I Ching

The I Ching and I Ching (Chinese易经/易经, "Book of Changes " or "Classic of Changes" ) is a collection of line drawings and associated awards. It is the oldest of the Chinese classic texts.

• 3.1 Components and their meaning
• 3.2 The two lines
• 3.3 The four images
• 3.4 The Eight Trigrams
• 3.5 Historical sequences

Name and structure of the collection

I Ching is the spelling in official Chinese Pinyin; alternative spellings: I Jing, Yi Ching, Yi King, Yijing. I Ching is the established by the sinologist Richard Wilhelm translation of the notation in the Lessing -Othmer system in German texts outside of modern Chinese studies, since Pinyin is recognized by the International Organization for Standardization as an international standard since 1982. William crucial for the worldwide reception translation in 1950 was translated into English by Cary F. Baynes, the Title I Ching is. Due to the great success of this translation has been transferred into other European languages. In Spanish, the notations Y Ching ( South America) and I Ching, Yi Jing and in French as well as Yi King in use.

The oldest layer of the book called Zhou Yi (周易, W.-G. Chou I), " the Yi ( change ) of the Zhou ( dynasty ) ". The Zhou Yi consists of 64 groups of six solid or broken lines ( yao爻). The groups are also called hexagrams. In the conventional arrangement, the Zhou Yi is divided into two books, the first of which contains the first thirty -four hexagrams and the second the number 31 to 64 Each hexagram is represented in a uniform manner: A Picture (GUA Xiang卦象), the name ( Guà Míng卦名), a spell, with brief explanations (GUA cí卦 辞) and an explanation of each character ( Yao cí爻 辞).

In addition, the book contains since the 2nd century BC, a series of appended texts that the Ten Wings ( Shi Yi,十 翼) or " comment on Yi " ( Yi Zhuan ,易 传) hot and ten documents consist of seven departments. They are traditionally attributed to Confucius. In some later editions of the first two comments are divided and have been allocated directly to the individual characters.

Originally, however, the characters from the Chinese oracle - practice, more precisely, the yarrow oracle, the sayings come from the spell of tradition and ritual practice. In the scholarly reception since the 4th century BC, there were two traditions of interpretation: The first looked at the work as a manual of divination (eg Liu Shao Yong and Mu ). The other sought a philosophical interpretation (eg, Zheng Xuan, Wang Bi, Han Kangbo ) and looked at the book as a source of cosmological, philosophical and political insights into the subject of insistent philosophical commentary. The popular use of the Zhou Yi as an oracle book but never fell into disuse and the understanding of the text as a " book of wisdom " also coined the European reception.

History and tradition

Genesis

The tradition assumes that the principles of the I Ching are (ren sheng,圣人) on the " called, " ie, the ancestral deity of the clan Fu Xi or the legendary first emperor Fu Xi (伏羲, Fú Xī, about 3 millennium BC), due; this have discovered the eight basic characters. King Wen ( Zhou Wen Wang ,周文王, 11th century BC) and his son Zhou ( Zhou Gongdan ;周公 旦) should have in the meantime grown to 64 the number of characters provided with instructions.

Before the Zhou Dynasty there should have been next to the Zhou Yi still other written traditions of the hexagrams, the Lian Shan Yi (连山 易, Lian Shān Yi ) and the Gui Cang Yi (归 藏 易, Gui Cang Yi ), but the lost are.

Since the discovery of the oracle bones of the Shang period ( 2nd millennium BC), the research assumes that the I Ching is the result of this oracle practice. This re-evaluation took place in China as early as the last years of the Qing dynasty (late 19th century) place, was perceived in Europe, but only since about 1980.

The present day copy editing of the I Ching is created in the seventh century AD, and was published under the title Zhouyi zhengyi ( Zhouyi Zhengyi周易 正义, ); this issue was for centuries the authoritative text.

