97-592: Zhou Yi may refer to: The I Ching , also known as Zhouyi , one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts Zhou Yi (Jin Dynasty) (269–322), style name Boren, official of the Western and Eastern Jin dynasties Zhou Yi (musician) , Shanghai born and New York-based Chinese pipa virtuoso Zhou Yi (softball) (born 1983), female Chinese softball player who competed at
194-479: A collocation of two words A–B that cannot be idiomatically reversed as B–A, for example, English cat and mouse (not * mouse and cat ) and friend or foe (not * foe or friend ). Similarly, the usual pattern among Chinese binomial compounds is for positive A and negative B, where the A word is dominant or privileged over B. For example, tiandi 天地 "heaven and earth" and nannü 男女 "men and women". Yinyang meaning "dark and light; female and male; moon and sun",
291-552: A complete mystery to academics. Regardless of their historical relation to the text, the philosophical depth of the Ten Wings made the I Ching a perfect fit to Han period Confucian scholarship. The inclusion of the Ten Wings reflects a widespread recognition in ancient China, found in the Zuo zhuan and other pre-Han texts, that the I Ching was a rich moral and symbolic document useful for more than professional divination. Arguably
388-642: A concept that originated in ancient Chinese philosophy that describes how opposite or contrary forces may create each other by their comparison and are to be seen as actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. In Daoist philosophy, dark and light, yin and yang, arrive in the Tao Te Ching at chapter 42. It becomes sensible from an initial quiescence or emptiness ( wuji , sometimes symbolized by an empty circle), and continues moving until quiescence
485-576: A consensus formed around 2nd-century AD scholar Ma Rong 's attribution of the text to the joint work of Fuxi, King Wen of Zhou, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius , but this traditional attribution is no longer generally accepted. Another tradition about the I Ching was that most of it was written by Tang of Shang . The basic unit of the Zhou yi is the hexagram ( 卦 guà ), a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines ( 爻 yáo ). Each line
582-408: A cycle. Creation as part of yang, and destruction as part of yin, progress on one side (yang) and entropy on the other side (yin), is represented in the cycles. Yin is the black side, and yang is the white side. Other color arrangements have included the white of yang being replaced by red. The taijitu is sometimes accompanied by other shapes, such as bagua . The relationship between yin and yang
679-512: A method of yarrow stalk divination that is still used throughout the Far East. In the modern period, Gao Heng attempted his own reconstruction, which varies from Zhu Xi in places. Another divination method , employing coins, became widely used in the Tang dynasty and is still used today. In the modern period; alternative methods such as specialized dice and cartomancy have also appeared. In
776-625: A misreading of the Records of the Grand Historian . Although it rested on historically shaky grounds, the association of the I Ching with Confucius gave weight to the text and was taken as an article of faith throughout the Han and Tang dynasties. The I Ching was not included in the burning of the Confucian classics , and textual evidence strongly suggests that Confucius did not consider
873-530: A mistake or typographical error for the Chinese loanword yin-yang —yet they are not equivalents. Chinese does have some yangyin collocations , such as 洋銀 (lit. "foreign silver") "silver coin/dollar", but not even the most comprehensive dictionaries (e.g., the Hanyu Da Cidian ) enter yangyin * 陽陰 . While yang and yin can occur together in context, yangyin is not synonymous with yinyang . The linguistic term " irreversible binomial " refers to
970-583: A more rigorous representation and interpretation of I Ching. Gao Heng , an expert in pre-Qin China, re-investigated its use as a Zhou dynasty oracle. Edward Shaughnessy proposed a new dating for the various strata of the text. New archaeological discoveries have enabled a deeper level of insight into how the text was used in the centuries before the Qin dynasty. Proponents of newly reconstructed Western Zhou readings, which often differ greatly from traditional readings of
1067-733: A mountain or the north bank of a river will receive more direct sunlight than the opposite side. Yang refers to the "south side of a hill" in Hengyang 衡陽 , which is south of Mount Heng 衡山 in Hunan province, and to the "north bank of a river" in Luoyang 洛陽 , which is located north of the Luo River 洛河 in Henan . Similarly, yin refers to "north side of a hill" in Huayin 華陰 , which
SECTION 10
#17327753449781164-478: A mountain)" with the uncommon English geographic terms ubac "shady side of a mountain" and adret "sunny side of a mountain" (which are of French origin ). Many Chinese place names or toponyms contain the word yang "sunny side" and a few contain yin "shady side". In China , as elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere , sunlight comes predominantly from the south, and thus the south face of
