The "I Ching": A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books)

The "I Ching": A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books)

Richard J. Smith

Language: English

Pages: 304

ISBN: 0691145091

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


The I Ching originated in China as a divination manual more than three thousand years ago. In 136 BCE the emperor declared it a Confucian classic, and in the centuries that followed, this work had a profound influence on the philosophy, religion, art, literature, politics, science, technology, and medicine of various cultures throughout East Asia. Jesuit missionaries brought knowledge of the I Ching to Europe in the seventeenth century, and the American counterculture embraced it in the 1960s. Here Richard Smith tells the extraordinary story of how this cryptic and once obscure book became one of the most widely read and extensively analyzed texts in all of world literature.

In this concise history, Smith traces the evolution of the I Ching in China and throughout the world, explaining its complex structure, its manifold uses in different cultures, and its enduring appeal. He shows how the indigenous beliefs and customs of Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Tibet "domesticated" the text, and he reflects on whether this Chinese classic can be compared to religious books such as the Bible or the Qur'an. Smith also looks at how the I Ching came to be published in dozens of languages, providing insight and inspiration to millions worldwide--including ardent admirers in the West such as Leibniz, Carl Jung, Philip K. Dick, Allen Ginsberg, Hermann Hesse, Bob Dylan, Jorge Luis Borges, and I. M. Pei. Smith offers an unparalleled biography of the most revered book in China's entire cultural tradition, and he shows us how this enigmatic ancient classic has become a truly global phenomenon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

particular. Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and until 1978, this intellectual struggle persisted as part of the larger political rivalry between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. But intellectual liberalization in the PRC after 1978 vastly expanded the interpretive parameters of Yijing scholarship, as well as the scope of more popular writing. Confucianism (and, to a lesser degree, Buddhism and Daoism) was no longer a dirty word on the mainland, and the past

calendrical studies, geography, religion, popular lore, and a wide range of divinatory theories and practices. Moreover several Le dynasty scholars became quite famous for their writings on the Changes—notably Nguyen Binh Khiem (1491–1585), the preeminent Nom poet of his age and a man known popularly today as the “Vietnamese Nostradamus.” Philosophically Nguyen used the Yijing to unite Neo-Confucian metaphysics with Daoism and Buddhism. He also gained fame as an able and insightful exponent of

described it as the product of “pseudoscientific delirium”), but recent work by other scholars suggests its essential validity.22 James Legge began his translation of the Changes in 1854, with the later assistance of a Chinese scholar, Wang Tao (1828–97). But for various reasons it was not completed for another twenty years or so.23 Like the Jesuits Legge believed that the Confucian classics were compatible with Christian beliefs, but he was not a Figurist.24 In addition to denouncing McClatchie

of Changes, 121–24; cf. R. Wilhelm, I Ching, 265–79. 30.  Ibid (both sources). 31.  Lynn, Classic of Changes, 80–81, 90–92; cf. R. Wilhelm, I Ching, 337–38, 349–51. 32.  Lynn, Classic of Changes, 103; cf. R. Wilhelm, I Ching, 276. 33.  See Lynn, Classic of Changes, 113–16, slightly modified; cf. R. Wilhelm, I Ching. Wilhelm divides this commentary, which he translates as “Miscellaneous Notes,” under each individual hexagram in Book III. 34.  Lynn, Classic of Changes, 87–89, modified; cf. R.

hexagrams are linked by oppositional line statements. In the Lü hexagram (number 56), we encounter the phrase “he gets his money-axes”; in the Sun hexagram (number 57), “he loses his money-axes.” In the Tongren hexagram (number 13), the subject of the fifth line first cries out and then laughs, while in the sixth line of Lü (number 56), the subject first laughs and then cries out. Of particular interest to Chinese commentators have been shared lines or phrases in hexagrams that seem to be

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