Textus Receptus and older traditions

Testimonies for about 10 percent of the standard text since the 2nd century BC received, including the epigraphic tradition on stone stelae (see list of rock classics ).

1973 silk text (c. 2nd century BC) was discovered at a rate different from the standard version of the text of the I Ching in a grave in the archaeological site of Mawangdui in Changsha in Hunan province, and since the first publication in 1993 under the name of Mawangdui silk texts (马王堆 帛书, Mǎ wáng DUI Bó Shuu ) known. After Edward Shaughnessy located approximately 12 percent differ (560 characters) of the entire text of the Mawangdui I Ching of the traditional form of the text.

In 1977, during an excavation in Shuanggudui (双 古 堆) at Fuyang (富阳 市) discovered in Anhui Province bamboo strips, the fragments of the Zhou Yi included ( 2nd century BC). Since then, more older or parallel versions of the Zhou Yi through further archaeological discoveries yet emerged ( the bamboo texts of Chu and the Guodian bamboo texts).

The 64 hexagrams

Components and their meaning

The I Ching contains 64 different figures ( hexagrams ). A hexagram consists of six lines that can occur in two different ways: as a solid horizontal line (hard) and as interrupted in the middle horizontal line (soft). From these two types of lines every 64 hexagrams are formed.

The characters are from 2 × 3 lines, so two " trigrams " derived. The solid lines are considered the most solid and clear, the broken lines are considered to be soft and dark. The lines have (viewed from bottom to top) to find their place within the hexagram different rank and importance. The highlighted lines of the lower half of the character enter into the characters, are "incoming", which emphasized lines in the upper half characters are " outgoing". The bottom and the top line of a character are always connected to other characters do not belong to the core characters.

The 64 images or basic character (identical to the expression hexagram ) describe forces ( 1 2), situations or tasks (3 5 6 10 ... ), family (31 37 54 ), personal characteristics or skills (4 8 9 14 ... ), specific activities ( Walker, 56 ), political phases ( 11 12 18 21 ... ) - usually they contain abstract concepts with several possible interpretations.

View all 64 pictures can each have 6 additional instructions depending on whether in the determination of the sign ( depending on the form of the oracle ) a line ( "stable" ) was identified as walking ( "dynamic" ) or not. So the 64 pictures describe already 384 situations or give appropriate behavioral advice. Since each of the 64 characters can go through change of one or more lines in all others, there are 64 × 64 = 4,096 various implicit transitions or ways of turning a situation. This large number of different possible combinations prompted the authors of the I Ching to assume that the possible combinations of symbols could represent all the possibilities of changes and transformations in the world. The necessary when raising the numerical values ​​extensive computational operations were therefore based on a building-up on the I Ching numerology.

The two lines

Historically, the I Ching is much older than the Yin -Yang theory (阴阳/阴阳, Yin Yang ), the following assignments for the two "lines" (两仪, Liǎng Yi ) have become more common over time:

• The solid line represents the yang (阳): expansion, masculine aspect, light, life, odd numbers, penetration, mountains; In India the lingam. Symbol is the dragon.
• The broken line represents the yin (阴): contraction, feminine aspect, darkness, night, death, even numbers, resistance, watercourses; in India the yoni. Symbol is the tiger.

Different perspectives (I):

The two lines may be viewed as elements of a dual system. Wherein ( shown in the lower row) in the Unicode representation of the symbols, however, corresponds to the solid line is the binary number 0 and the broken line is the binary number 1, complementary to the above-mentioned mapping for the parity.

