>The
Yijing (
I Ching, 易经) is a textual compilation of ancient Chinese divination practices rich in poetic verse and historical tales. It commands immense importance in Chinese culture, often equated to that of the West’s biblical tradition. The last of at least three such texts – the Yi of the Xia Dynasty, the Yi of the Shang Dynasty, and the Yi of the Zhou Dynasty – it is, unfortunately, the only one to survive into modernity. The essential knowledge it contains is so vast that it has been reinterpreted time and again by generations of scholars and statesmen applying it to their own times. The Yijing has been the subject of voluminous exegeses, often serving as the fountainhead of Chinese philosophical and political thought. Over the millennia it has been worshipped by the ancients, commandeered by the Confucians, amended by the Taoists, tolerated by the Legalists, and now – perhaps – embraced by the Communists.
A. DIVINATION IN CHINESE STATESCRAFT
Primitive divination practices comprised the core of the original Yijing. Divination long had an important role in official Chinese life, evinced back to the famous Shang Dynasty oracle bones. The Shang Court (which ruled the Yellow River Valley from about 1850 to 1100 B.C.E.) maintained colleges of official soothsayers to guide state matters. Their principle method of auguring was to apply heat to one of six depressions carved into the ventral side of a turtle shell, causing cracks to appear. The pattern of the cracks would be interpreted and judgment rendered. Archaic as this practice may seem to the modern political scientist, it is not without obvious parallel to the practice of examining animal entrails once relied upon in Europe. Fortunately for posterity, the Shang soothsayers inscribed their prognostications onto the fronts of the turtle shells, providing a lasting testament. In 1936 an expedition sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Science uncovered an archive of over 100,000 such “oracle bones” at Anyang (安阳), the final capital of the Shang Dynasty. The archives constitute an invaluable historical record of the Shang, and those records impart to the shells their close link to all aspects of political life:
Divination had a bearing on all the activities of connected with the royal function: worship of ancestors and divinities, military expeditions, appointments to official posts, summonses to court, construction of towns, agricultural campaigns, meteorology, (rain, drought and winds), illnesses, journeys, dreams, births and the propitious or unpropitious nature of the decade or night to come.
The aforementioned tortoise shells, as well as various matrixes of numerology, comprised the
earliest Yijing.
B. THE YIN, THE YANG, AND THE YIJING
The Yijing is also built upon an ancient philosophy asserting that all things are locked into a continuous cycle, “rising and falling in a process of progressive evolutionary advancement. When situations meet their extremes, they alternate to their opposites.” This is, of course, the basic philosophy of Yin and Yang. According to legend, an early Emperor-sage named Fuxi advanced the theory that any sequence of events can be described by these two basic elements. Yin represents the characteristics of passivity and nurturing, while Yang is active, dominating and creative. When Yang dominates for too long it wanes into an ascendant Yin force, and visa-versa. This eternal cycle offers hope in despair and cautions humility at the pinnacle of success. Its essence, in a word, is “change.” Indeed, “Yijing” is translated to “Book of Change.”
In ancient notation, Yin is represented by a broken line, and Yang by a solid bar:
___ ___ _______
YIN YANG
Fuxi pieced the Yin and Yang lines together by stacking them vertically into groups of three, creating trigrams. Arranged in all possible combinations, eight trigrams were created to represent the basic elements of the known universe as then understood: Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Water, Mountain, Wind, Fire and Lake.
_______ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ _______ _______ _______ ___ ___
_______ ___ ___ ___ ___ _______ ___ ___ _______ ___ ___ _______
_______ ___ ___ _______ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ _______ _______
HEAVEN EARTH THUNDER WATER MOUNTAIN WIND FIRE LAKE
Much later, King Wen of Zhou stacked these trigrams on top of each other in all possible combinations – thereby multiplying eight by eight – creating a total of 64 nuanced hexagrams. Those 64 combinations, in keeping with the duality of Yin and Yang theory, can be subdivided into 32 conjugate-pairs in which one of the hexagrams can be obtained by standing its partner upside down (except for the eight hexagrams made by doubling like trigrams). For example, take the 23rd and 24th hexagrams, which symbolize “LOSS-RETURN:”
_______ ___ ___
___ ___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___ ___
___ ___ _______
(23) LOSS (24) RETURN
Each hexagram follows the development of an idea or situation, from its inception in the first line (at the bottom) to its ultimate fate in the last line (at the top). The first line sets the general mood, while successive lines describe the unfolding of the situation: six stages of change. The final line warns of the consequences for overstepping proper bounds. In the example above, LOSS (23), the last line depicts a lonely Yang in its final stage of development, atop of a stack of ascendant Yin. This character has been interpreted to symbolize the end of a political or dynastic regime, hence “loss.” Its partner, RETURN (24), describes the opposite situation, the rise of a new epoch. “[A] youthful Yang begins to sprout from the roots, ready to extend its influence upward to turn the Yin lines into vigorous Yangs. It symbolizes renewal, hence ‘return.’” Thus, each conjugate pairing contains a complete set of alternating energies.