1261-405: A notable impact on the 1960s counterculture and on 20th century cultural figures such as Philip K. Dick , John Cage , Jorge Luis Borges , Terence McKenna and Hermann Hesse . Joni Mitchell references the six yang hexagram in "Amelia", a song on the album Hejira , where she describes the image of "...six jet planes leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain...". It also inspired
1358-415: A primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang, form and matter. 'Yin' is retractive, passive and contractive in nature, while 'yang' is repelling, active and expansive in principle, this dichotomy in some form, is seen in all things in nature—patterns of change and difference, such as biological and seasonal cycles, evolution of the landscape over days, weeks, years and eons (with
1455-443: A rich history in the language, their etymologies and evolution analyzable through lenses of orthography , phonology , and meanings . The Chinese characters 陰 and 陽 are both considered to be phono-semantic compounds , with semantic component 阝 'mound', 'hill' , a graphical variant of 阜 —with the phonetic components 今 ; jīn (and the added semantic component 云 ; yún ; 'cloud') and 昜 ; yáng . In
1552-535: A synthesis of the two, arguing that the text was primarily a work of divination that could be used in the process of moral self-cultivation, or what the ancients called "rectification of the mind" in the Great Learning . Zhu Xi's reconstruction of I Ching yarrow stalk divination , based in part on the Great Commentary account, became the standard form and is still in use today. As China entered
1649-471: Is a concept that originated in Chinese philosophy , describing an opposite but interconnected, self-perpetuating cycle. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary and at the same time opposing forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts and the parts are important for cohesion of the whole. In Chinese cosmology , the universe creates itself out of
1746-416: Is a modern invention. Yin and yang are represented by broken and solid lines: yin is broken ( ⚋ ) and yang is solid ( ⚊ ). Different constructions of three yin and yang lines lead to eight trigrams (八卦) namely, Qian (乾, ☰), Dui (兌, ☱), Li (離, ☲), Zhen (震, ☳), Xun (巽, ☴), Kan (坎, ☵), Gen (艮, ☶), and Kun (坤, ☷). The different combinations of the two trigrams lead to 64 hexagrams. The following table numbers
1843-496: Is an exception. Scholars have proposed various explanations for why yinyang violates this pattern, including "linguistic convenience" (it is easier to say yinyang than yangyin ), the idea that "proto-Chinese society was matriarchal", or perhaps, since yinyang first became prominent during the late Warring States period, this term was "purposely directed at challenging persistent cultural assumptions". Joseph Needham discusses yin and yang together with Five Elements as part of
1940-602: Is an indivisible whole. In the ethics of Confucianism on the other hand, most notably in the philosophy of Dong Zhongshu ( c. 2nd century BC), a moral dimension is attached to the idea of yin and yang. The Ahom philosophy of duality of the individual self han and pu is quite similar to yin and yang of Taoism. The tradition was originated in Yunnan , China and followed by some Ahom , descendants of Dai ethnic Minority . The Chinese terms 陰 ; yīn ; 'dark side' and 陽 ; yáng ; 'light side' have
2037-398: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages I Ching The I Ching or Yijing ( Chinese : 易經 , Mandarin: [î tɕíŋ] ), usually translated Book of Changes or Classic of Changes , is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics . The I Ching
SECTION 20
#17327753449782134-404: Is either broken or unbroken. The received text of the Zhou yi contains all 64 possible hexagrams, along with the hexagram's name ( 卦名 guàmíng ), a short hexagram statement ( 彖 tuàn ), and six line statements ( 爻辭 yáocí ). The statements were used to determine the results of divination, but the reasons for having two different methods of reading the hexagram are not known, and it
2231-513: Is most associated with these theories. Although yin and yang are not mentioned in any of the surviving documents of Zou Yan, his school was known as the Yin Yang Jia (Yin and Yang School). Needham concludes "There can be very little doubt that the philosophical use of the terms began about the beginning of the 4th century, and that the passages in older texts which mention this use are interpolations made later than that time." Yin and yang are
2328-567: Is north of Mount Hua 華山 in Shaanxi province. In Japan , the characters are used in western Honshu to delineate the north-side San'in region 山陰 from the south-side San'yō region 山陽 , separated by the Chūgoku Mountains 中国山地 . English yin , yang , and yin-yang are familiar loanwords of Chinese origin . The Oxford English Dictionary defines: yin (jɪn) Also Yin , Yn . [Chinese yīn shade, feminine;
2425-420: Is not explained, and none of the stories employ predetermined commentaries, patterns, or interpretations. Only the hexagrams and line statements are used. By the 4th century BC, the authority of the Zhou yi was also cited for rhetorical purposes, without relation to any stated divination. The Zuo Zhuan does not contain records of private individuals, but Qin dynasty records found at Shuihudi show that