In his first comment published in 1925 ' The teachings of Lao Tzu ' Richard Wilhelm describes the philosophical background as follows, with the term ' primitive signs ' the trigrams are meant ( Richard William, ' Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. The Book of the Way of Life', Bastion Luebbe, Bergisch Gladbach, 2nd Edition: January 2003; Orig Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1910):

"The world is realized in constant change and transformation. Everything that is, is therefore just doomed to die: because birth and death are indeed opposites, but they are necessarily linked to each other. But everything passes by what has been, but there is no reason to say, " it's all is vanity "; because the same Book of Changes also shows that all changes take place according to fixed laws. The Book of Changes contains the idea that the whole world of phenomena is based on a polar opposition of forces; the Creative and the Receptive, the One and the Two, the light and the shadow, the positive and the negative, the male and the female, are all manifestations of the polar forces that bring about change and all change. Because these forces can not imagine as dormant primordial principles you look. The vision of the Book of Changes is far away from any cosmic dualism. Rather, these forces are understood even by constant change. The one separates and Two, the Two closes together and becomes one. The Creative and the Receptive unite and create the world. So Lao Tzu says also that the One generates the Two, the Two generates the Three, and the Three generates all things. In the Book of Changes, which is thus shown that the undivided line of creativity and the divided line of the receiving ends meet in the three -stage eight trigrams, from whose combinations the whole world of time possible constellations builds up. "

The four images

From the two lines of four different " images " ( "The Four Xiang ,"四 像, Sì Xiang ) can be put together. Air (or sky) and Earth are above (old yang) and bottom ( old yin). Fire and water are located in between. Fire has to blaze the effort up, so it is called " young Yang ". Contrast, water flows down and is referred to as " young Yin ". The conversion takes place in a perpetual cycle: from the old Yang (top) to the young Yin ( down) to the old Yin ( below), to the young Yang (top), back to the old Yang (top) and so on: → → → → → :/:

Different perspectives (II):

While the digrams from the same line twice, which matured as old, big, hard, strong, are called stable, clearly the Yin Yang or associated with, the sources do not provide uniform terms for the two digrams from two different strokes. In contrast to the cited herein Views from the book I Ching (page 295 ) by Richard Wilhelm ( Zhengyi周易 正义, Zhouyi ) both of Unicode, as well as in the books of Chinese thought (page 141) by Marcel Granet and Zhouyi zhengyi of Zhu Xi (朱熹, Zhū Xī ) the names assigned contrary. Similarly, the symbol mappings for fire and water are exchanged.

The Eight Trigrams

By adding each one Yáng or Yin arise from the four xiang eight trigrams or " oracle character" (八卦, Bā Guà ). However, this only provides a static picture. It was the expansion to the 64 hexagrams allows to display a dynamic process, since the trigrams are in interaction with each other. The hexagrams are thus regarded each composed of two trigrams. The eight trigrams are:

The first or lower trigram a hexagram is regarded as the inner aspect of the trailing change; the second or upper trigram is called the outer aspect.

The change described is thus connecting the inner aspect (person) by the external situation.

Each trigram is assigned a position in the family in accordance with the male ( solid ) or female ( interrupted ) lines. The bar, which is included only once in the trigram is relevant to the gender assignment, the assignment to the age is from bottom to top. Heaven ( Father ) and earth (mother) have a special status.

Will be read from the hexagrams from the bottom up, in each case the so-called ranks 1-4, 2-5, 3-6 of the two trigrams must be seen in conjunction.

Historical sequences

Historically, several sequences of characters have occurred. The oldest sequence is the " King Wen " or the "conventional" order, which is attributed to King Wen. Another sequence is named after the mythical hero Fu Xi (伏羲, Fú Xī ), but goes back to Shao Yong ( from the time of the Song Dynasty ); it is ordered that leave the characters of as a sequence of binary numbers.

A third arrangement is that of the Mawangdui - text: It lacks the pairing between two consecutive hexagrams, also the order of the hexagrams is completely different. They are arranged systematically in the Mawangdui I Ching:

In the hexagrams each group, all eight trigrams are represented. In each case, a hexagram, consisting of two identical trigrams - a so-called double character - leads a group of eight hexagrams the upper trigram remains the same within a group and the lower trigram replaced after a certain sequence. The sequence of trigrams is lower in all eight groups, in which, however, is different from that of the upper trigrams:

• Order of the upper trigrams ( the leader of the hexagram 8 groups):

• Order of the lower trigrams (cyclic staggered start ):

This results in a sequence:

Representation of the hexagrams on the computer

The 64 hexagrams are already included in the Unicode character set, need to Unicode-capable operating systems (these are virtually all published after 2000 operating systems) that is not painted, but can be entered as normal text. The hexagrams have the numbers hexadecimal characters ( codepoints ) 4DC0 to 4DFF.