Furthermore, the entire canon of 64 hexagrams can be split in half at the 32nd conjugate pair, where the first 32 pairs (or Upper Canon) represents the functions of Heaven; and the second half (or Lower Canon) represents the functions of humanity. For instance, the first pair of hexagrams represent “HEAVEN-EARTH,” and the final pair “FULFILMENT-UNFULFILMENT.” Whereas the folklore surrounding the “HEAVEN-EARTH” couplet clearly speaks to issues of divinity, the “FULFILMENT-UNFULFILMENT” couplet concerns human issues. That final couplet has long been interpreted as lamenting that the noble missions of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties were not completed. Thus, the 64 hexagrams define existence as a totality of opposing and complimentary forces and virtues.
C. THE YIJING AND CHINESE STATECRAFT
To forecast with the Yijing, one casts a hexagram by educing six lines at random and interpreting that result through analogy to great political events in Chinese history. The original method for obtaining the lines was quite burdensome, involving the manipulation of 50 straws of yarrow reed, but this practice was replaced by a more convenient method whereby three coins were tossed and hexagrams built upon the combinations of heads and tails during the Tang Dynasty.
Once the hexagram is derived, all that remains is to properly interpret it in light of historical deeds, present circumstances and future potential. A vast compilation of literature accumulated over the millennia to provide such guidance, of which the most ancient meanings are largely suppressed or forgotten. What is left of the earliest texts contain extremely concise language that is difficult to interpret into modernity. Thus, the Yijing’s various interpreters drew from the progressing march of history to fill these gaps, creating a rich repository of folklore to draw from. Each hexagram now stands as an independent, epic poem chock full historical citations. These references render the great personalities and events of the past into a paradigm for modern analysis.
The earliest known historical event recorded in the Yijing was the Great Yellow River Flood of 2200 BC. The flood caused twelve years of catastrophic devastation until a legendary civil servant named Yu heroically brought it under control. To reward his years of selfless dedication, the reigning Emperor ceded the throne to Yu. His ascension began the legendary Xia Dynasty (2197 to 1766 B.C.E.), the first hereditary dynasty in China. Yet, by no means should Yu’s selflessness be misconstrued as probity; years later Yu would prove his mastery of Machiavellian statecraft by using mere tardiness as pretext to execute an insubordinate chieftain:
The rebellious cometh.
Last to arrive, he meets his end. (8 – SUPPORT)
Another important political episode occurred during the Middle Xia Dynasty (circa 2120 B.C.E.) when Yoxiung, a master archer, usurped the throne and forced King Xiang into exile. Yoxiung, in turn, was murdered by his aide, Hanju, who ascended to both the throne and to Yoxiung’s widow. She bore Hanju two sons, and in time he sent one of them to kill the original King Xiang in his exile. Xiang’s wife escaped the attack and gave birth to Shao Kang (Kang the Younger). And, after 20 tumultuous, adventure-filled years, Hanju was overthrown and Shao Kang regained the dynasty that was his by blood. These events inspired the poem accompanying the 38th hexagram, “ABANDONMENT:”
The abandonment of a waif saw a pig in the mud,
And a cart full of demons.
He arched his bow at first,
But finally put it down.
They are not robbers, only wife grabbers.
Going would be favorable if it rains.