2522-457: Is not known how the yarrow stalks became numbers, or how specific lines were chosen from the line readings. In the hexagrams, broken lines were used as shorthand for the numbers 6 ( 六 ) and 8 ( 八 ), and solid lines were shorthand for values of 7 ( 七 ) and 9 ( 九 ). The Great Commentary contains a late classic description of a process where various numerological operations are performed on a bundle of 50 stalks, leaving remainders of 6 to 9. Like
2619-527: Is not known why hexagram statements would be read over line statements or vice versa. The book opens with the first hexagram statement, yuán hēng lì zhēn ( 元亨利貞 ). These four words are often repeated in the hexagram statements and were already considered an important part of I Ching interpretation in the 6th century BC. Edward Shaughnessy describes this statement as affirming an "initial receipt" of an offering, "beneficial" for further "divining". The word zhēn ( 貞 , ancient form [REDACTED] )
2716-816: Is perhaps cognate with Chinese chāng < *k-hlaŋ 昌 ; 'prosperous', 'bright' (compare areal words like Tai plaŋ 'bright' & Proto- Viet-Muong hlaŋ ). To this word-family, Unger also includes 炳 ; bǐng < *pl(j)aŋʔ 'bright'; however Schuessler reconstructs 炳 ; bǐng 's Old Chinese pronunciation as *braŋʔ and includes it in an Austroasiatic word family, besides 亮 ; liàng < *raŋh 爽 ; shuǎng < *sraŋʔ 'twilight of dawn'; míng < *mraŋ 明 'bright', 'become light', 'enlighten'; owing to "the different OC initial consonant which seems to have no recognizable OC morphological function". Yin and yang are semantically complex words. John DeFrancis 's ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary gives
2813-453: Is reached again. For instance, dropping a stone in a calm pool of water will simultaneously raise waves and lower troughs between them, and this alternation of high and low points in the water will radiate outward until the movement dissipates and the pool is calm once more. Yin and yang thus are always opposite and equal qualities and create and control each other. Whenever one quality reaches its peak, it will naturally begin to transform into
2910-413: The 1911 Revolution , the I Ching lost its significance in political philosophy, but it maintained cultural influence as one of China's most ancient texts. Chinese writers offered parallels between the I Ching and subjects such as linear algebra and logic in computer science , aiming to demonstrate that ancient Chinese cosmology had anticipated Western discoveries. The sinologist Joseph Needham took
3007-576: The Eastern Han , I Ching interpretation divided into two schools, originating in a dispute over minor differences between different editions of the received text. The first school, known as New Text criticism, was more egalitarian and eclectic, and sought to find symbolic and numerological parallels between the natural world and the hexagrams. Their commentaries provided the basis of the School of Images and Numbers . The other school, Old Text criticism,
Zhou Yi - Misplaced Pages Continue
3104-686: The I Ching was an influential text across East Asia. In 1557, the Korean Neo-Confucianist philosopher Yi Hwang produced one of the most influential I Ching studies of the early modern era, claiming that the spirit was a principle ( li ) and not a material force ( qi ). Hwang accused the Neo-Confucian school of having misread Zhu Xi. His critique proved influential not only in Korea but also in Japan. Other than this contribution,
3201-725: The I Ching —known in Korean as the Yeok Gyeong ( 역경 )—was not central to the development of Korean Confucianism, and by the 19th century, I Ching studies were integrated into the silhak reform movement. In medieval Japan, secret teachings on the I Ching —known in Japanese as the Eki Kyō ( 易経 )—were publicized by Rinzai Zen master Kokan Shiren and the Shintoist Yoshida Kanetomo during
3298-636: The School of Naturalists . He says that it would be proper to begin with yin and yang before Five Elements because the former: "lay, as it were, at a deeper level in Nature, and were the most ultimate principles of which the ancient Chinese could conceive. But it so happens that we know a good deal more about the historical origin of the Five-Element theory than about that of the yin and the yang, and it will therefore be more convenient to deal with it first." He then discusses Zou Yan ( 鄒衍 ; 305–240 BC) who
3395-522: The Shuogua attributes to the symbolic function of the hexagrams the ability to understand self, world, and destiny. Throughout the Ten Wings, there are passages that seem to purposefully increase the ambiguity of the base text, pointing to a recognition of multiple layers of symbolism. The Great Commentary associates knowledge of the I Ching with the ability to "delight in Heaven and understand fate;"
3492-515: The Tang dynasty , Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered Kong Yingda to create a canonical edition of the I Ching . Choosing Wang Bi 's 3rd-century Annotated Book of Changes ( Zhōuyì zhù ; 周易注 ) as the official commentary, he added to it further commentary drawing out the subtler details of Wang Bi's explanations. The resulting Right Meaning of the Book of Changes ( Zhōuyì zhèngyì ; 周易正義 ) became
