing,
McClatchie (Ibid, p. 300) might have wished to argue that “animism” also forms the
basis of Chinese religions, arriving at the conclusion that “all the Confucian deities are
souls.” Yet, by asserting the “twofold-soul Shangdi” to be the chief deity of “Chinese
paganism” embodied in the Confucian Yijing, McClatchie might have diminished the
significance of the Yijing as a Confucian classic, thereby depreciating Confucianism
as a primitive Chinese religion. From this logic, McClatchie’s translation project
and interpretive perspective might have laid a solid foundation for replacing the
“pagan Shangdi” with the Christian God and substituting the Confucian Yijing with
the Christian Bible.
5 Sequel to the “Term Question” Debate
McClatchie’s translation of the Yijing should be viewed and assessed against the back-
drop of heated controversies among Protestant missionaries over the “Term Question”
on how to translate “God” into Chinese, which lasted throughout the second half of
the nineteenth century and well into the early twentieth century. Like the Chinese
Rites controversy among Roman Catholic missionaries two centuries ago, the “Term
Question” on how to translate key terms such as “God” and “Holy Spirit” was one of
the major controversies among Protestant missionaries, especially between British
and American denominations.16 As McClatchie (1876b, p. 63) remarks, “The two
great questions which missionaries have to investigate are:—first,—Who or what
is the Confucian Shang-te?—and second,—What is the meaning of the Chinese
character 神 Shin [emphasis added]?”17 The debate of the “Term Question” on the
translation of the name of “God” into Chinese was centered on two options, namely
Shangdi 上帝 and Shen 神; in general, most British missionaries proposed the former,
while their American counterparts supported the latter. Such a controversy was not
only just a mere terminological debate, but also a theological one concerning varying
perspectives on Chinese religion and civilization. Eber (1999, p. 135) aptly points out
that “the controversy raised issues having to do with whether Chinese were monothe-
ists, polytheists, or pantheists; whether there was the belief in Creation; whether the
Chinese had the ‘idea of God’; what exactly was the nature and content of Chinese
religion.”
15 McClatchie (1876a, p. 300) appends a footnote: “精 is the inferior soul of all things, and in Man
and beasts &e, bears the form of the body; 氣 is the superior soul of all things, and the inferior
soul is its ethereal abode; the former is 鬼 or Δαίμων, and the latter is 神 or Θεóς. Hence all the
Confucian deities are souls.”.
16 For the origin of the controversy, see Minutes of Conference 1843. For the Chinese Christians’
views on the “Term Question” controversy, see, for example, Lee (2008).
17 For McClatchie’s views on the “Term Question,” see also McClatchie (1876c).
116 J. T. Lai
Protestant missionaries argued about whether or not the ancient Chinese were
monotheists who already possessed some notions and revelations of the Christian
God. British missionaries, members of the London Missionary Society in particular,
including Medhurst (1796–1857) (1848,1849), William Muirhead (1822–1900), and
James Legge, strongly believed that the ancient Chinese were monotheists. Regarding
the “supreme lord” or “lord on high,” Shangdi in the ancient Chinese classics as
the equivalent of the Judeo-Christian God, they trusted that the Chinese people
were capable of receiving the Christian faith through their extant terminology, that
monotheism was not totally alien to the Chinese, and that the truth of God had been
revealed to them at some point. The role of missionaries then was arguably to “gather
up the fragments of original revelation in the old religions and use them as stepping-
stones to Christ.” (World Missionary Conference 1910, p. 53) In proposing the use
of Shangdi, Muirhead (1870, pp. 291–292) argues:
Ancient monotheistic sentiments are confirmed by the names respectively given to God in
heaven … Shang-te, which has the further advantage of being thoroughly Chinese … We
can readily graft ideas upon it that are in perfect harmony with its most obvious import, with
its acknowledged application in the ancient classics.
Legge was also a strong proponent of the use of Shangdi. In summarizing the
relation between Confucianism and Christianity, Legge (1877, pp. 3, 10) stipulates
that “the Ti (帝) and Shang-ti (上帝) of the Chinese classics is God–our God–the
true God,” and comes to the conclusion that many important points of Confucianism
were “defective rather than antagonistic …that missionaries should endeavour not
to exhibit themselves as antagonistic to Confucius and Confucianism.” When trans-
lating the Yijing, Legge (Ibid, p. 426) insists that “God” is the “correct” translation of
“Di,” “the Lord and Ruler of Heaven,” and that the operations of nature in the various
seasons, as denoted by the trigrams, are the “operations of God, who is named Ti
[Di].” (Legge and Boone 1852).
On the other hand, most American missionaries such as Boone (1811–1864)
(1848,1850) and Elijah Coleman Bridgman (1801–1861) maintained that ancient
Chinese peoples could never have enjoyed the same quality of divine revelation as
that available to Christians. They asserted that the Chinese had been entirely poly-
theistic and non-Christian, and that the only channel for them to receive Christian
truth was through a new terminology, for a new wine to be poured into the new
bottle of Christianity. In their view, the generic term Shen for “god” or “spirit”
served the purpose. In this light, McClatchie was one of the few British mission-
aries who sided with his American colleagues in advocating the use of Shen rather
than Shangdi. Tensions between McClatchie and his British peers accumulated in
the late 1840s as doctrinal disputes regarding the production of Christian tracts in
China occurred within the Shanghai Tract Committee, during which McClatchie,
as a committee member, vehemently opposed translating God as Shangdi in the
Chinese tracts. This heated theological controversy among missionaries of different
denominations resulted in the resignation of McClatchie over the “Term Question”
following the publication of a problematic tract entitled Shangdi shengjiao gonghui
men 上帝聖教公會門 (The Gate of the Church of God) Lai (2010). With no reso-
lution on the “Term Question” in the 1850s, McClatchie (1856, p. 429) deplores the
fact that “Shangdi camp” was gaining the upper hand in the Chinese Bible translation
and publication: “It is much to be regretted that one million of New Testaments are
now being printed in China by some of the Missionaries…in which the designation
‘Shang-te’ is inserted wherever Θεoς occurs in the original…No amount of divine
attributes bestowed upon Shang-te, who is really a MAN, can ever make him to be
the Infinite Jehovah. Jehovah is the only true ‘SHIN,’ and beside Him there is no
other.”
The heated controversy surrounding the translation of the Yijing among missionary
communities may be regarded as a sequel to the “Term Question” debate generated
from the translation of the Bible into Chinese, with McClatchie representing the
“Shen camp” while Legge advocating for Shangdi as the translated term for the
Christian God. Given that the English translation of the Yijing represented the legacy
and continuation of the project to translate the Bible into Chinese, McClatchie’s
controversial interpretation of the Yijing naturally reignited the flames of heated
disputes regarding the “Term Question” among his fellow missionaries.
6 Missionary Critique of McClatchie’s Interpretation
While this paper mainly focuses on McClatchie’s distinctive views regarding the
Yijing, examining the interpretations of his contemporaries is also valuable, as such
analyses manifest the multifarious voices and debates on the Yijing that existed within
missionary communities. McClatchie’s highly contentious interpretation was cate-
gorically rejected by other missionaries. In his capacity as editor-in-chief of China
Review, German missionary and sinologist Ernst Johann Eitel (1838–1908) reluc-
tantly published McClatchie’s provocative article “Phallic Worship,” yet with an
extraordinary editorial note to vehemently refute his views and “speculations”:
It is scarcely necessary to warn the reader that in bringing this charge of immoral teaching
against Confucianism Canon MacClatchie [sic] stands entirely alone, unsupported either by
native authority or foreign Sinologues, relying on the construction which he himself puts on
the metaphysical speculations of the Yih-king. (McClatchie 1875–1876, p. 257).
Indeed, Eitel was quite right in saying that McClatchie stood “entirely alone”
among missionary communities in his interpretation of the Yijing, as he attracted
unreserved attacks from his colleagues.
Being also deeply suspicious and critical of McClatchie’s mythological reading,
Legge had his English Yijing published in 1882, which was to be included in Müller’s
monumental Sacred Books of the East series. As an attentive reader of McClatchie’s
translation, Legge (1882, p. xvii) does not hesitate to make disparaging remarks
about the work: “I have followed Canon McClatchie’s translation from paragraph to
paragraph and from sentence to sentence, but found nothing which I could employ
118 J. T. Lai
with advantage in my own,” and then dismisses McClatchie’s mythological inter-

pretation as having “open[ed] the mysteries of the Yi by applying to it the key of
Comparative Mythology. Such a key was not necessary.” In particular, Legge (Ibid,
pp. 396–397) harshly criticizes McClatchie’s translations of Qian and Kun:
Canon McClatchie’s translation of the Yî, as follows: ‘Khëen is the membrum virile, and
Khwǎn is the pudendum muliebre (the sakti of Khien).’ It is hardly possible, on reading
such a version, to suppress the exclamation proh pudor! Can a single passage be adduced in
support of it from among all the Chinese critics in the line of centuries? I believe not. The
ideas which it expresses are gratuitously and wantonly thrust into this text of the Yî. ‘Khien’
and ‘Khwǎn’ are not spoken of thus. If the latter half of the paragraph be unintelligible, this
interpretation of the former would make the whole disgusting.
Refusing to take the aspects of divination and mythology seriously, Legge (Ibid,
pp. 25, 395) describes, if not demystifies, the Yijing as “a farrago of emblematic
representations” that was fundamentally a Confucian text of historical accounts and
moral philosophy; for instance, he opts to translate the terms yangwu and yinwu as
“yang nature (bright and active)” and “yin nature (shaded and inactive)” respectively.
Though both McClatchie and Legge perceived the Yijing to be a Confucian classic,
their understanding and positioning of Confucianism were drastically divergent, if
not entirely contradictory. For McClatchie, the Yijing constituted an authoritative text
of “pagan Chinese” mythology and religion, whereas Legge saw it as a “sacred book”
containing the divine revelation of Shangdi, the Chinese name for the Christian God.
These diverging perspectives offer a rationale for Legge’s unreserved and enduring
criticism of McClatchie’s theological presumptions and Yijing translation.
Undeniably Eurocentric and missionary-biased, these interpretations—or misinter-

pretations—of the Yijing definitely deviate from traditional Chinese readings of the
classic; however, from the perspective of hermeneutics, they exhibit the inevitable
prejudices that presuppose a total understanding on the part of the readers, as well
as the multiplicity of any interpretative acts, regarding religious classics in partic-
ular. Moreover, these translation endeavors also unveil the complexity and diversity
of transmitting a religious classic to a foreign cultural milieu. While McClatchie’s
mythological reading has been condemned by other missionaries, as well as certain
scholars like Girardot (2002, p. 385), as “sinological eroticism,” his interpretive
approach, on the other hand, was offered some essential validity by twentieth-
century and contemporary Yijing scholars. Qian Zuantong 錢玄同 (1887–1939)
(1923, p. 3), Zhou Yutong 周予同 (1898–1981) (1927, pp. 28–29), and Guo Moruo
郭沫若 (1892–1978) (Du 1928, p. 74) all maintain that the eight trigrams demon-
strate traces of ancient phallic worship, with the solid yang line symbolizing the
male sex organ and the broken yin line signifying the female sex organ. Joseph
Needham (1900–1995) (1956, p. 310) also interprets the first two hexagrams as
phallic pictograms, asserting that “such interpretations are entirely in the style of
ancient Chinese thought.” Lastly, Shaughnessy (1996,1997, p. 17) also has a similar
view that “Qian 乾 (usually understood as “The Heavenly Principle”) and Kun 坤
(usually understood as “The Earthly Principle”) seem to derive from characteriza-
tions of the male and female genitalia.” Given these connections, Minford (2015,
p. 37) finds it fair to say that McClatchie’s “understanding of these Chinese terms
(yangwu and yinwu—literally, Yang Thing and Yin Thing) was well ahead of his time.”
McClatchie’s pioneering attempt to introduce the Yijing to the English-speaking
world from a mythological perspective through establishing these connections is
one of the earliest encounters between Christian theology and Chinese mythology
amid the rise of the comparative study of mythology during the late nineteenth
century. With such an encounter, McClatchie also expanded the possibilities of diver-
sified interpretations of the ancient Chinese classic. Furthermore, McClatchie’s bold
attempt to associate the ancient Chinese classic with the Babylonian myths and
culture might to some extent have connected with, if not inspired, the controversial
yet influential proposition “Sino-Babylonianism” (or, in Chinese, xilai shuo 西來說)
of Terrien de Lacouperie (1845–1894) who argued that the Chinese migrated from
Mesopotamia in prehistoric times and the Yijing constituted a Babylonian dictionary
encompassing some hidden codes of an advanced civilization (Hon 2010). On the
basis of the current study of McClatchie’s translation, further efforts to bring Protes-
tant interpretations of the Yijing together in a comparative framework would help to
formulate the intertextual relations and European genealogy of this work of world
literature in a context of the transnational network of cultural exchanges and the
global circulation of knowledge, texts and ideas.
Acknowledgements This paper is supported by the Direct Grant for Research from The Chinese
University of Hong Kong (project no. 4051138) and the General Research Fund from the Research
Grants Council of Hong Kong (Project no. CUHK 14611820: “Protestant Interpretations of the
Yijing: A Comparative Study of Thomas McClatchie and James Legge in Late Qing China”).
References
Blavatsky, Helena. 2011. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy,
vol. III. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Boone, William J. 1848. An essay on the proper rendering of the words Elohim and [Theos] into
the Chinese language. Chinese Repository 17 (17–53): 57–89.
Boone, William J. 1850. Defence of an essay on the proper rendering of the words Elohim and
[Theos] into the Chinese language. Chinese Repository 19: 345–385, 409–444, 465–478, 569–
618, 624–650.
Cory, Isaac Preston. 1837. Metaphysical Inquiry into the Method, Objects and Result of Ancient
and Modern Philosophy. London: William Pickering.
Danielou, Alain. 1981. The Myths and Gods of India: The Classic Work on Hindu Polytheism.
Rochester: Inner Traditions.
Du, Kan 杜侽 (Guo, Moruo 郭沫若). 1928. Zhouyi de shidai beijing yu jingshen shenghuo 周易的
時代背景與精神生活 (The Historical Background and Spiritual Life of the Zhouyi). Dongfang
zazhi 25(21): 73–93.
120 J. T. Lai
Eber, Irene. 1999. The interminable term question. In Bible in Modern China: The Literary and
Intellectual Impact, ed. Irene Eber, et al., 135–161. Sankt Augustin-Nettetal: Steyler Verlag.
Encyclopedia Britannica. 2016. Marduk. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Marduk. Accessed 18
Nov 2019.
Encyclopedia Britannica. 2019. Baal. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Baal-ancient-deity.
Accessed 18 Nov 2019.
Girardot, Norman J. 2002. The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge’s Oriental Pilgrimage.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hon, Tze-ki. 2005. Constancy in change: a comparison of James Legge’s and Richard Wilhelm’s
interpretations of the Yijing. Monumenta Serica 53: 315–336.
Hon, Tze-ki. 2010. From a hierarchy in time to a hierarchy in space: the meanings of Sino-
Babylonianism in early twentieth-century China. Modern China 36 (2): 139–169.
Lai, John T. P. 2010. Doctrinal dispute within interdenominational missions: The Shanghai tract
committee in the 1840s. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 20 (3): 307–317.
Lee, Archie Chi-chung 李熾昌, ed. 2008. Shenghao lunheng: Wan Qing Wanguo gongbao Jidujiao
“shenghao lunzheng” wenxian huibian 聖號論衡: 晚清《萬國公報》基督教“聖號論爭”文獻滙
編 (Discourses on Naming God: The Collection of Documents on the Christian “Term Question”
in The Globe Magazine in the Late Qing Period). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe
Leeming, David. 2005. The Oxford Companion to World Mythology. London: Oxford University
Press.
Legge, James. 1877. Confucianism in Relation to Christianity: A Paper Read before the Missionary
Conference in Shanghai on May 11th , 1877. Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh.
Legge, James. trans. 1882. The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism, Part II: The Yi
King. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Legge, James, and William J. Boone. 1852. The Notions of the Chinese Concerning God and Spirits.
Hong Kong: “Hongkong Register” Office.
McClatchie, Thomas. 1856. The Chinese on the Plain of Shinar, or a connection established between
the Chinese and all other nations through their theology. The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
of Great Britain and Ireland 16: 368–435.
McClatchie, Thomas. 1872. The symbols of the Yih-King. China Review I: 151–163.
McClatchie, Thomas. 1874. Confucian Cosmogony: With Explanatory Notes. Shanghai: American
Presbyterian Mission Press.
McClatchie, Thomas. 1875–1876. Phallic Worship. China Review IV: 257–261.
McClatchie, Thomas. trans. 1876a. A Translation of the Confucian Yih King, or the “Classic of
Change.” Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press.
McClatchie, Thomas. 1876b. The term for ‘God’ in Chinese. Chinese Recorder 7(1): 60–63.
McClatchie, Thomas. 1876c. The term for God. Chinese Recorder 7(3): 217.
Medhurst, Walter Henry. 1848. An Inquiry into the Proper Mode of Rendering the Word God in
Translating the Sacred Scriptures into the Chinese Language. Shanghai: Mission Press.
McClatchie, Thomas. 1849. On the True Meaning of the Word Shin. Shanghai: Mission Press.
Minford, John, and trans. 2015. I Ching: The Book of Change. New York: Penguin Books.
Moor, Edward. 1968. The Hindu Pantheon (new edition, by W.O. Simpson). Delhi: Indological
Book House.
Muirhead, William. 1870. China and the Gospel. London: James Nisbet.
Müller, F. Max. 1873. Introduction to the Science of Religion. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
Needham, Joseph. 1956. Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 2: History of Scientific Thought.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Qian, Zuan-tong 錢玄同. 1923. Da Gu Jiegang xiansheng shu 答顧頡剛先生書 (A Reply to Mr.
Gu Jiegang). Dushu zazhi 10: 1–3.
Rutt, Richard, trans. 2002. The Book of Changes (Zhouyi): A Bronze Age Document. London:
RoutledgeCurzon.
Shaughnessy, Edward L. 1996. The key and the flow: drying out the wet woman of the Yijing’s Xici
Zhuan. Paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, 11 Apr 1996,
Honolulu, Hawaii.
Shaughnessy, Edward L., trans. 1997. I Ching: The Classic of Changes. New York: Ballantine
Books.
Smith, Richard J. 2001. Jesuit Interpretations of the Yijing (Classic of Changes) in Historical and
Comparative Perspectives. Paper presented at the conference “Matteo Ricci and After: Four
Centuries of Cultural Interactions between China and the West,” sponsored by City University of
Hong Kong and Peking University, 13–16 Oct 2001.
Smith, Richard J. 2008. Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or
Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in China. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Strenski, Ivan. 2006. Thinking About Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion.
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1958. Religion in Primitive Culture. New York: Harper and Brothers
Publishers.
Venuti, Lawrence. 1998. Strategies of translation. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies,
ed. Mona Baker, 240–244. London and New York: Routledge.
von Collani, Claudia. 2007. The first encounter of the west with the Yijing: introduction to and
edition of letters and Latin translations by French Jesuits from the 18th Century. Monumenta
Serica 55: 227–387.
Winder, Henry. 1745. A Critical and Chronological History of the Rise, Progress, Declension, and
Revival of Knowledge, Chiefly Y Religious: In Two Periods, vol. II. London: James Waugh; J.
Brotherton; R. Hett; and A. Millar.
World Missionary Conference. 1910. The Missionary Message in Relation to Non-Christian
Religions: Report of Commission IV. Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier.
Wu, Li-jing 吳禮敬, and Hon Tze-ki 韓子奇. 2018. Yingyu shijie renshi Yijing de san ge jieduan 英
語世界認識《易經》的三個階段 (The Three Stages of Understanding the Yijing in the English-
speaking World). Translation Horizons 2: 4–20.
Zhou, Yu-tong 周予同. 1927. Xiao yu shengzhi chongbai 孝與生殖崇拜 (Filial Piety and Phallic
Worship). Yiban 3(1): 14–33.
John Tsz-pang Lai is a Professor of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese Univer-
sity of Hong Kong. He currently works on the reception of the Bible in China and the relations
between the Yijing and Christianity. He is the author of Literary Representations of Christianity
in Late Qing and Republican China (Brill, 2019) and Negotiating Religious Gaps: The Enterprise
of Translating Christian Tracts by Protestant Missionaries in Nineteenth-Century China (Institut
Monumenta Serica, 2012).
Chapter 8
Nemoto Michiaki’s Use of the Yijing
in Meiji State Ideology
Abstract Cross-cultural interpretations could add new dimensions to Yijing studies.

Japanese Confucians often interpreted the line texts and hexagrams of the Yijing
differently from their Chinese counterparts. This chapter uses Nemoto Michiaki’s
(1822–1906) Shūeki shōgi bensei (Correct Meanings in the Images of the Zhouyi,
1901) as an example to demonstrate how the text and images of the Yijing could
be loosely interpreted to uphold the state ideology in Meiji Japan (1868–1912).
Unlike many Chinese scholars who cited Hexagrams #49 Ge and #1 Qian to support
dynastic changes, Nemoto came to the opposite conclusion in his reading of the
Yijing, believing that ancient Chinese sages wrote the Yijing to warn the people
against revolution and thus the teaching of the Yijing was in line with Shinto doctrine
of unbroken imperial succession based on absolute loyalty. This study will deepen
our understanding of the flexibility of the Yijing that allowed it to find new meanings
and roles in non-Chinese political environments and religious traditions.
1 Introduction
The Yijing (Classic of Changes) contains sixty-four hexagrams and their line state-
ments can be interpreted in various ways to promote different political ideologies.
In China, both reformists and conservatives could claim authority from the Yijing to
express opposing political views.1 Likewise, in premodern Japan, it was regarded as
a source of political wisdom for the emperors and ministers to learn and implement
policies. In the Tokugawa period (also Edo or early modern period, 1603–1868),
1 Tze-ki Hon has provided a study of the interpretations of the Yijing by scholars of different political
camps in Northern Song China, see Hon (2004).
This chapter was a revised and expanded version of an article published in Sino-Japanese Studies
vol. 26 (October 2019).
B. W. Ng (B)
Department of Japanese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong
Kong SAR
e-mail: waimingng@cuhk.edu.hk
124 B. W. Ng
the Yijing was used by scholars from different schools of thought and religions to
expound their values and beliefs (Ng 2000, pp. 55–77). In the Meiji period (1868–
1912) when Japan strove to build a modern nation-state to survive and flourish, the
Yijing played a new role in the making of Japanese modernity.
In the early postwar period, the modernization theory that saw Meiji moderniza-
tion as a process of Westernization was very influential (Garon 1994, pp. 346–366).
However, some scholars maintain that the modernity of Meiji Japan was not solely
constructed by Westernization, but rather the fusion of Western culture and Japanese
tradition. Traditional values paved the way for the Meiji Restoration and continued
to play a role in Meiji modernization (Saniel 1965). Although the Japanese govern-
ment promoted Western-style modernization after the Meiji Restoration in 1868,
traditional values continued to be influential in all walks of life and their impact on
politics was particularly strong. Following the rise of the tennōsei 天皇制 (emperor-
centered system) ideology, Meiji Japan made a conservative turn in the late 1880s and
1890s (Pyle 1969; Shively 1971). Many Confucian scholars cited Chinese classics
to support the tennōsei ideology in order to revive Confucianism and regain their
influence in national politics and the intellectual world (Smith 1959; Gluck 1987).
Yijing studies, like other schools of thought and religions, was used as an intel-
lectual tool to support the state ideology.2 It was no coincidence that both Nemoto
Michiaki 根本通明 (also Tsūmei, 1822–1906) and Takashima Kaemon 高島嘉右衛
門 (1832–1914), two leading Meiji Yijing scholars, supported the Meiji government
through their reading of the text or oracles. Takashima was a semi-official diviner
who provided military advice to Meiji government leaders based on his consultation
of the Yijing (Ng 2014). Nemoto was a renowned Yijing scholar who promoted the
tennōsei ideology in his Shūeki shōgi bensei 周易象義弁正 (Correct Meanings in
the Images of the Zhouyi, 1901), one of the most important Yijing commentaries
written by modern Japanese scholars. He lectured on the Yijing at the Tokyo Imperial
University and was invited to lecture on Hexagram #11 Tai 泰 for the Meiji emperor
(1852–1912). This chapter is the first academic study of Nemoto Michiaki’s Yijing
scholarship, and focuses on how he loosely interpreted the text and images to uphold
Meiji’s official ideology. By deconstructing Nemoto’s writings, this study will high-
light the flexibility of the Yijing that allowed it to survive and thrive in modern polit-
ical environments of Meiji Japan. It will deepen our understanding of cross-cultural
interpretations of the Yijing in nineteenth-century East Asia.
2 The Making of Nemoto’s Yijing Scholarship
Nemoto Michiaki was raised in a Confucian and nationalist environment in

nineteenth-century Japan. He was born and raised in the Akita domain, a place where
Confucianism and kokugaku 国学 (nativism) prevailed in the late Tokugawa period.
2 Likewise, Shinto, Nichiren Buddhism, Christianity and new religions were channeled to support
the Meiji state ideology (Miyazaki 1990; Okuyama 2003; Shillony 2008).
8 Nemoto Michiaki’s Use of the Yijing in Meiji State Ideology 125
The Akita domain was also one of the centers of Yijing studies in the same period.
At the age of eleven, Nemoto studied the Yijing under two Confucian scholars Kuro-
sawa Shijo 黒沢四如 (1783–1852) and Kitamura Tan’an 北村澹庵 (dates of birth
and death unknown) at the domain’s school Meitokukan 明徳館. Kurosawa was the
author of the Ekikō 易考 (An Investigation of the Yijing). Kitamura specialized in
divination and often divined for the domain. At eighteen, he read Hu Guang’s 胡廣
(1370–1418) Zhouyi daquan 周易大全 (The Complete Collection of the Zhouyi) and
was disappointed that almost all Chinese commentators saw Hexagram #1 Qian 乾
as an endorsement of revolution. He disapproved of revolution as it went against the
principle of loyalty, a core value in both Confucianism and Shinto. In his twenties,
Nemoto read a Shinto interpretation of the Yijing by the kokugaku scholar Hirata
Atsutane 平田篤胤 (1776–1843) and was influenced by his nationalistic views (Ng
2012, pp. 33–47). For instance, after reading Hirata’s Sango hongokuk ō 三五本国
考 (An Investigation of the Origins of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors,
1835), he was convinced that Fu Xi 伏羲, the legendary creator of the eight trigrams,
was indeed the manifestation of the Shinto deity Ōkuninushi no Mikoto 大国主命
(Kuki 1915). At thirty-one, Nemoto was appointed assistant lecturer at Meitokukan
and absorbed himself in the study of the Yijing. His colleague Hiramoto Kinsai 平
元謹斎 (1810–1876), the author of the Shūeki kō 周易考 (An Investigation of the
Zhouyi), shared the same academic interest in the textual study of the Yijing.
The year 1859 was a turning point in Nemoto’s academic life. At the age of thirty-
eight, he began to establish his own view of the Yijing. He believed that he was the first
person after Confucius to understand the Yijing as a buttress of an unbroken imperial
genealogy. Nemoto Tsūtoku 根本通徳 (dates of birth and death unknown) (1901,
pp. 2–3), the second son of Nemoto, recorded the words of his father as follows:
Chinese Confucian scholars regarded the Yijing as a book of revolution….This was caused
by their careless reading. From the Ten Wings [collection of early commentaries of the Yijing
in ten chapters], I can conclude that the way of the Yijing is the way of unbroken imperial
succession. I have rebuked Cheng-Zhu scholars for making this mistake and suggested a new
idea: unbroken imperial succession is the fundamental principle [of the way of the Yijing].
This is the most important part of my teaching.
Nemoto Michiaki studied the Yijing day and night and always carried it with him
wherever he went. Before joining the anti-bakufu forces in a battle, he passed a copy
of late-Ming scholar He Kai’s何楷 (1594–1645) Gu Zhouyi dinggu 古周易訂詁 (A
Textual Study of Ancient Zhouyi, 1633) to his wife, and commanded her to keep it
safe in case he did not return alive. Nemoto (Ibid, p. 26) said, “In the Yijing, I have
found my mental strength. Today, I will die for my nation. If I die, you will take care
of this book.”3
After the Meiji Restoration, Nemoto devoted himself to politics and education.
In 1873, he joined the Ministry of Imperial Household as a special advisor. In 1878,
at the age of fifty-five, he had a vigorous exchange of ideas about the Yijing and the
3 TheGu Zhouyi dinggu was one of the finest Ming commentaries on the Yijing. It aims to restore
the ancient Yijing by separating the main text from the Ten Wings and citing many pre-Song
commentaries.
126 B. W. Ng
Shijing (Classic of Poetry) with two Qing diplomat-scholars He Ruzhang 何如璋

(1838–1891) and Huang Zunxian 黃遵憲 (1848–1905) in Tokyo. He argued that the
Japanese way of reading classical Chinese by kundoku 訓読, meaning pronunciation
based on the native Japanese word, was superior to ondoku 音読 or reading classical
Chinese based on the original Chinese pronunciation, explaining that ondoku was
no longer reliable because the pronunciation of Chinese words had shifted over time
due to dynastic changes (Ōta 1939, p. 26).
In the 1880s, Nemoto built his reputation as a Yijing expert and became very active
in promoting Confucianism as a religion.4 In 1880, he lectured on the Yijing at the
Shibun gakkai 斯文学会 (Civilization Society), a prominent Confucian organization
founded in Tokyo in the same year. In 1886, on New Year’s Day, he was invited to
lecture on Hexagram #11 Tai for the Meiji emperor.5 (Liu 2003) He stressed that
the Yijing was written primarily for the ruler to bring peace to the nation. Nemoto
also lectured on the Yijing for other members of the imperial family, including
Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa 北白川宮能久親王 (1847–1895) and Prince Kan’in
Kotohito 閑院宮載仁親王 (1865–1945).
From 1895 to his death in 1906, Nemoto lectured on the Yijing at the Tokyo
Imperial University. In 1897, he published a book on divination methods, entitled
Shūeki fukko zeihō 周易復古筮法 (Restoring the Ancient Divination Method of the
Zhouyi). He suggested revisions in divination but few were his own original ideas; for
example, using forty-five yarrow stalks (instead of forty-nine) had been suggested
by Chinese scholars much earlier. Although Nemoto had his own views on Yijing
divination, he did not specialize in it. He often asked Takashima Kaemon, the most
famous Yijing diviner of his times, to divine for him. He was more confident in the
textual explanation of the Yijing.
In 1901, Nemoto published the Shūeki shōgi bensei, the most important work of
his life, and presented it to members of the imperial family. Prince Kan’in Kotohito
praised the book, saying that many of its ideas “have never been conceived by scholars
in the past.” (Nemoto 1963, pp. 1–3) Sadake Yoshinari 佐竹義生 (1867–1915),
Nemoto’s former domain lord, remarked, “The significance of the Yijing is to promote
unbroken imperial succession. This is what Confucians in the past never understood.”
(Nemoto 1965, p. 40) In the book, Nemoto criticized Chinese scholars of antique and
modern times for mistaking the Yijing as a book of revolution. He considered himself
4 Although Neo-Confucianism was not decreed to be the official ideology of Edo bakufu, it became
“an independent popular religious tradition” and provided the kind of religiosity that the Japanese of
the Tokugawa period had been looking for (Paramore 2016, p. 42). In the Meiji period, some Japanese
scholars, such as Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 (1856–1944), Ariga Nagao 有賀長雄 (1860–1921)
and Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉 (1867–1939), wanted to turn Confucianism into a religion in order
to strengthen Japan as a powerful modern nation-state. Nemoto was one such advocate (Nakajima
2009, pp. 37–50).
5 Asking a prominent Confucian scholar to lecture on the Yijing for the Meiji emperor on
New Year’s Day became a kind of court tradition. After Nemoto, Motoda Nagasane 元田永孚
(1818–1891), Kawada Takeshi 川田剛 (1829–1896), Shigeno Yasutsugu 重野安繹 (1827–1910),
Mishima Chūshū 三島中洲 (1831–1919) and Hoshino Hisashi 星野恒 (1839–1917) also provided
this service. They lectured on different hexagrams, and Hexagram #11 Tai was chosen three times
for its auspicious nature.
the sole successor of the Confucian Yijing scholarship and the first to understand the
ultimate teaching of the Yijing after Confucius. In other words, he surpassed all
Chinese scholars in the reading of the Yijing. In the preface, Nemoto (1901a, p. 29)
writes:
It has been two thousand and four hundred years after the death of Confucius. His teachings
remain in the dark in the hands of unlearned Confucians. From lost texts, I am pleased to
have rediscovered teachings that disappeared for two thousand and four hundred years. If
Confucius were alive, he would not change my words. For details, please refer to my Shūeki
shōgi bensei.
His confidence in his understanding of the Yijing demonstrated that many Japanese
Confucian scholars saw Japan replacing China as the center of Confucian studies.
Nemoto was so confident in his idea about unbroken imperial succession as the
ultimate principle of the Yijing that he stamped the phrase “If Confucius were alive,
he would not change my words” on the preface page.
In 1902, Nemoto had a heated debate with Wu Rulun 吳汝綸 (1840–1903), a
famous Qing scholar who was sent to Japan to study the Meiji education system.
Nemoto told Wu about the main idea of his new book. Wu was not convinced that
the Yijing had been meant to advocate unbroken imperial succession. Nemoto was
very upset and wrote an article in a Japanese newspaper criticizing Wu. Wu (1990,
p. 285) recalls this unpleasant encounter as follows:
He [Nemoto] was very defensive about the theory of unbroken imperial succession. He
replied to me that China also had unbroken imperial succession before the Tang-Wu Revo-
lution. I told him that according to the Shiji 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian), Huangdi
replaced Shennong by force and thus his idea was wrong. Nemoto then cited the Guoyu 國
語 (Discourse of the States), arguing that Huangdi and Shennong were indeed brothers. I
replied that the imperial lineage in the Shiji was based on Confucius. Nemoto was speechless.
He then asked me why I did not believe in the Ten Wings. I replied that the ancient Yijing
unearthed in Jizhong 汲塚only had the Yinyangji 陰陽記 (Records of Yin and Yang), and
the Ten Wings were not included. Hence, the Ten Wings were written by later generations.
Nemoto did not know what to say. He then asserted that the Yinyangji was the Ten Wings.
Since he was being speculative, I stopped talking to him. Now, Nemoto argued in the news-
paper that the Jizhong jinian 汲塚紀年 (Annals of Jizhong) was unreliable and criticized
me for using it.
In 1906, the year of his death at the age of eighty-five, Nemoto published
the Keijijōden 繋辞上伝 (Commentary on the Appended Phrases, Part One) to
promote absolute and unconditional loyalty to the emperor as the ultimate virtue. In
1910, Nemoto’s disciple Kuki Moritaka 九鬼盛隆 (1869–1941) published Nemoto’s
lecture notes on the Yijing as the Shūeki kōgi 周易講義 (Lecture Notes on the Zhouyi).
Nemoto’s lectures focused on the images of the hexagrams and cited mainly pre-Song
commentaries.
Nemoto was a controversial intellectual figure in Meiji Japan. His arrogant attitude
alienated many Meiji and late Qing scholars. In Yijing studies, he was undoubtedly a
key figure. He wrote one of the most important and influential commentaries in the
Meiji period and trained scholars who studied the Yijing in the Taishō (1912–1826)
and early Shōwa (1926–1945) periods. Takashima Kaemon regarded Nemoto as the
128 B. W. Ng
best Yijing commentator and himself as the best diviner of his times. Takashima
(1997, p. 179) remarks:
Nemoto Michiaki was a prominent Confucian from Akita Prefecture who excelled in Chinese
classics, the Yijing in particular. He was knowledgeable and famous in our times. I was close
to him. When I decided to write the Ekiden 易断 (Judgments of the Yijing), I went to consult
him, saying, “You are familiar with the ancient Yijing and understand the ultimate teachings
of the ancient sages. I hope you will write about the meanings of the Yijing. I myself will
share with the world the divination I discovered.
Nemoto was also a collector of Yijing commentaries and had thirty-nine books
(in two hundred and eight volumes) about the Yijing. He rated himself above all
Yijing commentators before him and hence regarded himself as the sole successor to
Confucius. He was confident in his understanding of the political implications of the
Yijing.
In brief, Nemoto was by nature a traditional Confucian scholar rather than a
modern scholar or a Japanese Westernizer. What made him untraditional in East
Asian scholarship of the Yijing is that his reading of the text was heavily shaped by
his nationalist and Shinto views and thus was very different from the mainstream
scholarly interpretation in China.
3 Nemoto’s Reading of the Yijing and Meiji Ideology
The intellectual roots of the tennōsei ideology can be found in Confucianism, mito-
gaku 水戸学 (Mito learning), Shinto, kokugaku, and bushidō 武士道 (Way of the
Samurai) in the Tokugawa period (Shimazono 2008, pp. 53–78). As a state ideology,
it was established after the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution (1889) and the
Imperial Rescript on Education (1890). The emperor became the center of Japanese
politics, ethics and religion and the imperial line was considered to be unbroken. For
example, the Meiji Constitution reads the imperial line “the throne in lineal succes-
sion unbroken for ages eternal.” (de Bary et al. 2005, p. 745). The Imperial Rescript on
Education reads, “Always respect the Constitution and observe the laws; should emer-
gency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State; and thus guard and maintain
the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth.” (Beauchamp
and Vardaman 1994, p. 37). Intellectuals from different schools of thought and reli-
gions competed with each other to promote the tennōsei ideology so that they could
maintain their political and intellectual influences. Nemoto’s interpretation of the
Yijing can be understood within this particular historical context.
The Shūeki shōgi bensei consists of seventeen chapters. The first chapter includes a
very important article, “Dokueki shiki” 読易私記 (Personal Notes on My Reading of
the Yijing), which outlines the personal views of Nemoto on the nature of the Yijing.6
Chapters 1–4 are his commentary on the first half of the text, whereas Chaps. 5–8
are on the second half. Chapters 9–12 are about the Ten Wings. In the beginning
6 “Dokueki shiki” was so important that it was also included in the Shūeki kōgi later.
of the “Dokueki shiki,” Nemoto (1901a, p. 28) clearly states that the heavenly way
expounded in the Yijing was the principle of unbroken imperial succession:
The sages wraote the Yijing to settle the relationships between sovereign and subject as well
as father and son and to understand the virtue of the deities. Hexagram Qian is the image
of unbroken imperial succession. Hexagram Gu 蠱 elaborates the meaning of passing the
imperial throne from father to son. The Tuan zhuan 彖傳 (Commentary on the Decision) of
Hexagram Gu reads, “The end is the beginning. This is the procedure of heaven.” Therefore,
when the father dies, his son will succeed. Unbroken imperial succession is the way of
heaven.
He believed that maintaining unbroken imperial succession was the ultimate goal
of the Yijing set by ancient sages, and he had a sense of mission to spread this message:
Fu Xi created the Yijing, King Wen arranged the order of the hexagrams, the Duke of Zhou
added the line statements and Confucius wrote the Ten Wings to elucidate the principle of
unbroken imperial succession… We no longer understand the Yijing of the four sages. The
principle of the unchanged positions of sovereign and subject or the principle of unbroken
imperial succession has been lost. I am deeply concerned and thus must defend its principle.
Mencius said, “Am I fond of debating? I have no alternative.” This is why I wrote the Shūeki
shōgi bensei. (Ibid, pp. 5–9).
In his early adulthood, Nemoto was puzzled by Gan Bao 干寶 (286–336) who used
Hexagram #1 Qian to justify dynastic changes.7 To him, it went against the principle
of loyalty to the emperor. Having examined the Ten Wings seriously, Nemoto came
to the conclusion that Gan Bao and most Chinese scholars were wrong about #1 Qian
and the nature of the Yijing. Nemoto maintains:
Gan Bao of the Jin dynasty regarded Qian as the hexagram of revolution. I had serious doubts
and considered all commentaries of both past and present unreliable. I turned to focus on
the Ten Wings and studied it repeatedly to understand its meanings and images. During
the sixth year of Ansei [1859], I came to realize that the way of the Yijing was to promote
unbroken imperial succession. I began to know what Confucius had sought to pass on to
later generations in the Xici 繫辭 (Commentary on the Appended Phrases), Wenyan 文言
(Commentary on the Words of the Text), Shuogua 說卦 (Commentary on Trigrams), Xugua
序卦 (Commentary on the Sequence of the Hexagrams), and Zagua 雜卦 (Commentary on
the Paired Hexagrams) was practical and easy to understand. (Ibid, pp. 10–11).
Nemoto criticized Gan Bao for using this hexagram to justify the revolution of
King Wu of Zhou who overthrew the Shang. Gan’s explanation was very influential
and many prominent scholars, such as Li Dingzuo 李鼎祚 (Tang dynasty, dates of
birth and death unknown), Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) and Hui Dong 惠楝 (1697–
1758), were under his influence. Nemoto adds:
Nine in the fifth reads, “Flying dragon in the sky. Beneficial to see the great man.” Bao said,
“This line statement refers to King Wu who defeated King Zhou to become the emperor.”
Gan Bao did not understand the images and thus mistook the hexagram of unbroken imperial
7 Gan’sexplanation of Hexagram #1 Qian can be found in a number of his writings, including

