The I Ching, Legge tr. Index

I-Ching | | I Ching | The I Ching James Legge, tr. Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 [1899] Contents Start Reading The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is the most widely read of the five Chinese Classics. The book was traditionally written by the legendary Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi (2953-2838 B.C.). It is possible that the the I Ching originated from a prehistoric divination technique which dates back as far as 5000 B.C. Thus it may be the oldest text at this site. Futher commentaries were added by King Wen and the Duke of Chou in the eleventh century B.C. An I Ching interpretation is performed by making six binary decisions (a hexagram). This is called 'casting the I Ching'. These are written down as a stack of six solid or broken lines. This was traditionally done either by tossing yarrow stalks or coins, although there is no reason why the hexagrams can't be generated by some other means (such as a computer program). There are actually four possible values for each of the lines; the two on/off values, and a line which changes from on to off or vice versa. Thus one cast of the I Ching can generate two different hexagrams, which adds depth to the interpretation. The sophistication of this method has not escaped modern interpretation, and the four-valued logic has been compared to the biochemistry of DNA amino acids. How a Neolithic shamans' divination technique presaged the basic logic of the human genome is one of the ageless mysteries. Production Notes: This is a complete overhaul of the Legge I Ching etext, with all of the original illustrations. This utilizes Unicode characters throughout to represent the 'short A' and the 'Yodh' found in the original book. Because not all browsers support the official Unicode 'Yodh' (Ȝ and ȝ), we have used Ž and ž to represent it. In addition, we have used images to present the dozen or so Chinese characters in this text. Title Page Contents Preface Introduction Chapter I: The Yî King from The Twelfth Century B.C. to the Commencement of the Christian Era Chapter II: The Subject-Matter of the Text. The Lineal Figures and the Explanation of Them Chapter III: The Appendixes Plates Plate I Plate II, Figure 1 Plate II, Figure 2 Plate III, Figure 1 Plate III, Figure 2 The Yî King Text: Section I I. The Khien Hexagram II. The Khwăn Hexagram III. The Kun Hexagram IV. The Măng Hexagram V. The Hsü Hexagram VI. The Sung Hexagram VII. The Sze Hexagram VIII. The Pî Hexagram IX. The Hsiâo Khû Hexagram X. The Lî Hexagram XI. The Thâi Hexagram XII. The Phî Hexagram XIII. The Thung Zăn XIV. The Tâ Yû Hexagram XV. The Khien Hexagram XVI. The Yü Hexagram XVII. The Sui Hexagram XVIII. The Kû Hexagram XIX. The Lin Hexagram XX. The Kwân Hexagram XXI. The Shih Ho Hexagram XXII. The Pî Hexagram XXIII. The Po Hexagram XXIV. The Fû Hexagram XXV: The Wû Wang Hexagram XXVI. The Tâ Khû Hexagram XXVII. The Î Hexagram XXVIII. The Tâ Kwo Hexagram XXIX. The Khan Hexagram XXX. The Lî Hexagram Text Section II XXXI. The Hsien Hexagram XXXII. The Hăng Hexagram XXXIII. The Thun Hexagram XXXIV. The Tâ Kwang Hexagram XXXV. The Žin Hexagram XXXVI. The Ming Î Hexagram XXXVII. The Kiâ Zăn Hexagram XXXVIII. The Khwei Hexagram XXXIX. The Kien Hexagram XL. The Kieh Hexagram XLI. The Sun Hexagram XLII. The Yî Hexagram XLIII. The Kwâi Hexagram XLIV. The Kâu Hexagram XLV. The Žhui Hexagram XLVI. The Shăng Hexagram XLVII. The Khwăn Hexagram XLVIII. The Žing Hexagram XLIX. The Ko Hexagram L. The Ting Hexagram LI. The Kăn Hexagram LII. The Kăn Hexagram LIII. The Kien Hexagram LIV. The Kwei Mei Hexagram LV. The Făng Hexagram LVI. The Lü Hexagram LVII. The Sun Hexagram LVIII. The Tui Hexagram LIX. The Hwân Hexagram LX. The Kieh Hexagram LXI. The Kung Fû Hexagram LXII. The Hsiâo Kwo Hexagram LXIII. The Kî Žî Hexagram LXIV. The Wei Žî Hexagram The Appendixes Appendix I Section I Section II Appendix II Section I Section II Appendix III: The Great Appendix Section I Section II Appendix IV Section I Section I: Khien Section II: Khwăn Appendix V Appendix V: Treatise of Remarks on the Trigrams Appendix VI Appendix VI: The Orderly Sequence of the Hexagrams Appendix VII Appendix VII