Comments on the I Ching

In the 2nd century BC, the I Ching has been taken up by the Han emperors in the literary canon, and thus part of the qualification system for the civil service. So the text has been the subject of a branched commentary tradition that splits into several branches.

There are known over sixty comments to the I Ching, though not preserved in all cases. Authors of such comments were, inter alia, Zheng Xuan (郑玄, 127-200 ), Wang Bi (王弼, 226-249 ), Han Kangbo (韩康伯, 322-380 ), Kong Yingda (孔颖达, 574-648 ), Li Dingzuo (李鼎祚, Zhouyi Jijie周易 集解) Chén Tuan (陈 抟? -989 ), Shi Jie (石 介, 1005-1045 ), Liu Mu (刘 牧, 1011-1064 ), Shao Yong (邵雍, 1011-1077 ) Hu yuan (胡 瑗, 993-1059 ), Ouyang Xiu (欧阳修, 1007-1072 ), Zhang Zai (张 载, 1020-1077 ), Wang Anshi (王安石, 1021-1086 ), Sima Guang (司马 光, 1019 -1086 ), Su Shi (苏 轼, 1037-1101 ), Cheng Yi (程颐, 1033-1107 ), Lü Dalin (吕 大 临, 1044-1091 ) and Zhu Xi (朱熹, 1130-1200, significant comment by the year 1905).

The I Ching had Confucian both in the (neo - ) as in the Daoist tradition an important position. In today's China, the text is, however, hardly read in wider circles and is considered widely incomprehensible.

Reception in the West

Ever since the 17th century was the I Ching in Europe by the partial translation by Richard Couplet SJ ( Confucius Sinarum philosophus, 1687 ) is known, among other things, Leibniz appreciated it very much: he believed, anticipated in the text to see his invention of the binary number system and closed thereof ( falsely ) to a highly developed ancient Chinese mathematics. The first complete Latin translation is by Jean -Baptiste Régis SJ and appeared from 1834 to 1839. The merit that have I fed Went to a wider reception, but comes to especially the German sinologist Richard Wilhelm, whose influential translation he claims to be with the help and under the guidance of his " revered teacher Lau Nai Süan ", "one of the most important Chinese scholars of the old school " in 1923 completed (published in 1924 by Verlag E. Diederichs, see preface to the first edition of Richard Wilhelm, Beijing, 1923). finally, by Wilhelm translation, which in turn, among other things, has been translated into English, translated into other languages ​​, was the I Ching to the most famous of all Chinese books, found in millions of copies spread for the making of his translation he sighted extensive material from both Western and Chinese sources, including the Ten wings in his introduction to the I Ching ( Richard Wilhelm: .. I Ching. . the Book of Changes Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Jena, 1924), he observes:

" After the Book of Changes had but confirmed his fame as divination and magic book under Tsin Schï Huang, the whole school of magicians made ​​during the Tsin and Han Dynasty (Fang Schï ) about her, and probably by DSOU yen arisen later manure Dschuag Shu and Liu and Liu Hiang Hin maintained yin-yang doctrine celebrated their orgies in the explanation of the Book of Changes. The great and wise scholar Wang Bi, it was reserved to clean up with this jumble. He wrote about the meaning of the Book of Changes as a book of wisdom, and not as a book of oracles. He soon found imitation, and instead of the magic teachings of the Yin -Yang teachers joined now increasingly the emerging political philosophy of the book. In the Sung period the book was as a backing for the - used Tai -Gi -Tu speculation until the older Chong DSi a very good review of the book wrote, the old comments in the " wings " contained one under the - unlikely to be Chinese single character to split up had become accustomed. So the book was quite gradually become the textbook of State and wisdom. Since Chu Hi sought him yet again his character to maintain as an oracle book and other than a short and precise commentary also published an introduction to his study of divination. The critical, historical direction during the last dynasty took up also the Book of Changes, but had in their opposition to the Sunggelehrten and their appearance and finding the time of writing, the Book of Changes closer standing Hankommentatoren less fortunate than in their treatment of the other classics. For the Hankommentatoren were just but in the end magician or influenced by magic ideas. A very good copy was Kanghi organized under the title: Je Chung Chou I, which brings separate text and wings and also the best comments of all time. This output is set to the present translation is based. "

For the Western reception outside of Sinology is characteristic to the most recent times that it does not connect to the centuries-old Chinese commentary tradition, but immediate access looks for text that often recur on imputed by modern authors peculiarities of ancient Chinese thought. For example, by Hellmut Wilhelm's interpretation of the world described in the I Ching a running according to certain laws whole which forms arise from the permanent conversion of the two polar primal forces. The basic principles are the creative (Picture No. 1, = sky, light, festival, yang, ...) and the receiving end (Picture No. 2, = Earth, Dark, Soft, yin, ... ). In the I Ching, " a compilation order of the situations of life in all its layers, both personal and collective, and in all its propagation attempts. " Is.

The Richard Wilhelm friendly affiliated Carl Gustav Jung, one of the pioneers of modern depth psychology and the founder of analytical psychology, assessed the I Ching very and saw it as a way of access to the subconscious mind. Jung used the term synchronistic principle publicly for the first time in 1930 in his obituary for his friend (CG Jung, Collected Works, Volume 15: On the Phenomenon of the Spirit in Art and Science, Edition 2001, Walter Verlag, ISBN 978-3-530-40715 - 0):

" The science of the I Ching is not based on the principle of causality, but on a previously named - because when we are not occurring -. Principle, which I have tentatively called the synchronistic principle "

In his preface to 'The I Ching, or Book of Changes ' in English ( Wilhelm- Baynes, Pantheon Books, New York, 1950) CG brings Jung its deepest sense of gratitude towards R. Wilhelm expressed, where he emphasizes the important for his work context of the subconscious with the oracle of the I Ching:

" I am greatly indebted to William for the light thrown upon the complicated He Has a problem of the I Ching, and for insight as regards its practical application as well. For more than thirty years I have interested myself in this oracle technique, or method of exploring the unconscious, for it Has Seemed to me of uncommon Significance. I was already fairly familiar with the I Ching When I first met William in the early nineteen twenties; he confirmed for me then what I already knew, and taught me many things more.

I am deeply in Wilhelm 's fault because he has thrown on the complicated problem of the I Ching light, and also for insights related to the practical application of [the I Ching ]. I decided to use this oracle technology or methodology for the study of the subconscious more than thirty years - interested because they seemed to me of the utmost importance. When I met Richard Wilhelm in the early twenties for the first time, I was already quite familiar with the I Ching; he confirmed me what I already knew and taught me many more things. "

Translations

• Richard Wilhelm: I Ching. The Book of Changes. Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Jena, 1924; new ed. by Ulf Diederichs, German paperback publishing house, Munich 2005. ISBN 3-424-00061-2 ( the first translation into German, of global influence on the reception )
• Dennis R. Schilling: Yijing. The Book of Changes. ET the World's Religions, Frankfurt am Main, 2009. ( Recompilation on the current state of research, with extensive commentary)
• Legge, James ( 1964). I Ching: Book of Changes, With introduction and study guide by Ch'u Chai and Winberg Chai. New York: Citadel Press. Reprint of 1899 century translation. PDF (18.5 MB)