The Xia Dynasty ended in 1783 BC when, according to legend, its evil Emperor was toppled by the righteous Lord Tang. This began the Shang Dynasty (1766 to 1100 B.C.) a particularly important era for the Yijing, to which it often refers as the “Great Kingdom.” The Shang saw new heights of culture and commerce, refining Chinese calligraphy and perfecting the techniques of bronze casting used to make a variety of novel items including austere cooking vessels. The Shang capital was located in the Yellow River basin, and had to be moved eight times due to flooding throughout the epoch. These circumstances forged a special relationship between the Shang and its neighbor state, Zhou:
Water laps at the King’s house.
It’s safe.
On the road, the Duke got the news, agreed,
And assisted in moving the Capital. (42 – INCREASE)
The poem records how the vassal state of Zhou helped mighty Shang relocate its capital to Anyang in 1388 BC. The same hexagram also implies that by ostensibly gaining Shang’s trust, Zhou laid the foundation for its ultimate overthrow of Shang.
Those tumultuous events began in 1151 BC when Jou the Terrible, the final Shang emperor, ascended the throne. Jou was a Chinese Caligula, an infamous psychopath with a short temper and penchant for alcohol fueled orgies. Meanwhile, Zhou’s King Wen had earned a reputation as a humane ruler and impartial arbiter of disputes across the land. So revered is he that the Yijing twice records how Jou’s father, the Emperor Yi, gave his daughter in marriage to King Wen (although she was clearly upstaged in his heart by her niece/consort):
Emperor Yi betrothed his daughter.
With her niece as consort. (11 – PEACE)
Emperor Yi gave his daughter in marriage.
The princess is not as beautiful as her consort. (54 – THE MARRYING MAIDEN)
Jou became so jealous of Wen’s influence that he imprisoned him for seven years. It was during this incarceration that Wen reflected upon the Yin and Yang, as well as the trigrams, and bore the idea of stacking the trigrams to create hexagrams. Wen also authored an introductory text to each hexagram called the “Judgment” to represent its general idea. He recorded these ideas into a text called the Guazi which forms the skeleton of the modern Yijing. So rich is this guide in political theory that some sources have claimed that King Wen’s original intent was to author a guide to statecraft, but that as a political prisoner he had to maintain the pretext of oracular folklore to conceal his work’s true nature.
King Wen was eventually released through a tribute of fantastic bribes, an event also enshrined in the Yijing:
Imprisoned first, then set free,
The King makes offerings at West Mountain. (17 – THE CHASE)
This did not prevent King Wen’s son Taisi, destined to become King Wu, from avenging his father’s ordeal and overthrowing Jou. Wu called for a revolution in 1122 BC when Jou was engrossed in a war against the barbarians of Huai. Eight-hundred heads of state came forth with four thousand chariots to answer Wu’s call. After delivering a historic speech on the field of Mu, Wu and his army marched forth determined to fulfill the mandate of heaven:
On the day of the public gathering,
A new order is proclaimed. (49 – REVOLUTION).
Jou met the challenge with an army of 700,000, but most of the uninspired, conscripted soldiers
defected to King Wu:
None will rally,
Some will attack.
If there is no determination in the heart,
Disaster will befall. (42 - INCREASE).
Defeated, Jou retreated to an orgy ground, set himself ablaze, and burned to death. King Wu arrived and desecrated Jou’s body, then declared himself Emperor and appointed his brother, Duke Zhou, as Prime Minister. The Yijing’s prophets rejoiced with their characteristic reticence:
Shang is vanquished.
Some things are possible. (2 – EARTH)
With Jou’s downfall the Shang Dynasty passed into the Zhou. Zhou would last eight centuries, an epoch that included the Golden Age of Chinese philosophy. Duke Zhou himself was a master of the Yijing, and he elevated King Wen’s hexagrams by writing a supplemental text further elaborating and conveying their attributes. Together with the original Judgments on the hexagrams written by King Wen, these works constitute the core of the modern Yijing.
B. CONFUCIANISM AND THE YIJING
“In the three thousand years since the Yijing was created as the court oracle of a Chinese Dynasty, it has been analyzed, annotated and embellished to such an extent that its original face has become all but unrecognizable,” laments Kerson Huang, a respected 20th century interpreter of the Yijing. Of all of its historical amendments, Huang disdains the commandeering of the Yijing by the Confucians the most. In his opinion, the Confucians suppressed its role as oracle and blatantly recast it as a treatise to justify their new ideals. Regardless of interpretive standpoint, there is no denying that after Confucius, the Yijing would never be the same.