the Zhouyi zhu 周易注 (Commentary on the Zhouyi), Zhouyi yaoyi 周易爻義 (Meanings of Line
Statements of the Zhouyi) and Jin Wudi geminlun 晉武帝革命論 (On the Revolution of Emperor
Wu of Jin).
130 B. W. Ng
succession for the hexagram of revolution by rebels. This was the beginning of the misun-
derstanding of the Yijing and the relationship between sovereign and subject. Confucians of
all ages followed him in such reading of the Yijing. (Ibid, p. 28).
Nemoto believed that the Ten Wings were written by Confucius and no one could
understand the Yijing without referring to the images expounded in the Ten Wings.
However, scholars from the Han to the Qing only paid attention to the text of the
Ten Wings and did not understand its images, and thus the real meaning of the Yijing
was lost. He criticized Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–1072) for challenging Confu-
cius’ authorship of the Ten Wings, and Zhu Xi for treating #1 Qian as the hexa-
gram of revolution. He gave Lai Zhide 來知德 (1525–1604) credit for focusing on
the images and stressing the importance of #1 Qian in the Zhouyi jizhu 周易集注
(Collected Commentary on the Zhouyi). However, he pointed out that Lai, like most
Chinese scholars, failed to understand the significance of #1 Qian as a hexagram of
unchanging eternality rather than change. He explains:
This [Hexagram Qian] is the hexagram of the emperor. It can be called “the hexagram
of constancy.” Unbroken imperial succession is the principle that cannot be changed for
thousands of years. The six lines concerning the dragon are the images of the emperor. The
throne should always be passed on to a crown prince. Unbroken imperial succession is the
way of heaven. (Ibid, p. 40).
Nemoto claimed to have found support for his argument in the Ten Wings, the
Shuogua in particular. He writes:
When the Duke of Zhou wrote the line statements, he used the dragon as the image to
demonstrate that the eldest son should succeed the throne. That the right of succession belongs
to the eldest son is the way of heaven. The Duke of Zhou used this image to make us
understand [this principle]. Confucius was concerned that the image might not be understood
and thus wrote in the Shuogua that “zhen 震 is the dragon that refers to the eldest son.” He
remained concerned that this was not enough and then added in the Xugua that “in presiding
over vessels [at the ancestral shrine], no one is equal to the eldest son.”… Scholars of Han,
Wei, Tang and Song did not understand this principle. They regarded the dragon as the symbol
of yang qi 陽氣 (masculine vital energy) in the sky and dragon is an unpredictable yang
creature. Forgetting the Shuogua in explaining [Hexagram Qian], they mistook the hexagram
of unbroken imperial succession for one of revolution led by rebels. This misinterpretation
has been passed on to hundreds of generations and no one has ever realized this mistake.
Unlearned scholars considered revolution as the way of Fu Xi, King Wen, Duke of Zhou and
Confucius. (Ibid, pp. 18–19).
Nemoto believed that the principle of unbroken imperial succession could also be
found in other Confucian classics, such as the Shangshu 尚書 (Book of Documents),
Shijing, Zuo zhuan 左傳 (Commentary of Zuo), Guanzi 管子 (Writings of Master
Guan) and Lunyu 論語 (Analects of Confucius) because “the Yijing is the root of
the Shijing, Shangshu, and other classics…The ideas of daode 道德 (ethics) and
xingming 性命 (nature and destiny) in the Shijing and the Shangshu all came from
the Yijing, but they are not as comprehensive as the Yijing.” (Ibid, pp. 39–40).
Nemoto was proud to proclaim that he was the only one who discovered the
principle of unbroken imperial succession as the ideal of the Chinese ancient sages
and that Japan was the only nation that had implemented the way of the sages. He
maintains that “the so-called junziguo 君子國 (nation of gentlemen), if not Japan,
which nation deserves this title? In ten thousand nations, only my nation enjoys
unbroken imperial succession. Therefore, we are called the nation of gentlemen.”8
(Ibid, p. 14).
In the eyes of Nemoto, not only Hexagram #1 Qian, other hexagrams also
elucidated the principles of unbroken imperial succession and absolute loyalty. For
example, he explains the sixth line statement of Hexagram #2 Kun 坤 as follows:
The sixth line of Hexagram Kun reads, “Dragons are battling in the wild. Their blood is
dark and yellow.” It means that when the rebels offend the emperor, the whole world can
kill them. The blood of the rebels is dark and yellow, showing that it is mixed with imperial
blood. This is an image of the minister playing the role of the emperor. (Ibid, pp. 20–21).
Nemoto saw #1 Qian and #2 Kun as the two most important hexagrams because
they represent sovereign and subject respectively and underline the importance of
absolute loyalty. He calls them “the hexagrams of constancy”:
Heaven is respectable and earth is humble. The relationship between Qian and Kun is fixed.
Hence, Qian and Kun are the hexagrams of constancy. Sovereign and subject, as well as
father and son, are in the right positions. This is the image of constancy. (Ibid, p. 21).
Nemoto explained that revolution went against the principle of heaven and the
way of the sages and thus the sages wrote the Yijing to warn the people against
revolution. He holds:
The Wenyan chuan reads, “The murder of a ruler by his minister, or of a father by his son, is
not the result of the events of one morning or one evening. The causes of it have gradually
accumulated, through the absence of early discrimination.” This is such a reasonable state-
ment. It warns the ruler or the father to prevent such incidents. The sages were worried that
these might happen to future generations. The Xici chuan reads, “Those who composed the
Yijing had great care and sorrow.” Revolution is the biggest change in the world. Revolution
was the biggest concern of the sages. The Yijing has Hexagram #49 Ge 革 to remind later
generations to prevent [revolution]. (Ibid, pp. 40–41).
Hexagram #49 Ge was another hexagram frequently used by Chinese scholars to

justify revolution, and thus Nemoto also paid attention to this hexagram. According to
Nemoto’s explanation, #49 Ge, like #1 Qian, was meant to promote absolute loyalty
and deny revolution. He compares #1 Qian and #49 Ge as follows:
Hexagram Qian has the dragon, the image of a crown prince. Hexagram Ge has the tiger,
the image of a minister. Although the tiger is strong, it cannot leave the ground. Although
the minister is virtuous, he cannot leave his post. The dragon belongs to the sky, whereas the
tiger belongs to the ground. The difference is salient and the two should not be confused.
(Ibid, p. 28).
He also commented on other hexagrams from the same political perspective. For
instance, on Hexagrams #18 Gu 蠱 and #57 Xun 巽, he makes the following remark:
8 Likewise,Nemoto (1884) stresses that Japan was the only nation that had implemented the rites
of the Zhou.
132 B. W. Ng
Gu refers to the emperor who rectifies the wrong policies of the former emperor. The son
corrects the mistakes of his father. This is the filial piety of the emperor. Xun refers to the
crown prince who rectifies the mistakes that the emperor made in his later years. He corrects
the mistakes of his father. This is the filial piety of the crown prince. Fu Xi created these
two hexagrams to make sure that the principle of unbroken imperial succession would last
forever. Hence, the way of Qian-Kun is fully expressed in Hexagrams Gu and Xun. (Ibid,
p. 45).
Besides revolution, Nemoto also attacked the claim that “the world belongs to
all” (tenka ikō 天下為公), another key concept commonly accepted by Chinese
scholars. The phrase is quoted from the Liji 禮記 (Book of Rites) and it was partic-
ularly embraced by scholars of Wang Yangming’s philosophy. The practice of shan-
rang 禪讓, or yielding the throne to the most virtuous and wisest minister, was based
on the ideal that “the world belongs to all.” Like kokugaku scholars of the Toku-
gawa period, Nemoto attacked shanrang as an excuse for the rebels to overthrow the
emperor. To him, the world only belonged to the emperor. Hence, he criticized Hui
Dong for promoting “the world belongs to all” in the Zhouyi shu 周易述 (Discourse
on the Zhouyi). Hui (2007, p. 670) believes that in the ideal world, the ruler should be
decided by virtue and ability rather than by blood. Nemoto was disappointed that Hui
did not pay attention to the images and thus misunderstood its political philosophy.
He writes:
Hexagram Gu is about the eldest son succeeding to his father’s position. The Tuan chuan
reads, “The end is the beginning. This is the procedure of Heaven.” It means that the end
of the father is the beginning of the son. This is the way of Heaven. Therefore, it is called
righteousness. If the minister replaces the emperor, it is called usurpation. Mr. Hui, in his
Yijing scholarship, was accurate in textual criticism, but was lost in acquiring the meanings
of the Yijing from images. (Ibid, p. 37).
Nemoto saw chūkun aikoku 忠君愛国 (loyalty to the emperor, love for the nation)
as the way of the Yijing and thus he advocated absolute and unconditional loyalty to
the emperor and the nation. His thinking was in line with the tennōsei and bushidō
ideologies. In a way similar to bushidō’s emphasis on the code of death (Yamamoto
2012, p. 3), he stresses that people should be prepared to die for the emperor:
The Yijing is a book that demonstrates that heaven and earth are the images of emperor and
minister. There is no earth without heaven. Then, is there any reason for which the minister
can leave the emperor?… Once the emperor gives the order, no matter how difficult it is, the
ministers should implement and be prepared to die for it. They ought to feel ashamed if they
do not die. If they do not die, their parents will not see them as sons, their wives will not see
them as husbands, and their friends will look down upon them. (Ibid, p. 37).
When Nemoto lectured for the Meiji emperor on Hexagram #11 Tai, he interpreted
it differently from most Chinese and Japanese Confucians. #11 Tai consists of the
upper trigram Kun and the lower trigram Qian. Most Confucians used it to suggest
that the emperor should not make decisions alone, and should communicate with his
ministers. According to Nemoto, this hexagram is the symbol of loyalty, showing
that the emperor cares about his subjects and his subjects are loyal to the emperor.9
Nemoto (1901b, p. 73) comments:
In Hexagram Tai, Qian is at the bottom. The air in the sky descends to the ground. An image
of the sincerity of the emperor that fills the nation. Kun is at the top. Hot stream covers the
ground. This is an image of the loyalty of the people to the emperor.
Bushidō, a component of the tennōsei discourse, was firmly established in late

Meiji Japan (Benesch 2011). Bushidō ethics can also be seen from his commentary
on #11 Tai. Nemoto reminds the ministers and the common people that they should
be prepared to die for the emperor in times of crisis:
Loyal retainers and faithful samurai will not spare their lives in the face of national crisis.
They use their bodies to face danger and cross the waters that rush over their heads. They are
not afraid of death. They will not leave their emperor. They do their best to save the nation.
This is the way of the minister and the heart of loyal retainers and faithful samurai. (Ibid,
pp. 79–80).
Nemoto was by no means the first voice in Japan and East Asia to use the Yijing to
promote the authority of the sovereign, but perhaps few were as forceful and extreme
as he was. He used the Yijing as a tool to advocate the tennōsei ideology. Although the
Yijing was given a new life in the modern period, it was greatly distorted to promote
a modern state ideology for Japan. Rather than a contribution to the scholarship of
the Yijing, Nemoto’s interpretation became a part of the tennōsei discourse, and was
more used to support Japan as an emperor-centered nation-state.
4 Concluding Analysis
In nineteenth-century East Asia, searching for a path to build a new nation-state was
a common concern among politicians and intellectuals. The Meiji Japanese were
determined to transform Japan into a modern nation-state and an empire buttressed
by an emperor-centered ideology. All kinds of thought and religions were directed
to forge a Japanese national identity. The Yijing scholarship was no exception. It
was used by Nemoto and other Confucians to promote the Meiji official ideology.
Kurozumi Makoto 黒住真, a scholar of Tokugawa thought, has pointed out that
Confucianism was used to enhance the tennōsei ideology in modern Japan. He writes,
“In modern Japan, Confucianism demonstrated the features of the legalist school. No
matter what forms of Confucianism they were in, they all served as tools to spread
the modern tennōsei ideology.” (Kurozumi 2004, pp. 21–27). The Yijing scholarship
of Nemoto reflected this characterization of Confucianism in modern Japan. He
interpreted the texts and images of the Yijing loosely to uphold the tennōsei ideology
in Meiji Japan.
9 The early Edo Confucian Hayashi Razan 林羅山 (1583–1657) had expressed a similar view in his
explanation of this hexagram, see Ng (2000), pp. 59–60.

134 B. W. Ng
In the Shūeki shōgi bensei, Nemoto criticized Wang Zhaosu 王昭素 (894–982)
for pleasing the first Song emperor Zhao Kuangyin 趙匡胤 (927–976) by justifying
revolution in his lecture on Hexagram #1 Qian. Ironically, when he lectured for the
Meiji emperor on Hexagram #11 Tai, he pleased the emperor by promoting absolute
loyalty. It shows that the Yijing has been used from past to present and from China
to East Asia by some scholars to support the government. The Yijing appears to be
flexible enough to be interpreted differently in various political settings.
The Shūeki shōgi bensei is not only the most prominent work of Nemoto, but also
one of the most influential Yijing commentaries ever written in modern Japan. In the
strictest sense, it was not a pure academic work on the texts and images of the Yijing,
but an ideological tool to uphold the conservative ideology of the Meiji govern-
ment. Nemoto cherished the kokutai 国体 (national polity) of Japan by interpreting
the Yijing as advocating unbroken imperial succession based on absolute loyalty.
In a nationalistic Shinto vein, he was proud of Japan for being the only nation in
the world in which imperial succession remained unbroken. He believed that the
spirit of absolute loyalty could be found in samurai. Nemoto often wore samurai
dress and collected samurai swords. His emphasis on unconditional loyalty to the
emperor and readiness to die for the emperor was in line with the interpretations
of bushidō ethics among late Meiji intellectuals (Benesch 2011). No wonder some
modern Japanese scholars call him the “samurai scholar.”10 Nemoto’s reading of the
Yijing was political, nationalistic, unorthodox and controversial. Since his interpre-
tation served the tennōsei ideology, the Shūeki shōgi bensei was influential among
right-wing intellectuals in the Taishō and early Shōwa periods.
Having taught the Yijing for so many years, Nemoto had a number of students
who succeeded him in his Yijing scholarship. In particular, Kōda Rentarō 公田連
太郎 (1874–1963) and Kuki Moritaka were important. Kōda studied under Nemoto
for more than ten years and became a famous scholar of Chinese studies. His Ekikyō
kōwa 易経講話 (Lectures on the Yijing, 1959), one of the best commentaries on
the Yijing in postwar Japan, borrowed many ideas from Nemoto. Kuki specialized
in Yijing divination and wrote the Ekigaku shūchi 易学須知 (Essential Knowledge
in Studying the Yijing 1915), Ekidan seion 易断精蘊 (Essence of Yijing Divina-
tion 1932), Ekidan shingi 易断真義 (The True Meaning of Yijing Divination) and
Komekabu ekisen 米株易占 (Yijing Divination on Rice Stock 1913). He became
the most influential Yijing diviner in modern Japan after the death of Takashima
Kaemon. Key intellectuals in Meiji Japan, including Shigeno Yasutsugu 重野安
繹 (1827–1910), Nakamura Masanao中村敬宇 (1832–1891) and Ernest Fenollosa
(1853–1908), attended Nemoto’s Yijing seminars (Stalling 2010, p. 70).
Kuki Moritaka elaborated the principle of unbroken imperial succession in his
Ekigaku shūchi and Ekidan shingi. Like his teacher, Kuki also believed that Japan
was the only nation in which the imperial lineage remained unbroken. Kuki (1915,
p. 56) says, “Among thousands of nations in the world, only my Empire of Great
Japan has the national polity that matches the principle of the Yijing.” Kuki went a
instance, both Niino Naoyoshi 新野直吉 (1969, pp. 83–98) and Sasaki Hitomi 佐々木人美
10 For
(2009, pp. 49–54) call Nemoto “bushi gakusha” 武士学者 (samurai scholar).
step further to suggest that the teaching of the Yijing should be made the national
religion of Japan.
The Shūeki shōgi bensei became more popular during the Pacific War after the
publication of an extended edition by Nemoto Michiaki’s grandson Nemoto Tsūshi
根本通志 in 1937. The first edition published in 1901 consisted of only four chapters,
but the 1937 edition contained seventeen chapters and more than a thousand pages.
Tsūshi added many Michiaki’s unpublished manuscripts in the new edition. In 1942,
the right-wing historian Hiraizumi Kiyoshi 平泉澄 (1895–1984) (1942, p. 63) cites
Nemoto’s “Dokueki shiki” in the Asahi shimbun to support Japan’s participation in
the Second World War:
Nemoto Michiaki once said, “Thanks to unbroken imperial succession, our army is invin-
cible in the world.” The success of our imperial army is based on the dignity of our national
polity. By understanding the meaning of our national polity, relying on the emperor whole-
heartedly and focusing on serving the nation, we can win the Holy War. This is the beauty
of accomplishment and is obviously extremely important.
Hiraizumi continues to cite Nemoto to advocate his emperor-centered historical

view in the postwar era. After reading Nemoto’s “Dokueki shiki,” Hiraizumi (1984,
p. 1) makes this remark:
Our nation is fortunate to have an emperor descended from an unbroken lineage and to have
no revolution in the past. The difference between the emperor and his ministers is clear and
the ethics of an emperor-minister relationship are the purest… After the emperor issued
the Imperial Declaration of War, thousands of people were eager to die. They all wanted
to sacrifice their lives to pay off debts to the emperor. This was the spirit of the Japanese.
Hence, the imperial army was invincible and could conquer every obstacle. Our heavenly
army had no rival. Why was the imperial army invincible? Mr. Nemoto has fully explained
this principle.
The Shūeki shōgi bensei became another brick in the wall to build the tennōsei
ideology. Regardless of its popularity and influence, it was a controversial text.
Nemoto interpreted the texts and images of the Yijing in his own unique way to
support the tennōsei ideology. He was influential in prewar Japan as his work spoke
to the right-wing government of the times. However, as a commentary of the Yijing,
Nemoto’s work was too politicized for mainstream scholars to rate it highly and
was totally unacceptable to Chinese scholars who saw it as a distortion and manip-
ulation of the Chinese text. Nemoto’s nativist or Shinto interpretation of the Yijing
demonstrates that the Yijing, like many other forms of learning, was co-opted into
the tennōsei discourse.
References
Beauchamp, Edward R., and James M. Vardaman, eds. 1994. Japanese Education Since 1945: A
Documentary Study. New York: M. E. Sharpe.
Benesch, Oleg. 2011. Bushido: The Creation of a Martial Ethic in Late Meiji Japan. Department
of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia: Unpublished Ph.D. Diss.
136 B. W. Ng
de Bary, Wm., Carol Gluck Theodore, and Arthur Tiedemann, eds. 2005. Sources of Japanese
Tradition: 1600–2000. New York: Columbia University Press.
Garon, Sheldon. 1994. Rethinking modernization and modernity in Japanese history: a focus on
state-society relations. The Journal of Asian Studies 53 (2): 346–366.
Gluck, Carol. 1987. Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Hiraizumi, Kiyoshi 平泉澄. 1942. Taishō o haishite: okotae moshiageru michi 大詔を拝して:
御答え申し上げる道 (Worshipping the Imperial Edict: The Way to Answer). In Sensen taishō
kinkai 宣戦大詔謹解 (A Careful Explanation of the Imperial Declaration of War), ed. Ōsaka
Asahi shinbunsha 大阪朝日新聞社, 63. Osaka: Ōsaka Asahi shinbunsha.
Hiraizumi, Kiyoshi 平泉澄. 1984. Nemoto Tsūmei sensei dokueki shiki shō 根本通明先生讀易私
記抄 (A Reading of Nemoto Tsūmei’s Dokueki shiki). Ise: Ise seiseijuku.
Hon, Tze-ki. 2004. The Yijing and Chinese Politics: Classical Commentary and Literati Activism
in the Northern Song Period, 960–1127. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Hui, Dong 惠棟. 2007. Zhouyi shu 周易述 (Discourse on the Zhouyi). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Kuki, Moritaka 九鬼盛隆. 1915. Ekigaku shūchi 易学須知 (The Essential Things in Studying the
Yijing). Tokyo: Shōgikai.
Kurozumi, Makoto 黒住真. 2004. Jindaihua jingyan yu dongya rujiao: yi Riben weili 近代化經驗
與東亞儒教: 以日本為例 (Modernization Experiences and East Asian Confucianism: A Case
Study of Japan), trans. Yan Li-jing 嚴麗京. Twenty-First Century 二十一世紀 86: 21–27.
Liu, Yue-bing 劉岳兵. 2003. Riben jindai ruxue yanjiu 日本近代儒學研究 (A Study of Confu-
cianism in Modern Japan). Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan.
Miyazaki, Fumiko. 1990. The formation of emperor worship in the new religions: the case of Fujidō.
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 17 (2–3): 281–314.
Nakajima, Takahiro. 2009. The Restoration of Confucianism in China and Japan: A New Source
of Morality and Religion. In Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy 4: Facing the 21st Century, ed.
Wing-keung Lam and Ching-yuen Cheung, 37–50. Nagoya: Nanzan Institute for Religion and
Culture.
Nemoto, Michiaki 根本通明. 1884. Mōshi kōgi 孟子講義 (Lectures on The Book of Mencius).
Tokyo: Bunbu kōshūkan.
Nemoto, Michiaki 根本通明. 1901a. Dokueki shiki 読易私記 (Personal Notes on My Reading of
the Yijing). In Shūeki shōgi bensei, vol. 1 周易象義弁正 1 (Correct Meanings in the Images of
the Zhouyi). Tokyo: Nemoto Michiaki.
Nemoto, Michiaki 根本通明. 1901b. Shūeki shōgi bensei, vol. 2 (Correct Meanings in the Images
of the Zhouyi). Tokyo: Nemoto Michiaki.
Nemoto, Tsūshi 根本通志. 1965. Hito sono shisō to shōgai 人·その思想と生涯 (The Man: His
Thought and Life). Akita あきた 43: 40.
Nemoto, Tsūtoku 根本通徳, ed. 1901. Ugoku Nemoto sensei nenpu juan shang 羽嶽根本先生年
譜·卷上 (Annals of Master Nemoto Ugoku, Part One). Tokyo: Nemoto Tsūtoku.
Ng, Wai-ming. 2000. The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and Culture. Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i Press.
Ng, Wai-ming. 2012. The Shintoization of the Yijing in Hirata Atsutane’s Kokugaku. Sino-Japanese
Studies 19: 33–47.
Ng, Wai-ming. 2014. Divination and Meiji Politics: A Reading of Takashima Kaemon’s Takashima
Ekidan. In Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, ed. Chun-chieh Huang and John
Tucker, 315–330. New York: Springer.
Niino, Naoyoshi 新野直吉. 1969. Ishin seikyoku kara datsuraku shita bushi gakusha – Nemoto
Tsūmei no shōgai 維新政局から脱落した武士学者根本通明の生涯 (A Samurai Scholar
Who Left the Meiji Government: The Life of Nemoto Tsūmei). Nihon rekishi 日本歴史 (Japanese
History), No. 250: 83–98.
Okuyama, Michiaki. 2003. Religious Nationalism in the Modernization Process: State Shinto and
Nichirenism in Meiji Japan. Comparative Civilizations Reviews 48 (48): 21–37.
Ōta, Saijirō 太田才次郎. 1939. Kyūbun shōroku 2 旧聞小録下 (Small Records of Old Matters,
Part 2). Tokyo: Ōta Saijirō.
Paramore, Kiri. 2016. Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Pyle, Kenneth B. 1969. The New Generation in Meiji Japan: Problems of Cultural Identity, 1885–
1895. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Saniel, Josefa M. 1965. The Mobilization of Traditional Values in the Modernization of Japan. In
Religion and Progress in Modern Asia, ed. Robert Bellah, 124–149. New York: Free Press.
Sasaki, Hitomi. 2009. Bushi gakusha: Nemoto Michiaki 武士学者・根本通明 (The Samurai
Scholar, Nemoto Michiaki). Akita Kenritsu Hakubutsukan Kenkyū Hōkoku 秋田県立博物館
研究報告 (Annual Report of Akita Prefectural Museum) 34: 49–54.
Shillony, Ben-Ami. 2008. Emperors and Christianity. In The Emperors of Modern Japan, ed. Ben-
Ami. Shillony, 163–183. Leiden: Brill.
Shimazono, Susumu. 2008. State Shinto and Emperor Veneration. In The Emperors of Modern
Japan, ed. Ben-Ami. Shillony, 53–78. Leiden: Brill.
Shively, Donald H. 1971. The Japanization of the Middle Meiji. In Tradition and Modernization in
Japanese Culture, ed. Donald H. Shively, 99–117. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Smith, Warren. 1959. Confucianism in Modern Japan: A Study of Conservatism in Japanese
Intellectual History. Tokyo: Hakuseidō.
Stalling, Jonathan. 2010. Poetics of Emptiness: Transformations of Asian Thought in American
Poetry. New York: Fordham University Press.
Takashima, Kaemon 高島嘉右衛門. 1997. Takashima ekidan, vol. 1 高島易斷•上 (Yijing Divina-
tion by Takashima, Part One). Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe.
Wu, Ru-lun 吳汝綸. 1990. Wu Rulun chidu, vol. 4 吳汝綸尺牘 4 (Letters of Wu Rulun). Hefei:
Huangshan shushe.
Yamamoto, Tsunetomo. 2012. Hakagure: The Way of the Samurai, trans. William Scott Wilson.
Boston and London: Shambhala Publications.
Benjamin Wai-ming Ng is a Professor of Japanese Studies at The Chinese University of Hong

Kong, specializing in Tokugawa intellectual history and Yijing studies in East Asia. He is the
author of Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan (SUNY Press, 2019), Dong Ya Yixue shilun 東亞
易學史論 (National Taiwan University Press, 2017), and The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and
Culture (University of Hawai’i Press, 2000).
Chapter 9
The Yijing in Twentieth-Century China
Tze-ki Hon
Abstract In imperial China, the Yijing was a Confucian classic tested in the civil
service examinations. After the 1911 Revolution, it lost its august status and became
a relic of the past. It was condemned as a source of superstition and a tool of political
control. But throughout the twentieth century, many Chinese scholars attempted to
reinvent the Yijing as an allegory of China’s modernization. This chapter examines
this transformation of the Yijing by focusing on three momentous events. First, the
chapter compares the writings of two revolutionary leaders, Zhang Taiyan (1868–
1936) and Hang Xinzhai (1869–1942), who, in the 1910s, used the Yijing to predict
China’s political change. Second, it examines the historicization of the Yijing in mid-
twentieth century that turned the text into a record of China’s progression. Third, it
assesses the impact of commercialization on the Yijing since the 1990s. This study
will demonstrate that the Yijing is indeed the Book of Changes that changes—both
its image and its function—in response to the times.
1 Introduction
In imperial China (206 BCE-1911 CE), the Yijing (I Ching, Book of Changes) was a
Confucian classic. It was a pillar of imperial orthodoxy that justified the authoritarian
rule of the emperors, the leadership of scholar-officials, and the supremacy of the
patrilineal family system (Smith 2008, pp. 57–195; Hon 2011, pp. 1–16). From the
tenth to the nineteenth century, the tie between the Yijing and imperial authority
became even stronger when the classic was tested in the civil service examinations.
For a millennium, studying the Yijing was a ladder of success to gain fame, wealth
and power (Bol 1992, pp. 148–175; Elman 2013, pp. 13–94).
In early twentieth century, the tie between the Yijing and imperial authority ended
abruptly. Three events marked this drastic change. The first was the abolition of the
civil service examinations in 1905 that decoupled the study of Confucian classics
and the literati’s ladder of success. The second was the 1911 Revolution that ended
T. Hon (B)
Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
e-mail: T.K.Hon@cityu.edu.hk
140 T. Hon
the imperial system and the authority of the Confucian classical tradition. The third
was the New Culture Movement (1915–1925) that promoted Western culture to
save China. As Smith (2008, p. 199) describes, in the early twentieth century, the
Yijing “lost virtually all of its institutionally reinforced canonical and cosmological
authority.” Along with other artifacts of the imperial system (such as the Forbidden
City and the tiny examination cells), the Yijing became a relic of the past.
To reinvent the Yijing for modern China, Chinese scholars attempted to give the
classic a new image. While they criticized the practices of using coins or yarrow
stocks to cast hexagrams, they worked tirelessly to transform the Yijing into an
analogy of China’s modernization. For them, the Yijing offered valuable insights to
turn China into a nation-state (Smith 2008, pp. 195–217; Redmond and Hon 2014,
pp. 181–191). As Zheng (2002, pp. 13–82, esp. pp. 21–22, 34–40) has pointed out,
this new interpretation of the Yijing led to a fundamental shift in the Yijing studies.
Rather than a relic of the past, the Yijing became a repository of wisdom to guide
China into the modern age.
This chapter examines this fundamental shift in the Yijing studies. To highlight
the significance of this shift, this chapter focuses on three pivotal moments—at the
beginning of the twentieth century when the Yijing was seen as a narrative of social
evolution, in mid-twentieth century when the Yijing was used to support political
modernization, and in the 1990s when the Yijing was treated as a commodity in the
print market. Together, these three pivotal moments reveal a paradox of modernizing
Yijing. On the one hand, the modernization brought the Yijing into the twentieth
century by giving it a role in building the Chinese nation-state. On the other hand, the
modernization raised questions about contemporary life, particularly the alienation,
contradictions, and injustice in industrial society. In the end, the Yijing becomes a
double-edged sword, both supporting and rejecting modern life at the same time.
2 The Path of China’s Modernization
At the turn of the twentieth-century, Chinese thinkers were preoccupied with the
notion of linear progression. Influenced by social Darwinism, they believed that
countries in this world must follow a uniform path of evolution, developing from
a lower stage to a higher stage. Hence, countries at a lower stage were considered
primitive, whereas countries at a higher stage were deemed civilized.1 In the early
1900s, Yan Fu 嚴復 (1854–1921) (Yan 1981), a leading theorist of this universal law
of human progression, presented Edward Jenks’ (1861–1939) view on the devel-
opment of government, society and economy in the Shehui tongquan 社會通詮
(Principles of Society 1904). According to Jenks, since the dawn of human history,
humankind has gone through three distinct stages of evolution—ribalism, feudalism,
and nation-state. In each stage, there is a direct correspondence between the economic
1 This historical view of linear progression was popular in China in the late nineteenth century. For
the origin of this view, see Schwartz (1964).
9 The Yijing in Twentieth-Century China 141
and socio-political structures. In tribalism, the economy is hunter and gatherer,

and the socio-political structure is a network of small matriarchal communities. In
feudalism, the economy is agricultural, and the socio-political structure is a confed-
eration of agrarian clans. In the age of nation-states, the economy is industrial, and
the socio-political structure is the massive grouping of specialists and skilled workers
to produce in factories. (Ibid, pp. 6–13, 14–64, 65–159).
To early twentieth-century Chinese readers, Jenks’ three-stage evolution was not
entirely new. From Yan’s earlier translations—particularly of Adam Smith’s Wealth
of Nations, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, and Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws—
Chinese readers learned about the development of various forms of political, social
and economic systems in Europe (Xiong 1994, pp. 687–700). What was new in the
Shehui tongquan was “the law of social evolution” that connected the changes in
government, society and economy to a clear pattern of linear progression. Further-
more, in each of these three stages of evolution, the political, social and economic
structures reinforce one another, forming a highly integrated system that reveals the
level of human development.
In the preface to the Shehui tongquan, Yan carefully applies “the law of social
evolution” to the history of China. The result of this intellectual exercise is a stunning
revelation of China’s past, present and future:
Alas! Chinese society is indeed strange. There are many forms of human grouping in this
world. And yet if we examine them based on the stages of evolution, they begin as primitive
tribes, continue as feudal states, and finally reach ‘nation-states’ status… The sequence of this
development is as reliable as the four seasons. When comparing [this three-stage sequence]
to the human body, it is like a child turning into an adolescent, an adolescent growing up
into an adult, and an adult becoming an aged person. These changes may take longer or less
time to complete. Nevertheless, they never deviate from the broad pattern. (Yan 1981, p. ix).
Writing like an ardent supporter of the scientific view of natural selection, Yan
emphasizes the inevitability of three-stage evolution by comparing it to the four
seasons and the four stages of human life, namely, childhood, adolescence, adulthood,
and old age. While sounding like a strong believer in the immutable law of nature,
Yan quietly inserts a hint of human agency by mentioning that although the general
pattern of three-stage evolution is not transmutable, the length of time to complete a
particular stage varies from place to place due to different circumstances. Sometimes
a stage of evolution might last longer in one place and take a shorter time in another.
At the end of his preface, Yan discusses the different temporalities of China and
Europe in going through the three-stage evolution. In this comparison, Yan goes
beyond Jenks by converting what was originally a general law of evolution into a
historical perspective of cultural comparison. He argues that China was “fast at the
beginning” (shi zhou 始驟) in transforming itself from tribalism into feudalism. The
transition was complete before the Xia dynasty, and throughout early antiquity known
to the Chinese as the “three dynasties” (the Xia, the Shang, and the Zhou), China
flourished in feudalism with an advanced agricultural production and a sophisticated
patrilineal family system. Yan argues that in 221 BCE, China had reached the critical
threshold to become a nation-state. And yet China failed to make the critical leap.
For two millennia from the second century BCE to the nineteenth century CE, Yan
142 T. Hon
laments, China was locked in the stage of advanced feudalism and was never able to
move forward to forming a nation-state. As a result, China “felt behind in the end”
(zhong chi 終遲) and was surpassed by European countries.
In the 1910s, two revolutionary leaders, Zhang Taiyan 章太炎 (1868–1936) and
Hang Xinzhai 杭辛齋 (1869–1942), saw a connection between the Yijing and the
temporal difference between China and Europe. Coincidently both of them focused
on the Xugua 序卦 (Explaining the Sequence of Hexagrams) of the Yijing.2 As a
text, the Xugua is unique because it gives meaning to the sequence of the sixty-four
hexagrams.3 The opening lines of the Xugua reads:
Only after there were Heaven [Hexagram #1 Qian (Pure Yang)] and Earth [Hexagram #2
Kun (Pure Yin)] were the myriad beings produced from them. What fills Heaven and Earth
is nothing other than the myriad things. This is why Qian and Kun are followed by Zhun
[Hexagram #3 (Birth Throes)]. Zhun here signifies repletion. Zhun is when things are first
born. When things begin life, they are sure to be covered. This is why Zhun is followed
by Meng [Hexagram #4 (Juvenile Ignorance)]. Meng here indicates juvenile ignorance, that
is, the immature state of things. When things are in their immature state, one cannot fail
to nourish them. This is why Meng is followed by Xu [Hexagram #5 (Waiting)]. Xu here
indicates the Dao of food and drink. Food and drink necessarily involve Song [Hexagram
#6 (Contention)]. This is why Xu is followed by Song. When there is contention, there is
sure to be an arising of the masses. This is why Song is followed by Shi [Hexagram #7
(The Army)]. An army as such is a mass of people. A mass of people necessarily involves
closeness. This is why Shi is followed by Bi [Hexagram #8 (Closeness)]. Closeness as such
means “a bringing together.” Bringing together has to involve domestication. This is why
Bi is followed by Xiaoxu [Hexagram #9 (Lesser Domestication)]. (Lynn 1994, pp. 103–104,
with slight modifications).
For Zhang Taiyan and Hang Xinzhai, the authors of Xugua appeared to match
the sequence of hexagrams with the key moments of social evolution. The process
begins from satisfying basic human needs (such as food, shelter and security) to
founding a patrilineal family structure based on gender distinctions (nannü 男女)
and matrimony (fuqi 夫妻).4 Later, the patrilineal family structure is expanded into a
complex socio-political system based on the distinctions between kings and officials
2 The Yijing consists of three distinct layers. Its first layer is comprised of eight trigrams and sixty-
four hexagrams allegedly created by the mythical figure, Fu Xi. Its second layer consists of the
hexagram statements and line statements allegedly written by King Wen and the Duke of Zhou
during the eleventh century BCE. Its third layer incorporates seven pieces of writings composed
from the fifth to the second century BCE. Divided into ten segments (hence the name Ten Wings),
these seven pieces of writings used the hexagrams to discuss cosmic patterns, the relations between
humanity and nature, and the complexity of human life. As part of the Ten Wings, Xugua explains
the meaning of the sequence of the 64 hexagrams.
3 For the history of the Yijing commentaries, see Smith (2008), pp. 57–194. For the philosophical
implications of the Yijing commentaries, see Hon (2019).