3589-670: The Warring States period ( c. 475 – 221 BC). It is possible that other divination systems existed at this time; the Rites of Zhou name two other such systems, the Lianshan [ zh ] and the Guicang . The name Zhou yi literally means the 'changes' ( 易 ; yì ) of the Zhou dynasty . The 'changes' involved have been interpreted as the transformations of hexagrams, of their lines, or of
3686-525: The Zhou yi a "classic". An ancient commentary on the Zhou yi found at Mawangdui portrays Confucius as endorsing it as a source of wisdom first and an imperfect divination text second. However, since the Ten Wings became canonized by Emperor Wu of Han together with the original I Ching as the Zhou Yi, it can be attributed to the positions of influence from the Confucians in the government. Furthermore,
3783-491: The Zhou yi does not contain any cosmological analogies, the I Ching was read as a microcosm of the universe that offered complex, symbolic correspondences. The official edition of the text was literally set in stone, as one of the Xiping Stone Classics . The canonized I Ching became the standard text for over two thousand years, until alternate versions of the Zhou yi and related texts were discovered in
3880-485: The Zhou yi itself, yarrow stalk divination dates to the Western Zhou period, although its modern form is a reconstruction. The ancient narratives Zuo Zhuan and Guoyu contain the oldest descriptions of divination using the Zhou yi . The two histories describe more than twenty successful divinations conducted by professional soothsayers for royal families between 671 and 487 BC. The method of divination
3977-518: The Zuo Zhuan stories, individual lines of hexagrams are denoted by using the genitive particle zhi ( 之 ), followed by the name of another hexagram where that specific line had another form. In later attempts to reconstruct ancient divination methods, the word zhi was interpreted as a verb meaning 'moving to', an apparent indication that hexagrams could be transformed into other hexagrams. However, there are no instances of "changeable lines" in
Zhou Yi - Misplaced Pages Continue
4074-600: The Zuo Zhuan . In all 12 out of 12 line statements quoted, the original hexagrams are used to produce the oracle. In 136 BC, Emperor Wu of Han named the Zhou yi "the first among the classics", dubbing it the Classic of Changes or I Ching . Emperor Wu's placement of the I Ching among the Five Classics was informed by a broad span of cultural influences that included Confucianism , Taoism , Legalism , yin-yang cosmology , and Wu Xing physical theory. While
4171-638: The 1960s, with the translations of Wilhelm and John Blofeld attracting particular interest. Richard Rutt 's 1996 translation incorporated much of the new archaeological and philological discoveries of the 20th century. The most commonly used English translations of the I Ching are: Other notable English translations include: Yin and yang Model humanity: Main philosophical traditions: Ritual traditions: Devotional traditions: Salvation churches and sects : Confucian churches and sects: Yin and yang ( English: / j ɪ n / , / j æ ŋ / ), also yinyang or yin-yang ,
4268-442: The 1968 song " While My Guitar Gently Weeps " by The Beatles . The modern period also brought a new level of skepticism and rigor to I Ching scholarship. Li Jingchi spent several decades producing a new interpretation of the text, which was published posthumously in 1978. Modern data scientists including Alex Liu proposed to represent and develop I Ching methods with data science 4E framework and latent variable approaches for
4365-556: The 2004 Summer Olympics Zhou Yi (tennis) (born 2005), Chinese tennis player Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Zhou Yi . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zhou_Yi&oldid=1227115688 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
4462-530: The 20th century. Part of the canonization of the Zhou yi bound it to a set of ten commentaries called the Ten Wings . The Ten Wings are of a much later provenance than the Zhou yi , and are the production of a different society. The Zhou yi was written in Early Old Chinese , while the Ten Wings were written in a predecessor to Middle Chinese . The specific origins of the Ten Wings are still
4559-616: The 64 possible sets corresponds to a hexagram , which can be looked up in the I Ching . The hexagrams are arranged in an order known as the King Wen sequence . The interpretation of the readings found in the I Ching has been discussed and debated over the centuries. Many commentators have used the book symbolically, often to provide guidance for moral decision-making, as informed by Confucianism , Taoism and Buddhism . The hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and been paralleled with many other traditional names for
4656-634: The American sinologist Edward Shaughnessy dated its compilation in its current form to the last quarter of the 9th century BC, during the early decades of the reign of King Xuan of Zhou ( r. c. 827 – 782 BC). A copy of the text in the Shanghai Museum corpus of bamboo and wooden slips discovered in 1994 shows that the Zhou yi was used throughout all levels of Chinese society in its current form by 300 BC, but still contained small variations as late as