By 550 B.C. the Zhou Dynasty had largely melted away and Confucius, the sage of sages, was born into a lawless age. He labored to restore the chaotic Chinese world to a romanticized “Golden Era,” featuring compassionate emperors and loyal subjects. Confucius looked to history and celebrated the deeds of ancient Chinese leaders like Yu, master of the Great Flood, transforming them into eternal representatives of virtuous government. By elevating their humanism and pursuit of social justice, Confucius raised expectations of proper governance among the people while demanding that those in positions of authority “make conscious human development part of the overall operation of society itself, not only in public education but in the actual operation of government, both for the general improvement of the mores of the people and for the cultivation of outstanding individuals with leadership qualities.”
Yet, Confucius did not limit the pursuit of social responsibility to the aristocracy. His ideals are obligations upon everyone, for if people behave in a duteous manner – conscientiously fulfilling the requirements of their stations, no matter how high nor how low – then society’s problems will become manageable. Epic virtues were attainable by all people who dedicated themselves to learning and self-cultivation, regardless of social class. His disciples recorded his views as follows, in The Great Learning:
In ancient times, he who wished to let his virtue shine over all under Heaven must first govern his state well. To govern the state well, he must first unify his clan. To unify the clan, he must first cultivate himself. To cultivate himself, his heart must be in the right place. For the heart to be in the right place, he must have a sincere purpose. To have a sincere purpose, he must first acquire knowledge. The way to acquire knowledge is to study the nature of things.
When the nature of things is understood, knowledge is gained. When knowledge is gained, a sincere purpose can be set. When a sincere purpose is set, the heart can find the right place. When the heart is in the right place, the elf can be cultivated. When the self is cultivated, the clan can be unified. When the clan is unified, the state can be well-governed. When the state is well-governed, order can be brought to all under heaven . . . For the emperor and the common man alike, self-cultivation is the key.
Unfortunately, the hierarchical Confucian social structure has been used to justify despotism. The philosophy encompasses notions of loyalty and obedience to established authority, lending itself to usurpation as a moral underpinning for absolute rule. Nothing could be further from Confucius’ intent. “Dictatorship and despotism were precisely what Confucius opposed; his idea of duty was an obligation to justice, not to personalities empowered by hereditary authority.” Confucius thought that rulers who put on a pretense of justice and duty but were really motivated by profit or advantage were destroying the moral fiber of society.
Indeed, the moral underpinnings of the Yijing foreshadow the noblest ideals of Confucianism: a respect for the natural order, social justice and esteem for self-cultivation. Confucius himself claimed to have studied the Yijing tirelessly, famously stating “grant me a few more years to study the Yi, and I should then be able to avoid grave errors.” He is said to have personally written the “Ten Wings” (also known as the “Commentaries”), a series of essays appended to the original Yi of King Wen and Duke Zhou. These supplements are purportedly intended to help people understand the Yijing. Though part of the modern canon, originalists like Huang blast the Commentaries as embellishments that distort the spirit and substance of the original Yijing. The later Confucians largely repackaged the Yijing into a text expounding their philosophy when Confucianism became the official state creed during the third century. As stated by Gernet, the Confucian Yijing became essential to court life of the famed Han Dynasty:
If it is permissible to speak of a renewal of classical studies and of Confucianism, this renewal took place under the aegis of the theories of yin and yang. The Classics, venerable products of remote antiquity, the works of eminent sages, were reckoned by the men of this period to contain secret knowledge, and their interpretation had therefore to be confined to schools of specialists, cabalist in nature. Their texts, often so concise as to be positively obscure, were very soon regarded as collections of prophecies and esoteric commentaries multiplied under the first Han emperors . . . The taste for esoteric commentaries and prophecies and also the use of omens for political ends seem to have been at their height at the end of the first Han dynasty, round about the beginning of the Christian era . . . It is permissible to wonder why this philosophy was so successful. It may be that the development of a doctrine that claimed to give a complete explanation of the universe was favored by political circumstances.
Despite their one-time monopoly on state power, the Confucians were not the only Chinese philosophical school to redress the Yijing to serve their own outlook.