4 The second half of the Xugua discusses the establishment of the family system. Lynn’s (1994,
p. 106) translation reads: “Only after there were Heaven and Earth were there the myriad things.
Only after there were the myriad things were there male and female. Only after there were male
and female were there husband and wife. Only after there were husband and wife were there father
and child.”
(junchen 君臣) and rulers and the ruled (shangxia 上下).5 While this process of
development seems inevitable, the Xugua occasionally calls attention to challenges
and obstacles in creating a stable community. It identifies moments where the socio-
political order is corrupt (#38 Kui 睽, and #39 Jian 蹇)6 or disintegrated (#59 Huan
渙).7 Because of the danger of corruption and disintegration, the Xugua stresses
the need for renewing the system by replacing corrupt leaders (#49 Ge 革) and re-
structuring the entire system (#50 Ding 鼎).8 And yet, occasional interruptions do not
interfere with the steady unfolding of the cosmic/human order. Rather, they highlight
the need for vigilance and constant renewal. For this reason, the Xugua ends with
an observation that the sixty-four hexagrams must conclude with #64 Weiji 未濟
because the hexagram symbolizes “things cannot be exhausted” (wu bukeyi qiongye
物不可以窮也).9
For Zhang Taiyan, the Xugua elucidates the path for creating a Chinese nation-
state.10 Following Yan Fu’s argument, Zhang believed that ancient China had moved
faster than other countries in transitioning from a tribal society into a vast agrarian
empire. But since the establishment of the imperial system in 221 BCE, China had
been stuck in the long Middle Ages during which the Chinese were only inter-
ested in perfecting the imperial system rather than moving forward in building a
modern nation state. To make his point, Zhang uses nine hexagrams—#3 Zhun 屯
(Birth Throes), #4 Meng 蒙 (Juvenile Ignorance), #5 Xu 需 (Waiting), #6 Song 訟
(Contention), #7 Shi 師 (The Army), #8 Bi 比 (Closeness), #10 Lü 履 (Treading),
#12 Pi 否 (Obstruction), and #13 Tongren 同人 (Fellowship)—to represent the steps
taken by the Chinese to create a stable and sustainable community (see “Yilun” in
5 Lynn’s (Ibid) translation of the Xugua goes this way: “Only after there were father and child were
there sovereign and minister. Only after there were sovereign and minister were there superiors
and subordinates. Only after there were superiors and subordinates did propriety and righteousness
have a medium in which to operate.”
6 Lynn’s (Ibid, pp. 107–108) translation reads: “When the Dao of the family is completely exhausted,
there I sure to be discord. This is why Jiaren is followed by Kui [Hexagram #38 (Contrariety)]. Kui
here means ‘discord.’ When there is contrariety, there is sure to be adversity. This is why Kui is
followed by Jian [Hexagram #39 (Adversity)]. Jian here means ‘trouble.’”.
7 Lynn’s (Ibid, p. 109) translation reads: “Dui here means ‘delight.’ Having found such delight, one
now disperses it. This is why Dui is followed by Huan [Hexagram #59 (Dispersion)].”
8 Lynn’s (Ibid, p. 108) translation reads: “The Dao of wells cannot help but involve radical change.
This is why Jing is followed by Ge [Hexagram #49 (Radical Change)]. For effecting a radical change
in things, there is nothing as good as a caldron. That is why Ge is followed by Ding [Hexagram #50
(The Caldron)].”
9 Lynn’s (Ibid, p. 110) translation reads: “Once there is superiority over creatures [the masses, i.e.
subjects], one is sure to ferry them [across troubles, i.e. rescue them]. This is why Xiaoguo is
followed by Jiji [Hexagram #63 (Ferrying Complete)]. Creatures [the masses, i.e. subjects] must
never be hard-pressed. This is why Jiji is followed by Weiji [Hexagram #64 (Ferrying Incomplete)],
with which the hexagrams come to an end.
10 See the following articles in Zhang’s (1984, pp. 356–386) Jianlun 檢論 (Discussion on selected
topics): “Yuanren 原人” (On human beings), “Xu zhongxing shang 序種姓上” (The genealogy of
race and family names, part 1), “Xu zhongxing xia 序種姓下” (The genealogy of race and family
names, part 2), “Yuanbian 原變” (On change), and “Yilun 易論” (A study of the Yijing).
144 T. Hon
Zhang 1984, pp. 380–381). The first step was nomadism in ancient antiquity. He iden-
tified #3 Zhun and #4 Meng as the symbols for nomadic tribes moving from place
to place to look for food and shelter. But after adopting agriculture as their mode of
production (#5 Xu), the early Chinese settled down and built agrarian communities
with an army (#6 Song) and a stable social structure (#8 Bi). Later, the agrarian
communities joined together to form a land-based empire led by a powerful leader
known as di (the emperor) (#10 Lü) who oversaw a huge bureaucracy (#11 Tai and #8
Bi). In the end, the Chinese agrarian empire reached its peak during the times of the
Qin and Han dynasties when it became a well-organized, militarized and smoothly
run political structure (#13 Tongren).
Zhang’s problem is that he was unable to include the rest of the hexagrams into
his narrative of China’s evolution. In passing, he mentions seven hexagrams—#8 Bi
比 (Closeness), #16 Yu 豫 (Contentment), #20 Guan 觀 (Viewing), #21 Shike 噬
嗑 (Bite Together), #24 Fu 復 (Return), #25 Wuwang 无妄 (No Errancy), and #59
Huan 渙 (Dispersion)—that, to him, signified the Chinese efforts to improve the
imperial system by eliminating the feudal lords, the worship of imperial deities, the
capital punishment, the public fields and so on. (Ibid, p. 386) Nevertheless, Zhang
was never able to trace China’s transition from the imperial system to a nation-state
step by step. Skipping many hexagrams, Zhang ended his meditation on China’s
progress by discussing the last two hexagrams: #63 Jiji 既濟 (Ferrying Complete)
and #64 Weiji 未濟 (Ferrying Incomplete). Shifting the discussion from the evolution
of imperial China to the impact of the 1911 Revolution, Zhang called attention to
the ambiguous end of the Yijing. With these two hexagrams, he issued a warning
to his fellow revolutionaries. For him, the Yijing authors deliberately end the Yijing
with #64 Weiji to underscore “worry and anxiety” (youhuan 憂患). The hexagram
highlights that if the transition of power is not smooth, there will be mass killings,
indiscriminate destruction, and the loss of law and order. (Ibid, p. 390).
In the 1910s, another revolutionary leader Hang Xinzhai also used the Xugua to
discuss the development of the Chinese political order.11 Like Hang (1997, pp. 227–
233) interpreted the Yijing from the perspective of social evolution. But unlike Zhang,
Hang included more hexagrams. He covered seventeen hexagrams in discussing
China’s political change: #1 Qian, #2 Kun, #3 Zhun, #4 Meng, #5 Xu, #6 Song, #7
Shi, #8 Bi, #10 Lü, #12 Pi, #13 Tongren, #14 Dayou 大有 (Great Holdings), #15 Qian
謙 (Modesty), #16 Yu, and #17 Sui 隨 (Following). Although he included eight more
hexagrams, Hang basically told the same story about China’s long-delayed entry to
the modern age. But adding a few more hexagrams did help Hang extend the story
beyond the 1911 Revolution. For instance, he identified #13 Tongren as the turning
point for the end of the imperial system. He also saw #14 Dayou as a symbol of the
new Chinese nation-state, and #15 Qian and #16 Yu as symbols of socialism. In the
11 See Hang Xinzhai’s “Jin hou shijie zhi Yi 今後世界之

《易》 ” (The Yijing in the present and the
future world) in Xue yi bitan chuji 學易筆談初集 (The first collection of notes from learning the
Yijing), and “Gua xiang Jinhua zhi xu 卦象進化之序” (The sequence in the evolution of hexagram
images) in Xue yi biban erji 學易筆談二集 (The second collection of notes from learning the
Yijing). (Hang 1997, pp. 20–21, 227–234).
end, Hang anticipated that the nation-state system would eventually disappear with
the rise of anarchism (#17 Sui).
It is worth noting that both Zhang and Hang viewed Hexagram #13 Tongren
as the critical breakthrough in China’s transition to a nation-state. For them, the
hexagram image of #13 Tongren is significant. With one broken yin line in the
second position (counting from the bottom) and five straight yang lines, #13 Tongren
symbolizes a situation where a minority (the yin line) leads the majority (the five
yang lines). More importantly, the leadership of the yin line is built on compromise
and negotiation because of its humble position: the chief line of the lower trigram Li
and the second line (i.e. the subordinate) of the hexagram serving the fifth line
(i.e. the ruler). In this way, #13 Tongren symbolizes a responsive government that is
willing to listen to different opinions (Hang 1997, p. 231).
Despite their honest attempts, Zhang and Hang were unable to match the sixty-
four hexagrams to the law of social evolution. One may say Hang did better than
Zhang because he included more hexagrams and covered more details. Nevertheless,
both were only able to use a small number of hexagrams to support their argument,
and both failed to turn the sixty-four hexagrams into a convincing story of China’s
political modernization.
3 Historicizing the Yijing
During the 1920s and 1930s, as the Chinese increasingly viewed the global order as a
closed system serving the interest of the European powers, the Guomindang (GMD)
attempted to unify the country with both military force and ideological hegemony.
Commonly known as the Nanjing era (1927–1937), the GMD was quick to establish
its authority through building political alliances with warlords and provincial leaders.
To build a party-state, the GMD launched a rigorous campaign of political indoc-
trination. Known as danghua jiaoyu 黨化教育 (educating [the nation] according to
the party’s doctrine), the GMD imposed its political view on the educated elite and
young students.12
Concomitant with the dominance of the party-state and the spread of GMD’s
political orthodoxy, the focus of Yijing studies was shifted to historicization.13 The
purpose of the historicization was two-fold. First, it discredited the entire Yijing
commentarial tradition on the grounds that it was based on the erroneously assump-
tion of the coherence of the Yijing text.14 Second, the historicization was simultane-
ously an attempt to rescue the Yijing by reexamining it through the lens of science.
12 For a discussion of the education policy of the GMD during the Nanjing era, see Lee (2007).
13 Zheng (2002, pp. 21–22) identifies historicization as the distinctive figure of twentieth-century
Yijing studies.
14 The historicization of the Yijing was a product of the New Culture Movement. For an account of
the rise of cultural iconoclasm, see Schwarcz (1986), pp. 12–144.

146 T. Hon
In showing the complex process by which the Yijing was composed and compiled,
the Chinese scholars highlighted the link between the Yijing and its own times.15
From the 1920s to the 1960s, the historicization of the Yijing had gone through
stages, with each stage increasingly distancing the Yijing from the Confucian tradition
and linking it closer to China’s modernization. The first (and the widely celebrated)
attempt at historicizing the Yijing was the Doubting Antiquity Movement in the mid-
1920s. Led by Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 (1893–1980), the Doubting Antiquity Movement
reexamined the 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.16 In 1931, Gu and his followers published essays about the Yijing
in the third volume of Gushibian 古史辨 (A Symposium on Ancient History)—
the flagship publication in the Doubting Antiquity Movement. These essays are
significant because the authors followed Gu’s method of tracing historical genealogy.
Instead of viewing the Yijing as a coherent text, the authors carefully examined the
various segments of the text. Through meticulous textual studies, they demonstrated
that the Yijing was composed by multiple authors and complied over a long span of
time.17 One of their discoveries was that the original oracles, known as the Zhouyi
(The Changes of the Zhou dynasty), had nothing to do with Confucianism. In fact,
some authors went so far as to argue that the Ten Wings—seven pieces of commentary
attached to the Yijing—were not related to the original oracles. Rather, they only
presented ideas and thoughts of the Eastern Zhou period (770–221 BCE) derived
from a mixture of Confucianism, Daoism, and the Yin-Yang School.18
This separation of the Zhouyi from the Yijing was important for two reasons.
First, by making a categorical distinction between the Zhouyi (a divination manual
of early China) and the Yijing (a Confucian classic of the imperial age), the authors
suggested that for centuries, the Yijing commentators had been deceiving readers by
injecting Confucian ideas into the early layer of the text. Furthermore, they argued that
through distorting and manipulating the text, the Yijing commentators justified the
imperial rule by upholding the cosmological triad of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity—
a concept that was traditionally believed to be embedded in the eight trigrams and
sixty-four hexagrams.19 Second, by distinguishing the Zhouyi from the Yijing, it
was possible to use one text to discuss three periods in pre-modern China: (1) the
mythical time of Fu Xi, when the graphic symbols of the Zhouyi were created; (2) the
pre-imperial period when the Ten Wings were composed; and (3) the early imperial
period when the Yijing (containing both the oracles and the Ten Wings) was codified
15 For a summary of this change in the study of the Yijing, see Smith (2008), pp. 199–201.
16 For a study of the Doubting Antiquity Movement, see Schneider (1971). “Ku Chieh-Kang” in
Schneider’s book title is a different transliteration of Gu Jiegang.
17 For instance, to show that the received Yijing text was composed by a host of authors, Gu compares
the stories in the hexagram statements (Gu et al. 1962, pp. 1–84).
18 See Li Jingchi’s 李鏡池 article in Gu et al. (1962), pp. 95–132.
19 Gu highlights these two points in his preface to Gushibian vol. 3.
and canonized.20 Although the authors disagreed on the fundamental differences in

these three periods, they succeeded in identifying a path of evolution of pre-modern
China. They showed that pre-modern China, like other countries, had been following
the universal pattern of evolution, progressing from tribalism to feudalism.
Soon afterward, the picture of early China was filled with details. Based on careful
textual studies, Marxist historians (e.g. Guo Moruo 郭沫若 1892–1978) developed
a sophisticated account of early China based on the classification of the Stone Age,
the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Showing the teleology of human progress, each
period signifies a special stage of socio-economic development. For instance, the
Stone Age describes the mobile, free-willing lifestyle of hunters and gatherers; the
Bronze Age denotes the seasonal cultivation of small-sized agrarian communities;
and the Iron Age delineates the elaborate social division of labor (including slavery)
for large-scale agricultural production (Guo 1982, esp. pp. 32–89). By linking a
segment of the received Yijing text to one stage of socio-economic development, the
Marxist historians incorporated the Yijing studies into their revolutionary historiog-
raphy. They argued that the Yijing showed the pre-history of Chinese feudalism. The
text indicates that China entered the stage of large-scale agricultural production prob-
ably around the second century BCE and remained in that stage until the twentieth
century. According to the Marxist historians, during the longue durée of feudalism,
China developed into a powerful imperial state armed with advanced farming and
irrigational tools, but it could not go a step further to create an industrial economy.
(Guo 1940)21 Hence, the goal of the communist revolution was not only to create a
strong nation-state, but also to liberate China from its long imprisonment in feudalism
through rapid industrialization and an equal sharing of resources.
This Marxist interpretation of pre-modern China became the official historical
view after 1949. Concomitantly, the historicization of the Yijing continued to play a
role in supporting the communist revolution. For instance, in the early 1960s, during
a spate of discussion about the nature of the Yijing, scholars discussed the Yijing to
create a more refined schema of periodization. To some scholars, the Zhouyi repre-
sented the “primitive thoughts” of hunters and gatherers who relied on supernatural
power to make ends meet, whereas the Yijing signified China’s transition to the “slave
society” of feudalism (Li 1978, pp. 1–19).22 To support the communist ideology, they
described tribalism as the “infancy of human civilization” where people engaged in
the superstitious practice of divination. (Ibid, p. 8) Regarding the agrarian empire
depicted in the Ten Wings, the Yijing scholars were ambivalent. On the one hand,
they acknowledged the progression from the hunter-and-gatherer economy to the
agricultural production; on the other hand, they condemned the authoritarianism of
the imperial rulers and the sharp social division in feudal society. (Ibid, pp. 151–177;
Gao 1963, pp. 1–5).
20 In Gushibian vol. 3, the first two stages are covered more thoroughly than the third stage. See Yu
Yongliang’s 余永梁 article on the Zhouyi, and Li Jingchi’s article on the Ten Wings.
21 The book also appears in Guo Moruo quanji 郭沫若全集 (1982), vol. 1, pp. 377–404.
22 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.

148 T. Hon
While the Yijing seemed to support the law of social evolution, it also subverted it.
One area of subversion was the bipolarity of yin and yang. Since the 1940s, the yin-
yang bipolarity had been compared to the Hegelian dialectics. (see “Yi Tong 易通”
(Explaining the Yi, 1945) in Jin (1987), pp. 9–132, esp. pp. 37–38, 124–126) During
the 1960s, in an attempt to match the Yijing to Communism, some scholars went as
far as to describe the yin-yang bipolarity as a form of Marxist dialectical thinking.
(Liao 2001, pp. 259–273) To support their argument, they quoted Mao Zedong’s
writings to justify their search for Marxist dialectical thinking in ancient China. (Li
1961, pp. 1–5)23 Quickly the party cadres realized the inconsistency in criticizing
the Zhouyi for being primitive and superstitious on the one hand and accepting its
yin-yang bipolarity as a form of dialectical thinking on the other.
The inconsistency was even more glaring when viewed from orthodox Marxism.
According to the Marxist view of history, modern dialectical thinking first appeared
in Hegelian idealism and was perfected in Marxist historical materialism. The latter
emerged in industrial society where the distinctions between the subject and the
object, the inner and the outer, the private and the public are clearly defined in
a market economy. Hence, the Marxist dialectical thinking is essentially a tool to
overcome the alienation of modern life in which the workers are separated from the
fruit of their labor, or in Marxist terms, their exchange value from their use value.
According to the logic of linear progression, the alienation of modern life would
not have existed in 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 became out of control, the party cadres created two new terms:
the “primitive dialectics” to refer to the yin-yang polarity in Yijng divination, and the
“modern dialectics” to describe the Marxist analysis of the socio-economic structure
of an industrial economy (Liao 2001, pp. 263–264).
4 The Zhouyi Craze
The use of the Yijiing to support (or to supplant) Communism continued in the 1980s
and 1990s. In what is known as the “Zhouyi Craze” (Zhouyi re 周易熱), there was a
flurry of publications on the Yijing, ranging from the discussion of its origins to the
speculation on the scientific basis for divination. There were at least two factors that
contributed to the “Zhouyi Craze.” (Smith 2008, pp. 207–208; Li 1992, pp. 1–3) First,
a series of new archaeological discoveries in the 1970s and 1980s provided empirical
data to reopen the debate on the Yijing text. Among the archaeological findings, the
most important one was the stunning discovery of a Yijing text in 1973 from a tomb in
Mawangdui near Changsha of Hunan province. Found in the tomb of a lord who died
in 168 BCE in the Western Han period (206 BCE-9 CE), the Mawangdui manuscript
was written on silk. This discovery is significant because the manuscript contains
23 In the opening section of this book, Li quoted Mao Zedong’s essay “On Contradiction” (maodun
lun 矛盾論) to justify his search for dialectical thinking in ancient China.
the entire Yijing text—the sixty-four hexagrams, their hexagram and line statements,
and some commentarial materials that are similar to the Ten Wings—and yet the
sequence of the sixty-four hexagrams is different.24 Rather than beginning with #1
Qian (The Creative) and #2 Kun (The Receptive) and ending with #63 Jiji (Ferrying
Complete) and #64 Weiji (Ferrying Incomplete), the Mawangdui manuscript starts
with Jian 鍵 (The Key, similar to #1 Qian in the received text) and Fu 婦 (The Wife,
similar to #12 Pi in the received text) and ends with Jianren 家人 (The Family) and Yi
益 (Increase). In addition, the sixty-four hexagrams are arranged into eight sequences
based on the trigram images.25 These different arrangements of the hexagrams not
only call into question the authority of the received Yijing, but also cast doubt on the
traditional interpretations that are based on the received hexagram sequence. More
importantly, it draws attention to the complex process of canonizing the Yijing, since
it appears that the text had been circulated in multiple versions over a long period of
time.26
In addition to the new archaeological discoveries, the “Zhouyi Craze” was made
possible because of the drastic changes in the Chinese economy since the launching
of “reform and opening-up” of Deng Xiaoping. Deng’s policies of integrating China
into the US-led global capitalism quickly transformed the nation from a stagnant
and insular country into the “factory of the world,” mass-producing consumer goods
for the overseas markets. This rapid economic growth led to a robust print market
where a huge number of readers could afford to buy books for their leisure reading. In
many respects, the “Zhouyi Craze” was a result of this boom in the print market when
private presses competed for book sales that appealed to the public. At the same time,
by re-introducing an ancient text that could be applied to a wide variety of topics
such as fengshui, self-help and human psychology, Yijing scholars suddenly found a
broad audience who were looking for advice to manage their complicated lives in a
fast-growing economy that was full of opportunity and uncertainty.27 In the 1990s,
most readers of the Yijing were seeking practical advice rather than the knowledge
of ancient China. Nevertheless, they found the Yijing inspiring because it discussed
how to be at ease in change—something they needed the most in a fast-growing
economy.
This expansion of the print market sparked interest in the origin of the Yijing.
With a bigger audience and a larger distribution network, Yijing scholars could now
publish (or republish) their writings even if their viewpoints did not strictly follow
the government ideology. A prime example is the publication of the Yixue zhexue shi
易學哲學史 (The History of the Philosophy of Yijing Studies 1995) in 1986 by Zhu
Bokun 朱伯崑 (1923–2007), a scholar at Peking University. Although the histori-
cization of the Yijing in the 1920s had separated the Zhouyi (the divination manual
24 While the entire work is present, some characters are illegible.

25 For an account of the Mawangdui Yijing manuscript, see Shaughnessy (1996), pp. 14–29.
26 For a succinct summary of the significance of the Mawandui Yijing manuscript, see Li Xueqin’s
李學勤 “Xu 序” (Preface) in Liao (2008), pp. 1–3.

27 For a summary of the expanded readership of the Yijing in contemporary China, see Smith (2008),
pp. 208–240.
150 T. Hon
of early China) from the Yijing (the Confucian classic of the imperial period), both
were perceived as lacking philosophical depth. As a divination manual, the Zhouyi
promoted superstition by giving readers the false hope of foretelling the future. As a
Confucian classic, the Yijing was a tool for political control and social coercion. In
Zhu’s book, however, readers found a different image of the Yijing. The received text,
as he describes it, was full of philosophical insights, including the dialectics of yin
and yang, correlative cosmology, and moral metaphysics. Furthermore, Zhu includes
careful studies of Yijing commentaries from the Han to the Qing dynasty, offering
a panoramic view of the Yijing commentarial tradition that had been out of fashion
since the 1920s (see Zhu 1995, vols. 2 and 3). By emphasizing the significance of the
commentarial tradition in explicating the profound meanings of the Yijing, Zhu parted
company with scholars of the Doubting Antiquity Movement. More importantly, Zhu
freed the Yijing from the straitjacket of the communist ideology. He presented the
Yijing as a living text that focused on the complexity of life in a rapidly changing
world. By highlighting the philosophy of change, he made the Yijing directly relevant
to modern life, when both China and the world were adjusting to the post-Cold War
era. For Zhu, the significance of the Yijing lies not only in its revelation of the past,
but also in its illumination of the complexity of the human condition.
Today, the “Zhouyi Craze” is still spreading like wildfire in China. Many forms
of Yijing writings—ranging from divination and geomancy to medical health and
self-help—are popular items in the publishing market. Spurred by the continuous
archaeological discoveries of the Yijing texts and the increasing demand to cope with
uncertainty and alienation of modern life,28 the Yijing has regained its former glory
as an ancient classic that dispenses wisdom to those who are puzzled or burdened by
the harsh reality of everyday life. The continuous popularity of the Yijing as a book
of wisdom shows that the Yijing, after a century of modernization, is no longer tied to
the Confucian tradition or the imperial system. Instead, it has become a hybrid text
that transcends conventional categories such as Confucianism, Daoism, alchemy,
astronomy, cosmology, divination, geomancy and medicine. More importantly, by
calling attention to the problems of our contemporary life, the Yijing addresses a wide
variety of issues such as gender identity, corporate leadership, financial investment
and environmental sustainability.
Yet, despite its ostensible optimism and seemingly positive tone, the Yijing is full
of anomalies and strange events. Particularly in the divination records, we find stern
warnings about “calamity” (xiong 凶), “regret” (hui 悔) and “remorse” (lin 吝), as
28 Fora study of recently discovered Yijing texts, see Shaughnessy, Unearthing the Changes:
Recently Discovered Manuscripts of the Yi Jing (I Ching) and Related Texts. New York: Columbia
University Press (2014).
if the world is falling apart.29 These warnings not only underscore the contingency
and unpredictability of our human condition, but also direct our attention to the dark
sides of human existence such as disease, deformation, degeneration and death. The
irony of the modernization of the Yijing is that despite unremitting efforts to fit the
classic into a trajectory of modernization, the classic remains stubbornly a voice of
protest. It rejects linear progression, reveals contradictions and injustice in modern
society, and above all, highlights the serendipity and randomness in human life.
Acknowledgements Part of the research for this chapter was funded by a start-up grant from the
City University of Hong Kong, entitled “The Use of the Yijing (Book of Changes) in the 1960s
US” (account number: 9380087). An earlier version of this chapter appears in “Predicting a New
Nation: Yijing Studies in Twentieth-Century China,” Monumenta Serica, volume 68, no. 2 (2020):
495–514. The author would like to thank Dr. Chan Hok-yin for his assistance in analyzing Zhang
Taiyan’s writings.
References
Bol, Peter. 1992. “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transition in T’ang and Sung China. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Elman, Benjamin. 2013. Civil Examination and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Gao, Heng 高亨. 1963. Zhouyi gujing tongshuo 周易古經通說 (A General Introduction to the
Ancient Classic Zhouyi). Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju.
Gao, Heng 高亨. 1984. Zhouyi gujing jinzhu 周易古經今注 (A Contemporary Commentary on the
Ancient Text Zhouyi). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Gu, Jie-gang 顧頡剛, et al. 1962. Gushibian (disan ce) 古史辨 (第三冊) (A Symposium on Ancient
History, vol. 3). Xianggang: Taiping shuju.
Guo, Mo-ruo 郭沫若. 1940. Zhouyi de goucheng shidai 周易的構成時代 (The Ages of the
Formation of the Zhouyi). Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan.
Guo, Mo-ruo 郭沫若. 1982. Zhongguo gudai shehui yanjiu 中國古代社會研究 (Studies of Chinese
Ancient Society). In Guo Moruo quanji: Lishi bian 郭沫若全集: 歷史編 (The Collected Writings
of Guo Moruo: History), vol. 1, 6–314. Beijing: Remin chubanshe.
Hang, Xin-zhai 杭辛齋. 1997 [1919]. Xue yi bitan, duyi zashi 學易筆談, 讀易雜識 (Notes from
Learning the Yijing, Random Thoughts from Reading the Yijing). Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu
chubanshe.
Hon, Tze-ki. 2011. Classical Exegesis and Social Change: The Song School of Yijing Commentaries
in Late Imperial China. Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies 11(1): 1–16.
Hon, Tze-ki. 2019. Chinese Philosophy of Change (Yijing). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-change/. Accessed 29 May 2019.
Jin, Jing-fang 金景芳. 1987. Xueyi sizhong 學易四種 (Four Studies of the Changes). Changchun:
Jinlin wenshi chubanshe.
Lee, Chiu-chun. 2007. Liberalism and Nationalism at a Crossroads: The Guomindang’s Educational
Policies, 1927–1930 Tze-ki Hon and Robert J Culp Eds. The Politics of Historical Production in
Late Qing and Republican China. Leiden: Brill Leiden.
29 For
the usage of xiong (calamity), hui (regret) and lin (remorse) in the sixty-four hexagrams, see
Gao 1984, pp. 126–138.
152 T. Hon
Li, Xue-qin 李學勤. 1992. Zhouyi jingzhuan suyuan: Cong kaogu xue, wenxian xue kan Zhouyi 周
易經傳溯源: 從考古學、文獻學看《周易》(The Development of the Zhouyi Classic and Its
Commentaries: A Study of the Zhouyi from the Perspective of Archaeological and Textual
Studies). Changchun: Changchun chubanshe.
Li, Jing-chun 李景春. 1961. Zhouyi zhexue yuqi bianzhengfa yinsu 周易哲學與其辨証因素 (The
Philosophy of the Zhouyi and Its Elements of Dialectical Method). Jinian: Shangtong renmin
chubanshe.
Li, Jing-chi 李鏡池. 1978. Zhouyi tanyuan 周易探源 (A Study of the Origins of the Zhouyi).
Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Liao, Ming-chun 廖明春. 2001. Zhouyi jingzhuan yu yixue shi xinlun 周易經傳與易學史新論
(New Studies of the Core Text and Commentarial Materials of the Zhouyi and the History of
Yijing Studies). Jinian: Qilao shushe.
Liao, Ming-chun 廖明春. 2008. Boshu Zhouyi lunji 帛書《周易》論集 (A Collection of Essays on
the Zhouyi Written on Cloth). Shanghai: Shanghai gujie chubanshe.
Lynn, Richard John. 1994. The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted
by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press.
Redmond, Geoffrey & Hon, Tze-ki. 2014. Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes). London: Oxford
University Press.
Schneider, Laurence A. 1971. Ku Chieh-Kang and China’s New History: Nationalism and the Quest
for Alternative Traditions. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schwarcz, Vera. 1986. The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectual and the Legacy of the May Fourth
Movement of 1919. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schwartz, Benjamin. 1964. In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West. Cambridge: The
Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press.
Shaughnessy, Edward. 2014. Unearthing the Changes: Recently Discovered Manuscripts of the Yi
Jing (I Ching) and Related Texts. New York: Columbia University Press.
Shaughnessy, Edward. 1996. I Ching, The Classic of Changes: The First English Translation of the
Newly Discovered Second-Century B.C. Mawangdui Texts. New York: Ballantine.
Smith, Richard J. 2008. Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I-Ching or
Classic of Changes) and its Evolution in China. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Xiong, Yue-zhi 熊月之. 1994. Xixue dongjian yu wanqing shehui 西學東漸與晚清社會 (The Rise
of Western Learning and Late Qing Society). Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshi.
Yan, Fu 嚴復. 1981 [1904]. Shehui tongquan 社會通詮 (Principles of Society). Beijing: Shangwu
yinshuguan.
Zhang, Tai-yan 章太炎. 1984. Zhang Taiyan quanji 章太炎全集 (The Complete Works of Zhang
Taiyan). Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe.
Zheng, Ji-xiong 鄭吉雄. 2002. Cong jingdian quanshi chuantong lun ershi shiji yiquanshi de fenqi yu
leixing 從經典詮釋傳統論二十世紀易詮釋的分期與類型 (A Study of the Twentieth-Century
Yijing Interpretations from the Perspective of Classical Exegetical Tradition). In Yi tuxiang yu
yi quanshi 易圖像與易詮釋 (Yijing Diagrams and Yijing Exegesis), 13–82. Taipei: Ximaliya
jijinghui.
Zhu, Bo-kun 朱伯崑. 1995. Yixue zhexue shi 易學哲學史 (The History of the Philosophy of Yijing
Studies). Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe.
Tze-ki Hon is a Professor of Chinese and History at City University of Hong Kong. He is an
expert in the Yijing in China and early modern and modern Chinese intellectual history. He is the
author of The Yijing and Chinese Politics (SUNY Press, 2005) and The Allure of the Nation: The
Cultural and Historical Debates in Late Qing and Republican China (Brill, 2015). He co-authored
Teaching the Book of Changes (Yijing) (Oxford University Press, 2014) with Geoffrey Redmond.
Part III
The Yijing in Modern Science and Popular
Culture in the West
Chapter 10
Richard Wilhelm’s Book of Changes
and the Science of the Mind in the Early
Twentieth Century
Lu Zhao
Abstract Richard Wilhelm’s (1873–1930) translation played an important role in