4753-431: The Far East and was the subject of scholarly commentary. Between the 18th and 20th centuries, it took on an influential role in Western understanding of East Asian philosophical thought. As a divination text, the I Ching is used for a Chinese form of cleromancy known as I Ching divination in which bundles of yarrow stalks are manipulated to produce sets of six apparently random numbers ranging from 6 to 9. Each of
4850-473: The I Ching as mentioned in his writings. The psychologist Carl Jung took interest in the possible universal nature of the imagery of the I Ching , and he introduced an influential German translation by Richard Wilhelm by discussing his theories of archetypes and synchronicity . Jung wrote, "Even to the most biased eye, it is obvious that this book represents one long admonition to careful scrutiny of one's own character, attitude, and motives." The book had
4947-434: The I Ching was central to Leibniz's characteristica universalis , or 'universal language', which in turn inspired the standards of Boolean logic and for Gottlob Frege to develop predicate logic in the late 19th century. In the 20th century, Jacques Derrida identified Hegel's argument as logocentric , but accepted without question Hegel's premise that the Chinese language cannot express philosophical ideas. After
SECTION 50
#17327753449785044-640: The Kamakura era. I Ching studies in Japan took on new importance during the Edo period , during which over 1,000 books were published on the subject by over 400 authors. The majority of these books were serious works of philology, reconstructing ancient usages and commentaries for practical purposes. A sizable minority focused on numerology, symbolism, and divination. During this time, over 150 editions of earlier Chinese commentaries were reprinted across Edo Japan, including several texts that had become lost in China. In
5141-551: The Shanghai Library, was almost certainly arranged in the King Wen sequence, and it has even been proposed that a pottery paddle from the Western Zhou period contains four hexagrams in the King Wen sequence. Whichever of these arrangements is older, it is not evident that the order of the hexagrams was of interest to the original authors of the Zhou yi . The assignment of numbers, binary or decimal, to specific hexagrams,
5238-459: The Ten Wings directly into the central text of the I Ching , creating such a persuasive narrative that Han commentators were no longer considered significant. A century later Han Kangbo added commentaries on the Ten Wings to Wang Bi's book, creating a text called the Zhouyi zhu . The principal rival interpretation was a practical text on divination by the soothsayer Guan Lu . At the beginning of
5335-513: The Ten Wings tends to use diction and phrases such as "the master said", which was previously commonly seen in the Analects , thereby implying the heavy involvement of Confucians in its creation as well as institutionalization. In the canonical I Ching , the hexagrams are arranged in an order dubbed the King Wen sequence after King Wen of Zhou, who founded the Zhou dynasty and supposedly reformed
5432-480: The bottom of the foot without the top). A way to illustrate this idea is to postulate the notion of a race with only women or only men; this race would disappear in a single generation. Yet, women and men together create new generations that allow the race they mutually create (and mutually come from) to survive. The interaction of the two (Heaven and Earth) gives birth to human and therefore the ten thousand things. Yin and yang transform each other: like an undertow in
5529-425: The duality symbolized by yin and yang. This duality, as a unity of opposites , lies at the origins of many branches of classical Chinese science , technology and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of traditional Chinese medicine , and a central principle of different forms of Chinese martial arts and exercise, such as baguazhang , tai chi , daoyin , kung fu and qigong , as well as appearing in
5626-533: The early Edo period, Japanese writers such as Itō Jinsai , Kumazawa Banzan , and Nakae Tōju ranked the I Ching the greatest of the Confucian classics. Many writers attempted to use the I Ching to explain Western science in a Japanese framework . One writer, Shizuki Tadao , even attempted to employ Newton's laws of motion and the Copernican principle within an I Ching cosmology. This line of argument
5723-401: The early modern period, the I Ching took on renewed relevance in both Confucian and Daoist studies. The Kangxi Emperor was especially fond of the I Ching and ordered new interpretations of it. Qing dynasty scholars focused more intently on understanding pre-classical grammar, assisting the development of new philological approaches in the modern period. Like the other Chinese classics,
5820-641: The etymology of modern Chinese words. Compare these Middle Chinese and Old Chinese reconstructions of 陰 ; yīn and 陽 ; yáng : Schuessler gives probable Sino-Tibetan etymologies for both Chinese words. yin < *ʔəm compares with Burmese ʔum 'overcast', 'cloudy', Adi muk-jum 'shade', and Lepcha so'yǔm 'shade'; it is probably cognate with Chinese àn < *ʔə̂mʔ 黯 ; 'dim', 'gloomy' and qīn < *khəm 衾 ; 'blanket'. yang < *laŋ compares with Lepcha a-lóŋ 'reflecting light', Burmese laŋ 'be bright' and ə-laŋ 'light'; and
