Yi Jing

The Yi Jing (Sinogramme S 易经 ^simpl./ 易經 ^transl., pinyin yì jīng , Lagging-Gilles I 4 ching 1 , also spelled Yi King or Yi-King ) is a handbook Chinese whose title can result in “Traditional changes” or “Delivers changes”. The correct translation would approach: " Memory or canonical treaty of Mue" , and its principle would be to examine the potential traces of the change in progress, present and future. It is also the divination which one carries out using this book that one names also sometimes Zhou Yi (周易, pinyin: Zhōu Yì , Lagging-Gilles: Cabbage 1 I 4 ) i.e. “changes of Zhou”.

Its development dates from the beginning of the first millenium before the Christian era, time of the Western Zhou. It occupies a fundamental place in the history of the Chinese thought and can be regarded as a single treaty in its kind whose finality is to describe the states of the world and their evolutions. It is the first of the five traditional ones and thus considered as the oldest Chinese text.

The Yi Jing is the fruit of a speculative and cosmogonic research elaborate, of which the articulations informed the Chinese thought durably. Its mathematical structure impressed Leibniz, which would have seen there the first formulation of the binary Arithmétique. In fact, on the basis of an opposition/complementarity between the principles Yin and Yang (adret and ubac, sun and the moon, male and female, credit and liability, etc) and subdividing this duality in a systematic way, the Yi Jing arrives at the series of the 64 states and all the possible transformations between them.

The Yi-King or Livre of the transformations of the antiquated Chinese magic brings the most exemplary image of the identity of Génésique and the Genetics. The circular loop is a cosmogonic circle symbolically swirling by the S interior which at the same time separates and links Yin and Yang. The figure is formed not starting from the center but of the periphery and is born from the meeting of opposite movements of directions. Yin and Yang are closely married one in another, but distinct, they are at the same time complementary, competitor, antagonistic. The paramount figure of the Yi-King is thus a figure of a nature, of harmony, but bearing in it the swirling idea and the principle of antagonism. It is a figure of complexity| Edgar Morin |Method 1. The Nature of Nature, p. 228, Threshold, Paris, 1977.

Origin according to the tradition

The Chinese tradition makes go up the Livre of the changes to the invention of the trigrams by Fuxi, regarded as the saint whose a sentence about the comment Shiyi (Zhouyi Xici 周易 speaks. 系辭): “The Fleuve [yellow] left an image and of Luo a book, a saint imitated them. ” (Sinogramme S: 河出圖洛出書聖人則之, pīnyīn: héchūtú luòchūshū shèngrénzézhī )

Yu Large the, founder of the Dynasty Xia, is sometimes also identified with the saint; it is at its time that the 64 hexagrammes with large complete are gathered in the Lian Shan (連山) (succession of mountains). It is about the first of the three books of the changes mentioned by the Zhouli (周禮). It started with the hexagramme mountain (艮, gèn ), which would represent two superimposed mountains, from where its name.

Fuxi and Yu are supposed to have received their inspiration of hexagrammes drawn on a tortoise or a horse (Fuxi, image of the Yellow River) and of a book carried by a tortoise (Yu, delivers of Luo).

The advent of the Dynastie Shang was the occasion of a new reading of the hexagrammes concretized in the second book of the changes, GUI Cang 歸藏 (return and engrangement) begin with the hexagramme ground (坤, kūn ), that the name of the book evokes.

At the time of the reign of the last of Shang, king Wen de Zhou drew the hexagrammes and ends to a classification which put the hexagramme sky at the head (乾, qián ): it was the advertisement of a dynastic change. It wrote an explanation for each Hexagramme, the guaci (卦辭). Zhou Gong, brother of king Wu, completed the work by writing the yaoci (爻辭), line explanations by line of different the hexagrammes. The Yi Jing is the third and the only remainder of the books of the changes quoted by the Zhouli , the two first had already disappeared under the Han.