popularizing the Yijing in Europe and the United States. Its popularization was related
to the rising interest in the science of the mind in the West. Even till this day, its
English version, is well known among the Western audiences, especially the ones
who have engaged in various spiritual movements in the United States or sought
to find alternative orders of the cosmos. This chapter will contextualize Wilhelm’s
Yijing through the rise of the science of the mind, in which his translation of the Yijing
is deeply rooted. For instance, Wilhelm applied the concept of the unconscious (das
Unbewußte) to the divinatory process of the Yijing. His choice of the Yijing reflected
not only his own scholarly interest, but also a global turn toward the science of the
mind in the beginning of the twentieth century. Using the Yijing as a key, Wilhelm
attempted to answer the question of the century: “What could our mind do?” His
academic mission was to discover the universal truth of the human mind from the
Yijing.
1 Introduction
Even till this day, the Yijing is well known among the Western audiences, especially
the ones who have engaged in various spiritual movements in the United States or
sought to find alternative orders of the cosmos (ReShel 2016). Richard Wilhelm’s
(1873–1930) translation played an important role in popularizing the Yijing in Europe
and the United States. Its popularization was related to the rising interest in the science
of the mind in the West. This chapter will contextualize Wilhelm’s Yijing through
the lens of the science of the mind. Wilhelm’s choice of the Yijing reflected not only
his own scholarly interest, but also a global turn toward the science of the mind in
the beginning of the twentieth century. Using the Yijing as a key, Wilhelm attempted
to answer the question of the century: What could our mind do?
L. Zhao (B)
Global Chinese Studies, New York University Shanghai, Shanghai, China
e-mail: lz69@nyu.edu
156 L. Zhao
Wilhelm’s interest in the human mind can be traced to his early years when he
translated Immanuel Kant’s (1724–1804) Von der Macht des Gemüts, durch den
bloßen Vorsatz seiner krankhaften Gefühle (On the Power of the Mind to Master
its Morbid Feelings, 1798) from German to literary Chinese. Wilhelm sought the
hidden knowledge of the mind that he believed was universal in both Europe and
China. In his translation of the Yijing, Wilhelm applied the concept of the unconscious
(das Unbewußte) to the divinatory process of the Yijing. His use of the term was a
maneuver not only to validate the Yijing, but also to uncover the structure of the mind
that was common to mankind. Wilhelm’s translation of the Daoist meditative text,
The Secret of the Golden Flower (Taiyi jinhua zongzhi 太乙金華宗旨), showed his
efforts to promote mental science in both Europe and China. Wilhelm’s academic
mission was to discover the universal truth of the human mind from Chinese culture
to benefit the mental well-being of his generations.
2 On the Power of the Mind and Universality
Richard Wilhelm (Chinese name: Wei Lixian 尉禮賢) was a German sinologist and
missionary (Lackner 1999; Hirsch 2003; Lai 2014). Born into a stained-glass painter’s
family, he was trained in theology at the University of Tübingen and the Tübinger
Stift of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church from 1891 to 1895. After becoming a
vicar in Wilmsheim in 1895 and then in Boll in 1897, Wilhelm set out to Qing
China as a missionary in 1900 in the service of the German East Asia Mission
(Die Deutsche Ostasienmission) of the General Evangelical Protestant Missionary
Society (Allgemeiner Evangelisch-Protestantischer Missions-Verein). He arrived in
the then German colony, Qingdao of Shandong province, and learnt Chinese there.
From 1900 to 1921, he spent most of the time in Qingdao working as a pastor and an
educator. Through his sojourn, he moved away from missionary work and devoted
himself to learning and translating traditional Chinese texts. In 1924, he went back
to Germany as the chair professor of the newly founded Studies of Chinese History
and Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. In 1930, he died of a serious tropical
disease in Tübingen at the age of 56 (Ballin 2003).
Wilhelm’s works can be divided into two kinds—translations of Chinese classical
works, and China studies. The first includes the most important Chinese classics, such
as the Analects of Confucius (Kung Futse Gespräche, 1905), Daodejing: The Book
of Meaning and Life (Tao Te King: Das Buch vom Sinn und Leben, 1911), The True
Book of the Southern Flower [Zhuangzi] (Das wahre Buch vom südlichen Blütenland,
1912), Xiaojing: The Book of Respect [Classic of Filial Piety] (Hiau Ging: Das Buch
der Ehrfurcht, 1912), Liezi: The True Book of the Swelling Emptiness (Liä Dsi: Das
wahre Buch vom quellenden Urgrund, 1914), Chinese Fables (Chinesische Märchen,
1914), The Spring and Autumn of Lü Buwei (Frühling und Herbst des Lü Bu Wei,
1928), I-Ching: The Book of Changes (I Ging, das Buch der Wandlungen, 1924), and
the Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life (Geheimnis der Goldenen
Blüte: Das Buch von Bewusstsein und Leben, 1929) (Schüler 1930; Jiang 2004).
10 Richard Wilhelm’s Book of Changes and the Science … 157
Most of these translations were completed during his sojourn in Qingdao, and they
reflect his Chinese cohorts’ scholarly interest in the pre-Qin masters. Moreover, these
translations of the ancient Chinese masters also show Wilhelm’s search for Chinese
wisdom and spirituality.1
The second kind of Wilhelm’s works focus on the living and mental world of the
Chinese people, such as Chinese Wisdom (Chinesische Lebensweisheit, 1922), The
Soul of China (Die Seele Chinas, 1926), Confucius: Live and Work (Kung-Tse: Leben
und Werk, 1925), and Chinese Economic Psychology (Chinesische Wirtschaftspsy-
chologie, 1930). For example, in Chinese Wisdom, Wilhelm unpacks the thought of
Confucius and Laozi together with the Book of Changes. He refers to the thought as
“philosophy” (philosophie) and “philosophical theories” (philosophische Theries)
(Wilhelm 1922, pp. 3, 67). In this way, early Chinese masters’ thought becomes
comparable to European philosophy. The Soul of China is an autobiography that
records Wilhelm’s 25 years in China. As he mentions in the preface, the most essen-
tial part of China, old or new, is the “mind” (seele) (Wilhelm 1998, p. 2). Instead of
local customs, habits and politics, it is the intellectual world of China that Wilhelm
was interested in.
Meanwhile, Wilhelm was well connected to many Chinese literati of the time,
particularly during his stay in Qingdao. After the collapse of the Qing dynasty in
1911, former Qing officials fled to the colonized Qingdao and in turn created a
vibrant intellectual scene there. In his autobiography, Wilhelm (1998) describes the
diverse people at his banquet table, ranging from former high officials to Daoist
practitioners and diviners. Among Wilhelm’s acquaintances, the most famous one
was Gu Hongming 辜鴻銘 (1857–1928), who was trained in Western literature at the
University of Edinburgh and eventually became a public intellectual in Republican
China.
Fame aside, two of Wilhelm’s friends worked with him most closely on his trans-
lation works. One of them, Lao Naixuan 勞乃宣 (1843–1921), was undoubtedly the
most important one. Lao was a civil examination titleholder (jinshi 進士) in 1871
and became the Provost (Zong jiandu 總監督) of the Imperial University of Peking
(Jingshi daxuetang 京師大學堂) in 1911. After the collapse of the Qing dynasty in
the next year, he retired from politics and retreated to Qingdao. Around that time,
Lao taught Wilhelm Chinese classical texts including the Great Learning (Daxue 大
學), the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸), Mencius (Mengzi 孟子), and the
Yijing. As Wilhelm (1977, p. 71) mentions, Lao was his “honored” teacher.
The other person was the late businessman and collector Zhou Xian 周暹 (more
commonly known with his style name Shutao 叔弢, 1891–1984). In 1914, he and
Wilhelm co-translated Kant’s On the Power of the Mind. In the same year, the
Commercial Press (Shangwu Yinshu Guan 商務印書館) published the translation,
entitled Renxin nengli lun 人心能力論 (A Discussion on the Power of the Human
1 It is worth noticing that Wilhelm adopted the Daoist canon titles Nanhuai zhenjing 南華真經 (Das
wahre Buch vom südlichen Blütenland) and Chongxu zhenjing 沖虛真經 (Hiau Ging: Das Buch
der Ehrfurcht) for Zhuangzi 莊子 and Liezi 列子 respectively. This adoption shows that Wilhelm
considered the texts not as a philosophical text in our modern sense, but part of the Daoist religion.
158 L. Zhao
Mind), in their Zhexue congshu 哲學叢書 (Philosophy Series). Two years later, the
work already had its third reprint.
The translation of On the Power of the Mind showed Wilhelm’s strong interest
in the potential of the human mind and how it could improve our life. The work
originated from a correspondence between Kant and his friend, physician Christoph
Wilhelm Hufeland (1762–1836) of the University of Jena, after Hufeland sent Kant
a copy of his book, The Art of Prolonging Human Life (Die Kunst das menschliche
Leben zu verlängern, 1796) on 12 December 1796.2 After Kant wrote back thanking
Hufeland, the latter encouraged the former to write an essay on the topic. In January
1798, Kant wrote Hufeland a letter about his own health regimens, and Hufeland
published the letter in his Journal of Practical Pharmacology and Surgery (Journal
der praktischen Arzneykunde und Wundarzneykunst). Later that year, the long letter
was published as a monograph and included in Kant’s The Conflict of the Faculties
(Der Streit der Fakultäten).
In On the Power of the Mind, Kant (1979) unpacks his own experiences of living
a long life: using one’s mind power to avoid indulgences and to ward off mental
problems. To him, negative feelings cause mental problems, and people should use
their will power to battle these feelings. Accordingly, wielding mind power to diverge
thoughts plays an important role here. For example, Kant believes that indulging in
morbid feelings will lead to melancholia, whereas diverging from and rationalizing
these feelings can put one’s mind at ease. Similarly, he thinks that insomnia results
from disturbing thoughts, and the solution is diverting them into random thoughts.
The same thing can be said for overthinking during eating or walking. In general,
Kant maintains that through one’s mind power and strict regimen, one can prevent
many mental problems in order to live a longer and happier life.
This translation project started out as a language exchange between Zhou and
Wilhelm. At that time, Zhou wanted to learn German through first-rate Western
works, and thus Wilhelm chose the esteemed Western philosopher Kant’s On the
Power of the Mind for its straightforward language. They used the monograph version
with Hufeland’s foreword as the main edition.3 The translation process was typical
among the missionary translations: Wilhelm translated the text into Chinese verbally,
and then Zhou put the translation into literary Chinese, and afterwards, the text was
further edited by Lao (Kant 1914). Besides the body text, the final publication not
only included Hufeland’s foreword in literary Chinese, a preface by an eminent
politician, Zhang Shiheng 張士珩 (1857–1918), and a postscript by Lao, but also
the two translators’ comments throughout the body text.
Wilhelm’s other reason to choose this text was to reveal the functioning of mind
through Kant. Different from his other philosophical works, On the Power of the
Mind straightforwardly outlines what the human mind is capable of in practice. For
example, in the book, Kant (1979, pp. 202–204) talks about the “Old men coughing”
(Altmannshusten), meaning that senior people start coughing when they are in bed;
2 Hufeland’s
book was translated into English in 1797 and into Japanese in 1907.
3 In
1824, Hufeland edited Von der Macht des Gemüts and published it with his foreword through
Reclam Verlag, Leipzig. Most of the currently available versions are based on this 1824 edition.
he believes that it results from the irritation of air inhaled through the mouth. There-
fore, he suggests that instead of using medicine, one only needs a “mind-operation”
(Gemütsoperation), where one consciously distracts oneself with other matters. In
this way, the expulsion of air would stop, and the symptom would be gone.
In Zhou and Wilhelm’s literary Chinese translation, they turned Kant’s personal
practice into a theory of breathing, and then compared it to the Chinese practice.
They start with Hufeland’s comment:
[Hufeland]: Breathing through the nose can mobilize the qi of nourishment [oxygen], because
the nose is close to the brain (由鼻呼吸, 因其近腦, 可運養氣, 故吸氣亦等於飲氣。). There-
fore, inhaling through the nose is like drinking qi. Although qi has no smell, it can strengthen
the organ of smell. When the weather is gloomy, our breathing becomes obstructed. If the
weather is good, and we walk outside, breathing with our nose is better than with our
mouth. People should get used to nose breathing. Whether we are awake, asleep, climbing,
or running, we should not deviate from this. We should walk slowly rather than breathe with
our mouth open. When students practice gymnastics, they should also be taught to close
their mouth. Some wonder why it seems harmless when people give a lecture and breathe
with their mouth. What they did not know is that during a lecture, people use their mouth
to exhale only, and use their nose to inhale. This is why people can give a lecture for hours
without making their voice hoarse. Moreover, when people are alone, breathing with their
mouth closed can generate saliva and strengthen the stomach. Therefore, do not follow the
bad habit of exhaling wastefully. (Kant 1914, pp. 13–14)
According to Hufeland, breathing with the mouth closed is not just a temporary
solution to the “old men coughing,” but a general principle that people should follow
in order to improve their life. His reasoning is that oxygen could nourish our brain
through the nose. Along with this line of reasoning, he argues that when we breathe
with our mouth closed, oxygen would not be squandered as much. This reasoning
resonates with the Chinese medical theory according to which one needs to preserve
their qi. By translating oxygen as the “qi of nourishment,” Zhou and Wilhelm link
Hufeland’s argument to this medical theory purposefully.
Zhou and Wilhelm link Kant and Hufeland further to a certain Chinese tradition
by giving their own commentary in the translation:
[Zhou and Wilhelm]: This connects with what Zhuangzi said: “The perfected men in antiquity
breathed very deeply. Their breath went down to their heels. But the breath of ordinary people
only goes to their throats.” (Ibid, p. 14)
Quoting from one of the inner chapters of Zhuangzi, “Dazongshi 大宗師” (Grand
Master), they refer to the accomplished people in the ancient times, namely the
perfected men. According to Zhuangzi and the Daoist tradition in general, the
perfected men are the masters of preserving their life: not only can they live an
immortal life, they also cannot be harmed by water or fire (Pregadio 2004). It is
doubtful whether Kant’s or Hufeland’s breathing technique was the same as that in
a text from China in the third century BCE, if not earlier. However, it was clearly
Zhou and Wilhelm’s intention to present it as such. Through such presentations, they
assumed that there was a universal hidden truth about improving human life that was
independently discovered by sages from different places and eras.
160 L. Zhao
At this stage of his search for the science of the mind, Wilhelm already saw the
universality of the mind, and the translation of On the Power of the Mind was a
demonstration of it. In the preface and the postscript, his Chinese literary cohorts
take a similar view. For example, Zhang praises this particular breathing technique
in the preface:
I thought about the Han literatus Dong Zhongshu’s words: “An essential part of nourishing
life is treasuring the qi. Qi is achieved through the spirit, and the spirit comes from the mind.
The mind is where the heart goes. When the mind is toiled, the spirit is disturbed; and when
the spirit is disturbed, the qi would be deficient. The gentlemen ward off desires and stop
the evil thoughts to pacify the mind, pacify the mind to calm the spirit, and calm the spirit to
nourishing the qi. When the qi is abundant and in order, the essential part of nourishing life
is achieved.” Kant’s discussion on how mind could control illness matches it. (Ibid, p. 2)
In Zhang’s mind, controlling breathing is not just a temporary avoidance of irri-

tation for the throat; the breathing technique has a more fundamental relationship
with the human mind, in which one needs to cultivate their mind in order to preserve
the qi and the human body. Like Zhou and Wilhelm, Zhang quotes a passage from
a traditional Chinese passage attributed to Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (192–104 BCE),
an ancient Chinese master in their mind, and compares him to Kant. In the postscript,
Lao even goes so far as to claim: “The study of Kant is ninety percent in accordance
with the way of Confucius and Mencius.” (Ibid, p. 18). To Wilhelm, Zhang and Lao,
Chinese wisdom was relevant or even essential to understanding the human body
and the contemporary world.
3 The Book of Changes and the Unconscious
Wilhelm’s interest in the mind and Chinese wisdom was paramount in his translation
of the Yijing. His translation, especially the English version The I Ching or Book of
Changes translated by Cary F. Baynes (1883–1977), became exceedingly popular in
the latter half of the twentieth century both inside and outside academia. This popu-
larity was due to the plain language and lucid commentaries of Wilhelm and Baynes
as well as the rigorous quality control by his son Hellmut Wilhelm (1905–1990).
Meanwhile, Wilhelm’s success was indebted to Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), one
of the most famous psychologists and intellectuals of the twentieth century. The
common interest in the human mind brought Jung and Wilhelm together.
Wilhelm’s plan to translate the Yijing was back in 1913. According to Wilhelm,
he and Lao started translating the Yijing from Classical Chinese to German in March
that year and eventually finished in 1923. It was published in Jena in the following
year, entitled I Ging, das Buch der Wandlungen (I-Ching: The Book of Changes). As
Wilhelm (1977, p. 71) recounts, the translation process went as:
Under his [Lao’s] experienced guidance I wandered entranced through this strange and yet
familiar world. The translation of the text was made after detailed discussion. Then the
German version was retranslated into Chinese and it was only after the meaning of the text
had been fully brought out that we considered our version to be truly a translation.
More thorough than most translators, Lao was involved in a double process; he
was not only responsible for explaining the meaning of the Chinese text, but also
checking the German translation. Since he could not read German, Wilhelm needed
to retranslate the German back into Chinese (Li 2012). The result of this dual process
is not so much objective accuracy as the accessible language that is faithful to Lao’s
interpretation of the Changes.
In the introduction, Wilhelm defines the nature of the Yijing as a book of oracle and
wisdom. As a book of oracle, it presents the eight trigrams as the symbols of changing
and transitional states. The trigrams further combine with each other to create the
sixty-four hexagrams, each of which contains six lines specifying the phenomena of
the world and their movements. In addition to representing the world, the lines also
call for corresponding actions. In this sense, through the divinatory process, the book
tells people the unfolding situations and what they need to do to cope with them. As
Wilhelm (1977, p. 79) mentions, this makes the book of divination become one of
wisdom.
Wilhelm does not justify the wisdom and divination of the text through divine
power, but the human mind. In the preface, Wilhelm (Ibid, pp. 84–85) points out:
The only thing about all this that seems strange to our modern sense is the method of
learning the nature of a situation through the manipulation of yarrow stalks. This procedure
was regarded as mysterious, however, simply in the sense that the manipulation of the yarrow
stalks makes it possible for the unconscious in man to become active. All individuals are
not equally fitted to consult the oracle. It requires a clear and tranquil mind, receptive to
the cosmic influences hidden in the humbling divining stalks. As products of the vegetable
kingdom, these were considered to be related to the sources of life. The stalks were derived
from sacred plants.
Wilhelm reinterprets the divination of the Yijing in two ways in this passage.
Firstly, the yarrow stalks are no longer the intermediary power between humans and
Heaven or deities. Now the “sacred plants” reveal cosmic influences. Secondly, the
nature’s unfolding situations are not apparent from the line statements and hexa-
grams; they require a clear and tranquil mind to be explored. In this way, Wilhelm
approves the efficacy of the Yijing, but it is based on the subtle link between the
human mind and the cosmic order.
The “unconscious” in the passage is a conscious choice of word. By the time
of Wilhelm, the “unconscious” was a trendy term among the intellectuals. For
example, the German philosopher Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) argued that the
unconscious was a productive force for consciousness (McGrath 2010). Following
Schelling’s conceptualization, Carl Gustave Carus (1789–1869) (1975, p. 1) opens
his book Psyche with the following line: “The key to an understanding of the nature
of the conscious life of the soul lies in the sphere of the unconscious.” Similar to
Schelling, Carus recognizes the unconscious as the foundation of consciousness.
Furthermore, he draws a relationship between the unconscious and the nature, where
the healing power of nature works through the unconscious. In this way, human beings
are connected to the rest of the universe through the unconscious (Shamdasani 2003).
After Carus, the unconscious was further highlighted through the German philoso-
pher Eduard von Hartmann’s (1842–1906) The Philosophy of the Unconscious in
162 L. Zhao
1868. Von Hartmann (1869, p. 363) links the unconscious further to artistic activ-
ities, where he believes that arts result from the instruction of the unconscious.
From Schelling to Carus, and then to von Hartmann, the unconscious became not
only an explanation of the human mind’s functionality, but also a connection to the
universe. Having these connotations available, Wilhelm applied the unconscious to
the Changes to explain its mechanism.
In his explanation of the Yijing, Wilhelm uses the concept of the unconscious in
a similar sense. In the “Attached Statements” (Xici 繫辭) of the Yijing, a particular
section mentions shen 神, which Wilhelm (1977, p. 644) understands as the mind:
Thus the penetration of a germinal thought into the mind promotes the working of the mind.
When this working furthers and brings peace to life, it elevates a man’s nature. Whatever
goes beyond this indeed transcends all knowledge. When a man comprehends the divine and
understands the transformations, he lifts his nature to the level of the miraculous.
Wilhelm (Ibid, p. 644) then comments on what was beyond the working of the
mind:
Conscious influences are always merely limited ones, because they are brought about by
intention. Nature knows no intentions; this is why everything in nature is so great. It is
owing to the underlying unity of nature that all its thousand ways lead to a goal so perfect
that it seems to have been planned beforehand down to the last detail. Then, in connection
with the course of the day and the year, we are shown how past and future flow into each other,
how contraction and expansion are the two movements through which the past prepares the
future and the future unfolds the past.
He understands the “Attached Statements” as a discussion about the relationship

between human intention and nature. To him, the “mind” and the “working of the
mind” are the conscious intentions that are limited. The nature, on the other hand,
has many possibilities that are much greater than what conscious intentions could
fully include. This is especially the case when it comes to predicting the future, since
it is also intertwined with the past.
If the conscious thinking process is not enough to calculate the future, what could
people rely on? Wilhelm (Ibid, pp. 644–645) continues to address the question:
In the two succeeding sections the same thought is applied to the man who, through supreme
concentration, so intensifies and strengthens his inner being that mysterious autonomous
currents of power emanate from him: thus the effects he creates proceed from his uncon-
scious and mysteriously affect the unconscious in others, attaining such breadth and depth of
influence that they transcend the individual sphere and enter the real of cosmic phenomena.
To Wilhelm, people can rely on their concentration to unleash the autonomous

currents of power inside them, namely their unconsciousness. People’s unconscious
mind can go further beyond themselves and influence each other, becoming the
“cosmic phenomena.” In line with Schelling, Carus and von Hartmann, Wilhelm
believes that human unconsciousness is not just an unknown part of the psyche
inside an individual, but a channel to the collective nature or cosmos.
To Wilhelm, the unconscious is at work when one practices the Yijing. In
performing its divination, the methods hinge on a particular passage from the chapter
“Attached Statements” in the text:
With a grand spread of 50 numbers, 49 are used. These are divided by 2 to represent the two
divisions and then one of these is set aside as representative of the third. Divide them by
four to represent the four seasons, and hold any remainder left from this sortilege in between
fingers to represent the leap-year month. Since every five years there are two leap years, then
two sets of remainders need to be held between fingers before producing a trigram. (Cook
and Zhao 2017, p. 22)
While it is uncertain whether this passage even existed before the Han dynasty
(205 BCE–220 CE), it became the foundation for the received method of the Yijing
divination.4 The method is as follows: (1) take 50 stalks and take one out of the pile;
(2) randomly divide the 49 stalks into two piles, and then take one stalk out of one of
the piles; (3) divide one of the piles by four and remove the remainder (either 1, 2,
3, or 4), and then repeat the same procedure on the other pile; (4) repeat steps 1 and
2 twice; (5) count the number of the final leftover piles, and the possible numbers
would be 24, 28, 32, and 36, and dividing the number into four, the final number
would either be 6, 7, 8, or 9, corresponding to lao yin 老陰 (old yin), shao yang 少陽
(young yang), shao yin 少陰 (young yin), and lao yang 老陽 (old yang), respectively;
and (6) repeat steps 1 to 5 five more times. In this way, a yin or broken (–) line, or
a yang or unbroken line (—) is generated six times to form a hexagram5 (Cook and
Zhao 2017). Wilhelm (1977, p. 610) explains this divinatory method as follows:
Here the psychological basis of the oracle is described. The person consulting the oracle
formulates his problem precisely in words, and regardless of whether it concerns something
distant or near, secret or profound, he receives – as though it were an echo – the appro-
priate oracle, which enables him to know the future. This rests on the assumption that the
conscious and the supraconscious enter into relationship. The conscious process stops with
the formulation of the question. The unconscious process begins with the division of the
yarrow stalks, and when we compare the result of this division with the text of the book, we
obtain the oracle.
A typical Yijing divination procedure first requires the inquirer to think about the
inquiry in his or her mind, and then the diviner or the inquirer himself/herself divides
the yarrow stalks into certain piles and calculates the remainder in order to generate a
corresponding hexagram (Cook and Zhao 2017). Wilhelm perceives the process as a
transmission from the conscious to the unconscious. This transition is not abstract or
metaphorical, but materialized through the divinatory practice. To him, the divinatory
practice provides a guidance to routinely channel the human unconscious, which is
otherwise inaccessible.
4 The earliest existing version of the Xici zhuan 繫辭傳 was excavated from Mawangdui 馬王堆 in
Changsha, Hunan province. According to Willard J. Peterson (1982), the text is dated to the early
second century BCE, since the tomb is considered to be sealed in 168 BCE. And in this version,
this section on divinatory procedures is absent.
5 This particular divinatory method is based on Kong Yingda’s 孔穎達 (574–648 CE) interpretation
of the section and Guo Yong’s 郭雍 (1103–1187 CE) specification in the Song dynasty. It is unclear
how far this method, or this type of methods, can be traced back in history. For example, the relevant
section from the Changes is absent from the Mawangdui version, and Yang Xiong 揚雄 (53 BCE–18
CE) used 36 stalks for the calculation instead of 50. This shows that the method of using 50 stalks
was not popular yet by the end of the first century BCE (Sun 2010).
164 L. Zhao
The unconscious is a psychological concept that was more popular globally by

1923 than von Hartmann’s time, but its meaning significantly changed because of
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). The term became the cornerstone of Freud’s psycho-
analytic theory and obtained several specific connotations. Firstly, according to
Freud’s definition, the unconscious no longer has the connection to nature, cosmos,
or anything that is beyond individuals’ experiences. Secondly, without connection
to the outside world, it is no longer a source of creativity and power that could heal
or inspire people. Thirdly, it is instead repressed thoughts related to one’s personal
history, especially sex. Lastly, as a result, it is considered pathological and needed to
be cured. To Freud, the unconscious is a negative psychical functioning that should
be coped with (Hendrix 2015).
Wilhelm’s understanding of the unconscious was at odds with Freud’s, but rather
common for scholars who were familiar with its more classic definition in German
philosophy. This was especially the case for Wilhelm’s friend and cohort Carl Gustav
Jung (Fang 2015). Coming from a background of psychoanalysis as Freud’s younger
colleague, Jung also took the unconscious as the cornerstone of his theory of analyt-
ical psychology. However, his use of the concept leaned toward Wilhelm’s side. To
Jung, the unconscious is a hidden yet essential structure in the human mind that has
existed since the beginning of human history. It is collective and universal in the
sense that it has both contents and modes of behaviors identical to all of all times.
These contents and modes of behaviors, or archetypes, are innate to all human beings
(Jung 2016, pp. 11–12). Jung made a conscious effort to distance his understanding
of the term from Freud’s by emphasizing that the unconscious is beyond the personal
level (Ibid, p.5).
Similar to Carus, von Hartmann and Wilhelm, Jung saw the unconscious as a much
larger and more universal entity than individual particularity, and he further developed
this concept through archetypes. To him, the totality of archetypes constitutes the
unconscious and is an inventory of images that is identical among all the human
beings in any given time. Following this logic, one way to understand the unconscious
is to reconstruct the inventory by looking into subjects that are marginal to our
consciousness and rationality. Magic, alchemy and divination thus became the main
targets since they were often dismissed as irrational back then. In particular, Jung
points out that reading the Yijing, or the horoscopes, as part of the archetypes is in
fact essential to our understanding of the unconscious (Ibid, p. 29).
Jung’s search for architypes through non-Western traditions, particularly the
Yijing, brought him and Wilhelm together. By the time Jung published his work
Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (Translation by Beatrice M. Hinkle: Psychology
of the Unconscious) in 1912, he was already interested in the ancient Indian, Tibetan,
Chinese, and Egyptian traditions. By 1920, he started exploring the Yijing through
practicing it by himself. In 1921, Jung and Wilhelm met during a meeting of the
School of Wisdom (die Schule der Weisheit) hosted by Hermann von Keyserling
(1880–1946) in Darmstadt. But only after reading Wilhelm’s translation of the Yijing
in 1923, Jung became increasingly interested in Wilhelm’s scholarship on the subject
matter, and in 1926, invited Wilhelm to give two lectures at the Psychology Club in
Zurich, namely, “The Chinese Yoga Practice” (Chinesische Joga-Praxis) and “The
Chinese Mental Study” (Chinesische Seelenlehre) (Jung 1989, pp. 373–374).
During his visit, Wilhelm influenced Jung profoundly, and vice versa, in various
ways. As Jung (Ibid, pp. 373–377) recounts, after a lengthy conversation with
Wilhelm, he realized that the “Chinese mentality” behind the texts could help him
solve the problems he had on the “European unconscious”; meanwhile, Wilhelm
was also surprised to learn that the symbolism of the Yijing was not just exclusive
to the Chinese tradition, but common to the humankind. Jung’s account has several
interesting implications, especially regarding the Yijing and the unconscious. Firstly,
it shows that Wilhelm’s use of the unconscious in his translation of the Yijing is
independent of Jung’s theory, at least when he initially published the translation in
1923. Secondly, sharing the basic understanding of the unconscious, both of them
agreed that the Yijing reveals part of the psychics that is common to the humankind.
Thirdly, in the following years, Jung restructured the symbolism in the Yijing as a
key component of his theory of the unconscious. Meanwhile, Jung’s support and
scholarship also substantially influenced Wilhelm’s research on the human mind.
4 The Secret of the Golden Flower and the Science

of the Mind
Carl Gustav Jung’s influence is clearly shown in Wilhelm’s other translation, The
Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life (Geheimnis der Goldenen Blüte:
Das Buch von Bewusstsein und Leben), which was initially published in German in
1929. The work is the translation of the meditative text in literary Chinese, titled
Taiyi jinhua zongzhi 太乙金華宗旨 (The Main Principles of Taiyi Golden Flower),
dated between 1668 and 1692 (Lai 2010). The choice of text is reflective of not
only Wilhelm’s personal taste, but also the intellectual trend in his immediate circle,
especially Lao Naixuan and Jung. To many of them, the text unpacked unknown yet
crucial facts of the human mind.
The Main Principles of Taiyi Golden Flower belongs to the tradition of so-called
Daoist inner alchemy. Since the second century BCE, if not earlier, practitioners of
medicine sought to create elixir (dan 丹) to prolong one’s natural life. When it came
to the third century CE, practitioners like Ge Hong 葛洪 (283–343 CE) compiled
elaborate recipes of elixirs. Most of the recipes included cinnabar and mercury.
The alchemical process in many of the recipes hinged on heating the two chemical
elements with some other ingredients in a sealed crucible. Chemically speaking,
the heating of cinnabar and mercury is a reversible process: cinnabar breaks down
to mercury and sulfur, and then they bond again into cinnabar. Meanwhile, since
the crucible contains oxygen, mercury and other ingredients (most commonly lead)
would react with oxygen and become oxidized. The various elixirs, the mixture of
cinnabar, and oxidized mercury with other compounds are the end result of such
process (Pregadio 2004; Sivin 1968).
166 L. Zhao
What is more important is the cosmological connotation behind this alchemical

process. As Nathan Sivin (1976, p. 523) argues, the alchemical process is modelled
on the Dao 道 (the Way) to reproduce the cyclical energy of the cosmos. If the cyclical
fluctuation of yin and yang substantiates the movement of the cosmos, the alchemical
process is a maneuver to contain such movement in a limited space through a limited
amount of time. Through the manipulation of time and space, the elixirs would
result from the concentration of yin and yang forces and its cyclical rhythms. Based
on this cosmology, the success of the elixirs not only relies on the ingredients, but
also the process. Therefore, to a practitioner, the alchemical process is much more
contemplative than chemical.
Since the sixth century CE, this alchemical process, or waidan 外丹 (outer
alchemy), had given way to the more contemplative form, or neidan 內丹 (inner
alchemy). The practitioners no longer needed to set up crucibles to heat cinnabar
and mercury; instead, they imagined the alchemical process happening in their body
through meditative practices. This transition was partially due to the fact that the
ingredients such as mercury were expensive, and the end results of the process could
be toxic. But the bigger reason was that the process had always focused on the
contemplative process (Pregadio 2004; Hao 1994). The Main Principles of Taiyi
Golden Flower came from the tradition of meditative practices of inner alchemy.
The general model for the Daoist inner alchemy is to visualize the alchemical
process inside the practitioner’s body. In this model, the ingredients such as lead and
mercury are replaced by qi and jing 精 (essence), the essential building blocks of our
body; the crucible and heating are replaced by shen 神 (spirit), which is our mind.
Mimicking the cosmological process of alchemy, the mission of inner alchemy is
at least to preserve our qi and essence so that we do not die from losing our vital
energy. Ideally, it is to refine our qi and essence to their purest and primordial form,
which could grant us immortality.
Following this model, the meditative practice in The Main Principles of Taiyi
Golden Flower especially focuses on the concept of guang 光 (light), the epithet
of which is the golden flower as in the title. According to the text, guang is the
primordial qi, or Taiyi zhenqi 太乙真氣 (Taiyi true qi). The practitioners need to use
guang to refine their hun 魂, where their spirit resides so that they can preserve it. In
this way, they can also halt shi 識 (conscious activities) caused by their po 魄 (soul).
In order to do so, the text provides meditative methods to visualize guang, referred
to as huiguang 回光 (returning to the light).
Wilhelm was greatly interested in the meditative practices and believed that they
provided psychic guidance to strengthen and rejuvenate the process of life. In his
introduction to the text, he categorizes two key components in the text, hun and po,
as psychic structures. He compares them to Jungian psychological terms, “animus”
(“intellect” according to Wilhelm) and “anima” (“blind will” according to Wilhelm),
respectively. Then he describes the usual life process: “anima, undiscriminating will,
which, goaded by passions, forces the animus or intellect into its service”; to Wilhelm,
this process directs intellect outward: “the energies of both animus and anima leak
away and life consumes itself.” (Wilhelm 1962, pp. 14–15). He calls the process
“downward-flow,” a concept common to analytical psychology.6 The Secret of the