5917-518: The following translation equivalents. Yin 陰 or 阴 — Noun : ① [philosophy] female/passive/negative principle in nature, ② Surname; Bound morpheme : ① the moon, ② shaded orientation, ③ covert; concealed; hidden, ④ vagina, ⑤ penis, ⑥ of the netherworld, ⑦ negative, ⑧ north side of a hill, ⑨ south bank of a river, ⑩ reverse side of a stele, ⑪ in intaglio; Stative verb : ① overcast, ② sinister; treacherous Yang 陽 or 阳 — Bound morpheme : ① [Chinese philosophy] male/active/positive principle in nature, ②
SECTION 60
#17327753449786014-485: The hexagrams in King Wen order. The sinologist Michael Nylan describes the I Ching as the best-known Chinese book in the world. Eliot Weinberger wrote that it is the most "recognized" Chinese book. In East Asia, it is a foundational text for the Confucian and Daoist philosophical traditions, while in the West, it attracted the attention of Enlightenment intellectuals and prominent literary and cultural figures. During
6111-478: The hexagrams in a format that resembles modern binary numbers , although he did not intend his arrangement to be used mathematically. This arrangement, sometimes called the binary sequence , later inspired Gottfried Leibniz . The 12th century Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi, co-founder of the Cheng–Zhu school, criticized both of the Han dynasty lines of commentary on the I Ching , saying that they were one-sided. He developed
6208-617: The hexagrams were privately consulted to answer questions such as business, health, children, and determining lucky days. The most common form of divination with the I Ching in use today is a reconstruction of the method described in these histories, in the 300 BC Great Commentary , and later in the Huainanzi and the Lunheng . From the Great Commentary ' s description, the Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi reconstructed
6305-409: The image and number work of Jing Fang , Yu Fan and Xun Shuang , is no longer extant. Only short fragments survive, from a Tang dynasty text called Zhou yi jijie . With the fall of the Han, I Ching scholarship was no longer organized into systematic schools. The most influential writer of this period was Wang Bi , who discarded the numerology of Han commentators and integrated the philosophy of
6402-471: The latter, 昜 ; yáng ; 'bright' features 日 ; 'the Sun'; + 示 + 彡 ; 'sunbeam'. The Standard Chinese pronunciation of 陰 is usually the level first tone as yīn with the meaning 'shady', 'cloudy', or sometimes with the falling fourth tone as yìn with the distinct meaning 'to shelter', 'shade'. 陽 ; 'sunny' is always pronounced with
6499-418: The line number, the line statements may make oracular or prognostic statements. Some line statements also contain poetry or references to historical events. Archaeological evidence shows that Zhou dynasty divination was grounded in cleromancy , the production of seemingly random numbers to determine divine intent. The Zhou yi provided a guide to cleromancy that used the stalks of the yarrow plant , but it
6596-419: The line statements, but it is also possible that the line statements were derived from the hexagram names. The line statements, which make up most of the book, are exceedingly cryptic. Each line begins with a word indicating the line number, "base, 2, 3, 4, 5, top", and either the number 6 for a broken line, or the number 9 for a whole line. Hexagrams 1 and 2 have an extra line statement, named yong . Following
6693-424: The method of interpretation. The sequence generally pairs hexagrams with their upside-down equivalents; the eight hexagrams that do not change when turned upside-down, are instead paired with their inversions (exchanging yin and yang lines). Another order, found at Mawangdui in 1973, arranges the hexagrams into eight groups sharing the same upper trigram. But the oldest known manuscript, found in 1987 and now held by
6790-411: The moon.] a. In Chinese philosophy, the feminine or negative principle (characterized by dark, wetness, cold, passivity, disintegration, etc.) of the two opposing cosmic forces into which creative energy divides and whose fusion in physical matter brings the phenomenal world into being. Also attrib . or as adj ., and transf . Cf. yang . b. Comb ., as yin-yang , the combination or fusion of
6887-400: The most important of the Ten Wings is the Great Commentary ( Dazhuan ) or Xi ci , which dates to roughly 300 BC. The Great Commentary describes the I Ching as a microcosm of the universe and a symbolic description of the processes of change. By partaking in the spiritual experience of the I Ching , the Great Commentary states, the individual can understand the deeper patterns of
6984-429: The numbers obtained from the divination. Feng Youlan proposed that the word for 'changes' originally meant 'easy', as in a form of divination easier than the oracle bones , but there is little evidence for this. There is also an ancient folk etymology that sees the character for 'changes' as containing the sun and moon, the cycle of the day. Modern sinologists believe the character to be derived either from an image of
7081-426: The numinous and bright and to classify the myriad things". The Zhou yi itself does not contain this legend and indeed says nothing about its own origins. The Rites of Zhou , however, also claims that the hexagrams of the Zhou yi were derived from an initial set of eight trigrams. During the Han dynasty there were various opinions about the historical relationship between the trigrams and the hexagrams. Eventually,