One allots to Confucius Period of Springs and Falls the comment Shiyi (十翼) (ten wings), also called Yizhuan (易傳) (“comment of the Yi Jing ”) starting from Han Wudi. The Yi Jing and the Shiyi , inseparable in China, form the Zhou Yi (周易). It was the subject of many secondary comments, which one can arrange in two main categories: philosophical (ex: Wang Bi, Cheng Yi (程頤) 1033 - 1107) and practices (ex: Jing Fang (京房) of Han Western, Shao Yong (邵雍) 1011 - 1077).

Zhou Yi would have escaped with the Autodafé ordered by Qin Shihuang thanks to Li If which would have classified it by trick in the books of medicine and divination. This explanation, which seeks to attenuate its utility aspect, represents the opinion of the well-read men wanting above all to see a philosophical work and confucéen there. The Yi Jing besides was included in the five traditional constituting the base of the education of the well-read men.

Date and authors

No definitive answer was still brought to these two questions. The Yi Jing itself is written in an elliptic language truffle of antiquated characters which locates its drafting before second half of consent of the contemporary Chinese, the direction became almost impenetrable about it, from where need for the comment, but the style seems coherent from beginning to end, suggesting a writer or at least a single point of view. The comment Shiyi , allotted to Confucius by the Shiji , is rather easy access to a reader trained with traditional Chinese. Presenting a rather moral general prospect and confucéenne, it offers nevertheless clear differences of style and point of view of passage to passage, and would be thus of multiple authors. The assumptions concerning its date of drafting go from the beginning of at the beginning of the Christian era.

Mathematical structure

One consults the Yi Jing through the Trigramme S and Hexagramme S which one draws milks by feature.

The hexagrammes are figures based on the combination of six features of which each one can take one of these two forms: the full feature (Yang) and the redoubled feature (Yin). These two forms themselves are subdivided in two categories: feature incipient and milked mutant . To each hexagramme a comprising comment of the indications on the quality of the state concerned was added later on.

Eight trigrams

The sixty-four hexagrammes

Consultation of the Yi Jing

To explore the Yi Jing supposes the comprehension of a system of signs and symbols, organized and interpreted, whose reading always allows a second reading, by definition, as it goes from there from any text. The charm of this reading comes from an interrogation which remains on the direction, applied to a situation random, and supposed to provide an answer, adapted or adaptable. We are in the presence of a text esoteric and pragmatic, philosophical and moral, supposed to comprise a certain wisdom.

If one forgets magic and primitive dimension original text, there remains a poetic research and naturalist, who does not miss interest. If one prefers to question dimension divinatoire of this text, which functions then like a play, it remains to discover the relation which is tied around one guessing and of one guessed, of one meaning and one meant, starting from ludic speculation as for the nature of the world, energies and the forms, which constitute it.

To consult the Yi Jing is a practice, singular antique and, which crossed the centuries, and even the millenia, and this perenniality suggests the permanence of the questions, through time, without guaranteeing for as much the validity of the answers. On the contrary, it seems that the variability of the answers always makes it possible to the consultant to reformulate his question, to specify contour of it, and therefore, to adapt its point of view to the text, such as he is translated.

Reading and comprehension

The Yi Jing proposes a “chart of the world”, which tries to give an account at the same time of nature, its changes, and the human ones, their relations, changeantes they too.

The structure of the text is thus at the same time very simple, eight basic elements, and rather complex, sixty-four variations, with six additional nuances, features or alternatives, inside each variation. With this structure, purely formal, is added an additional difficulty, for the Westerners: the language and the Chinese writing, which comprise, like any language, and any writing, of the word games, the double directions, the implicit evocations, the similarities of forms and sounds, which make the richness évocatoire original text, and constitute obstacles with comprehension.

The Yi Jing remains a document invaluable, which belongs to the inheritance of humanity, and belonged to the treasures of the Chinese thought. It with the characteristic to come from the first Eastern forms of pictographic writing, and from the first arithmetic formalizations. Some indications and indices, however:

sixty-four hexagrammes represents 64 intermediate stages of an eminently renewable cycle, and overall characterized by the Philosophie of “Yin-Yang”;
each hexagramme is like the mystery of a couple of “crisis-opportunity”, the image of a singular energy composition, which allows or should make it possible to associate with a supposed situation, a diagnosis and a more or less explicit recommendation;
each hexagramme is like a stage on the road, like one singular moment, of dream or reflection, of meditation or preparation, some examples:

1 the creative , sign to manage the force Yang ;
2 the receptive one, sign to manage the force Yin ;
29 is presented as one of the revealing situations of the stake of the book: it is a question of crossing the obstacle, of walking on in spite of uncertainty, of finding the bond between its advance and its goal;
63 - unstable Balance in satisfaction (“after the achievement”);
64 - unstable Balance in the dissatisfaction (“before the achievement”);

To question the Yi Jing

Analyzes and divination

The Yi Jing proposes tracks on the actual position of the world and its possible evolutions, playing the part of an oracle which one consults before making a decision on a difficult question.

The most popular method to question the Yi Jing requires only three coins. One allots the value “2” to pile and the value “3” with face. (It is only about one convention; the reverse is completely possible.) According to whether the three parts fall on pile or face, one obtains a sum ranging between 6 and 9.

6 corresponds to the Yin transferring (or young Yin)

7 corresponds to the Yang incipient (or old Yang)

8 corresponds to the Yin incipient (or old Yin)

9 corresponds to the Yang transferring (or young Yang)

The features are noted in the order, upwards. At the end of six jets, one obtains a complete hexagramme.

It is then enough to refer to the table of the hexagrammes to know the name of the hexagramme and the councils of control relating to the question which one had taken beforehand care to pose in writing.
the possible presence of mutant features (young person Yin or young Yang) defines the possible character divinatoire situation of the consultant.

The original method, to question oracle, is preferred by certain amateurs in the sense that it is supposed to lead to a larger concentration of the person who questions, as well as Médium (sometimes the same one). Moreover, the probabilities of result of pulling diverge a little according to the technique used. It calls upon a group of 50 stems of Achillée milfoils ( Achillea millefolium ), which one withdraws a stem, then that one separates successively, with eighteen recoveries (three times for each of the six features of the hexagramme), in two groups of nongiven importance, by counting each time the number of remaining stems after withdrawal of groups of 4 stems. The whole of computations forming each time a feature of the hexagramme.

References and Bibliography

At the 20th century

Carl Gustav Jung , which prefaced various translations of the Book of the changes, wrote a book on the subject: Comment on the mystery of the gold flower. See hereafter.

Translations

I Ching - but book off exchanges , translation of German Chinese of Richard Wilhelm, translation in English of Cary Baynes, foreword of Carl Gustav Jung, Penguin, 1967, ISBN 0140192077.
Yi King , Richard Wilhelm, French Translation of Etienne Perrot, 1992, Bookstore of Médicis
Yi king , Thomas Cleary and Lieou Yi-Ming, Not Threshold, 2001
Yi Jing. The Book of the Changes , Cyrille J. - D. Javary and Pierre Faure, Paris: Albin Michel, February 2002, 1.065 pages.
Comparative Approaches to Chinese Philosophy , collection edited by Bo Mou, Ashgate, 2003, ISBN 0754605086

About this work

Comment on the mystery of the gold flower, Carl Gustav Jung; Albin Michel coll Spiritualities
Wheels of Yi Jing , Cyrille Javary, 2001, ED. Philippe Picquier
the speech of the tortoise: To discover the Chinese thought with the wire of Yi Jing of Cyrille Javary, 669 p., 2003, ED. Albin Michel.

Internal bonds

Flag of South Korea, where the trigrams are found: sky, fire, water and ground.
Charles de Harlez#Langue, culture and religion Chinese
Other hexagramme celebrates, the Hexagramme of Pascal.
Music off Exchanges , made up piano music using Yi Jing by John Cage.
the Master of the High Castle of Philip K. Dick: in this novel of Uchronie, the heroes discover their condition through Yi Jing.
the 36 stratagems, related to Yi Jing.

External bonds

old China Collection - downloadable canonical books.
Text in Chinese and translation of Richard Wilhelm on the site of the French association of the Chinese professors (AFPC).
the " Memory of the mue" - free translation on line of Yi Jing in French.
Zhou Yi - Site didactic of training of Yi Jing (fr/en)

Zh-classical: 易經 Zh-yue: 易經

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