Golden Flower on the other hand teaches people the “backward-flow,” where “the
energies of the anima are mastered by the animus.” Wilhelm (Ibid, p. 16) believes
that through this backward process, the “ego withdraws from its entanglement in
the world, and after death remains alive because ‘interiorization’ has prevented the
wasting of the life-energies in the outer world.” In other words, the meditation of
The Secret of the Golden Flower intends to master the anima through the animus in
order to preserve the latter and in turn strengthen one’s life.
From On the Power of the Mind to The Book of Changes and then The Secret of
the Golden Flower, Wilhelm gave his own understanding of what the mind could do.
Firstly, he believes that “Chinese mentality” was fundamentally different from that
of Europeans (Ibid, p. 4). Secondly, Wilhelm celebrates this difference; to him, the
Chinese mentality has reached an understanding of the human mind that is either more
profound than or lost in the European rationality. The unconscious of the Changes
or the anima-versus-animus in The Secret of the Golden Flower is testimony to the
uncovered truth of the mind. Thirdly, by embracing such understanding, especially
practicing it, he believes that people could live a better life.
Wilhelm’s interest in the human mind was not just unique to him, but represen-
tative of the science of the mind as a rising field in Europe and North America
since the late nineteenth century. North American universities back then had mental
philosophy as part of their curriculum. Serving as training schools for priests, these
universities aimed to use the subject to help students understand how the human
mind worked. Meanwhile in Germany, scholars such as Hermann von Helmholtz
(1821–1894) and his student Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1842–1910) started to
use experiments to explore the physiological foundation of the human mind. Later,
American scholars such as William James (1842–1910) and Granville Stanley Hall
(1846–1923) brought this approach to Harvard University and the newly founded
Johns Hopkins University (Evans 1990; Green 2007). By the turn of the twentieth
century, experimental psychology had already become a field that was distinctive
from mental philosophy.
In retrospect, experimental psychology seems to be destined to be the mainstream
and legitimate field to study the human mind for the better part of the twentieth
century, but this was not the case especially in the first decades of the century (Evans
1984; Cohen-Cole 2014). During the time, what the human mind could do and how to
study it were still up for debate. For example, mental philosophy was still a vigorous
field to understand the human mind, and it was part of the curriculum in missionary
schools in China (Zhao 2018). Various other experiments such as hypnosis were
carried out to test on telepathy, communication with ghosts, etc. Under the umbrella
of psychical research, these experiments were very popular among the intellectuals
not only in Europe, but also in Japan and China (Winter 1998; Huang 2007).
6 As the translator Cary F. Baynes points out, “rechtlaüfig” literally means “right-blowing.” (Wilhelm
1962, p. 15). She translates the term as “clockwise-flowing” only in this occasion in order to make
a distinction between the analytical psychological term and the process described in the text, where
the former is only psychic, but the latter is both psychic and physiological. However, Wilhelm does
not seem to make such distinction here.
168 L. Zhao
Particularly in Germany, Wilhelm’s scholarship, especially on the Yijing, was

well received with the help of Jung. Since their correspondence in the early 1920s,
Jung frequently invited Wilhelm to the Psychology Club in Zurich. In 1928, he read
Wilhelm’s manuscript on The Secret of the Golden Flower and was convinced that
the text confirmed his theory of the self as the circumambulation of the center (Jung
1989, pp. 197, 208). In 1950, when the English version of Wilhelm’s translation was
published in New York, Jung wrote a foreword to celebrate Wilhelm’s accomplish-
ment as well as to promote the text.7 In the foreword, Jung praises Wilhelm’s effort to
understand the symbolism in the text. Following Wilhelm’s reading, he elaborates on
how the oracle technique can tell us about the unconscious. He even goes further to
point out the way to see the universe’s alternative to causality, namely synchronicity:
“a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with
the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers.” (Wilhelm 1977, p. 37).
Jung’s foreword defines the Yijing not only as an ancient Chinese classic, but also as
an answer to what the human mind could do.
This enthusiasm for the mind did not only soar in Europe, but also in China. When
mental philosophy, Kant’s philosophy, and experimental psychology came to China
in the first decades of the twentieth century, they integrated with local traditions.
For example, in 1920, the Joseon Korean scholar Jŏn Byung-hoon 全秉薰 (1857–
1927) praised the philosophy of the golden elixir (jindan zhexue 金丹哲學) in his
literary Chinese work, Jingshen zhexue tongbian 精神哲學通編 (A Comprehensive
Compilation of Mental Philosophy). Jŏn (1920, p. 2a) also adds Kant to his argument:
The Western sage Kant said: Our spirits should definitely not perish with our corporal body.
There is a higher level of life, which is the essence, the true self. The true self stands inde-
pendently of time and space. It is a free and lively thing, and nothing can restrain it. He also
talked about the techniques of life prolongation. Those are the greatest words of philoso-
phers. Therefore, Western philosophy has already reached the state of the unperishable true
self. However, they have not penetrated the wonder in the use of the dark female as well as
the appearance of the yang spirit. That is why they cannot see the true face of the true self
(zhenwo真我).
The “dark female” and “yang spirit” are two jargons from the Daoist inner
alchemy. In this context, the true self refers to the final result of the alchemical
process, the most refined, pure yang version of one’s spirit. Like Wilhelm, Jŏn uses
Kant to point out that this mental process was not just noticed by ancient Chinese
7 It is also worth pointing out that Richard Wilhelm’s son Hellmut Wilhelm had also played an active
role in the English translation of the Changes since 1950. As Baynes recalls, Hellmut Wilhelm not
only provided “expert advice” on the translation, but also advised against rewriting certain passages
of the translation in order to follow the updated scholarship of the time. Instead, he suggested that
the book should be maintained intact as how Richard Wilhelm originally wrote. Even for the 1967
edition, Hellmut Wilhelm only agreed on the rearrangement of the secondary materials. To add to
the more updated scholarship, he wrote the preface for the 1967 edition, introducing more about
the historical background and textual layers of the Yijing. Baynes follows up in his “Translator’s
Note” by recommending Hellmut Wilhem’s Change: Eight Lectures on the I Ching. Both of them
found it necessary to ground the original translation in a more historical context (Wilhelm 1977,
pp. 19–28, 65, 68).
sages, but also by Western thinkers such as Kant, though the Chinese sages had a
better understanding of it.
Jŏn’s (Ibid, p. 1a) other words in the book further reflect people’s enthusiasm for
the mind:
The heart-principle or psychology comes from Heaven.8 Spirit is the heart-principle, and
the heart-principle is the Way. When people use the Way to nurture essence and concentrate
the spirit, it becomes the study of prolonging life and becoming a perfected man; when
people use the Way to apprehend the Principle and fulfill the nature, it becomes the study of
managing the world and becoming the sage.
This passage is filled with concepts from different intellectual traditions. Firstly,
there is a group of concepts from Neo-Confucian traditions, where the Principle (li
理) is the underlying law of everything, and it lies in the human nature (xing 性). It is
our mission to fully understand the Principle in everything (qiongli 窮理) and bring
our nature to its full extent (jinxing 盡性). One can manage the world better when
they grasp the Principle. In the Ming dynasty, Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529)
famously argued that our heart contains the Principle like everything else, and thus
understanding our heart is grasping the Principle. This is what Jŏn means by the
“heart-principle.”9
Secondly, there is another group of concepts from Daoist traditions. As mentioned,
many practices of life prolongation emphasize the preservation of human vitality.
While the essence (jing 精) is more directly linked to the corporal aspects of
the human body, spirit (shen 神) denotes the non-material, psychic aspects of
human beings. Both aspects need to be well maintained, as mentioned in the
passage: yangjing ningshen 養精凝神 (nourish the essence and concentrate the
spirit). Morphologically speaking, “jing” and “shen” together form a bisyllabic word
“jingshen.” Similar to the meaning of shen, it refers to the mental aspects of human
beings (Pregadio 2004, pp. 562–565).
This morphological connection has interesting impact on the third group of
concepts. In the Neo-Confucian traditions, “xinli” simply means “heart” and “prin-
ciple,” but as a word borrowed from Japanese, more and more specifically, it refers
to “psychology” in twentieth-century China. This is why under the section “Xinli
zhexue 心理哲學” (mental philosophy), Jŏn created a heterogeneous collection of
Mencius’ and Wang’s thought and European mental philosophy, as well as the most
up-to-his-date theories of psychology and neuroscience10 (Higgins and Zheng 2002).
8 In Chinese thought, xin 心 (heart) is where people have intellectual reflections as well as emotional
reactions. Therefore, many scholars have translated the term as “heart-mind.” Here I use “heart”
only to avoid further clumsiness in the already dense translation.
9 For the terms, see Chan 1967. By “Neo-Confucian traditions,” I refer to groups of East Asian
literati who developed their intellectual systems based on terms especially like “li,” whose use is
marginal in the Analects, the Mencius, and the Xunzi. Intellectually, they are often traced back to
Song scholars like Zhang Zai 張載, the Cheng brothers, and Zhu Xi 朱熹 (Bol 2008; Chang 1955;
Deuchler 1995).
10 For the development of modern psychology in China and its connections to Japan, see Higgins and
Zheng (2002). It is important to remember that psychology changed from what we mean by mental
philosophy nowadays to experiments based on modern psychology at the turn of the twentieth
170 L. Zhao
Jŏn’s work reflects the contemporary intellectual context in China in which

Wilhelm was an active member. In fact, similar to Jŏn’s, Wilhelm’s scholarship
covers the same three aspects: his works on Confucius and the Analects, the transla-
tion of The Secret of the Golden Flower as a text of inner alchemy, and the exploration
of the unconscious in the Changes. As one of the German orientalists, Wilhelm expe-
rienced the times of Western crises and considered Eastern spirituality and wisdom
as the remedy (Marchand 2009, 2013; Richter 1991; Walravens and Zimmer 2008).
Particularly, he explored the universality behind different traditions while celebrating
what the Chinese traditions emphasized.
The centuries-old Yijing found its way to the turn of the twentieth century, when
people became increasingly interested in the human mind. During this time, how
to study the human mind was still in a state of flux. While Wundt, James, and
Hall were establishing the paradigm of experimental psychology, people like Freud,
Jung, and Jŏn provided their alternative approaches. In this global-scale debate, the
Yijing became the battlefield for Wilhelm to express his understanding: the seemingly
mysterious divination process of the text was in fact our mind at work. By connecting
our individual consciousness to the subconscious, we gain access to the movement
of the cosmos and hence the knowledge of the future. Wilhelm used the Yijing to
demonstrate not only how our mind worked, but also what our mind could achieve.
Meanwhile, from Wilhelm to Jung, the Yijing received a new interpretative frame-
work that was distinctive from that of spirituality and morality. In traditional China,
the Yijing might be perceived as a divinatory book based on the power of spirits, a
manual to manage the cosmos, or a moral guidance (Smith 2012). Wilhelm further
interpreted the Yijing as a revelation of the human mind at work. Not only can this
interpretation help us understand the future, but more importantly, it also reveals our
true selves. It was particularly this interpretation that led to the flourishing of the
Yijing in the twentieth-century West.
Indeed, Wilhelm’s translation of the Yijing is deeply rooted in the science of the
mind. His translations of many works, including the Yijing and The Secret of the
Golden Flower, should be understood in this context. One element of his approach
is particularly noticeable and relevant to our time. Instead of taking a Eurocentric
view, Wilhelm was committed to rediscovering the hidden truth universal to human
civilizations. In the preface of On the Power of the Mind, Wilhelm’s teacher Lao
Naixuan quotes the Song scholar Lu Jiuyuan 陸九淵 (1139–1193): “The sages might
come from the Eastern Sea or the Western Sea, but their hearts are the same, and their
principles are the same.” (Kant 1914, p. 21). In the Yijing and many other Chinese
classics, Wilhelm found the commonality between the Eastern wisdom and Western
century. Therefore, the Chinese term “xinli” also bears this two-fold meaning. For the changing
meanings of “psychology” and “mental philosophy,” see Evans (1984).
religion and the universality of truth. This yearning for commonality might come
from the disappointment of his time after World War I, but it still has a place in the
present day.
References
Ballin, Ursula. 2003. Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930): Eine biographische Einführung (Richard
Wilhelm (1873–1930): A Biographical Introduction). In Richard Wilhelm Botschafter zweier
Welten (Richard Wilhelm the Ambassador of Two Worlds), ed. Klaus Hirsch, 167–200. Frankfurt
am Main: IKO-Verlag.
Bol, Peter. 2008. Neo-Confucianism in History. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.
Bol, Peter. 1975. Psyche: Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Seele (Psyche: On the Developmental
History of the Soul). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Chan, Wing-tsit. 1967. Neo-Confucianism: New Ideas in Old Terminology. Philosophy East and
West 17 (1): 15–35.
Chang, Carsun. 1955. Wang Yang-ming’s Philosophy. Philosophy East and West 5 (1): 3–18.
Cohen-Cole, Jamie. 2014. The Open Mind: Cold War Politics and the Sciences of Human Nature.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Cook, Constance, and Zhao, Lu. 2017. Stalk Divination: A Newly Discovered Alternative to the I
Ching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Deuchler, Martina. 1995. The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideology.
Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.
Evans, Rand B. 1984. The Origins of American Academic Psychology. In Explorations in the history
of psychology in the United States, ed. J. Brožek, 19–69. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.
Evans, Rand B. 1990. The Principles of Psychology, and Experimental Psychology. The American
Journal of Psychology 103 (4): 433–447.
Evans, Rand B. 2015. Liangge ren he liangben shu: Rongge, Wei Li-xian yu liangbu zhongguo
dianji 兩個人和兩本書—榮格、衛禮賢與兩部中國典籍 (Two People and Two Books: Jung,
Wilhelm and Two Chinese Books). Qinghua Daxue Xuebao 30: 116–129.
Green, Christopher D. 2007. History of Psychology: Johns Hopkins’s First Professorship in Philos-
ophy: A Critical Pivot Point in the History of American Psychology. The American Journal of
Psychology 120 (2): 303–323.
Hao, Qin 郝勤. 1994. Longhu dandao: Daojiao neidan shu 龍虎丹道—道教內丹術 (The
Alchemical Way of Dragon and Tiger: Daoist Inner Alchemy). Chengdu: Sichuan renmin
chubanshe.
Hendrix, John Shannon. 2015. Unconscious Thought in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Higgins, Louise T., and Zheng, Mo. 2002. An Introduction to Chinese Psychology—Its Historical
Roots Until the Present Day. The Journal of Psychology 136 (2): 225–239.
Hirsch, Klaus, ed. 2003. Richard Wilhelm Botschafter zweier Welten (Richard Wilhelm: Ambassador
between Two Worlds). Frankfurt am Main: IKO-Verlag.
Huang, Ke-wu 黃克武. 2007. Minguo chunian Shanghai de lingxue yanjiu: Yi ‘Shanghai Lingx-
uehui’ weili 民國初年上海的靈學研究: 以「上海靈學會」為例 (Psychic Research in the Early
Republican Shanghai: A Study of the Shanghai Spiritualism Society). Jindaishi Yanjiusuo jikan
55: 99-136.
Jiang, Rui 蔣銳. 2004. Wei Lixian de Hanxue shengya 尉禮賢的漢學生涯 (The Sinological Career
of Richard Wilhelm). Deguo yanjiu 1: 52-57.
Jŏn, Pyŏng-hun 全秉薰. 1920. Jingshen zhexue tongbian 精神哲學通編 (A Comprehensive
Compilation of Mental Philosophy). Beijing: Jingshen zhexue she.
172 L. Zhao
Jung, C. G. 1989. Memories, Dreams, Reflections, trans. Richard and Clara Winston. New York:
Vintage Books.
Jung, C. G. 2016. The Quotable Jung, ed. Judith R. Harris. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1914. Renxin nengli lun 人心能力論 (A Discussion on the Power of the Human
Mind), trans. Zhou Xian 周暹, and Richard Wilhelm. Shanghai: Commercial Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1979. The Conflict of the Faculties, trans. Mary J. Gregor. New York: Abaris
Books.
Lackner, Michael. 1999. Richard Wilhelm: A ‘Sinicized’ German Translator. In De l’un au multiple.
La traduction du chinois dans les langues européennes (From the Singular to the Multiple:
Translation from Chinese into European Languages), eds. Viviane Alleton, and Michael Lackner,
85–98. Paris: Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’homme.
Lai, Gui-san 賴貴三. 2014. Yi xue dongxi yijie tong: Deru Wei Lixian Yijing fanyi zonglun《易》
學東西譯解同: 德儒衛禮賢的《易經》翻譯綜論 (A General Discussion on Richard Wilhelm’s
Translation of the Changes). Taibei Daxue Zhongwen xuebao 16: 29-65.
Lai, Xian-zong 賴賢宗. 2010. Daojia quanshixue 道家詮釋學 (Hermeneutics of Daoism). Beijing:
Beijing daxue chibanshe.
Li, Xue-tao 李雪濤. 2012. Wei Li-xian Yijing De yiben de fanyi guocheng ji diben chutan 衛禮
賢《易經》德譯本的翻譯過程及底本初探 (A Preliminary Study of the Process and Edition for
Wilhelm’s German Translation of the Book of Changes). Shijie Hanxue 9: 163–172.
Marchand, Susanne. 2009. German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, and
Scholarship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marchand, Susanne. 2013. Eastern Wisdom in an Era of Western Despair: Orientalism in 1920s
Central Europe. In Weimar Thought: A Contested Legacy, ed. Peter E. Gordon and John P.
McCormick, 341–360. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
McGrath, S.T. 2010. Schelling on the Unconscious. Research in Phenomenology 41 (1): 72–91.
Peterson, Willard J. 1982. Making Connections: “Commentary on the Attached Verbalizations” of
the Book of Change. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42 (1): 67–116.
Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. 2004. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. London; New York: Routledge.
ReShel, Azriel. 2016. Using the I Ching to Access Your Higher Consciousness. https://upliftcon
nect.com/i-ching/. Accessed 19 November 2019.
Richter, Ursula. 1991. Richard Wilhelm—Founder of a Friendly China Image in Twentieth Century
Germany. Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica 20: 151–181.
Schüler, Wilhelm. 1930. Richard Wilhelms wissenschaftliches Werk (Richard Wilhelm’s Scientific
Works). Sinica 5: 57–71.
Shamdasani, Sonu. 2003. Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Sivin, Nathan. 1968. Chinese Alchemy: Preliminary Studies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Sivin, Nathan. 1976. Chinese Alchemy and the Manipulation of Time. Isis 67 (4): 512–526.
Sun, Jin-song 孫勁松. 2010. Lüelun Zhu Xi he Guo Yong de shifa zhi bian 略論朱熹和郭雍的
蓍法之辯 (A Brief Discussion on Zhu Xi and Guo Yong’s Debate on the Stalk Methods of the
Changes). Shantou Daxue xuebao 26(6): 19-25.
von Hartmann, Eduard. 1869. Philosophie des Unbewussten: Versuch einer Weltanschauung
(Philosophy of the Unconscious: Toward a Worldview). Berlin: C. Duncker.
Walravens, Hartmut, and Thomas Zimmer, eds. 2008. Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930) Missionar in
China und Vermittler chinesischen Geistesguts (Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930): Missionary in
China and Intermediary of Chinese Intellectual Knowledge). St. Augustin: Institut Monumenta
Srica Steyler Verlag.
Wilhelm, Richard. 1922. Chinesische Lebensweisheit (Chinese Wisdom). Darmstadt: Otto Reichl
Verlag.
Wilhelm, Richard. 1962. The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life, trans. Cary F.
Baynes. London: Kegan Paul.
Wilhelm, Richard. 1977. The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Cary F. Baynes. Princeton:
Wilhelm, Richard. 1998. Zhongguo xinling 中國心靈 [Die Seele Chinas] (The Chinese Soul), trans.
Wang Yu-jie 王宇侫, Luo Min 羅敏, and Zhu Jin-ping 朱晉平. Beijing: Guoji wenhua.
Winter, Alison. 1998. Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Zhao, Lu 趙璐. 2018. Xinling xue jiaozhu 心靈學校注 (An Annotated Edition of Mental
Philosophy). Guangzhou: Nanfang ribao chubanshe.
Lu Zhao is an Assistant Professor of Global China Studies at New York University Shanghai. He
specializes in the Yijing divination and Chinese intellectual and cultural history. He is the author
of In Pursuit of the Great Peace: Han Dynasty Classicism and the Making of Early Medieval
Literati Culture (SUNY Press, 2019) and a co-editor and co-translator of Stalk Divination: A
Newly Discovered Alternative to the I Ching (Oxford University Press, 2017).
Chapter 11
The Encounter of the “Symbolic Chinese
Science of the Yijing” with Western
Modern Science in Interwar France
Stéphanie Homola
Abstract This chapter examines the circulation and reception of the Yijing (Classic
of Changes) in interwar France as one moment in the long history of the classic in
France, from the work of Joachim Bouvet in the early eighteenth century to later
translations in the 1960s, which led to a general Yijing craze in the 1970s. During
the 1920 and 1930s, French sinologists and scholars were confronted with Chinese
scholars’ attempts to relate what they called the “Symbolic Chinese Science of the
Yijing” to Western modern science. Based on the cases of two Chinese scholars—
Sheng Cheng (1899–1996) and Liu Zihua (1899–1992)—this work explores how
these scholars integrated into French academia and how their works were received
both in the academia and by the general public. It sheds light on the conception
of the Yijing as a source of scientific knowledge at a time when—along with two
opposing trends of Orientalism (romantic and scientific/racist) which were competing
in Europe—the status of the Yijing was oscillating between sacred literature and a
mere historical artifact.
1 Introduction
This chapter examines the circulation and reception of The Classic of Changes
(Yijing) in interwar France as one moment in the long history of the classic in France.
This history started with a French Jesuit missionary to China. Joachim Bouvet (1656–
1730) who, as a leader of the Figurist movement, engaged in the study of the classic to
find hidden messages of the biblical revelation. He made the classic known in Europe
through his correspondence with German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried
I would like to thank Pierre-Etienne Will and Isabelle Landry-Deron for introducing me to the
archives of the Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises in Paris. I am grateful to the son of Liu Zihua,
Liu Shaohua, who kindly welcomed me in Chengdu and showed me Liu’s records.
S. Homola (B)
Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg,
Erlangen, Germany
e-mail: stephanie.homola@fau.de
176 S. Homola
Wilhelm Leibniz (1676–1716) who was interested in comparing the Yijing’s yin-
yang binary system with his own numerical system based on zero and one. Later
in the nineteenth century, translations in different European languages, including
French, made the classic available to a wider audience. In 1968, the late Étienne
Perrot’s French translation of Richard Wilhelm’s famous German translation of the
classic (1924), with its well-known preface by C. G. Jung (1875–1961), paved the
way for a general Yijing craze in the 1970s. Consulting the Yijing for philosophical
or divinatory purposes was fashionable and widespread among the French youth of
that time, and societies dedicated to the study and teaching of the Chinese classic
were founded. Although the use of the Yijing is less widespread in France nowadays,
many non- or semi-scholarly specialists of the classic continue to spread its knowl-
edge through dedicated societies, conferences, lectures and training courses, all of
whose successes with the general public are undeniable.
This study sheds light on a lesser-known period of the history of the Yijing in
France—the interwar period in the 1920 and 1930s. At that time, conceptions of the
Yijing in French society were part of the larger Orientalist ideology that prevailed
in Europe among scholars and the general public. Intellectual debates featured two
opposite trends—a negative “scientific-racist Orientalism” and a positive “romantic
Orientalism,” which either denigrated or, on the contrary, welcomed with enthusiasm
anything coming from the East (Hung 2003). The interwar period was also a time
when intellectual exchanges with China widened, as more and more ordinary French
people could get directly in contact with Chinese fellows. The first substantial wave
of Chinese immigration mainly involved Chinese workers (huagong 化工) who took
part in the war effort in France during the World War I. After the war, student
exchanges gathered momentum through various institutional endeavors, such as the
well-known Work-Study Movement (1919–1921) and the French-Chinese Institute in
Lyon (1921–1946). Such educational programs allowed educated Chinese to mingle
with the French population and fostered direct intellectual and cultural encounters.
Academic exchanges between Chinese and French scholars also developed at that
time as exemplified by the foundation of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises
(IHEC) (Institute of Advanced Chinese Studies) in Paris in 1920.
Taking into account this historical and intellectual context, this chapter examines
the reception of the Yijing in French academia and by the general public during
the 1920 and 1930s. In particular, it examines how French sinologists, scholars and
scientists were confronted with some Chinese scholars’ attempts to relate what they
called the “Symbolic Chinese Science of the Yijing” to Western modern science.
Based on the cases of two Chinese scholars who were living and studying at that
time in France, this work explores how these scholars integrated into French academia
and how their works were received both by scholars and by the general public.
In 1928, Sheng Cheng 盛成 (1899–1996), best known in Europe as a writer, taught
a course on “Chinese science” at IHEC in Paris, which introduced the “Chinese
science of the Yijing and the eight trigrams” to a French audience. In 1940, Liu Zihua
劉子華 (1899–1992) completed a Ph.D. thesis at La Sorbonne University on “The
Cosmology of the Eight Trigrams and Modern Astronomy” in which he states that
11 The Encounter of the “Symbolic Chinese Science … 177
he discovered a new planet in the solar system using both modern astronomy and
Yijing numerology.1
The conception of the Yijing as a source of scientific knowledge—embedded in
China’s encounter with the West—has a long history dating back to the seventeenth
century. Based on the case studies of Sheng Cheng and Liu Zihua, this article will
focus on three aspects of the circulation of these scholars’ specific conception of the
Chinese classic. First, the two cases here inform us about a particular step in this
process of circulation where—along with the two trends of Orientalism (romantic
and scientific/racist) that were competing in Europe—the status of the Yijing was
oscillating between sacred literature and a mere historical artefact. Second, a close
analysis of the institutional circumstances in which such conceptions were shared
with French scholars provides a nuanced understanding of the status of the Yijing in
French academia at that time. Third, the case of Liu, better documented than that
of Sheng, gives us a rare example of the concrete mental and intellectual process
through which the Yijing is assigned scientific properties.
In addition to scattered documents I could collect in secondary literature, the
case study of Sheng is mainly based on IHEC archives, which I initially studied to
analyze the lives and works of Chinese students in this institution. (Homola 2020)
IHEC archives contain documents dated mostly from 1926 to the 1970s about the
administration and functioning of the Institute, curriculum and teaching, the Institute
library, research and publication activities, external activities, and correspondence.
I first learned of Liu in 2008 while doing fieldwork on contemporary divinatory
practices in Henan Province. I visited the historic site of Youli 羑里, located near
Anyang City in Henan Province, where the future King Wen, founder of the Zhou
dynasty, had been imprisoned for seven years. Legend has it that during his stay in
prison, King Wen invented the famous arrangement of Fu Xi’s eight trigrams into a
set of sixty-four hexagrams, which constitutes the original core of the Yijing. At the
entrance, a stele presented Youli as “the birthplace of the Yijing, the origin of Chinese
culture.” In a small exhibition hall, Liu was listed among other Yijing specialists, such
as Song scholar Zhu Xi, philosopher Feng Youlan, and famous contemporary fortune-
teller Shao Weihua 邵偉華. My attention was drawn by a reproduction of a 1940
French newspaper article describing Liu’s discovery of a planet. This prompted me to
explore Liu’s legacy through French newspapers and archives, his own publications,
documents and publications on him in Chinese, and various archives kept by his son.
1 Some of the Chinese names and terms in the paper are transcribed using the EFEO system that was
used at that time in France, as found in archives and documents. Pinyin transcription and Chinese
characters are provided when possible. Translations of quotations from French to English are my
own.
178 S. Homola
2 Sheng Cheng and the “Chinese Science” Course

at the Institut Des Hautes Etudes Chinoises (IHEC)
2.1 The Specificity of IHEC and of Its Project
One significant step in the circulation and reception of the Yijing in French academia
took place in the context of IHEC, which represented a joint French-Chinese effort
to foster cultural and intellectual exchanges between the two countries.
IHEC, established in 1920, was originally a French-Chinese cultural project. It was
supported, on the French side, by Paul Painlevé, the famous French mathematician
and statesman, and on the Chinese side, by the Beiyang government in Beijing and
personalities involved in French-Chinese educational exchanges such as Cai Yuanpei
蔡元培 (1868–1940), then rector of Beijing University, and Li Shizeng 李石曾 (Li
Yuying) (1881–1973), initiator of the Work-Study Movement (Diligent Work-Frugal
Study Movement, qingong jianxue 勤工儉學) between 1919 and 1921 and of the
Institut Franco-Chinois de Lyon (French-Chinese Institute in Lyon) in 1921. (Bailey
1988; Ge and Will 2013; Wang 2002).
For the Chinese promoters, the aim was to enhance China’s international prestige
by creating an institute of higher education in Chinese studies attached to Sorbonne
University, a major French academic institution. The Institute would be a cultural
showcase where, for instance, the great works of Chinese literature would be trans-
lated. It would help to promote the benefits of introducing Chinese civilization to
balance the excesses of Western civilization that had led to the massacres of the World
War I, and at the same time, to support the great Chinese literary tradition to oppose
the rise of anti-traditionalist radicalism in China. (Ge and Will 2013, pp. 271–273)
On the other hand, the French promoters saw the Institute as a means of promoting
French political and economic interests in China in the ongoing competition with
other European countries. Thus, at the beginning, cultural promotion and diplomatic
issues tended to eclipse scientific research in Chinese studies. From 1920 onwards,
the implementation of the project faced many difficulties, particularly because the
Chinese side failed to pay its financial contributions.
From 1925 onwards, a major grant awarded from the Boxer’s Indemnity Fund
allowed the Institute to make a new start. The French sinologists, who had been
excluded from the creation of IHEC, took charge of the Institute under the leader-
ship of Paul Pelliot (1878–1945) and Marcel Granet (1884–1940) who became the
administrator, a position he held until his death in 1940 (Pelliot replaced him until his
own death in 1945). Granet designed an ambitious program focusing on teaching, the
creation of a library and publications. The plan also included missions to purchase
books in China, scholarships for students and invitations of foreign professors.
At that time, cultural propaganda was no longer on the agenda; the Institute’s
activity was exclusively scientific. However, in the initial stage of the project, intel-
lectual exchanges between France and China formed the core of the Institute’s
mission with a twofold ambition, as Granet stated in his inaugural discourse in
1927. First, the objective was to develop Chinese studies and make China and the
Chinese better known in France. IHEC thus offered the first large-scale educational
program on China in France. The curriculum aimed at linking the language courses,
which were offered at that time at the Ecole des Langues Orientales (School of
Oriental Languages), and a few research courses in Chinese studies provided at the
École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) and the Collège de France. The Institute
also offered conferences, some of which were organized in collaboration with the
Institut Pasteur and focused on “Epidemiology and hygiene in Chinese countries.”
Second, IHEC aimed to be the center of active scientific collaboration between France
and China. The Institute provided an institutional framework to welcome Chinese
scholars as visiting professors, including former students of the Institute: “Some of
them, we hope, will return to us, no longer to learn, but to teach. We also hope that
scientists and scholars trained in China will come to us and that their teaching will
bring us the results of Chinese research and work.” (Granet 1927, p. 11).
This model also emphasized the specificity and value of French sinology. The
reputation of French sinology was based on the works of eminent scholars who, in
the wake of Édouard Chavannes (1865–1918), had acquired international renown,
such as Pelliot and later Granet and Henri Maspero. IHEC courses aimed at training
Chinese students and scholars for the critical and scientific methods of French
sinology to the benefit of Chinese research.
2.2 The “Chinese Science” Course at IHEC
Ever since the IHEC teaching program was launched in 1927, the Study Program
Steering Committee had been seeking to involve Chinese professors in conferences
and to set up a regular course on “Chinese science.” However, recruiting “scien-
tists”—in the modern Western meaning of the term—was very difficult, and some of
the “Chinese science” courses actually covered other topics. For example, in 1927, in
the context of this course, Mien Tcheng gave six lectures on contemporary Chinese
theater. Mien Tcheng (Chen Mian 陳綿, born in 1901) was then a language tutor
at the École des Langues Orientales, and also attended IHEC classes. In 1927, he
defended a doctoral thesis on modern Chinese theater, the publication of which was
financed two years later by the Institute. Like all future Chinese speakers, Tcheng
offered rich and original conferences that were praised by his French colleagues.
In 1927, the Institute was looking for a Chinese professor to take over from Tcheng
and teach the course on “Chinese science.” Granet expressed the wish to the Chinese
side of the project, namely Cai Yuanpei and Li Shizeng, that they recommended
a Chinese scientist. French sinologists would particularly appreciate a course in
Chinese chemistry, Chinese geography and geology, or Chinese astronomy. However,
the Program Committee admitted that “the current circumstances [in China] make it
difficult for a Chinese professor to come to Europe.” (IHEC Archives 1927) Indeed,
this course never had a tenured professor, and speakers were invited on a case-by-case
basis.
180 S. Homola
The definition of “Chinese science” did not seem to be an issue for the Program
Committee who had clear expectations: first, to welcome scientists trained in China
who were taking part in the latest developments in Chinese research; second, to focus
on scientific disciplines as understood by Western modern science, such as natural
sciences, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. However, these very two expectations
were challenged by the contribution of Sheng Cheng to this course in 1928.
Sheng Cheng (transcribed as Cheng Tcheng in French documents) was one of the
1,500 Chinese students who were sent to France (liufa 留法) between 1919 and 1921
as part of the Diligent Work and Frugal Study Movement (qingong jianxue 勤工儉
學). This movement is known mainly for its legacy—some of these students became
leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, such as Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and
Chen Yi.
Sheng was best known in France as a poet and a writer. In 1928, he published
an autobiographical account in French, Ma mère (My Mother), with a preface by
French writer Paul Valéry (1871–1945), which made him famous throughout Europe.
(Cheng 1928; Zhang 2008) In the early 1920s, he studied sericulture at the École
Nationale d’Agriculture (National School of Agriculture) in Montpellier. He worked
at the sericulture station in Montpellier and visited silkworm farms and industrial
workshops throughout France. In 1922, he went to Padua in Italy and worked at the
sericulture station there, where he obtained a degree in sericulture. He also stayed in
various important Italian sericulture centers. From 1923 to 1927, he studied at the
Faculty of Science in Montpellier, where he obtained certificates in botany, zoology
and general biology, and then a bachelor’s degree. In 1925, he worked as an assistant
at the Ecole supérieure de sériciculture (Higher School of Sericulture). His thesis for
a graduate diploma in zoology in 1927 was devoted to the ethology of scorpions.
Sheng’s professors in Montpellier recommended him to IHEC and underlined his
“gentle and kind character, his unbridled spirit already well initiated to Western civi-
lizations through his travels in France, Italy, and Switzerland. He leaves the Institute
of Zoology the best memory… Mr. Cheng Tcheng is intelligent, hardworking, highly
educated, full of good will, and has a very docile character.” (IHEC archives 1928)
In the absence of other proposals from the Chinese side, Sheng’s application was
approved by the IHEC Board of Directors, notably by the Institute’s President, Paul
Painlevé. Sheng was a friend of Painlevé’s son, Jean Painlevé (1902–1989), who was
a biologist like him, and is now considered as one of the founding fathers of scientific
documentary films.
However, Arnold Vissière, professor at the École des Langues Orientales and
member of the IHEC Board of Directors, helped Sheng prepare his teaching. He
did not fail to point out what contradiction this course, given by a Chinese who
had been trained mainly in Europe, represented: “His course will obviously focus
much more on Western sericulture, botany and entomology than on Chinese ones,
and it is in modern French and Italian processes, manufacturing, and breeding that
his competence can be confirmed. He will have to do his utmost to include serious
elements of Chinese science, which are the most likely to interest our Institute.”
(Ibid) He also noted that Sheng was unaware of essential Chinese publications and
that he had to tell him which books to consult in the library.
Therefore, in 1928, Sheng was in charge of a series of twenty-four lessons entitled