7178-411: The ocean, every advance is complemented by a retreat, and every rise transforms into a fall. Thus, a seed will sprout from the earth and grow upwards towards the sky—an intrinsically yang movement. Then, when it reaches its full potential height, it will fall. The growth of the top seeks light, while roots grow in darkness. The cycles of the seasons and of plants that progresses or entropies depending on
7275-464: The older wuji ( 無極 ; 'without pole'). In the cosmology pertaining to yin and yang, the material energy which this universe was created from is known as qi . It is believed that the organization of qi in this cosmology of yin and yang has formed the 10 thousand things. Included among these forms are humans. Many natural dualities (such as light and dark , fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of
7372-459: The opposite opinion, arguing that the I Ching had actually impeded scientific development by incorporating all physical knowledge into its metaphysics. However, with the advent of quantum mechanics , physicist Niels Bohr credited the yin and yang symbolism for providing inspiration of his interpretation of the new field, which disproved principles from older Western classical mechanics. The principle of complementarity heavily used concepts from
7469-436: The opposite quality: for example, grain that reaches its full height in summer (fully yang) will produce seeds and die back in winter (fully yin) in an endless cycle. It is impossible to talk about yin or yang without some reference to the opposite, traditionally it is said that Yin and Yang are known by the comparison of each other, since yin and yang are bound together as parts of a mutual whole (for example, there cannot be
7566-475: The original meaning of the words being the north-facing shade and the south-facing brightness of a hill), gender (female and male), as well as the formation of the character of individuals and the grand arc of sociopolitical history in disorder and order. Taiji is a Chinese cosmological term for the "Supreme Ultimate" state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which yin and yang originate. It can be contrasted with
7663-539: The pages of the I Ching and the famous Taoist medical treatise called the Huangdi Neijing The notion of duality can be found in many areas, such as Communities of Practice . The term "dualistic-monism" or dialectical monism has been coined in an attempt to express this fruitful paradox of simultaneous unity and duality. According to this philosophy, everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance, shadow cannot exist without light). Either of
7760-494: The processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing . The core of the I Ching is a Western Zhou divination text called the Changes of Zhou ( Chinese : 周易 ; pinyin : Zhōu yì ). Modern scholars suggest dates ranging between the 10th and 4th centuries BC for the assembly of the text in approximately its current form. Based on a comparison of the language of the Zhou yi with dated bronze inscriptions ,
7857-440: The rising second tone as yáng . Sinologists and historical linguists have reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciations from data in the (7th century CE) Qieyun rhyme dictionary and later rhyme tables , which was subsequently used to reconstruct Old Chinese phonology from rhymes in the (11th–7th centuries BCE) Shijing and phonological components of Chinese characters. Reconstructions of Old Chinese have illuminated
7954-482: The sage who reads it will see cosmological patterns and not despair in mere material difficulties. The Japanese word for 'metaphysics', keijijōgaku ( 形而上学 ) is derived from a statement found in the Great Commentary that "what is above form [ xíng ér shàng ] is called Tao ; what is under form is called a tool". The word has also been borrowed into Korean and re-borrowed back into Chinese. The Ten Wings were traditionally attributed to Confucius , possibly based on
8051-423: The season. In summer it seeks to procure healthier leaves, whittling (entropy) of the plant is in autumn, the degrown plants (destruction) is in winter, growth (creating) of the plant or tree during spring. Where it's gaining or progressing, fully progressed occurs during summer, summer seeks stability as it seeks to keep (progress) the leaves and branches that are healthy, growth and progress reaching its end point of
8148-659: The standard edition of the I Ching through the Song dynasty . By the 11th century, the I Ching was being read as a work of intricate philosophy, as a jumping-off point for examining great metaphysical questions and ethical issues. Cheng Yi , patriarch of the Neo-Confucian Cheng–Zhu school , read the I Ching as a guide to moral perfection. He described the text as a way to for ministers to form honest political factions, root out corruption, and solve problems in government. The contemporary scholar Shao Yong rearranged
