Articles, sources and criticism
Explore historical sources, translations, research articles and critical discussions of the Yijing.
Subjects assigned by the editor take priority. Unclassified articles are provisionally matched by title and excerpt; the complete archive remains available above.
Includes research, commentary and announcements from the original archive.
14 September 2015
An interesting, personal and meaningful exploration of the character zai 災 and its variant in the Shanghai Museum Manuscript of the Yijing by my good friend Luis Andrade. http://www.yitoons.com/yiblog/2015/09/13/on-disaster-walking-staffs-and-the-yijing/
Read article →24 April 2015
The Yijing / I Ching (易經 / 周易) has been studied over at-least two millennia and remains today a cryptic text of un-certain origins. Despite being an enigmatic text, it has…
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14 March 2015
I originally wrote this paper (in Dutch) for a friend, but I thought I might as well share it with the community. The article discusses the origin of the month hexagrams…
Read article →10 February 2015
吉.原筮.元永貞.無咎.不寧方來.後夫凶. Yuan 原: many old commentaries say that yuan should be read as zai 再, ‘again’. But this meaning of yuan is quite rare. The Shanghai Museum Manuscript has 备 (not to…
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10 February 2015
利永貞. Yong zhen 永貞: long-term (長久) divination: 戊寅卜貞我永. Crack-making on day 15, divines for my long-term prognosis. (Heji 合集 248) Several oracle bone inscriptions end with a character or phrase denoting the…
Read article →29 January 2015
大君有命開國承家.小人勿用. Dajun 大君: ‘great ruler’, respectful title for the king: 大君若不棄書之力… (…) 惟大君命焉. O great ruler, if you have not forgotten the zealous duty of Shu… (…) It is for you, O great ruler,…
Read article →11 December 2014
田有禽.利執言.無咎.長子帥師.弟子輿尸.貞凶. Tian 田: ‘to hunt’. You qin 有禽: ‘there is a catch’. These first three characters probably deal with the royal hunt, a theme which is often mentioned in the oracle bone inscriptions,…
Read article →5 December 2014
師左次.無咎. Zuo 左: in its ordinary meaning ‘the left side’, but already on oracle bones used as a loan for zuo 佐, ‘to assist, to help’. and you 佑, ‘to assist, to protect’. The 漢語大詞典 says, ‘用兵則居次方位’:…
Read article →2 December 2014
師或輿尸.凶. Huo 或, ‘there is’. See also hexagram 1, line 4. The regular meanings of huo are ‘perhaps’ and ‘someone’. But in old texts it is often used with the meaning of you 又/有,…
Read article →25 November 2014
在師中.吉.無咎.王三錫命. Ximing 錫命: Appointments granted by the king. Here the king three times grants an appointment. In the Zhouli 周禮 there are nine appointments mentioned, the jiuming 九命, each giving greater awards: [The jiuming 九命 are] an array of…
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24 November 2014
師出以律.否臧凶. Shi 師: army, armed forces. Chu 出: to go out, set forth Lü 律: statutes, regulations; pitch-pipes. In the field of Yi translators it isn’t decided whether lü should mean ‘law, regulations, statutes’ or…
Read article →22 November 2014
貞丈人吉. 無咎. Zhangren 丈人: in early times a respectful form of address for elder people (古時對老人的尊稱). There is difference between the pattern X貞吉 (like in the Judgment of hexagram 2) and 貞X吉…
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