C. TAOISM AND THE YIJING
In stark contrast to the Confucian social hierarchy, Taoist thinkers contrast the ideal of an independent, natural, free and happy life with the constraints of morality, ritual and political organization. Laozi, whom the Taoists claim as their founding father, held that government was the root of all evil, and argued that salvation lies in retirement and withdraw from the modern world. Like the Confucians, however, they found a way to adapt the Yijing to their own worldview.
Taoists focused entirely upon the symbolism of the hexagrams. Dispensing with the text altogether, they built a numerological system akin to astrology around the hexagrams. They harmonized the original Yijing with aspects from their “Five Elements Theory,” an explanation of existence which subdivides all things into five categories: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth. This system seems to have been cultivated particularly in the academy of Ji Xia (稷下) at Linzi (临淄), and by the legendary Zou Yan (邹衍) (c. 305 – 240 BC) for extending the Five Elements Theory to all spheres of knowledge: astronomy, geography, history and politics. According to Zou Yan’s fundamental thesis, the rise and fall of political power is related to that of the Five Elements, the old always being destroyed by the new, in the order earth-wood-metal-fire-water. Accordingly, the balance of these forces makes it possible to interpret multitudinous events, including the birth, zenith and decline of political power. The intricacy became staggering, and a whole Taoist astrology grew up around the Yijing which dictated the ritual of the Qin dynasty, from the color of flags flown on certain days to the shape of ceremonial hats, from the length of contracts and justifying the severity of its laws. This system also became a dominant influence in Chinese folk culture, and still touches the daily lives of millions of people through its role in liturgy, geomancy and medicine.
D. THE AGE OF LEGALISM
In the hands of the Zhou Dynasty’s soothsayers, the Yijing aided the development of mathematics, science and philosophy in the Chinese world. Then, as always happens, the Zhou Dynasty retired, and the Era of the Warring States began with the advent of the Iron Age. The state of Qin was ultimately victorious, enveloping its rivals in 221 B.C.E. Though the first Dynasty to successfully unite all of China, it lasted a mere fifteen years. In that brief age, the Qin unified the Chinese currency as well as the gauge of cartwheels and written characters, and built a vast network of imperial roads, irrigation canals and the Great Wall. Despite these advances, the Yijing was lucky to survive.
Qin was relatively poor and backwards, but fairly well protected in a secure, isolated river basin. Its emperor had no use for Confucianism. He and his advisors favored a realistic and absolutist policy based on the local facts of life. They opted for the cold pragmatism of Legalism, a pertinacious approach to the acquisition and maintenance of centralized power. To dogmatic Legalists, politics is an instrument independent of morality, a body of stratagems which ensure the power of the state. Fearing that scholastic interest in moral codes may someday endanger a throne based on Legalism alone, the Qin Emperor ordered that 300 alleged Confucian scholars be buried alive and burned most books except for treatises on medicine, agriculture, divination, and a few other limited subjects. Amazingly, the Yijing was spared from the literary purge because it was recognized as a book on divination.
The Qin Dynasty died with its Emperor, and the two major forces of Chu and Han vied for the vacant throne. Han was victorious in 207 B.C., and though the original foundations of Han power were no different from those of its predecessor, in time Confucianism was adopted as the official Han state creed. The Yijing, including the Ten Wings, took a permanent place among the Confucian Classics, which had to be mastered by all of those who aspired to state office or civil service. Thus, five hundred years after Confucius lived, the Yijing became enshrined as state doctrine.
E. THE MODERN YIJING
Western readers were introduced to the Yijing chiefly through Richard Wilhelm’s famous 1923 German translation, rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. By this time, its original function as a vehicle for divination was considered secondary to its revelation of the cycle of Yin and Yang. Carl Jung used this version as a psychoanalytic tool, thereby increasing its exposure and helping to make it a prophet of the counterculture of the 1960’s. While Jung prognosticated, the Chinese Communists reevaluated what role the Yijing would play in their new social order:
"The more emotionally inclined have proceeded to regard the Yijing as one of the most treasured parts of the Chinese tradition. This was true even in the context of the Cultural Revolution, until Guo Moruo (郭沫若) was purged from his position as the foremost cultural official in Communist China. He devoted himself to the book extensively, particularly in his earlier years. And when, in the early 1960’s, the ideological reigns were somewhat relaxed and it was possible for a time to deal with matters of intellectual concern, the two issues which engendered nationwide discussion were the ethical system of Confucius and the Yijing. The phenomenon persists: wherever the chance for expression is present, the Yijing emerges as one of the foremost concerns of Chinese intellectuals."