8245-504: The sun emerging from clouds, or from the content of a vessel being changed into another. The Zhou yi was traditionally ascribed to the Zhou cultural heroes King Wen of Zhou and the Duke of Zhou , and was also associated with the legendary world ruler Fuxi . According to the canonical Great Commentary , Fuxi observed the patterns of the world and created the eight trigrams ( 八卦 ; bāguà ), "in order to become thoroughly conversant with
8342-426: The sun, ③ male genitals, ④ in relief, ⑤ open; overt, ⑥ belonging to this world, ⑦ [linguistics] masculine, ⑧ south side of a hill, ⑨ north bank of a river The compound yinyang 陰陽 means "yin and yang; opposites; ancient Chinese astronomy; occult arts; astrologer; geomancer; etc." The sinologist Rolf Stein etymologically translates Chinese yin 陰 "shady side (of a mountain)" and yang 陽 "sunny side (of
8439-571: The text, are sometimes called the "modernist school". The I Ching has been translated into Western languages dozens of times. The earliest published complete translation of the I Ching into a Western language was a Latin translation done in the 1730s by the French Jesuit missionary Jean-Baptiste Régis and his companions that was published in Germany in the 1830s. Historically, the most influential Western-language I Ching translation
8536-433: The two cosmic forces; freq. attrib., esp. as yin-yang symbol , a circle divided by an S-shaped line into a dark and a light segment, representing respectively yin and yang , each containing a 'seed' of the other. yang (jæŋ) Also Yang . [Chinese yáng yang, sun, positive, male genitals.] a. In Chinese philosophy, the masculine or positive principle (characterized by light, warmth, dryness, activity, etc.) of
8633-423: The two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin and yang symbol (or taijitu ) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section. In Taoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so, the duality of yin and yang
8730-491: The two opposing cosmic forces into which creative energy divides and whose fusion in physical matter brings the phenomenal world into being. Also attrib. or as adj. Cf. yin . b. Comb. : yang-yin = yin-yang s.v. yin b. For the earliest recorded "yin and yang" usages, the OED cites 1671 for yin and yang , 1850 for yin-yang , and 1959 for yang-yin . In English, yang-yin (like ying-yang ) occasionally occurs as
8827-505: The universe. Among other subjects, it explains how the eight trigrams proceeded from the eternal oneness of the universe through three bifurcations . The other Wings provide different perspectives on essentially the same viewpoint, giving ancient, cosmic authority to the I Ching . For example, the Wenyan provides a moral interpretation that parallels the first two hexagrams, 乾 ( qián ) and 坤 ( kūn ), with Heaven and Earth, and
8924-407: Was Richard Wilhelm 's 1923 German translation, which was translated into English in 1950 by Cary Baynes . Although Thomas McClatchie and James Legge had both translated the text into English already in the 19th century, while Paul-Louis-Félix Philastre and Charles de Harlez had both translated it in the same period into French, the text gained significant traction during the counterculture of
9021-600: Was also used for the verb 'divine' in the oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty , which preceded the Zhou. It also carried meanings of being or making upright or correct, and was defined by the Eastern Han scholar Zheng Xuan as "to enquire into the correctness" of a proposed activity. The names of the hexagrams are usually words that appear in their respective line statements, but in five cases (2, 9, 26, 61, and 63) an unrelated character of unclear purpose appears. The hexagram names could have been chosen arbitrarily from
9118-455: Was criticized by Georg Friedrich Hegel , who proclaimed that binary system and Chinese characters were "empty forms" that could not articulate spoken words with the clarity of the Western alphabet . In their commentary, I Ching hexagrams and Chinese characters were conflated into a single foreign idea, sparking a dialogue on Western philosophical questions such as universality and the nature of communication. The usage of binary in relation to
9215-475: Was later taken up in China by the Qing politician Zhang Zhidong . Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , who was corresponding with Jesuits in China , wrote the first European commentary on the I Ching in 1703. He argued that it proved the universality of binary numbers and theism , since the broken lines, the "0" or "nothingness", cannot become solid lines, the "1" or "oneness", without the intervention of God . This
9312-512: Was more scholarly and hierarchical, and focused on the moral content of the text, providing the basis for the School of Meanings and Principles. The New Text scholars distributed alternate versions of the text and freely integrated non-canonical commentaries into their work, as well as propagating alternate systems of divination such as the Taixuanjing . Most of this early commentary, such as
9409-568: Was originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC). Over the course of the Warring States and early imperial periods (500–200 BC), it transformed into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the Ten Wings . After becoming part of the Chinese Five Classics in the 2nd century BC, the I Ching was the basis for divination practice for centuries across
#977022