“Comparative Sericulture Studies.” As a sign of his connections with Parisian literary,
political, and academic circles, he obtained permission through Jean Painlevé, who
himself knew the son of the Dean of the Faculty of Science, to teach in a lecture
theater at Sorbonne University, rather than in an IHEC room at the École des Langues
Orientales (located in rue de Lille), which should have been the case. Vissière, with
whom Sheng shared his project, noted: “Only at the Faculty of Science will Mr.
Cheng have the opportunity to attract a great number of auditors. Rue de Lille means
a burial for the lecturers who are based there.” (IHEC archives, date unknown) In
a letter presenting his teaching program to Granet, Sheng explained: “The topic I
would like to address is a singularly ambitious one. You will understand that a lecture
theater at Sorbonne University requires deep Chinese philosophy.” (Ibid).
Sheng opened the historical and philosophical part of his course with two intro-
ductory lessons—the first one on the “Origin of Chinese Science” which dealt with
“the origin and future of Science and the synthetic (or symbolic) science of the ancient
Chinese—The I King 易經 and the pa koa 八卦”; the second one on “the place of
biology and physiology in the pa koa” —before concluding with “the space–time of
the I King and the pa koa.”
Although the choice of Sheng by the IHEC Board seemed to be a choice by default,
his lessons attracted a large audience. Granet also congratulated Sheng on his teaching
at IHEC: “Thus begins, with a good experience, the collaboration between Chinese
and French scholars which must be one of the very first goals of the Institute.” (IHEC
archives 1928).
It is surprising that the conception of “Chinese science” based on the philosophy
and numerology of the Yijing developed by Sheng left no trace of debate in the IHEC
archives that I could consult. Indeed, as we shall see in the second case study, such
conceptions were not fully accepted by the French scientific community at that time.
The archives make it clear that Sheng’s participation in IHEC lectures was the
fruit of chance, rather than a thoughtful request from the IHEC’s Board of Directors.
It is also clear that IHEC did not expect their Chinese guest lecturers to teach courses
on Western technologies. However, Sheng might have been encouraged to introduce
what he called the symbolic science of the Yijing to the French audience by Vissière’s
instruction “to do his utmost to include serious elements of Chinese science, which
are the most likely to interest [the] Institute.” In lack of further information about
the content of Sheng’s lectures and the response of the IHEC Board, it is difficult
to assess the extent to which this introduction of the Yijing to a French audience
was the result of diverging conceptions of “science.” Whereas it seems that Vissière
expected Sheng to include elements of Chinese sericultural science in his course,
Sheng referred to a general “Chinese science” as a subject embodied in the Yijing.
While spreading the conception of Chinese science based on the Yijing was not on
the agenda of the Institute, it is also remarkable that the lectures were very welcomed
by both the public and the institution. In this aspect, IHEC played its full role as
an institutional showcase for the “great works of Chinese culture,” as wished by
the founders of the Institute, which would eventually make China and the Chinese
better known in France. In the current state of research, it is difficult to assess if the
182 S. Homola
seeming lack of debate or reaction from the IHEC Board can be attributed to missing
documentation or if it shows an open-mindedness and willingness to discuss and
broaden the scope of teaching to various conceptions of science.
The second, and better documented, case of a Chinese scholar—Liu Zihua—
living and studying in France during the interwar period allows us to better answer the
following questions raised by Sheng’s case. What is the precise content of this “Sym-
bolic Chinese Science of the Yijing?” What are the historical intellectual precedents
for this connection between the Yijing and science? How does it relate to Western
modern science and its development in Europe at that time? Did the confrontation
between these two conceptions of science trigger debate in academia and among the
general public?
In the second case study, I will first explain the historical and biographical back-
ground that can account for Liu Zihua’s ambition to put together the science of the
Yijing and Western modern science. After that, I will analyze Liu’s argumentation in
terms of analogical reasoning before exploring the cross-cultural understanding of
science and sacred literature as embodied in the classic. Indeed, one peculiarity of
this case is that, whereas we do not know precisely how Sheng related the science
of the pa koa to sericulture, Liu’s case informs us about the precise mental process
through which the Yijing was related to Western modern science.
3 Liu Zihua: Correlating the Yijing and Modern Science
3.1 The Context: Orientalism and Spiritualism in Interwar

France
Liu Zihua (transcribed as Liou Tse Houa in French documents) also came to France
as part of the Work-Study Movement.2 (Homola 2014) He experienced the harsh and
unstable life of liufa while trying to engage in medical studies at the Faculty of Science
of the University of Paris, with a view to perpetuating the legacy of his grandfather
who was a specialist in Chinese traditional medicine. His interest in the Yijing was
triggered by the curiosity of his French student fellows who asked him questions
about the classic. Whereas he had been more interested in medical knowledge, he
felt ashamed of himself for not knowing the culture of his own ancestors and started to
study the classic in the mid-1920s. I have found no link, in archives and documents,
between Sheng Cheng and Liu Zihua. However, given how quickly information
circulated among Chinese students in Paris at that time (Homola 2020), it is likely
that Liu attended or at least was informed of Sheng’s lectures in 1928.
Liu’s biography gives various perspectives on his integration into French academic
circles, only some of which can be crosschecked by archival documents. Endowed
2 Biographical information about Liu Zihua mostly comes from a compilation featuring a biograph-
ical narrative and iconographic documents published in 1999 to mark the centenary of Liu’s birth.
(Liu Zihua Xueshu Yanjiuhui 1999).
with great intellectual curiosity, Liu attended various courses in Paris, such as
economics at the Centre National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM) or art history at
the École du Louvre, and conferences given by great scholars of the time. The biog-
raphy cites Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Albert Einstein, and Henri Bergson, and points out
that Liu “integrated many academic circles.” (Liu Zihua Xueshu Yanjiuhui 1999,
p. 7).
In 1932, Liu took part in a student competition organized by the Fédération Univer-
sitaire Internationale and wrote an article on the theme “How can young people in
European universities help to achieve international unity.” The article by Liu was
awarded a special prize, and he was said to have received compliments from Albert
Einstein himself:
On July 3, 1933, during the prize-giving ceremony at the University of Paris, a deputy
personally presented Liu Zihua with his prize in the presence of more than two thousand
people from all over the world, including scholars, public figures and representatives of all
Parisian circles. It is a reward for more than ten years of hard work.3 (Liu Zihua Xueshu
Yanjiuhui 1999, p. 9)
During various presentations of his article, Liu was also invited, as a Chinese,
to speak about the Yijing. Indeed, in view of different accounts in Liu’s biography,
one can reckon that the Orientalist ideology—including a popular interest in the
Yijing—that prevailed in France at that time not only reinforced Liu’s fondness for
traditional Chinese culture but also triggered his interest in the Yijing. Ho-fung Hung
describes the rivalry between romantic and evolutionary Orientalism, which devel-
oped in Europe from the nineteenth century onwards, at a time when Oriental studies
were emerging as an academic discipline. From the beginning of the nineteenth
century onwards, Romantic Orientalism spread a mystical vision of the Orient as
the common origin of all European philosophies, languages, religions, and cultures:
“[Romantic Orientalists] were devoted to the search for childlike innocence and
purity, as well as a reunification of religion, philosophy and art, which had putatively
been sundered by modern sciences but had been preserved in non-Western civiliza-
tions.” (Hung 2003, p. 265) Starting in the 1880s, following the growing influence
of Darwinian evolutionism, respect for a romantic East gave way to scientific racism
in the field of Oriental studies. In France in particular, racist writings by Arthur de
Gobineau enjoyed great popularity: “De Gobineau coined the term ‘yellow peril’ and
treated the ‘Chinese race’ as a disease in the world.” (Ibid, p. 270) Finally, whether
they praised or denigrated the East, these intellectual networks conveyed a stereo-
typed image of an unchanging China, which also influenced the way Liu understood
his own culture.
The two trends were competing at that time in France both in scholarly circles
and among the general public. In such a context, several pieces of evidence show
3 The newspaper Le Temps, dated 7 July 1933, reported the event: “Under the chairmanship of
Mr. Henry-Palé, Vice-President of the Chamber, the prizes were awarded last night in the great
Amphitheatre of Sorbonne University for the European competition organized by the New Society
for History, under the patronage of the International University Federation on behalf of the League
of Nations, the results of which were published by Le Temps.”.
184 S. Homola
that Liu joined the trend of Romantic Orientalism. Matching his interest in both
Western medicine and theYijing, Liu began to work on a comparative study between
Western medicine and Yijing trigrams and wrote an essay entitled “Towards the
UNION of Science, Tradition and Facts, in order to know the problem of LIFE, SEX
and initiatory or religious symbolism.” In 1934, Liu gave a conference presentation
in Paris, as announced in a newspaper: “At 3 p.m., at the Addeist Circle,4 2, place
de la Sorbonne, M. Liou Tse Houa, Orientalist: ‘Towards a universal religion.’”
(Journal des Débats du dimanche 1934, p. 5) This kind of lectures was very much
in line with similar conferences, which were held in various literary and spiritual
circles in Paris during the 1930s and attracted enthusiasts of Oriental spiritualities,
esotericism and the unconscious. The following announcements can be found in
the same newspaper, alongside that of Liu’s lecture: “At 3 p.m., at the House of
Spiritualists, 8, rue de Copernicus: M. René Kopp: Dream”; “At 8.45 p.m., at the
United Lodge of Theosophists, 184, boulevard Saint-Germain: The wonderful life
of Gautaa The Bouddha (Free admission)”; “At 3 p.m. (24, rue Dauphine): Colonel
Maillard: Moral health and the Coué method.”
This romantic and esoteric Orientalism reinforced (or even taught him?) Liu’s
conception of the Yijing as the symbol of a so-called essence of Chinese mentality
of which he, as a Chinese, would be a natural holder. The positive image of China
fostered his ambition to stand as the representative of an ancient culture rooted in
modernity, despite a growing gap with intellectual and political developments in
China, where ancient knowledge and customs were precisely denounced as “old
things.” It is thus not surprising, as we shall see later, that Liu’s thesis conveyed
the same ideas that arose from the confrontation between Confucian philosophy and
Western science in the seventeenth century and came up again vigorously in the
second half of the nineteenth century.
Although more research is required on the topic, Sheng’s and Liu’s case studies
inform us on the networks and media through which information about the Yijing
circulated in France during the interwar period. We know that the Yijing was a topic
of discussion in French student circles and that students were eager to know more
about it. They could do so by asking some of the several hundred Chinese students
who attended classes with them at universities or at various teaching institutions. A
survey conducted in 1930–1931 showed that 1,250 Chinese students (900 in Paris,
350 in the provinces) were enrolled in French educational institutions. There were
around 1,600–2,000 Chinese students according to the Consulate of China. (Dumas
1932) We also know that the Yijing was the topic of conferences organized by various
esoteric or spiritualist learned societies, and that their activities were reported in mass-
circulation newspapers such as Le Temps and the Journal des Débats du Dimanche. In
at least one case, the Yijing was discussed in a lecture theater at Sorbonne University
and attracted a large audience.
Reflection on and knowledge of the Yijing at that time in France seemed to be
fully integrated in a nebulous intellectual trend that flourished in the wake of the
4 The Addeist circle or the Addeist studio refers to an esoteric religion which was founded at that
time by Edouard Saby. (Michelis di Rienzi 1939).
development of psychoanalysis and research on the unconscious and blurred the

frontier between religion and science. That Liu’s interests met this ongoing trend
does not mean that they shared a similar intellectual endeavor. We shall see now in
more detail how Liu intended to bring Chinese and Western sciences together.
3.2 How Liu Zihua Discovered a Planet Through Analogical

Reasoning
Liu Zihua’s main objective was to show that the latest discoveries of Western modern
science were consistent with the structure of the Yijing. He wanted to provide a
synthesis of the two methods to analyze phenomena. After studying the “small
universe” (the body), Liu turned to the “big universe” (the solar system). As he
considered the cosmology described in the Yijing as the symbolic expression of the
structure and changes that govern the universe, he began to compare it with Western
knowledge of the solar system. In 1930, the discovery of Pluto forced him to recon-
sider his calculations and put him on the track of searching for a tenth planet. As
astronomers from all over the world competed to discover new planets, Liu was eager
to share his theory with the scientific community. He enrolled in a Ph.D. program at
the University of Paris in 1937.
Liu aimed at bringing together modern astronomy and what he called the “Cos-
mology of Pa Koua” (bagua 八卦). This “traditional Chinese science,” as he called it,
consisted of four steps: first, match the eight trigrams with the observed phenomenon
through various analogies; second, apply the features and rules that govern the rela-
tions between the trigrams (as revealed in the Yijing) to the studied phenomenon;
third, corroborate the results with the data of modern science; and fourth, deduce the
characteristics of the phenomenon and explain how it operates.
In the first chapter of his thesis, Liu defines the concepts and principles of the
“Science of Pa Koua.” This science analyzes all possible arrangements of two prin-
ciples, negative yin and positive yang. Their interactions, as symbolized by the eight
trigrams, are at the basis of all physical phenomena:
Each Koua represents a phenomenon, a character, an organism, a color, etc.… [The meaning
of gua] can perfectly be extended and developed; one only has to make correct interpretations
when generalizing the texts of I Ching. (Liou 1940, pp. 44–45)
In the second chapter, Liu seeks to establish a correspondence between the planets
of the solar system and the trigrams. To do so, he first matches the planets of ancient
Chinese astronomy with Western modern planets by comparing their orbital periods.
Thus, the “Seven Regulators” refer to the Sun, the Moon, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn,
Mercury, and Venus, and the “Planets of the Four Corners” are associated with Pluto,
Uranus, Neptune, and an unknown planet. Second, he matches the twelve Chinese
celestial bodies (the “Seven Regulators,” the “Planets of the Four Corners,” and the
Earth) with the trigrams (the eight basic trigrams to which he added four double
trigrams, i.e. hexagrams) by linking the properties of the celestial bodies and the
186 S. Homola
features of the trigrams as described in the Yijing and its numerous exegeses.5 Lastly,
through the medium of ancient Chinese celestial bodies, Liu associated the trigrams
with the modern planets.
In the final chapter, Liu confirms the “Cosmology of Pa Koua” with data drawn
from modern astronomical observations and concludes with the prediction about a
new planet. First, he relies on a traditional association of trigrams by pairs to arrange
the twelve celestial bodies in a set of six couples, one of which was formed by Uranus
and the unknown planet. Secondly, he provides quantitative evidence to support this
arrangement: the sum of the rotation speeds of associated planets is constant. Having
built a system of equations with a single unknown, Liu could calculate the rotation
speed of the new planet. He followed a similar pattern to determine the density and
distance of the new planet, which he named “Proserpina” after the daughter of Jupiter
in Roman mythology.
The reasoning process displayed in Liu’s thesis is a striking example of “analogical
reasoning” as described by Alexei Volkov (1992), also called “correlative thinking”
by Joseph Needham (1956, pp. 279–303). Analogical reasoning can be defined in
a simple way as “a is to A is what b is to B.” Volkov suggested a useful analysis
in terms of “mapping.” Analogical reasoning depicts a source domain (in Liu’s
reasoning, the eight trigrams) and a target domain (the solar system); each of them
consists of related objects or facts with certain properties. The mapping operation is
an attempt to verify the alleged facts in the unknown target domain with the facts
established in the familiar source domain.
Indeed, Liu’s work gives a rare insight into analogical reasoning and the logic that
underlay this endeavor to bring together Western and Chinese sciences. Since Liu
had to redo his calculations after the discovery of Pluto, one can understand how he
proceeded; he came up with the idea of a correspondence between the trigrams and
the planets of the solar system (eight trigrams, eight planets), and juggled with the
planets’ physical data to find constant ratios that would match his theoretical arrange-
ment of trigrams, even if it entailed arranging not only mathematical ratios but also
the symbolism of the trigrams. Then, the discovery of Pluto created an imbalance in
the number of planets and led him on the track of discovering a tenth planet. One can
understand that from his point of view, Chinese and Western sciences are comple-
mentary. To go beyond contingency, experimental data had to be part of a general law;
without the bagua theory, the approximate mathematical constants he highlighted
would have appeared as the result of chance or biased manipulation. Conversely, the
general and speculative bagua theory had to be validated by the experimental data
of modern science; in the language of astronomy of that time, to “discover” a planet
5 Here is a good example of such association: “Let’s first deal with the Seven Regulators and the
Earth. There are exactly eight elements. One immediately has the idea to make them correspond
with the eight simple Kouas.” Moreover, the Yijing directly points to the trigrams which correspond
to the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. “Thus, we have only five elements left. Let’s compare the
characteristics of the Koua to those of the Planets: let’s take the example of Koua I. This Koua
represents Heaven, the Emperor and summer; moreover, Saturn is the planet of the Son of Heaven
and of the Yellow Emperor and presides over the last summer months; it is thus quite logical to
associate Koua I and Saturn.” (Liou 1940, p. 67).
meant to express its rotation speed, density and distance in mathematical terms, so
Liu had to confront the bagua science with modern astronomy.
3.3 Henri Maspero’s Critical Assessments and the Reception

of Liu Zihua’s Work
How did Liu Zihua obtain a doctoral degree from the board of examiners, with
eminent sinologist Henri Maspero (1883–1945) among them? Liu enrolled for
History of Science at the University of Paris under the supervision of Abel Rey,
a historian of science who was not a sinologist. Rey sought advice from Maspero
who was then a professor at the Collège de France. Contrary to the positive welcome
that Sheng Cheng’s introductory courses on the Yijing received at Sorbonne Univer-
sity, as previously mentioned, Maspero wrote quite a negative report on Liu’s work.
He questioned the scientific basis of such an endeavor to bring the Yijing and Western
science together:
All translations are tendentious: he [Liu Zihua] does not only replace ancient Chinese philo-
sophical terms with modern European scientific terms, for which I can’t blame him too much
because after all, it is in the alleged equivalence of each other that lies the basic idea of his
thesis, but even out of this process, the texts are always distorted to say what Mr. Liou wants
to see and does not find. Moreover, there is no criticism; texts of every period are mingled
regardless of their dates. But as the theories of Mr. Liou take us back over 2,000 years before
the presence of any written documents, this lack of criticism is less worrisome than the state
of mind of an author who has been able to imagine and complete such a work.
This state of mind is the only interesting fact of the work. The author is a belated representative
of a variety of scholars who flourished in China in the second half of the nineteenth century,
but, I thought, was extinct among the younger generation at least. The vanity of scholars
consoled itself over the scientific inferiority of Chinese civilization with the assertion that
the entire field of Western science was already virtually included (but not exposed) in the
Yi-king, one of the Chinese Classics, and that it is where we must look for it rather than in
the school of European scholars. (Archives of the Paris Rectorate 1939, number AJ16/7094)
After Liu corrected some translations and added an introduction to his thesis,
Maspero wrote a second report in which he explained the reasons that led him to
allow the thesis defense:
He clearly states [in the introduction] that he does not intend to dissent from the history
of science, but wants to give a concrete example of the application [of Chinese science] in
astronomy by a process of interpretation of Chinese classics to which we, in Europe, do not
give the attention it deserves. There is indeed no doubt that for a long time, a large number
of Chinese scholars have believed that the sages of antiquity had possessed a superhuman
science, and that all the Chinese and foreign discoveries of later centuries were already
contained in principle in their writings, especially in the Yi-king, the most obscure of the
classic books. This state of mind has been particularly strong in regard to astronomy since
the Jesuits introduced the Ptolemaic astronomy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
and has reappeared strongly in the late nineteenth century to justify the adoption of Western
sciences in public education in China. It has thus been shown that in early antiquity the
Chinese had known electricity, steam, airships, airplanes, that they knew the earth revolves
188 S. Homola
around the sun, etc. These ideas are less conspicuous nowadays, but Mr. Liou’s thesis proves
that they still exist… The fundamental thesis is not specifically Chinese: we also had similar
attempts in Europe, such as efforts to match the seven days in the biblical account of creation
with geological epochs. What is curious is how the Chinese mind reaches these conclusions
through processes which are quite different from ours and which Mr. Liou’s discussions make
us grasp in their functioning. It is perhaps even more curious that Mr. Liou, like most Chinese
scholars, does not even realize that his work belongs to religious exegesis and Confucian
apologetics and not, as he believes, to positive science…
He recognizes that it can’t be an experimental science and opposes this notion of a science
which, like modern science, develops gradually by dint of hypotheses and theories which
successively destroy each other after new experiments, that of an intuitive theoretical science
through which one would have known directly the basic facts of the constitution of the world,
regardless of any application in particular sciences. Here again, Mr. Liou expresses with
certain candor, but do not dare to say aloud, that many of his countrymen (and Japanese on
top of all that) believe in the superiority of this comprehensive “science” that the ancient
sages would have possessed, over our little specific sciences which are always being rebuilt,
but that some human respect and the fear of ridicule restrain him from speaking. I have
known a Japanese botanist who assured me that the whole theory of evolution was contained
in the Saddharma pundarika sutra, a book of mystical Buddhism translated into Chinese
which is the main text of the Buddhist sect of which he was a devout member; but I never
got him to write even a short article on what he expressed orally with great conviction. Mr.
Liou has no such hesitation, and that is why his work is of interest. (Archives of the Paris
Rectorate 1940, number AJ16/7094)
The thesis defense, delayed by the death of Abel Rey in January 1940, took place
on 9 November in the same year in the presence of Emile Brehier (1876–1952),
a historian of philosophy who was the president of the jury, and Maspero. I could
not find the official composition of the jury, but an excerpt of the defense report
mentions an interesting fact: “When answering the questions asked by Mr. Halb-
wachs and myself, the candidate shows little preparation to go beyond the vaguest
generalities. The jury did not want to refuse a favorable opinion for this candidate,
whose intelligence and subtlety are not in doubt, but he was awarded the degree of
Doctor of the University of Paris without honors.” (Ibid) I found no other mention
of his name in any documents or archives, but this member of the jury in the report is
undoubtedly the philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945), who
was a professor at Sorbonne University at that time. Halbwachs might have been
interested in the Yijing and the originality of Liu’s dissertation, as he himself wrote
a book on Leibniz.6 (Halbwachs 1907) This excerpt further shows that discussions
about the Yijing—including those on the specific conception proposed by Liu—were
taking place in the center of the French academic world of the time.
Liu’s biography also mentions that 1,000 people attended the defense (Liu Zihua
Xueshu Yanjiuhui 1999, p. 18), but I found no other document to support this fact.
However, his work did receive a warm welcome in the media. Indeed, in the days
following the defense, several newspapers echoed Liu’s work and, riding a wave of
6 Halbwachs and Maspero suffered a sad fate since both were deported to Buchenwald camp and
died there in March 1945. In several of his works, the writer Jorge Semprún, who was deported
with them and survived the camp, wrote about his conversations with the dying sociologist and had
mention of Maspero.
the public’s enthusiasm for Orientalism, gave a romantic vision of his discovery. The
weekly newspaper La Semaine devoted a seven-page report to Liu with evocative
titles—“A 5,000-Year-Old Saying Allows Discovery of a Planet,” “A Self-Taught
Person Beats University Champions,” and “Juggler of Numbers, He Files Cylinder
Heads” (a reference to Liu’s previous experience as a worker in a Renault car factory).
(Ibid, pp. 21–27) While most of the newspapers of that time were filled with war news
and anti-Semitic articles, the jocular tone with which this news was reported made
it appear as an entertaining and refreshing interlude among serious and worrying
events.
In 1940, Liu had his dissertation published by Jouve in Paris under the title La
Cosmologie des pa Koua et l’Astronomie moderne: situation embryonnaire du Soleil
et de la Lune, Prévision d’une nouvelle planète (The cosmology of bagua and modern
astronomy: Embryonic state of the Sun and the Moon, Prediction of a new planet).
He obtained a grant of 3,000 francs from the French National Center for Scientific
Research (CNRS) for this purpose, as shown in a letter by Henri Laugier, then director
of the CNRS, reproduced in Liu’s biography. The biography omits the translation of
a passage in the letter which stated, in a surprising way and for unknown reasons
so far, that “Any kind of mention of this grant should not be made in the published
book.” (Ibid, p. 17) Administrative delays, along with the war situation, probably
explain why Liu did not receive his doctoral degree until June 1943. Liu then became
one of the few liufa students to have obtained a French doctorate.7
Although some newspapers echoed Liu’s discovery, his discovery had little impact
in the scientific community, despite his efforts to promote his work in academic
circles. Admittedly, he was invited to accompany an amateur astronomer to the Paris
Observatory to work with telescopes which he had never used during his research
(Ibid, p. 21); a review of his dissertation was published in the Bulletin de la Société
Astronomique de France (February 1942, pp. 43–44); and he gave lectures in various
circles. But the copies of his dissertation that he sent to various observatories around
the world were only received with polite acknowledgements of receipt (Ibid, pp. 19,
29). It is however noteworthy that none of these documents criticizes the foundation
of Liu’s approach as Maspero did for example. This can be explained by the prestige
of obtaining a doctorate from the University of Paris, the Orientalist trend of the time,
or the fact that astronomers at that time, desperate to discover planets and celestial
bodies, used methods that seemed not much different from Liu’s.
Liu’s combination of Western science and the Yijing aroused a short-term enthu-
siasm among the public. The French academic community was more reluctant to
accept his approach as shown in the refusal to grant him a doctorate with honors,
the criticisms from Maspero, and the CNRS’s hiding the fact that he had received a
publication grant. However, many documents and records show the French commu-
nity’s willingness to support a student who was considered exceptional given his
personal background, and undoubtedly, his impressive command of French. Many
scholars involved in Liu’s doctorate were also aware that they were presented a rare
7 Between 1923 and 1940, only forty-three liufa students obtained a French doctoral degree (Zhou
2008, p. 362).
190 S. Homola
historical testimony that would be useful for historical research and cross-cultural
understanding, as shown in Maspero’s comments on Liu’s dissertation to which I
would like to come back now.
3.4 From Sacred Scripture to Science: Cross-Cultural

Understanding of the Yijing
Henri Maspero’s comments on Liu Zihua’s work shed light on the cross-cultural
understanding of science and literature embodied in the Yijing. As Maspero explained
in the report, most Chinese intellectuals in the late nineteenth century considered the
Yijing as a sacred scripture that could be used to interpret any natural phenomenon.
Thus, the editors of the Qing encyclopedia, the Complete Collection of the Four
Treasuries, asserted that “the way of the Changes is broad and great. It encompasses
everything, including astronomy, geography, music, military methods, the study of
rhymes, numerical calculations, and even alchemy.” (quoted in Smith 1991, p. 126)
Similarly, Liu believed that the ancient sages had “a superior knowledge, even in
science; in fact, their knowledge was not gained through the ordinary education of
common people but stemmed from their nature of Sage.” (Liou 1940, p. 137).
In his comments, Maspero referred to the thesis known as “the Chinese origin
of Western science” (xixue zhongyuan 西學中源) that developed in China in the
seventeenth century in response to the introduction of Western science by the Jesuits.
(Elman 2005, pp. 169–177) According to this theory, Western knowledge, especially
mathematics and astronomy, originated in the Chinese Classics from which they were
transmitted to the West. Whereas science developed and was gradually improved
in the West, this knowledge got lost in China, due to gradual decline or historic
turmoil. It went back to China from the seventeenth century onwards in the shape of
Western science, and on the one hand, stimulated the rediscovery of ancient Chinese
mathematics, and on the other, justified the study of Western science.
Such an argument was also influenced by the policy of accommodation preached
by the Jesuits. The Jesuits’ efforts to prove that the Chinese Classics were compatible
with the Christian doctrine were in line with the claim about the Chinese origin of all
European knowledge in the fields of both religion and science. In particular, French
Jesuit Joachim Bouvet and other Figurists8 in China analyzed the texts and symbols
of the Yijing to find hidden messages of the biblical revelation. Like a distant echo to
Liu’s research, the Figurists tried to equate the Yijing’s concepts with biblical terms
and “thought the hexagrams and cosmic diagrams in the Change Classic contained
the key to reducing all phenomena to quantitative elements.” (Ibid, p. 171) Indeed,
in the long history of China’s encounters with the West, the Yijing has been used on
both sides as cross-cultural evidence of religious or scientific primacy. The thesis
8 The Figurists represent a development in Western Christianity. “In brief, the Figurists tried to find
in the Old Testament evidence of the coming and significance of Christ through an analysis of
‘letters, words, persons, and events.’” (Smith 2012, p. 172).
of “the Chinese origin of Western science” was inspired by the Figurists’ logic,
whereas the Figurists themselves asserted that the Yijing had been brought to China
by one of the sons of Noah after the Deluge. When Bouvet presented the Yijing
to German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, he, for his
part, saw it as a confirmation of his binary system. (Smith 2012, pp. 171–179) The
theory of Sino-Babylonianism (xilai shuo 西來說) developed by French Orientalist
Albert Terrien de Lacouperie (1844–1894)—who found proof in the Yijing that the
Chinese were descendants of tribes who migrated to China from Mesopotamia in
prehistoric times—also “captured the imagination of Chinese historians from the
1900 to 1930s.” (Hon 2010, p. 139).
Maspero’s assessment also reflected a common European academic discourse on
the Yijing based on late-nineteenth-century translations, notably by James Legge
(1882) in the United Kingdom and by Paul-Louis-Felix Philastre (1885–1893) and
Charles de Harlez (1889) in France (Smith 2012, p. 182). In the late nineteenth
century and up to the first half of the twentieth century, French academic circles
did not consider the Yijing as a sacred classic but a historical text. This historical
text was not an object of study for mathematicians or natural scientists but philolo-
gists. In Maspero’s words, Liu’s work “belongs to religious exegesis and Confucian
apologetics and not, as he believes, to positive science” (or even to the history of
science). In addition, many translators and scholars showed little respect for the
classic. For instance, Terrien de Lacouperie’s low opinion of Chinese commentators
echoes Maspero’s words: “Their approach to analyzing the text is, he claims, ‘unde-
serving of the attention of a man of common sense; it is a compilation of guesses
and suggestions, a monument of nonsense.’ [Terrien] states scornfully that there
are many educated Chinese who believe that ‘electricity, steam-power, astronomical
laws, [the] sphericity of the earth, etc., are all... to be found in the Yh-King.’” (Terrien
de Lacouperie 1883, quoted in Ibid, p. 186) In China, the classic lost a great deal of
prestige after the civil service examination system was abolished in 1905. The Yijing
was considered more and more as a mere historical artifact whose wisdom was of
little use in the modernization of the country.
The conception of the Yijing as a source of scientific knowledge mainly relies on
the scriptural authority and highly symbolic style of the classic. In the view of Western
modern scientists, its analytical vocabulary provides mere rhetorical explanations.
Joseph Needham has shown how the system of knowledge based on the Yijing’s
correlations did not lead to modern science. “Rather, the Yijing, with its great scrip-
tural authority, became, in Needham’s phrase, a universal filing system—a device
for ‘pigeon-holing novelty and then doing nothing about it.’ It ‘tempted those who
were interested in Nature to rest in explanations that were no real explanation at all.’”
(Smith 1991, p. 127) Although Liu tried to make a positive contribution to science
by discovering a planet, in the view of French sinologists, his work was but another
attempt to put symbolic and literary evidence on the same level as direct observation
and mathematical evidence.
The two-way movement that aims at relating the Yijing to the Bible or to modern
science shows how the cross-cultural understanding of the Yijing is closely linked to
192 S. Homola
the issue of translation. All translations—by Jesuits, late-nineteenth-century Euro-

pean scholars, and later scholars—are guided by various motives and reflect the
preoccupations of their times. Liu’s research also reveals how translation works as
a supplemental tool in correlative thinking. It allows the translator to virtually build
the equivalence he or she wants to demonstrate. Liu linked trigrams and planets
by matching his own—tendentious, in Maspero’s words—translation of the Yijing’s
concepts with modern scientific ones.
4 Conclusion: Further Research in the History of the Yijing

in France
This chapter focuses on a specific moment in the history of the Yijing in France,
during which the classic was caught in the confrontation between two trends of
Orientalism that were competing in interwar France. On the one hand, a romantic
Orientalism, widespread among the general public, equated the Yijing to a universal
wisdom or religion that went beyond scientific knowledge. On the other hand, a
scientific Orientalism, mainly supported by academics, depreciated the tradition of
Chinese scholars to view the Yijing as a text encompassing a universal and superior
knowledge.
Although Henri Maspero considered Liu Zihua as a belated supporter of the
thesis of “the Chinese origin of Western science,” Sheng Cheng’s and Liu’s cases
show that their approaches were well represented in the 1920 and 1930s in France.
Contrary to Maspero’s expectations, it even gained momentum in the Western world
in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1924, Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930)
published a German translation that changed the destiny of the Yijing in the Western
world. With its famous introduction by C. G. Jung, the book enjoyed great popu-
larity from the 1950s onwards, while it was gradually translated into other European
languages. It paved the way to a global craze in the 1960 and 1970s when the Chinese
classic became a source of inspiration in the fields of psychology, self-development,
countercultural spiritualities, and art. (Smith 2012, pp. 188–210).
Wilhelm’s translation was translated into French by Etienne Perrot (1922–1996)
and published by Librairie de Médicis in 1968. Perrot was a psychologist who was
deeply influenced by the work of Jung as well as by the Jungian psychologist Marie-
Louise von Franz (1915–1998). Perrot had been interested in the alchemy tradition
for a few years. In 1960, he discovered the English edition of Jung’s Psychology
and Alchemy, which had not yet been translated into French. This work had a deep
impact on him, and he decided to learn German in order to translate Jung’s works on
alchemy. In lack of further research on the topic, one can put forward the hypothesis
that Perrot became acquainted with the Yijing through Jung’s preface of Wilhelm’s
translation. The whole process, including learning the German language, may explain
why Wilhelm’s translation was published in France only in 1968. However, Perrot
was only two years old when Wilhelm’s translation was published in 1924, and
his own intellectual path cannot explain why most of the translations of Wilhelm’s
work in European languages were only published after the war. This question should
definitely be investigated further. Evidence presented in this article may suggest one
possible explanation.
Whereas there is little doubt that the French people had a genuine interest in the
Yijing during the interwar period, it seems that academics were mostly skeptical and
not willing to orientate their research toward the classic. However, scholars, sinol-
ogists in particular, were among the only persons who had the abilities to translate
such a complex work from German and/or to have direct access to Chinese editions.
In the presentation of Perrot on the website of La Fontaine de Pierre editions
(2019), a publishing house that he founded in 1978, one can read about the 1968
French edition of the Yijing: “This book, which seemed to meet the expectation,
was very successful and Etienne Perrot was asked to give lectures about it.” Indeed,
Librairie de Medicis published multiple reeditions of the work, at least in 1971, 1973,
1979, 1981, 1983, 1986, 1994, 2001, and 2009.
It is also noteworthy that this very publishing house, Librairie de Médicis,
published a reedition of Liu’s dissertation in 1980 (without his authorization). There
is another work that links Jung, Wilhelm, Liu, Perrot, and Librairie de Médicis. In
1928, Wilhelm introduced Jung to a Taoist text attributed to Lü Dongbin, The Secret
of the Golden Flower, of which the two published a translation and a commentary
respectively in 1929. Liu translated The Secret of the Golden Flower into French,
along with another text, The Book of Conscience and Life by Liu Huayang. Both
texts were published in 1969 by Librairie de Médicis, probably with the help of a
friend, since Liu went back to China in 1945. Although there is no mention of his
name in the publication, The Secret of the Golden Flower published by Librairie de
Médicis appears in Perrot’s bibliography on the website of La Fontaine de Pierre
editions, with the note “translated with Liou Tse Houa.” In 1979, Perrot published a
French translation of Jung’s Commentary on the Secret of the Golden Flower.
This article aims at shedding light on one moment in the history of the Yijing
in France, but many aspects of the circulation of the classic in France remain to
be investigated. These include, among other topics, the reception of late nineteenth
century translations, the temporal gap between the publications of Wilhelm’s trans-
lations into German and French, and the particulars of Perrot’s translation in 1968
that led to a Yijing craze in the 1970s. To my knowledge, this craze in the 1970s
has never been documented, as well as its more recent developments through the
works and activities of French Yijing advocates and scholars such as Cyrille Javary
and Pierre Faure, who had the Yijing’s French translation published in 2002, which
is most widely read by the general public nowadays. Lastly, although they represent
one of the many possible paths in the study and interpretation of the Yijing, Sheng’s
and Liu’s approaches to the classic continue to arouse interest in both the Western
world and China. Many authors follow the logic that was once used by the Figurists
to relate the Yijing with various scientific concepts or spiritual doctrines. (see, for
instance, Xie 2006; and works listed in Hacker, Moore and Patsco 2002; and in Smith
2012, pp. 192–193).
194 S. Homola
References
Archives of the Paris Rectorate. 1939. Number AJ16/7094.