The modern reader must choose his or her own tact in approaching the Yijing. She can try to be faithful to the original face, or opt for the magical numerology of the Taoists, or favor the rigid moral interpretations of the Confucians. In all likelihood, the modern reader will employ some hybrid of these three systems. One’s present situation is revealed today by the name and the structure of the drawn heagram, together with analysis from King Wen’s Decisions, Confucius’s Commentaries, and Taoist Five Element Theory. Like the Chinese language itself, the Yijing speaks through images, not words. Reading the Yijing does not mean reading pedantic sentences but tailoring a personal understanding from archetypal, poetic images. Readers read it for their own purposes, interpreting it to their own agendas.
Yì Jīng is the proper name of the text in Mandarin Chinese Pinyin; I Ching is its translation under the older Wade-Giles Romanization system. While the most famous English language resources introduced Western readers to the “I Ching” in the 20th century, the authors of this article will refer to it by the now ubiquitous Pinyin system.
Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, 2nd Ed., Foster translation, 1999 (hereinafter “Gernet”) at 83; Alfred Huang, The Complete I Ching: The Definitive Translation from the Taoist Master Alfred Huang, 2004 (hereinafter “A. Huang”) at xvii:
“To the Chinese, the I Ching is like a Holy Bible written by the four most honored sages in our
history – Fu Xi, King Wen, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius. The Chinese translation of Holy Bible is
Sheng Ching. Sheng is equivalent to “holy,” and Ching means “classic.” Chinese understand that Ching is
the Tao, the Truth, the holiest of the ancient books, and because they revere and respect the sacred writings
of the Jews and the Christian church, they honor the Bible by calling it Ching.”
The Yijing that survived into modernity is the Zhou Yi. According to Gernet, there may have been many more than three, as each city state may have had its own oracle at one time. See Gernet, supra note 2, at 85.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 83.
John King Fairbank, The United States and China, 4th Ed., 1976 (hereinafter “Fairbank”) at 17. The Shang Dynasty (商朝), the second Chinese Dynasty and first of the Bronze Age, is also widely known as the Yin Dynasty (殷代). This refers to Yin Du, a district within An Yang, the final and most significant capital city of the Shang/Yin Dynasty.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 45.
Kerson and Rosemary Huang, I Ching, 1987 (Hereinafter “K. Huang”) at 45. The T-shaped pattern of the cracks inspired the Chinese character for divination, bù (卜).
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 45.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 43.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 45.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 45; Gernet, supra note 2, at 41, 45. Anyang is located in modern day Henan Province.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 47.
“The caste of soothsayers and scribes who were entrusted with royal divination were preoccupied by questions of number and questions relating to the calendar. Thus, a large number of sacrifices occurred on fixed dates or more irregularly, and the inscriptions have enabled historians to draw up a complete list of Shang kings.”
Gernet, supra note 2, at 46.
The ancient Chinese also used two sets of so-called “magic squares” to divine the future. Like the Ten Commandments, both are avowedly supernatural in origin. A dragon-horse is said to have emerged from the Yellow River bearing the “River Diagram” on his back during the time of Fuxi. Emperor Yu is supposed to have met a great striped tortoise in the Luo River while taming the Great Deluge, with the “Luo Tablet” carved onto its back. The sum of all odd integers on the periphery of the River Diagram is 20; on the Luo Tablet, they total 15. K. Huang, supra note 7, at 50-51.
A. Huang, supra note 2, at xx.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 7.
A. Huang, supra note 2, at 5; K. Huang, supra note 7, at 8.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 8.
Id. Four of these trigrams are displayed on the flag of South Korea. Clockwise from the upper hoist, the trigrams symbolize: (i) heaven, the south and summer, (ii) the moon, the west, autumn and water, (iii) the earth, the north and winter, and (iv) the sun, the east, spring and fire. Alfred Znamierowski, The World Encyclopedia of Flags, 2002 at 177.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 7.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 7.
Id. at 8. This multiplication allows for a much more nuanced level of representation.