Archives of the Paris Rectorate. 1940. Number AJ16/7094.
Bailey, Paul. 1988. The Chinese Work-Study Movement in France. China Quarterly 115: 441–461.
Bulletin de la Société Astronomique de France. 1942. February.
Cheng, Tcheng (Sheng, Cheng). 1928. Vers l’unité. I, Ma mère (Towards unity. I, My mother). Paris,
Neuchâtel: Attinger.
Dumas, Georges. 1932. Les étudiants chinois en France (Chinese students in France). Annales
Franco-Chinoises 21: 10–26.
Elman, Benjamin A. 2005. On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Ge, Fuping, and Pierre-Etienne Will. 2013. Paul Pelliot et l’Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises
(1919–1945) (Paul Pelliot and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises (1919–1945)). In Paul
Pelliot: de l’histoire à la légende (Paul Pelliot: from history to legend), eds. Jean-Pierre Drège,
and Michel Zink, 271–312. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, De Boccard.
Granet, Marcel. 1927. L’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises de Paris. Annales Franco-Chinoises
2(2nd quarter): 5–11.
Hacker, Edward, Steve Moore, and Lorraine Patsco. 2002. I Ching: An Annotated Bibliography.
New York: Routledge.
Halbwachs, Maurice. 1907. Leibniz. Paris: Mellotté.
Homola, Stéphanie. 2014. The Fortunes of a Scholar: When the Yijing Challenged Modern
Astronomy. Journal of Asian Studies 73 (3): 733–752.
Homola, Stéphanie. 2020. Dialogue entre étudiants chinois et sinologues français à l’Institut des
Hautes Etudes Chinoises (1927–1968) (Dialogue between Chinese students and French sinol-
ogists at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises (1927–1968)). In Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat
et ses successeurs. Deux cents ans de sinologie française en France et en Chine (Jean-Pierre
Abel-Rémusat and his Successors. Two Hundred Years of French Sinology in France and China),
ed. Pierre-Etienne Will. Paris: Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises.
Hon, Tze-ki. 2010. From a Hierarchy in Time to a Hierarchy in Space: The Meanings of Sino-
Babylonianism in Early Twentieth-Century China. Modern China 36 (2): 139–169.
Hung, Ho-fung. 2003. Orientalist Knowledge and Social Theories: China and the European
Conceptions of East-West Differences from 1600 to 1900. Sociological Theory 21 (3): 254–280.
Journal des Débats du dimanche. 1934. 27th May.
La Fontaine de Pierre. 2019. La Fontaine de Pierre Editions. https://www.lafontainedepierre.net/.
Accessed 30 Oct 2019.
Le Temps. 1933. 7th July.
Liou, Tse Houa (Liu, Tzū-hua). 1940. La Cosmologie des pa Koua et l’Astronomie moderne:
situation embryonnaire du Soleil et de la Lune, Prévision d’une nouvelle planète (The cosmology
of Bagua and modern astronomy: Embryonic state of the Sun and the Moon, prediction of a new
planet). Paris: Jouve.
Liu Zihua Xueshu Yanjiuhui 劉子華學術研究會 (Liu Zihua Research Association). 1999. Liu
Zihua bainian jinian 劉子華百年紀念 (Centenary of Liu Zihua). Chengdu: Liu Zihua Xueshu
Yanjiuhui.
Michelis di Rienzi, Émile. 1939. Les religions ignorées (Unknown Religions). Paris: Librairie du
Phare.
Needham, Joseph. 1956. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Smith, Richard J. 1991. Fortune-Tellers and Philosophers: Divination in Traditional Chinese
Society. Boulder: Westview Press.
Smith, Richard J. 2012. I Ching: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Terrien de Lacouperie, Albert. 1883. The Oldest Book of the Chinese: The Yh-King and its Authors.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 15: 237–289.
Volkov, Alexei. 1992. Analogical Reasoning in Ancient China: Some Examples. Extrême-Orient,
Extrême-Occident 14: 15–48.
Wang, Nora. 2002. Emigration et politique. Les étudiants-ouvriers chinois en France 1919–1925
(Emigration and Politics. Chinese Work-Study Students in France 1919–1925). Paris: Les Indes
Savantes.
Xie, Wen-wei. 謝文緯. 2006. Liangbu tianshu de duihua: Yijing yu DNA 兩部天書的對話: 易經
與DNA (A Dialogue of Two Books from Heaven: I Ching and DNA). Beijing: Beijing kexue
jishu chubanshe.
Zhang, Yinde. 2008. Littérature comparée et perspectives chinoises (Comparative Literature and
Chinese Perspectives). Paris: l’Harmattan.
Zhou, Yong-zhen. 周永珍. 2008. Liufa jishi: ershi shiji chu Zhongguo liufa shiliao jilu 留法纪
事: 二十世紀初中國留法史料輯錄 (Chronicle of Chinese Students in France: Compilation of
Historical Materials on Chinese Students in France at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century).
Beijing: Publications of the National Library.
Stéphanie Homola is an Assistant Professor of Ethnology at the University of Erlangen-

Nuremberg, Germany. Her works focus on the divination of the Yijing and anthropology of knowl-
edge. She is the author of “The Fortunes of a Scholar: When the Yijing Challenged Modern
Astronomy” (Journal of Asian Studies, 2014) and “Pursue Good Fortune and Avoid Calamity: The
Practice and Status of Divination in Contemporary Taiwan” (Journal of Chinese Religions, 2013).
Chapter 12
The Yijing in Early Postwar
Counterculture in the West
Geoffrey Redmond
Abstract This chapter investigates the role of the Yijing in early postwar counter-
culture in the Western world. The Yijing, better known as the I Ching in the twentieth
century, suddenly became a bestseller in the relatively readable translation of Richard
Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes in its second edition in 1967. In the 1960s and 1970s,
youth rebelled against the conformity of the 1950s, seeking modes of spirituality that
they felt were lacking in Western society. They were also seeking novelty, particularly
in the mysterious Wisdom of the East (2001) now available in translation. Although
many read the Yijing because it was cool, some studied it seriously. Practitioners used
the work for divination and spiritual insight, while scholars studied it in its historical
and cultural context. This engagement with Asian spirituality had earlier roots, with
the works of Ezra Pound and Kenneth Rexroth. The leaders of the Beat Generation,
such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder, attempted to bring the Yijing
into the drug culture with the claim that the hexagram arrays depicted the experience
of hallucinogens.
1 Introduction: The Rise of the Yijing in the Early Postwar

Anglophone World
In the 1960s, as the result of an improbable sequence of events, a 3,000-year-old

Chinese compilation of mostly obscure fragments, the Yijing, or The Book of Changes,
suddenly became a bestseller in the West.1 This chapter examines the impact of the
Yijing in the 1960s and 1970s in the Western world. While the Yijing was the most
fashionable Chinese classic during these decades, its rise was part of a deeper trend
toward appreciation of Chinese culture through its ancient writings. Other aspects
1 The title usually rendered in English as the Book of Changes has several common transliterations.
Most familiar is the I Ching, based on the older Wade-Giles system. Older transliterations such as
Yi King in James Legge’s version refer to the same book and should be pronounced the same way.
G. Redmond (B)
Independent scholar, New York, USA
e-mail: gpredmond@aol.com
198 G. Redmond
of Asian cultures, particularly those of Japan and India, also attracted widespread
interest. In contrast to the notorious intellectual departmentalization of the academy,
the Sixties-Seventies culture was syncretic, picking and choosing the ideas and
images that appealed, rather than being concerned with their historical context. The
sudden popularity of an ancient—and obscure—Chinese book in the West is of great
interest as an episode of intellectual history and raises several important questions.
First, we want to understand why at this particular moment, conditions in Western
culture, especially America, made the Chinese classic attractive. The short answer
is that Westerners were seeking something they felt lacking in their own culture.
With the increasing availability of translations of non-Western scriptures as well as
reasonably priced air travel, Asia was suddenly accessible.
Max Muller’s overwhelming fifty-volume Sacred Books of the East published by
Oxford University Press between 1879 and 1910 stimulated interest in Eastern clas-
sics and religions. Asian traditions were known at first through writings that tended
to provide an idealized image that was naively compared to the reality of Western
life. The Yijing, available in the relatively readable Wilhelm-Baynes translation by
Princeton University in its elegant but unpretentious format, was regarded as a book
of Eastern wisdom. The only widely available previous version, that of James Legge,
deterred readers with its clumsy style, ornate font, excessive parentheses, and prolix
fine-print commentary.
The Western understanding of the Yijing was based on late-Qing interpretation,
as transmitted by Chinese informants to James Legge and Richard Wilhelm. Its
introduction to the West occurred earlier through Joachim Bouvet’s correspondence
with Gottfried Leibniz, but this was concerned with the hexagrams rather than the
text (Redmond and Hon 2014, pp. 226–229). Upon its arrival in the West, ideas
attributed to the Yijing diverged from their Chinese source to follow their own path,
as is usual with cultural diffusion. For those of us interested in the role of the Yijing as
a foundational text of Chinese intellectual history, its Western adaptations can seem
like distortions. Rather than dismissing these as erroneous, however, it is more useful
to approach them as yet another stage in its millennia-long interpretive history.
In analyzing interpretations, it is important to distinguish practitioners, who
consider the Yijing to be a repository of timeless wisdom and use it for divination or
self-cultivation, and scholars, who study it as a text that is historically conditioned.
Most Western works on the Yijing, including those to be discussed in this chapter,
are by practitioners, although more recently, accurate scholarship is increasingly
available.
The genesis of the popular Wilhelm-Baynes translation was an unlikely one.
An American woman, Cary F. Baynes, translated the German version by Richard
Wilhelm. Both were at the time part of the circle of Carl G. Jung, whose “Foreword”
in the translation is the most influential Western commentary on the classic. Wilhelm,
a protestant missionary in China, relied on his Qing-educated Chinese informant Lao
Naixuan 勞乃宣 (1843–1921). Thus, the Wilhelm-Baynes version is multicultural,
although distinguishing the contributions of the different voices is difficult, perhaps
impossible. It is therefore a work that stands by itself, a way to appreciate the Chinese
classic, but an adaptation rather than a direct translation. The literary quality of
12 The Yijing in Early Postwar Counterculture in the West 199
Baynes’ English is universally admitted to be high, and the translation bore the
imprimatur of a university press (Princeton), for which it became, unexpectedly, a
bestseller.
In the Sixties and Seventies, ancient wisdom was cool. Most read the Yijing in
the hope of finding sagely advice that could help them with their own problems;
some found it useful enough that they became lifelong devotees. With the interest
in heterodox spirituality, mysticism attracted considerable attention in this period.
Not only the Yijing, the Dao De Jing also appealed to this. From its beginnings
in early China, the ambiguity of the Yijing texts and the open-ended meaning of
the diagrams permitted interpretations to blossom, a process that only accelerated
during its new foreign residences. Readings could be particularly free among those
unhindered by knowledge of Chinese.2 These writers shared a seeming certainty that
they had access to the true meaning of the Yijing or other newly popular spiritual
works. It was widely assumed then that some exceptional individuals were endowed
with special spiritual insight that might have salvific powers. Whether or not there
were any such enlightened people, there was no shortage of people who claimed such
abilities. Some wrote about sacred works, which they read only in translation, yet
presuming to explain their esoteric secrets to other Anglophone readers. Perhaps the
most notorious is Stephen Mitchell, having translated books in at least seven different
languages including Chinese with the Tao Te Ching (1989) as well as Sanskrit and
several biblical languages. No doubt these give some ideas of the original, but since
many readers are unaware that they are not actually faithful translations, they lose
the chance to encounter a more authentic version.
The sheer number of translations of Asian spiritual classics has its downside. With
the Yijing, and others including the Dao De Jing, pseudo-translations far outnumber
real ones; regrettably, without some background in Chinese literature, at least in
translation, most could not recognize the fakes. Beyond such translations, the title,
Yijing, is commonly appropriated in other titles for a variety of works of contemporary
art.3
Despite its apparent popularity, the Yijing was never an easy read in any of its
versions. Until recently, Western scholars had tended to avoid it, not only because
of its obscure language, but also because its divinatory use associated it in some
minds with other areas of rejected knowledge such as astrology and Tarot. This same
association was attractive to practitioners, who were unconcerned with the anti-
occult prejudices of academics and thus freer to investigate the arcane works that
were resurfacing in the Sixties and Seventies. In this atmosphere, scholarly interest
developed more slowly than popular interest. It is almost certain that some who later
became scholars were initially attracted by this aura of mystery, though not publicly
admitting it once they were established.
2 Those in this latter category include not only Carl Jung, who openly admitted not being a “Sino-
logue,” but also others who did feel necessary to disclose their lack of the language, including Capra
(1999), the McKenna brothers, and Aleister Crowley, among others.
3 While working on this article, I attended a concert in which several pieces were given the titles of
Yijing hexagrams, only to end up sitting through several tedious pieces which lacked both melody
and Yijing connection.
200 G. Redmond
The academic reputation of the Yijing is, to say the least, peculiar, having often
been described in antithetical terms:
…one of the most ancient, most curious, and most mysterious documents in the world…more
mysterious than the pyramids of Egypt. (Carus 1907, p. 26)
…a hallucination…that will prove a stumbling block [to the Chinese] and keep them from
entering on the true path of science. (Legge quoted in Needham 1956, p. 336)
Warned by colleagues not to take up study of the Changes, Richard J. Smith, now one of the
leading Western authorities, was warned that the Changes is a black hole within the China
field. (Redmond and Hon 2014, p. 6)
Fortunately, some scholars persisted, and now, particularly with the recent exca-
vation of previously unknown manuscripts, there is renewed interest. The suspicion
attached to study of the Yijing seems to have come from the occult nature of divination,
until recently a taboo subject in academic discourse, and from its textual obscurity,
understandably making philologists, who tend to be perfectionists, uneasy.
My first encounter with the classic occurred early in my more than thirty-year
fascination with the art and culture of China. I read many of the Chinese classics,
until the Yijing came to absorb most of my scholarly energy, culminating with my
own translation, which itself took four years of unrelenting effort, including learning
how to make sense of the ancient language. Despite my admiration for the Wilhelm-
Baynes translation, I never found it satisfying because I could never tease out what
was based on the Chinese text itself and what was commentary or explanation. I did
not disagree with Needham’s (1956, p. 308) unkind opinion that the Wilhelm-Baynes
version was “a sinological maze belonging to the Department of Utter Confusion.”
Yet, because many sinologists had avoided the Yijing, it was clearly a work in need
of philologically sound translation and analysis. It was when I encountered Richard
Rutt’s translation and commentary, The Book of Changes (Zhouyi): A Bronze Age
Document (1996), that I thought I might actually be able to come to understand the
ancient work. Without knowing what I was getting myself into, I undertook my own
translation, based on reconstruction of the early meanings.
The other factor that attracted me to the Yijing was a fascination with divination that
began during the intellectually permissive atmosphere of the Sixties and Seventies,
which made me more at ease in exploring this text that was then mainly in the province
of the counterculture. Furthermore, an immense amount of material that explored
rejected knowledge of all sorts, not just Chinese, was being published (Webb 1976).
With a primary background in science, I am not a believer, however that might be
defined, but regard divination as a nearly universal component of human behavior
and consciousness (Terzani 1997). Over the centuries, many have found it helpful in
their lives, even if we cannot completely explain what happens during the process of
consulting an oracle.
2 The Yijing and the Counterculture in the Sixties

and Seventies
To further understand the improbable journey of the Yijing to becoming a classic

in the West, it is necessary to recapture the mood of the Sixties and Seventies, an
odd combination of exuberance and cynicism about Western culture. My emphasis
in this chapter is in the renewed curiosity about the possibilities of ways of thought
that were previously marginal in the West.
This mood was foreshadowed in these words of Carl G. Jung, whose encounter
with the Yijing brought it into Western consciousness: “The irrational fullness of
life has taught me never to discard anything, even when it goes against all our theo-
ries.” (Jung 1950, p. xxxiv) Jung’s openness was to ideas; he did not indulge in the
extreme self-experiments such as psychedelics or civil disobedience that were part
of the counterculture. Because of his willingness to consider aspects of the psyche
conventionally dismissed as irrational or superstitious, including the Yijing, as well
as his rejection of Freud’s sexual theory, Jung’s ideas have never been accepted by
orthodox psychiatry. Without venturing a definitive judgment on Jung’s psychology,
he was clearly right to consider these elements of the psyche because they are parts
of the human condition, and a full account of the human mind cannot ignore them.
It is important to note, however, that Jung’s ideas have been mainly influential in the
humanities, not as a mode of therapy for mental conditions.
The mood of the counterculture was less sober than the rather academic atmo-
sphere of Jung and his circle at the village of Bollingen in Switzerland. The spirit
of the counterculture was to try anything that might add excitement or pleasure to
life. In actuality, most who came of age in that era managed to retain some common
sense, but a conspicuous minority took up more extreme lifestyles: psychedelics,
religious cults, living on third-world communes, and even terrorist attacks on what
they regarded as evil societies. Flamboyant figures did not want for media atten-
tion—Timothy Leary for drugs, John Lennon and Yoko Ono for being celebrities,
Marshall McLuhan for media theory, the Weather Underground for revolution—yet
most youth led more ordinary lives.
Those attracted to the contemplative side of the counterculture such as meditation
and the Yijing might have joined demonstrations, but generally they were not involved
in radical action. Some who explored forbidden knowledge thought of it as a private
act of resistance. In contrast to the revolutionaries, many celebrities spoke out for
peace, such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1918–2008), the promoter of Transcendental
Meditation who became famous as the Beatle guru and claimed that if enough people
practiced meditation, the world would be at peace. Given how few can persist at
meditation, this was never put to the test.
The characteristic Sixties-Seventies rhetoric was more hyperbolic in contrast to
the measured language of Jung and his followers. Here is an example from Jay
Stevens’s valuable history of LSD (or “acid,” a hallucinogenic drug), in which he
described the ambitions of the Sixties-Seventies youth culture as:
202 G. Redmond
two philosophies…on how the world might be remade. One path…seizing political power
and using the vantage to raise consciousness and save the world. The other path proposed
an attack on consciousness itself using a controversial and soon outlawed family of
psychochemicals – the psychedelics. (Stevens 1988, p. xii)
The two modes of salvation—political reform and transformation of conscious-

ness—have been with us since ancient times. Confucius and Plato advocated for
proper governance, while Laozi, Shakyamuni Buddha and Jesus sought to improve
the world by correcting disordered ways of thought.
The syncretism of the Sixties and Seventies came with a conscious sense of being
members of a novel culture that was composed of diverse elements, including non-
Western spirituality, opposition to the Vietnam war, socialism, laissez-faire sexual
mores, long hair, bare feet, casual or eccentric dress, listening to rock music, and
drug use. Probably no one embraced all these but made their own selections from
the menu.
Put more broadly, imagination was unfettered, opening minds to many things
including the Yijing. It seems likely that a reason for this strange text seeming relevant
across long spans of time and distance is in part because it straddles the political
and the personal. Its prognostications are suggestive, advocating morality but not
prescribing rigid rules. In practice, the Yijing is interactive, almost dialectical, as a
means of finding a wise response to a specific situation. Lines were selected by a slow
process and then pondered in solitude or explored mutually between inquirers and
diviners. Ethical wisdom in China was conceived as an ability possessed to perfection
only by the ancient sages. It was this ability that the Yijing and the classics generally
were thought to teach, equipping the refined person (junzi 君子) to respond properly
as situations arose. Indeed, the Yijing was itself the creation of sages and culture
heroes, intended to help those with less wisdom cultivate their own morality.
While consulting the Yijing could be a private process for individual decision-
making, in imperial China, it was always interpreted to conform to Confucian social
norms, including accepting hierarchy. This seems an apparent conflict with the
Sixties-Seventies counterculture’s values of spontaneity and “doing one’s own thing.”
It may be that because the Yijing was countercultural, it could make conformity more
palatable, or perhaps readers did not recognize this aspect.
The first translation of Chinese poems that were actually readable was probably
Ezra Pound’s (1885–1972) Cathay (1915), a slender booklet of gem-like translations.
He also translated the more difficult Shijing (Classic of Poetry), but this lengthy and
more difficult work never caught on with the Western literati. His best-known work is
probably the Cantos, written between 1915 and 1963. The current edition is 824 pages
interspersed with quotations from Chinese classics, and notably, some Chinese char-
acters supposedly written by his wife (Pound 1970). Given its density and Pound’s
unfortunate politics, this work achieved sustained attention mainly among literary
critics, though probably many, like myself, read selections from it.
Interestingly, Pound’s interest in China, particularly Confucianism, was serious
enough to lead him to study the language and even translate the Analects. While some
doubted that Pound actually knew Chinese, his recently published correspondence
demonstrates the effort he put into learning it, with the help of Chinese friends (Qian
2008). In contrast to the flowery translations of the Victorian era, Pound’s translations
were terse, setting a precedent for trying to match the tone of the Chinese original.
Given his eccentric life and poetry, Pound’s example helped start the association
of Chinese literature and philosophy with non-conformity. This culminated with
the Yijing—having the compact gray volume in one’s hand or bookshelf instantly
proclaimed one’s individualism, as did wearing a black turtleneck or long hair. While
there is irony in thinking that a common behavior could signal individualism, there
is some truth in it. For many, the Yijing and other newly available spiritual texts were
not simply symbols; they were seeking new ways to think.
The next major writer to bring Chinese literature to Anglophones was the
poet Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982), a translator of Chinese and Japanese. While
stylistically distinct from Pound, he also wrote in vernacular language, rather
than in the ornate, embellished styles that had previously been considered poetic.
Simple language fit the mood of the Sixties and Seventies well, which disdained
pretentiousness, other than its own.
Both Pound and Rexroth were politically countercultural, though at opposite
sides of the spectrum. Their ability to live by their wits and to avoid usual forms
of employment appealed to youth who were reluctant to join the rat race, though
few countercultural youth were able to avoid the eventual need for full-time jobs.
As I have emphasized, the continuing Western association of Asian religion with
non-conformity is contrary to the role of the classics in China. One can imagine Zhu
Xi soberly consulting the Yijing for moral guidance in contrast to the youth of the
Sixties and Seventies dancing to rock music while on drugs. China did have its own
tradition of what could be called Bohemianism, most evident in Laozi and Zhuangzi,
both advocating withdrawal from society, but in the West, their works did not attain
the popularity of the Yijing.
To what extent the counterculture’s diagnoses of Western failings were justi-
fied and to what extent the Chinese classics could serve as remedies are debat-
able. At the very least, they set examples of different ways of thinking about the
difficulties of humanity and society. While Pound and Rexroth, along with others,
could be considered dissidents, in their daily behavior, if not their politics, they
accepted the mainstream’s norms of civility. It was in the fifties that dissent became
confrontational.
The counterculture was a reaction to the supposedly stifling conformity of the
1950s, and is often considered to have begun with the cultural rebellion that called
itself the “Beat Generation,” a variation of the “Lost Generation” applied by Gertrude
Stein to an earlier avant-garde. The Beat movement had its own fashions—affecting
a black turtleneck (roll-top) sweater and a beard marking one as a Beatnik. Jazz,
later supplanted by folk rock, was its preferred music. Women had to make do
with the turtleneck; the prominent Beats were male, with a few notable exceptions
such as Diane Di Prima. The Beat Generation was actually a literary movement
with its authors becoming celebrities for their antinomian poems or novels. Most of
their writings were ephemeral, but the works of Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and
Gary Snyder are still read, if less often. The Beats produced an odd combination of
Buddhism, drug use and promiscuous, and often homoerotic, sex. This combination
204 G. Redmond
of transgressive art with an equally transgressive lifestyle caught the public interest
and foreshadowed the Sixties and Seventies. That the Buddha’s admonitions for the
laity included abstaining from intoxicants and sexual impropriety was unnoticed or
ignored. By combining Buddhism with iconoclasm, the Beats made Asian religions
seem to be part of a Bohemian lifestyle, continuing the trend initiated by Pound and
Rexroth. The Beats’ writings did display some real understanding of Buddhism, but
mainly presented Eastern philosophy as a means of intellectual dissent.
The Beats paved the way for the Sixties-Seventies counterculture, whether for
better or worse is still a matter of debate. Their exhibitionism was distracted by their
positive contribution to opening up Western awareness of other cultures, particularly
those of India, China, Japan, and the indigenous peoples of the Americas. They not
only romanticized these cultures, but also showed how they could widen Western
consciousness.
In the Sixties and Seventies, spiritual practices previously disdained in the West,
including shamanism, polytheism, divination, channeling, meditation, mantras, vege-
tarianism, and living in communes, to give an incomplete list, were now permitted.
Asian religions had been subjects of academic study, but actual belief and practice
of them were assumed to be incompatible with scholarly objectivity. Divination was
then often simply entertainment, such as fortune cookies or newspaper astrology
columns. The Yijing was easily adapted as yet another way of divining, enhanced by
the allure of being ancient, but new in the West.
Simply for convenience, I will refer to divination, including the Yijing, as part of
the category referred to as “occult,” that is the seeking of knowledge not accessible by
ordinary means. A useful term introduced by James Webb and further examined by
Wouter Hanegraaff is “rejected knowledge,” emphasizing its history of suppression in
the West that began with the competition of early Christianity and paganism, and was
later perpetuated by both the religious establishment and the scientific community.
Blended with these intellectual restrictions was a set of social restrictions that
were expressed by a rigid dress code, including ties for men and high-heeled shoes
for working women. Sexuality could only be hinted at in speech, writing and visual
culture, but in the Sixties and Seventies, there was a widespread release of inhibi-
tions, beginning with rock music and the legalization of sexually explicit texts and
images. Divination was another forbidden subject that came into the open, along
with channeling and other supernatural practices.
3 Carl G. Jung and the Yijing
One of the most influential advocates of Asian spirituality in the West was the
Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung (1875–1961). Known mainly for his archetypal
psychology and a variety of now familiar notions such as introversion/extroversion
and archetypes, he also assimilated many aspects of ancient and Asian cultures into
his theories. His approach of treating the Chinese classic as a way of accessing the
unconscious mind has been predominant in Western reading of the Yijing ever since.
Jung’s Foreword to the Wilhelm-Baynes Yijing (1950) established the framework

for its Western interpreters up to the present day. While written before the rise of
the counterculture, it was essential to the success of the Wilhelm-Baynes translation.
Read carefully, Jung’s (1950, p. xxi) first sentence establishes that the Yijing can be
understood outside its Chinese context: “Since I am not a sinologue, a foreword to the
Book of Changes from my hand must be a testimonial of my individual experience
with this great and singular book.” Thus, Jung takes the Yijing beyond the realm of
detached scholars to something to be experienced directly, as he did. This appealed
to the counterculture with its distrust of authority. What is implied is that one can
ignore scientific skepticism and try out the Yijing to discover its truth for oneself.
Jung expands on his ideas in his introductory material to the Wilhelm-Baynes
translation of a less popular text, The Secret of the Golden Flower (1962), a rather
obscure Chinese alchemical work that was first attested in the reign of the Qianlong
emperor (1711–1799). Regarding this text, Jung suggests:
So-called scientific objectivity would have reserved this text for the philological activity of
Sinologues, and would have guarded it jealously from any other interpretation. But Richard
Wilhelm penetrated into the secret and mysterious vitality of Chinese wisdom too deeply
to have allowed such a pearl of intuitive insight to disappear into the pigeonholes of the
specialists. (Wilhelm 1962, p. 81)
Here Jung goes beyond simply freeing the text from specialists to inform us that
it is actually non-specialists who have the necessary insight to discover the deeper
meanings. Thus, he saw his mission as freeing spiritual works, including the Yijing,
from their academic prison to be available to a wider interested public. Clearly, he
believed Chinese philosophical works contained value for Westerners, though as we
shall see, he qualified this.
I do dissent, however, from Jung’s disparagement of scholars. Without philolo-
gists who have often been easy targets, we would not be able to understand these
early works that are difficult even for the educated of their own cultures. Translating
the Yijing myself made me particularly aware of the effort required to make it under-
standable at all. It is philologists who make the discoveries that allow the secret and
mysterious vitality to emerge from otherwise arcane texts. While The Secret of the
Golden Flower is obscure, it is not unique, as Jung seems to have thought, but one
of a very large number of Daoist texts expounding the techniques of magical self-
transformation referred to as internal alchemy. It now seems merely a curiosity; in
contrast to the Yijing, it is not usable as a practice. Furthermore, the translation is at
best a loose adaptation. Wilhelm, Baynes and Jung did not seem to have understood
Daoist alchemy, a subject now much better understood in the West as the result of
recent scholarship.
The main interest of this book is Jung’s further development of his ideas about
Chinese thought, somewhat stereotyped, but with a genuine appreciation as well.
Here, for example, Jung anticipates the countercultural view, in contrast to Western
science: “The East has taught us another wider, more profound and higher under-
standing, that is, understanding through life.” (Wilhelm 1962, p. 82). This was exactly
the hope of the Sixties and Seventies, that wisdom thought to be lacking in Western
culture was to be found in other cultures, particularly early or indigenous ones.
206 G. Redmond
Jung, for all his admiration for what he referred to as the “Chinese mind,” stops
short of recommending Asian spiritual practices for Westerners: “There could be
no greater mistake than for a Westerner to take up the direct practice of Chinese
yoga, for it would be a matter of his will and his consciousness…bringing about
the very effect to be avoided.” (Ibid, p. 90) The great Swiss explorer of the psyche
issued similar warnings throughout his writings without ever quite explaining what
the danger would be. I can only speculate on the basis of these warnings. First, Jung
began his career in psychiatry working with patients with schizophrenia, a tragic
condition in which the affected person’s grasp of reality is tenuous. There is recent
evidence that meditation may be harmful for such individuals. The other possibility
is that he recognized that meditative practice could be a competitor to psychotherapy,
as it became, though only to a limited extent.
Despite Jung’s admonition against “Chinese yoga,” many took up such practices
in the Sixties and Seventies for the most part, without any adverse effects. Indeed, one
of the most salient features of the then spirituality was its discovery that spirituality
could involve actions as well as abstract ideas. For the Yijing, it was tossing coins and
selecting a hexagram or lines. For Buddhism, it was sitting or walking meditation.
The Daoism of the Dao De Jing did not have explicit instructions but proposed a
different way of thinking. Even the Woodstock Music Festival could be considered
a practice as it involved being outdoors, nudity and a relaxation of interpersonal
boundaries. Psychedelic drug use was a practice as well. Harmful practices could
also be justified as spiritual.
These contrasted with the church services that bored many of the Sixties-Seventies
youth as they sat through, consisting mostly of sitting, listening, and reciting with
some kneeing and standing, depending on the denomination. Communion is a prac-
tice, but still mainly cerebral and impersonal. Confession is a practice, but felt as
intrusive by many. The passivity of church services as well as their inability to
induce an altered state led to a quest for a more experiential spirituality. This was
not universal, but a basic difference between the spiritual seeking of the countercul-
ture and that of their parents’ generation. At least as presented in Western language
accounts, Eastern spirituality seemed more active.
The Yijing is a physical book, but it was intended to be used in an active process to
gain insight into a particular life situation. Consultation of the book ideally involved
action: sitting facing north, lighting incense, tossing coins or sorting yarrow sticks,
finding the selected passage, and most important of all, pondering the answer. The
book itself was often personified as a sage with whom the inquirer interacts. Of
course, when a diviner was involved, the consultation was more direct.
Jung provides us with several examples of his own consultations with the Yijing,
notably his asking the classic about its own future in the West. For this, he obtains
Hexagram #50 Ding 鼎:
The ting, as a utensil pertaining to a refined civilization, suggests the fostering and nourishing
of able men, which redounded to the benefit of the state… (Jung 1950, p. xxvi)
50.2 My comrades are envious. But they cannot harm me. (Ibid, p. xxvii)
Jung interprets the above as follows:

Thus the I Ching says of itself: “I contain (spiritual) nourishment. The envious want to rob
the I Ching…of meaning… (Ibid, p. xxvii)
And further:
It is the answer of one who has a good opinion of himself, but whose value is neither generally
recognized nor even widely known. (Ibid, p. xxviii)
Thus, Jung uses the Yijing to affirm its own validity, but acknowledges that:
I agree with Western thinking that any number of answers to my question were possible,
and I certainly cannot assert that another answer would not have been equally significant.
However, the answer received was the first and only one; we know nothing of other possible
answers. (Ibid, p. xxix)
Philological reconstruction of the early meanings indicates a much darker

meaning:
50.4 The cauldron’s leg breaks, overturning the duke’s stew. His severe punishment
– executed inside. Ominous. (Redmond 2017, p. 269)
Wilhelm can hardly be faulted for being unaware of the reconstructed early mean-
ings which was known to only a very few Chinese scholars during his stay in the
Middle Kingdom. His Chinese informant followed the Confucian interpretive tradi-
tion of his time, which made the Yijing a generally optimistic work. People seek
spirituality for solace, something particularly welcome in the Sixties and Seventies,
which for all its colorful exuberance, was also a troubled time with the Vietnam War
and a high degree of social unrest.
While proposing anecdotal evidence of the Yijing’s usefulness, Jung carefully
avoids any supernatural claims himself, but mistakes the style of the Wilhelm-Baynes
translation for that of the Chinese classic:
In view of the I Ching’s extreme age and its Chinese origin, I cannot consider its archaic,
symbolic, and flowery language abnormal. (Jung 1950, p. xxxviii)
He was correct about the text being archaic and sometimes symbolic, but in
Chinese, it is not at all flowery. While commending the Yijing, Jung expresses some
anxiety over seeming unscientific:
I must confess that I had not been feeling too happy in the course of writing this foreword,
for, as a person with a sense of responsibility toward science, I am not in the habit of asserting
something I cannot prove or at least present as acceptable to reason. (Ibid, p. xxxiii)
While Jung’s psychology has sometimes been attacked as unscientific, he did

complete medical training in psychiatry and was concerned to present evidence for
his theories. The tension Jung revealed between science and the reconsideration
of rejected knowledge was also inherent in the Sixties-Seventies culture as well.
Despite the fascination with rejected knowledge, most were not willing to completely
abandon scientific thinking.
208 G. Redmond
One way to evade this issue was to claim that the metaphysics of the Yijing,
particularly yin and yang, anticipated quantum physics. This line of argument was
common in China as well, as expressed by Jung:
The ancient Chinese mind contemplates the cosmos in a way comparable to the modern
physicist, who cannot deny that his model is a decidedly psychophysical structure. (Ibid, p.
xxiv)
This statement is highly dubious—physics as practiced by physicists consists of

equations and is quite unlike consulting the Yijing. Many still believe this, though
not any physicists so far as I know. Despite the efforts of scientists, philosophers and
mystics, the gap between matter and consciousness remains.
Consultation of the Yijing seems to bridge this gap—the fall of coins or the sorting
of yarrow sticks indicates a text or line position that seems to reveal something of
one’s consciousness. Many phrases of the Yijing refer to omens, for example, in
which the direction of goose flights indicates whether conditions are auspicious or
inauspicious, as in this phrase:
53.2 Wild geese gradually approach toward the boulders. Food and drink – joy, joy,
auspicious. (Redmond 2017, p. 281)
Here, what began as handling of objects becomes a mental event, in this case, joy.
Jung does admit:
Any person of clever and versatile mind can turn the whole thing around and show how I
have projected my subjective contexts into the symbolism of the hexagrams. Such a critique,
though catastrophic from the standpoint of Western rationality, does no harm to the function
of the I Ching…the Chinese sage would smilingly tell me: Don’t you see how useful the I
Ching is in making you project your hitherto unrealized thoughts into its abstruse symbolism?
(Jung 1950, p. xxxviii)
To explain the Yijing, Jung proposes his famous concept of synchronicity, which,
takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere
chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well
as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers.
(Ibid, p. xxiv)
Synchronicity refers to external events that seem correlated with mental ones,
despite there being no causal connection, in other words, meaningful coincidence.
Elsewhere it is applied to the Yijing more directly:
The I Ching presupposes that there is a synchronistic correspondence between the psychic
state of the questioner and the answering hexagram. (Jung 1973, p. 111)
So far as I know, pre-modern Chinese texts do not advance anything analogous

to this explanation of the Yijing; since it was created by sages, it was just assumed to
work. Everyone has had synchronicity as a subjective experience. Whether it is some-
thing supernatural is endlessly debated. Jung at times suggests that synchronicity is
something more than subjectivity, but at other times avoids such a claim. While being
inconsistent in his writing about the possibility of supernatural phenomena, he did

seem to express belief in his more private writings, but publicly seemed anxious to
guard his scientific reputation.
Jung’s several references to the “Chinese mind” are likely to be troubling to the
twenty-first century readers, as with the following:
My argument…has of course never entered a Chinese mind. On the contrary, according to
the old tradition, it is “spiritual agencies,” acting in a mysterious way that makes the yarrow
sticks give a meaningful answer. (Jung 1950, p. xxv)
Even if we set aside the apparent condescension, the statement is not based on
any actual contact with Chinese people. Chinese sources rarely take up the question
of why and how the oracle works. There is a presumption here, no longer common,
that knowledge of psychology makes it possible to know the thought patterns of
other cultures. The matter of psychological differences between cultures remains a
fraught one and Jung’s casual remarks about the Chinese mind are best set aside.
His contribution to the understanding of the Yijing, a text for which he expresses
the greatest respect, is considerable, but it was to the Western understanding he
contributed, not that of traditional China.
As with any grand theory, Jung’s had weaknesses. Yet, even if he did not get
everything right, his influence remains indispensable to understanding the Yijing in
psychological terms, now the dominant mode in the West. When one reads writ-
ings by contemporary divinatory practitioners of Tarot, astrology and other systems,
almost all are written in the language of popular psychology and Jungian ideas quite
often appear. While the psychologization of divination is inevitable, one result is to
diminish the sense of mystery. The world has become disenchanted—but not entirely.
Or so it seems. During the Sixties and Seventies, a great effort was made to re-enchant
it, and the Yijing was a part of this re-enchantment. It still is.
4 The Yijing and the Reflection on the Vietnam War
The counterculture of the Sixties and Seventies sought transformation, personal