A. Huang, supra note 2, at 23.
A. Huang, supra note 2, at 4.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 32.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 32.
A. Huang, supra note 2, at xiii.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 32.
A. Huang, supra note 2, at xiii.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 85; K. Huang, supra note 7, at 52-55.
A. Huang, supra note 2, at xv.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 45.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 45.
Thomas Cleary, The Essential Confucius: The Heart of Confucius’ Teachings in Authentic I Ching Order, 1st Ed., 1992 (hereinafter “Cleary”) at 7; see also K. Huang, supra note 7, at 7-8.
Cleary, supra note 34, at 7.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 12.
Id. at 13. For example, the Duke of Zhou’s interpretation of Hexagram 64 – “UNFULFILMENT” – includes the passage, “rewards come from a great kingdom” to describe the fourth line.
Cleary, supra note 34, at 8.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 18.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 52.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 18.
Id. That speech is recorded in the Book of Records.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 18:
“And disaster did befall the evil Jou. Conceding defeat, he retreated to the Deer Pavilion, scene of his
numerous past orgies. There, clasping to his bosom his priceless jade collection, Jou set himself on fire and burned to death. King Wu drove up in a chariot anf shot Jou’s body three times with arrows. Then he beheaded Jou’s corpse with a yellow ax, and hanged the head on a white banner for all to see.”
K. Huang, supra note 7, at i.
Cleary, supra note 34, at 7.
The political and intellectual leaders of a country were by definition holders of a trust, Confucius believed, and would ultimately be trusted by the people to the extent that they are truthful and faithful to that trust. Id. at 6.
Cleary, supra note 34, at 2-3.
“[Confucius] envisioned a social order guided by reasonable, humane and just sensibilities, not by the passions of individuals arbitrarily empowered by hereditary status, and warned of the social consequences if men in positions of power considered personal profit and advantage over public humanity and justice. Confucius believed that the conduct of the affairs of a nation would benefit from the maximum participation in government by cultivated people whose intellects and emotions had been developed and matured by conscious culture . . . Confucius advocated the ideal cultured person, the exemplary individual. The word Confucius used to express this ideal was a class term that formerly meant scion of the ruling class, but he subsequently transformed it into an abstract moral ideal, a quality of character.” Id. at 1-2.
Id. Confucius emphasized the virtue of justice, or zhong (忠义). This character can also be translated as “principle” or “duty,” and thus the true meaning has always been a matter of debate among Confucian scholars.
See generally K. Huang, supra note 7, at 21-23.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 23.
Id.; A. Huang, supra note 2, at 5.
The first and second Wings are the Commentary on the Decisions; the third and forth Wings are the Commentary on the Symbols; the fifth and sixth Wings are known as the Great Treatise; the seventh Wing is Commentary on the Words of the Text; the eight Wing is the Discussion of the Gua; the ninth Wing is the Sequence of the Gua; and the tenth Wing is the Miscellaneous Notes on the Gua. See A. Huang, supra note 2, at 5.
See generally K. Huang, supra note 7. For example, at 28, “We can see that the text [of the Ten Wings] is really quite straightforward and spontaneous, but the so-called image is pure gobbledegook, and the annotations only make it worse.”
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 25; Gernet, supra note 2, at 159.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 161.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 162.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 94.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 22.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 93.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 39.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 39.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 98.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 98, 158.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 158.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 85.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 106.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 79. These included the aristocratic Shang Yang to the rich merchant Lu Pu-wei.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 106-07.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 91.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 109.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 26; Richard Wilhelm et al., The I Ching, or Book of Changes, 3rd Ed., 1967, at lxi.
Gernet, supra note 2, at 110.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 25; see also Gernet, supra note 2, at 111:
“It was only in the long run and as a result of a complex process of evolution that the Han Empire departed further from these origins. All kinds of factors were involved in this evolution: economic expansion, changes in the relationship between the Chinese world and the world of the steepe, strengthening of the palace at the expense of the civil service, weakening of the state’s hold on the peasantry, rise of the families of the rich and gentry, and so on.”
K. Huang, supra note 7, at 25.
K. Huang, supra note 7, at i.
Richard Wilhelm et al., The I Ching, or Book of Changes, 3rd Ed., 1967, at XX.
Gernet, supra note 2, at xvii.
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