through spiritual practices or social through revolution. Asian philosophy was often
stereotyped as passive and so did not appeal to self-styled revolutionaries. The desire
for freedom and the need to conform to social norms are often difficult to recon-
cile. The Yijing can be seen as one means to bridge this, by guiding personal deci-
sions within a framework of morality based on that of another culture. The seeming
paradox of a conservative classic appealing to rebelliousness embodies the paradox
of the youth wanting to dissent from adult society and yet needing to find a place
in it. Using the Yijing was not a rebellion, though some might consider it a private
dissent. Whatever its role in cultural dissent, what I would argue is most important
about its popularity is that it attracted many to delve further into Chinese culture and
gain some knowledge of the Confucian tradition.
210 G. Redmond
The counterculture was preoccupied with personal growth and authenticity; hence,
the notion that the Yijing could facilitate these processes was a major factor in its
dissemination. To give a single example, here is how Richards (1999, p. xi) describes
her (literal) journey with the Yijing:
My study of the I Ching began in 1976 under the guidance of my friend and teacher, Walter
Boye. Two years later, Walter began a most enlightening walk over the length and breadth
of America 5,200 miles. He carried the I Ching every step of the way… During that journey,
I drove the support vehicle and spent a great many hours studying the I Ching.
Clearly, this was a very positive experience for Richards. There is no reason to
doubt her story, but such unusual feats for spiritual development tended to capture
public attention, although they occurred more often in imagination than actuality.
Several elements in this account are characteristic: the task set by a guru as a precon-
dition for receiving teachings, the journey as a means to enlightenment, the devotion
of the author, and her serious efforts to make sense of the scripture. While her compi-
lation of phrases from the classic can be helpful for a beginner, her commentary as
quoted above is of more interest in showing the seriousness with which she brought
the Yijing into her life.
The contemplative life was not possible for most. The Vietnam War was a world
issue, but particularly agonizing for young American males (and their families),
most of whom were at risk of being drafted and sent into combat against their will.
Revolutionary rhetoric was prominent in the Sixties and Seventies, but most was
about the fantasized romance of revolution than its deadly reality. Some truly believed
that revolution was necessary, including a classmate of mine who joined a terrorist
group, paying the price with a long prison sentence; few took his path, however.
While the Yijing played almost no role in the rhetoric of revolution and the Yijing
itself, one best-selling book about Vietnam uses a phrase from it for its title. Fire in
the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances FitzGerald was
published in 1972; the title is from Hexagram #49 Ge 革. The tag was translated by
Wilhelm and Baynes as “Revolution (Molting)” (Wilhelm 1950, pp. 189–192, 635–
640). This hexagram is composed of the trigram for fire under that for lake, hence
the book title. Disappointingly, for me at least, there is no further reference to the
Yijing in FitzGerald’s book. In the early text Zhouyi, Hexagram Ge refers to tanning
leather (Redmond 2017, pp. 265–268). It did come to mean revolution, but at a much
later time. This is perhaps a pedantic point but it underscores the fact that apart from
49.0 and 49.3, there is no other phrase in the Yijing related to revolution. While the
Yijing was countercultural in the West, it played no role in the revolutionary thinking
of the time.
The argument of Fire in the Lake is of interest in the present discussion for another
reason. Its central argument is that Americans did not recognize that Vietnamese
values and notions of government were different from those of the West, hence
the war’s failed strategy. FitzGerald’s expertise was questioned because she did not
know the Vietnamese language and thus based her idea of cultural difference entirely
on Western language sources. Nor was this unusual; many who claimed to speak
for Asian cultures had no knowledge of their languages, nor had they traveled to
them. A relevant instance here is Carl Jung’s frequent statements about the “Chinese
mind,” which I discussed previously. Perhaps we should not be excessively critical of
these early attempts to understand faraway countries. Understanding of other cultures
usually begins by comparison to one’s own, and then moves dialectically toward a
more balanced picture.
5 The Yijing and the Beat Generation
Consciousness was much discussed in the Sixties and Seventies, particularly to

explain practices ranging from meditation to consciousness-altering drugs. This is a
philosophically complex subject because in a sense, everything is consciousness. The
popular terms “mind-expansion,” “consciousness expansion,” or “altered states” basi-
cally meant having thoughts that some were different from ordinary mental contents.
Typically, these were thought to have special value. The synchronicities experienced
using the Yijing fit into these categories and seemed to reveal something beyond
ordinary reality.
Consciousness expansion had two aspects: esoteric knowledge and special mental
powers. Useful here is the definition of divination endorsed by Koch (2010, p. 44):
…certainly a practical means of obtaining otherwise inaccessible information: “divination
is a way of exploring the unknown in order to elicit answers (that is, oracles) to questions
beyond the range of normal human understanding.” (quoted in Tedlock 2001, p. 189)
Other modes of mind-expansion besides divination have similar aims. Several

points deserve emphasis. First, divination is practical. Mind-expansion may have
theoretical interest, but it is usually sought as a way of making life more fulfilling.
This is clearly the motive for Yijing consultation. Second, the belief that there can
be knowledge that is transformative but accessible only through non-normal means
is near-universal. This includes James Webb’s category of rejected knowledge, and
also many other kinds of knowledge referred to as occult or esoteric. While science
has been unable to validate such phenomena as divination, journeys to other worlds,
channeling the dead, telepathy, and direct mental action on matter, these possibil-
ities retain their hold on human imagination (Blackmore 1996). Furthermore, as
Blackmore (2004, p. 5) points out: “It is not possible to study the nature of self and
consciousness, while labeling God, the soul, the spirit, or life after death ‘off limits.’”
She goes on to provide what could be a slogan of the Sixties and Seventies: “Studying
consciousness will change your life. Have fun.” (Ibid)
Perhaps the most prevalent method of mind-expansion employed in the Sixties
and Seventies, is psychedelic drug use. Not surprisingly, some who used the Yijing
also used drugs, or even advocated their use, even though there is nothing about drugs
in the Yijing itself, nor its Chinese commentaries. An example is the work of Terence
and Dennis McKenna entitled The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens and
the I Ching (1975). This discusses shamanism and hallucinogen experience as if
they are somehow related to the Yijing’s King Wen hexagram sequence, although
212 G. Redmond
they never quite make the connection clear. Following a dubious computer analysis
of the King Wen sequence that is claimed to show a hidden pattern, the McKennas
claim:
The first order of difference among the hexagrams, as they are read in a linear sequence,
was consciously and deliberately ordered in very ancient times…. the fact that it was done
validates our contention that these mathematical qualities of the I Ching were factors of
which the Neolithic Chinese were well aware. (McKenna and McKenna 1993, p. 143)
This is incorrect on several levels. There is general agreement that the Zhouyi
was composed in the Western Zhou dynasty (1046–771 BCE), which was in the
bronze age, after the Neolithic. Some of the textual materials must have circulated
orally much earlier, possibly in the Neolithic, but without written records, this is no
more than a guess. There is no evidence that the received King Wen sequence is the
earliest or that there was an original order at all, given that the hexagrams and texts
were inscribed on bamboo strips. We do not know how or when the hexagrams were
invented. They are present on the earliest known manuscript circa 300 BCE owned by
the Shanghai Museum, but this is centuries later than the likely date of composition.
Although a few linear figures have been found on Neolithic pottery fragments, neither
trigrams nor hexagrams appeared. Accordingly, the hexagram sequence provides no
information about the supposed pre-literate Chinese knowledge of mathematics. This
claim is an instance of the myth, akin to Atlantis, of profound ancient knowledge,
now lost.
Drug use was a far more disruptive phenomenon than non-Western philosophy.
Jung’s suggestion of the Yijing for use in psychotherapy may have been shocking to
some, but only mildly. In his psychology, he did not challenge conventional morality,
although his romantic life did. His system did not seek to overthrow psychotherapy
but rather to advance it conceptually. The cultural iconoclasm of the Sixties and
Seventies has no precedent in Jung’s work, nor was it deliberately transgressive.
Significantly, although some of his writings, and much of his visual art, seem
hallucinatory, he made no mention of psychedelic drug use.
Whether considered as a divination manual or as a repository of ancient wisdom,
the Yijing belonged to the category of rejected knowledge—as did much of Asian
religion and philosophy from the Western perspective, until the Sixties and Seven-
ties. This made it potentially attractive to occultists and esotericists; the allure of the
forbidden played a role. There is, however, a sort of separatism among Westerners
who are interested in rejected knowledge. As a result, the surge of interest in the
thought of China and India made some feel that the Western traditions were being
eclipsed. Yet, it was not so much that those knowledgeable about Western esoteri-
cism were looking to Asia, but that the counterculture craved the new, as upcoming
generations tend to, not only in fashion, music and lifestyles, but also in spiritual
and philosophical ideas. Buddhism and Daoism became cool; Neo-Platonism and
Stoicism did not, despite some philosophical commonalities.
The revival of the occult movements that began in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theo-
sophical Society, and Spiritualism, did absorb some Asian elements, particularly
rebirth. Western and Eastern esotericism, with the exception of the Theosophical
Society, tended to develop separately, despite borrowing from each other. This revival
was led by a disparate group of charismatic individuals, including Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky, Dion Fortune (Violet Firth), and Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), while
Asian spirituality tended to be introduced by scholars, though there were excep-
tions such as Blavatsky. The Yijing remained identified with China, rather than being
blended with Western traditions.
One Western occultist, Aleister Crowley, was long interested in the Yijing and
regularly consulted it (Kaczynski 2010). His accounts of the ideology of the Sixties
and Seventies must be taken with some skepticism, as he was hardly a reliable
narrator; much, perhaps most, of what he claimed about his magical and sexual
potency was fantasy. This did not interfere with his popularity, as part of the spirit of
the Sixties and Seventies was a fresh openness to fantasy, and for this Crowley offered
abundant new materials, seeming to flirt with evil, but not quite practicing it. Although
he treated many of his followers badly, most of his maliciousness was in the form
of self-destructive behavior. Crowley regularly issued scandalous pronouncements,
making good copy for the press, which referred him beguilingly as the “wickedest
man in the world.” He openly belonged to the shadowy side of the counterculture
with his oft-repeated slogan, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”
Although Crowley died in 1947, he became a paradigmatic figure of the Sixties
and Seventies—even being one of the multitudes pictured on the cover of the Beatles’
eighth album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” His deliberately provocative
pronouncements boasted of free sexuality (even though many of his boasts were not
biologically possible), drug use, and being on the Left-Hand Path of “magick” (as he
spelled it). Crowley was a niche figure, but his admirers tend to overstate his cultural
influence, as did William de Fancourt regarding Crowley’s use of the Yijing:
Crowley was probably the first Westerner to actually regularly divine using the Yi. But he may
have a more important place in the history of the Yi here in the West. He was ‘rediscovered’
by the hippy generation of the 1960s around the same time as the Yijing began to become
popular. Was it these references rather than Jung’s dissertation that inspired a new generation
of Yi practitioners? (de Fancourt 2000, p. 46)
In actuality, there is little evidence that Crowley’s Yijing translation or his sporadic
mentions of it in his other writings attracted popular attention. His Yi King: A Beastly
Book of Changes (1998) only appeared in obscure editions, while the Wilhelm-
Baynes edition sold more than two million copies during the Sixties and Seventies
alone. Crowley’s popularizers, such as the prolific occult writer Israel Regardie, have
given it little attention. For example, Crowley’s correlation of the eight trigrams with
the Sephiroth of the Kabbalah, regarded by Regardie as a major accomplishment,
did not work numerologically and was never cited in popular works on the Jewish
mystical system. If Crowley made any contribution to the sudden Sixties-Seventies
fashion for divination, it was his Tarot as painted by Lady Frieda Harris, not his
rather insipid Book of Changes (1970). While he seemed to have frequently relied
upon the Yijing for personal guidance, it was the Tarot that manifested his creative
energies.
214 G. Redmond
What de Fancourt’s claim demonstrates is something else—the syncretic nature

of the Sixties and Seventies. The Yijing was ancient, exotic, inscrutable, yet novel to
the West. To simply mention the Yijing was to show that one was au courant with
the intellectual fashions of the day, and hence it was often combined with other
trends that were cool, such as the mysterious East, divination, sagely wisdom, DNA,
quantum uncertainty, Marshall McLuhan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bob Dylan, shamanism
and psychedelic drugs. The list is typical of how bricolage was the intellectual mode
of the era; mentioning the Yijing was a low-effort way to seem profound.
While Crowley’s defenders try to find some spiritual meaning in his somewhat
Nietzschean ideas, for me at least, it is hard to find much that is profound in his prolix
bombastic writing. His life was one of decline, from mountain-climbing in Asia in his
early years to a kind of sloppy hedonism, punctuated by abuse of women and ending
in drug addiction. He referred to his lovers insultingly as “Scarlet Women,” a biblical
term indicating promiscuity. Despite these unattractive features, Crowley’s system,
which he called “Thelema,” continues to have admirers. While he denied being a
Satanist, he did present an image of a black magician. This fascination with evil did
not, of course, originate from Crowley, but it was a prominent strain of modernism,
notably in France with Sade, Baudelaire, and Rimbaud, among others. Crowley may
have been a bad influence on the young and impressionable, though this was not
very extensive. His main influence was to anticipate the hippies in exhibitionistic
violation of social norms of dress and speech.
The translation of the Yijing that was available to Crowley was that of James
Legge, the first professor of Chinese at Oxford University, whom Crowley referred to
as “Wood’n Legge,” because of his stiff prose style. Crowley’s supposed translation,
entitled Yi King: A Beastly Book of Changes, is little more than a paraphrase of
Legge’s, written in pseudo-archaic English. While this appeared in print several times,
it was either self-published or from evanescent imprints. All of Crowley’s writings
regarding the Yijing have been gathered into a single volume, edited by Edward and
Marlene Cornelius (1998), but now out of print. With few useful insights into the
Yijing, it has a minor place in the history of the Yijing in the West and is mainly for
Crowley’s admirers.
Curiously, while Crowley expressed pride in his Yi King and referred to it in his
private writings, he had little to say about it in his more widely disseminated texts. He
might have reserved it for private advice on more intimate problems that he did not
wish to reveal to his followers, which would explain why his records of divinations
lack the posturing that pervades most of his work. Here is an example of Crowley’s
style. Richard John Lynn’s translation is on top with Crowley’s in bold underneath.
1.6 A dragon that overreaches shall have cause for regret.
Exceed not, dragon, lest thy force retract.
There is obstinate stupidity in Yang.
1.7 Extra: …a flight of dragons without heads, it is good fortune.
If all this heavenly host of dragons lacked

Their heads, good fortune would become a fact.

(Lynn 1994, pp. 129–143; Crowley 1998, p. 61f)
Three pretentious stylistic elements are noticeable here. First, the pseudo-archaism
of “Exceed not, dragon, lest thy force retract.” Much writing of the magical revival of
the late nineteenth century was in this mode, giving a factitious tone of antiquity to the
writing. Ironically, Crowley’s style is just as wooden as Legge’s. Second, Crowley’s
hallmark use of bombast as in “obstinate stupidity.” No words for such character
traits ever appear in the Chinese text. Finally, the doggerel versification is Crowley’s
addition. In similarly adolescent fashion, Crowley injects sexual references into the
text:
The first of the trigrams, is the perfect explanation of the masculine idea… It is therefore
called Qian which is the lingam or heaven. At the other end of the scale is…Kun…that is to
say, Yoni, or Earth. (Ibid, p. 60)
These associations are not original to Crowley; although plausible, they ignore
the fact that yin and yang have many associations besides male and female. Among
the dualities correlated with yin-yang are cold-hot, wet-dry, dark-light, old-young,
and many less obvious. Even if one accepts that the first two hexagrams can be asso-
ciated with genitalia, there are no additional genital references in the remainder
of the Zhou texts of the Yijing. The earliest English translation, that of Canon
McClatchie, construes the Yijing as derived from Babylonian sex magic, a specu-
lation no longer taken seriously (McClatchie 1872). Shaughnessy (1996) suggests
that in the manuscript excavated at Mawangdui, the characters for what are Qian and
Kun in the received text imply genital references. What is clearly the case, however,
is that the reconstructed early Zhou meanings have few phrases that are clearly sexual
in nature. This is not true of other early texts, notably the Shijing. There is no lack of
erotic passages in much later Chinese vernacular literature, but Confucian notions of
propriety kept them out of philosophical and ethical texts. Crowley frequently places
Western occult imagery into his version of the Yijing:
14.4. Legge: …shows its subject keeping his great resources under restraint.
Crowley: …guard resources as his jewel a toad.4
(Legge 1899, p. 88; Crowley 1998, p. 90)
Here Crowley’s image is a vivid one, yet outside the Chinese meaning, which is
about the prudence of hiding one’s talent and possessions.
Crowley did frequently refer to his consultations in his private diaries; these entries
suggest that he consulted it in a serious mood, hoping for practical advice for a life that
was more troubled than glamorous.5 These records of Yijing consultation have some
4 The toadstone was a mythical gem that would supposedly serve as an antidote to poisons.
5 Here we can briefly revisit de Fancourt’s claim that “Crowley was probably the first Westerner to
actually regularly divine using the Yi.” This is almost certainly incorrect. Wilhelm likely used the
oracle, Jung certainly did, and the history of Western interest goes back to Joachim Bouvet, S.J.
(1656–1730) and Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716). In the modern era, Crowley may have been the
first person to regularly consult the Yijing, but priority is not particularly important here and also
unprovable.
216 G. Redmond
interest, particularly because we have surprisingly few records of actual divinations

with the classic, even from traditional China. I have emphasized that Crowley seemed
to have kept his Yijing use separate from his magical posturing and used it when he
needed sound advice. I would take this further and suggest that for many others who
left no record, it served also a voice of sanity to help remain grounded amidst the
Sixties-Seventies culture in which craziness often seemed about to take over.
6 The Meaning of the Yijing for the Postwar Generation
Not only the hippies, the entire counterculture also had ample reasons to want a
way of life that did not involve war and early death, with anxieties intensified by
the recent war in Korea and the ongoing war in Vietnam. These terrible events did
much to shake faith in Western civilization. The burst of hedonism in the Sixties and
Seventies, however, was transient and did not resolve the underlying angst.
The hippie movement was at root based on fashion, not on any lasting values. In
photographs, hippies have very long hair, may be dancing, and wear wild clothes,
such as tie-dyed T-shirts. These affectations replaced the more somber Beatnik vogue
for black turtlenecks and berets. For most, the hippie look was simply a safe gesture
of rebellion. The more extreme hippies, such as those in San Francisco’s notorious
Haight-Ashbury district, were heavily drug-addicted, with a dysfunctional lifestyle
not at all appealing at close range. Rather than being spiritual, many were petty
criminals indulging in shoplifting, euphemistically referred to as “liberating the
purloined items.” This slang exemplifies the shallow references to revolution that
were common in the era.
Hippies were disdained by the great majority of the American population and even
more so by those of other countries for whom life challenges did not permit such
frivolity. Their colorful appearance gave them media visibility to the point where
they were sometimes mistaken as representative of their entire generation. This was
fortunately not the case. The situation was not helped by adults who encouraged this
lifestyle, notably Timothy Leary (1920–1996), briefly a Harvard psychologist, who
became its most eloquent huckster with his toxic slogans of “Tune in, turn on, and
drop out” and “If you don’t drop out, you’re a cop out.” Years later, after the peak
of his fame, I was at a small gathering where he spoke. His vitality was gone, and
in response to questions, he stated apologetically, “Because of some of the things
I’ve done, I can’t answer questions too well.” More recently, I met another advocate
of hallucinogen use who spoke eloquently, but when I asked him about its adverse
effects after his talk, he was too confused to answer this very basic question.
It is a sad irony that the quest for chemical enlightenment could instead cause
cognitive impairment. It is important, however, to keep in mind that those seduced
by the excesses of the Sixties and Seventies were a minority. In contrast, the Yijing
and other newly available spiritual works were mind-expanding in safe ways. Many,
including myself, benefited greatly from our engagement with these texts. If there is
a way to sum up the Sixties and Seventies, it was a time of opportunities and dangers,
with the Yijing being one of the opportunities.
Not all who became acquainted with the Yijing came away with a positive impres-
sion though; its esteem in China did not protect it from disparagement in the West.
This was mostly from an ideologically oriented movement which I call “dogmatic
skepticism.” Two journals, the Skeptical Inquirer and the Skeptic, devote each issue
to attempting to discredit modes of thought that they consider erroneous. Some who
contribute are scientists, others are philosophers, notably the late Paul Kurtz, philos-
ophy professor and author of many books such as The Transcendental Temptation:
A Critique of Religion and the Paranormal.
The subjects attacked by these crusaders include eccentric theories such as
Atlantis, UFOs, lost ancient civilizations, ghost sightings, and the like. At times,
the Yijing has come under their scrutiny, finding it “no more illuminating than the
advice found inside fortune cookies.” (Sullivan 2009). Another of Charles Sullivan’s
dismissive comments is unintentionally revealing: “Other advice offered by the I
Ching is much harder to understand and may refer to ancient, culturally specific
Chinese symbols and proverbs.” (Ibid). The critic unwittingly reveals his own intol-
erance in dismissing these ancient “symbols and proverbs.” Yet, he failed to consider
that this obscurity may be in part due to reading it in translation as well as to his own
admitted unfamiliarity with the culture. Instead of trying to discover why the greatest
Chinese philosophers expressed admiration for the Yijing as a book of wisdom, he
reduces it to the level of fortune cookies. At root is the archetype of the inscrutable
East. This critique is basically a straw man argument, showing no knowledge of the
actual book and its culture.
A more serious question is whether the use of the Yijing in the Sixties and Seventies
had any real relation to how it was understood in traditional China. After all, there is
nothing in the Chinese classic about the countercultural themes of free sex, drug use,
or social transformation. The best answer, I think, is that there was more to the Beat
Generation than, to use a common slogan, “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” Many
were seriously interested in learning about other cultures and self-exploration. The
latter was Zhu Xi’s approach to the Yijing, although the West did not have this rich
commentarial tradition to augment their studies.
While practitioners’ interest in the Yijing may be waning, scholarly interest seems
to be reviving. The unearthing of previously unknown manuscripts beginning in the
1970s has since revitalized the study of early China, and also provided background
for work on the later history of these texts. Shaughnessy’s meticulous publication of
the important excavated Zhouyi texts, Unearthing the Changes: Recently Discovered
Manuscripts of the Yi Jing (I Ching) and Related Texts (2014), greatly facilitates study
of its early meanings.
In traditional China, the Yijing was usually approached through the commentaries
of Wang Bi, Cheng Yi, and Zhu Xi. Richard John Lynn’s translation, based on Wang’s
commentary, has been available for several years. Very recently, the commentaries
of Cheng and Zhu have been translated by L. Michael Harrington—The Yi River
Commentary on the Book of Changes (2019)—and Joseph Adler—The Original
Meaning of the Yijing: Commentary (2019)—respectively. These are indispensable
for further scholarship on the later tradition of Yijing interpretation. Also essential
is Richard J. Smith’s comprehensive account of the commentarial tradition from
its beginnings to modern times—Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World:
218 G. Redmond
The Yijing (I-Ching or Classic of Changes) and its Evolution in China (2008) and
The I Ching: A Biography (2012). Thus, for the first time, Anglophone readers have
the essential materials needed for serious study of the Yijing in Chinese intellectual
history.
Ironically, much less is available regarding the Yijing in the twentieth-century
West. This study is offered as a beginning effort in this direction. There were many
other influences on American and European cultures during the Sixties and Seventies,
but the Yijing, as a part of Asian philosophy and religion, was an important one and
merits further study.
The vogue for the Yijing has passed, although interest in it persists among a smaller
number. Overall, there seems to be less interest on the part of the young in learning
about divination techniques. Astrology teachers told me that they now had fewer
students, and that many dropped out when they realized how difficult it was. In
contrast, it is easy to casually consult the Yijing by tossing coins and finding the
indicated hexagram and line, though such responses probably have little relation to
what the Chinese text would mean.
People still like having divinatory readings, however. Whenever I lecture about
the Yijing to lay audiences, I offer to do readings after the talk. There are always
many who come forward for this. I even have requests for readings during social
time at scientific meetings. Scientists may be skeptical of divination in the abstract
but many are happy to try it out if the opportunity presents itself. For a fact, divination
continues to have widespread appeal. I myself perform divination, with the Yijing,
without encouraging inquirers to take it entirely seriously, because I feel this is
essential for understanding the classic. Divination is interactive and so actual use of
the Yijing is a somewhat different experience than simply reading it.
Some dispute that the Yijing was originally a divination manual, insisting that it
was always a book of wisdom. Reconstruction of the early meanings demonstrates
that this is improbable. Even Zhu Xi, who advocated using the Yijing for personal
moral edification, believed that it began as a divination manual. The philosophical
interest was largely the result of the addition of the Ten Wings during the Han,
especially the Great Commentary (Dazhuan 大傳) and Explanation of the Diagrams
(Shuogua 說卦). How the early Zhou text acquired these is one of the great mysteries
of Chinese intellectual history. In the West, few, besides early China specialists, were
aware of the differences between the early text and the Ten Wings; the format of the
Wilhelm-Baynes translation makes it practically impossible to distinguish them. For
most of its three millennia, however, the Yijing was both a divination manual and a
compendium of wisdom.
There is another likely reason for what I perceive as a less general interest in
Chinese classics. Since the fateful 1972 meeting of then President Richard M. Nixon
with Chairman Mao Zedong that led to the opening of China, it has been possible for
Westerners to experience China directly rather than only second-hand through books
or other sources. Chinese are now a presence in the West, particularly at universities.
Actually experiencing China and Chinese people tends to dispel the fantasy of the
mysterious East, and thus takes away some of the mystique of its previously obscure
classics. One result seems to be a much greater interest in contemporary China than
in its traditional culture.
The Western counterculture was less interested in other cultures for their own
sake, than in the hope of finding spiritual values that they felt were lacking in their
own society. The hope was to find ways of expanding consciousness, which might be
mystical art such as mandalas, texts with methodology for self-exploration such as the
Yijing, and of course, drugs. Many were satisfied with a brief frisson from contact with
the exotic, while others were more serious, wanting to learn in depth about the other
tradition, while seeking spiritual meaning at the same time. Some are skeptical of this
approach. Wouter Hanegraaff has used the term “religionist” to describe scholarship
on religion, such as that of Mircea Eliade, which seeks spiritual values in the traditions
it studies, thus being potentially less objective. The term is useful, but I think it is
more helpful to borrow the etic/emic distinction from anthropology, in which both are
legitimate. The Yijing practitioner essentially attempts an emic perspective, seeking
to experience it from within. This is how it was used in traditional China, and so,
in my view, that can add to our appreciation of the classic. There can be a conflict
in that the etic, or objective, philological analysis of the early meanings produces a
work quite different from the later Confucianized ones. The practitioner has more at
stake because the work may seem to lose its spiritual content, while the objectively
oriented scholar can follow where the evidence leads.
It seems to me unavoidable that there will continue to be a divide between Yijing
practitioners and scholars, though a minority will belong to both groups. I suspect that
the number of practitioners will shrink, while more scholars will become interested,
though it will remain a niche field within sinology. Practitioners now seem to stick
closer to the book itself; there is much less of the wild speculation typical of the
Sixties and Seventies that associated it with quantum physics or hallucinogens. The
story of Fu Xi seeing the trigrams (or the Luoshu 洛書 Square in some accounts) in the
Yellow River is an appealing one, as is King Wu writing the texts while imprisoned.
Taking these literally gives a much distorted sense of Chinese historical chronology.
Translation continues to be a controversial issue with the Yijing. My own trans-
lation is an attempt to provide a readable yet accurate English rendition of the early
Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE) meanings with complete, yet concise, explanations
(Redmond 2017). I have tried to make it useful for ordinary readers and scholars alike.
There remains need for translations based on different eras and interpretive schools.6
I continue to believe that there is room for more scholarship on the Yijing from a
Western perspective. Many interesting questions remain regarding this mysterious
6 I am not trying to deter anyone from using the Wilhelm-Baynes translation. Much of it is excellent,
notably the translation of the Dazhuan, which is both clear and poetic; the Shuogua, despite an
intrinsically difficult text, is also well translated.
220 G. Redmond
ancient work. The Yijing is inexhaustible, continually appearing in new guises with
fresh interpretations. It influenced the Beat Generation in the past and will continue
to inspire new generations in the Western world.
References
Blackmore, Susan. 1996. In Search of the Light. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Blackmore, Susan. 2004. Consciousness: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Capra, Fritjof. 1999. The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics
and Eastern Mysticism, 4th ed. Boston: Shambhala.
Carus, Paul. 1907. Chinese Thought. New York: Open Court Press.
Crowley, Aleister. 1998. Yi King: A Beastly Book of Changes. In Red Flame: A Thelemic Research
Journal, Issue No. 5, ed. J. Edward, and Marlene Cornelius. Berkeley: Red Flame.
de Fancourt, William. 2000. Review: Yi King—A Beastly Book of Changes. The Oracle: The Journal
of Yijing Studies 2 (10): 46–47.
Jung, Carl G. 1950. Foreword. In The I Ching or Book of Changes, Richard Wilhelm, trans. Cary
F. Baynes, xxi–xxxix. New York: Bollingen Foundation, Pantheon Books.
Jung, Carl G. 1973. Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, trans. R.F.C. Hull. Princeton:
Princeton University Press Bollingen Series.
Kaczynski, Richard. 2010 [2002]. Perdurabo, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Life of Aleister
Crowley. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
Koch, Ulla Susanne. 2010. Three Strikes and You’re Out! A View on Cognitive Theory and the
First-Millennium Extispicy Ritual. In Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World,
ed. Amar Annus, 43–59. Chicago/Illinois: The University of Chicago Press.
Legge, James, trans. 1899. The Yi King (Sacred Books of the East, vol. XVI). Rpt. New York: Dover,
1963. http://ctext.org/shang-shu/marquis-oflu-on-punishments.
Lynn, Richard John. 1994. The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted
by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press.
McClatchie, Rev. Canon Thomas. 1872. The Symbols of the Yeh King. The China Review 1(3):
151–163.
McKenna, Dennis J., and Terence McKenna. 1993 [1975]. The Invisible Landscape: Mind,
Hallucinogens, and the I Ching. New York: Seabury.
Needham, Joseph. 1956. Science and Civilization in China, Volume 2: History of Scientific Thought.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pound, Ezra. 1970. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions.
Qian, Zhaoming (ed.). 2008. Ezra Pound’s Chinese Friends: Stories in Letters. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Redmond, Geoffrey. 2017. The I Ching (Book of Changes): A Critical Translation of the Early Text.
London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Redmond, Geoffrey, and Tze-ki Hon. 2014. Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes). Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Richards, Jill. 1999. I Ching Companion: An Answer for Every Question. York Beach, ME: Weiser
Books.
Shaughnessy, Edward L. 1996. I Ching, The Classic of Changes: The First English Translation of
the Newly Discovered Second-Century B.C. Mawangdui Texts. New York: Ballantine.
Stevens, Jay. 1988. Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream. New York: Perennial Library.
Sullivan, Charles. 2009. What’s Wrong with the I Ching: Ambiguity, Obscurity, and Synchronicity.
Skeptical Inquirer 33: 40–42.
Tedlock, Barbara. 2001. Divination as a Way of Knowing: Embodiment, Visualisation, Narrative,
and Interpretation. Folklore 112 (2): 189–197.
Terzani, Tiziano. 1997. A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East. New York:
Three Rivers Press.
Webb, James. 1976. The Occult Underground. Chicago: Open Court.
Wilhelm, Richard. 1950. The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Cary F. Baynes. New York:
Bollingen Foundation/Pantheon Books.
Wilhelm, Richard, trans. 1962. The Secret of the Golden Flower, revised from 1931 Edition.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Geoffrey Redmond is a USA-based independent scholar of the Yijing. He is a physician by MD

training. He is interested in the translation and education of the Yijing. He is the author of The I
Ching (Book of Changes): A Critical Translation of the Early Text (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017)
and a co-author of Teaching the Yijing (Book of Changes) (Oxford University Press, 2014).

2021 Book TheMakingOfTheGlobalYijingInTh

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

2021 Book TheMakingOfTheGlobalYijingInTh

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chinese Culture 4

Benjamin Wai-ming Ng Editor

Globality, Connectivity and Modernity

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10100

The Making of the Global

ISSN 2662-9755 ISSN 2662-9763 (electronic)

I have chosen to call this process “transnationalism”—even though it occurred well

several minor corrections was issued in 2017.

Despite these interpretive complexities, and perhaps in part because of them,

Smith 2012a and at somewhat greater length in Smith 2020.

anonymous reviewers, to the contributors to this volume and to my research assistant

September 2020 Benjamin Wai-ming Ng

1 Brief Introduction: Welcome to the World of Global Yijing . . . . . . . . 1

Part I Global Understanding of the Multiple Meanings of the

Part II The Yijing in Christianity and Modernization in Modern

Part III The Yijing in Modern Science and Popular Culture in

About the Editor

Benjamin Wai-ming Ng is a Professor of Japanese Studies at The Chinese Univer-

Joseph A. Adler Department of Religious Studies, Kenyon College, Gambier, USA

Benjamin Wai-ming Ng Department of Japanese Studies, The Chinese University

found in Richard J. Smith’s scholarship (Smith 2013).

Benjamin Wai-ming Ng is a Professor of Japanese Studies at The Chinese University of Hong

Thus, neither ritual nor self-cultivation in Confucianism is commonly understood to

2 Divination and Sacrifice

3 Confucian Ritual in the Song

so to speak, of Chinese culture.15 So Fu Xi’s creation of the hexagrams and divination

layers of the Yijing.

4 Divination and Sagehood

of behavior on one’s own (Smith et al. 1990, pp. 202–204).

In his commentary on Mencius 7A.1 (quoted above), Zhu says:

And in his “Treatise on the Examination of the Mind,” Zhu says:

So the sage, according to Zhu, is a person whose mind is sensitive enough to be

27 Yijing, Xici A.5.6 (Adler 2020, p. 270).

30 Yijing, Xici A.11.2 (Ibid, p. 280).

Dennis Kat-hung Cheng

2 Issues in the Translations of the Yijing Text

Minford (2015, p. 571) also translates qian 謙 as “rats.”

3 From Variation to Polysemy

12 In volume 1 of his Kunxue jiwen 困學紀聞 (A Collection of Audible Knowledge in Endure

means one sichen is equal to two hours.

1. In the fifth line of Hexagram #3 Zhun 屯 (Difficulty in the Beginning)—zhun

4 Closing the Hermeneutic Circle?: From Language

yi 易 (convenience) and jian 簡 (simplicity). Without mentioning or echoing the

(2014, pp. xiv–xviii) and Li (1997, p. 2).

p. 140) with slight modifications.

2 The Yijing as Moral Teachings of the Shang-Zhou

Legge, a professor of Chinese at Oxford University, joined the renewed project

3 The Zhouyi as a Bronze Age Document

In contrast to the Christianized appropriation of the Yijing by McClatchie and its

article “Zhouyi guayaoci zhong de gushi” 周易卦爻辭中的故事 (Stories among the

bushes,” instead of the traditional explanation “cultivating”; #5 Xu 需 is understood

Although context criticism is a dynamic method, Shaughnessy targeted it specifi-

interpreted as “oversee” without a note.13 (Ibid, p. 277) #27 Yi 頤 becomes “molars”

2 The Philosophical Context of Ancient Greece

Regardless of how accurate it is to ascribe the relativist position to the sophists

3 Language and Metaphysics in Plato’s Cratylus

4 The Philosophical Framework of the Xici

or Shen (2013), pp. 17–38.

(2003), pp. 100–112.

Another much-quoted passage deals with the same cosmological scheme:

Despite the lack of an appearance-reality distinction in the Xici, the complexity

5 Language and Reality in the Xici

Language shows how people should comport themselves through clusters of

Given this political function of language, appending statements to the hexagrams