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.
6 March 2014
黃裳. 元吉. Huang chang 黃裳: ‘yellow skirt’. There are different interpretations about the meaning of this phrase. Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 (127-200) says in his commentary to the Yi Li 儀禮: 上士玄裳，中士黄裳，下士杂裳。杂裳者，前玄后黄 A senior serviceman…
Read article →5 March 2014
括囊. 無咎無譽. Kuo nang 括囊: a tied up large sack, probably made from leather, with a bottom (instead of a sack without a bottom, which has to be tied on both sides).…
Read article →4 March 2014
含章可貞, 或從王事, 无成有終. Hanzhang 含章: the same phrase occurs at H44-5. Han 含 means ‘to keep in the mouth; to hide, conceal’. The Shanghai MSS manuscript has [玉+欦], which might be related to yin 㱃,…
Read article →3 March 2014
First line 履霜堅冰至. Thread on frost: hard ice comes. Second line 直方大.不習無不利. See for zhi 直, ‘to receive’ and other meanings this page. See also Scott Barnwell’s excellent article about de 德, The Evolution of…
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2 March 2014
Name Just as with the name of hexagram 1, the name of hexagram 2, kun 坤 is difficult to translate, because the character only occurs in the Yijing and nowhere else (accept later…
Read article →28 February 2014
Fifth line 飛龍在天.利見大人. Daren 大人 (see also line 2) can refer to a person in a high position, like the nobility. In the Shijing 詩經 it is used as the title for a…
Read article →28 February 2014
What in most translations is called The Judgment Text has the Chinese title Tuan 彖. This character might be related to 㣇, which is read as 祟 on oracle bones, meaning ‘to expel…
Read article →27 February 2014
不永所事.小有言.終吉. bu yong 不永, ‘not eternal’. Suo shi 所事, ‘this matter’ (指某一件事，這件事). Xiao 小 refers to the common people. (about 小有言 see here). This matter does not last forever. The common people will have criticism. In the…
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20 February 2013
This article contains a lot of tiny images, which makes it difficult to post it as a WordPress article. In these cases a PDF works much better. Download here: The Yijing…
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6 September 2012
A few years ago I bought a book called Zhouyi Tu Jing Guang Shuo 周易圖經廣說, ‘Extensive Discussion of Zhouyi Pictures and its Scriptures’ by Wan Nianchun 萬年淳 (1761-1835). The book is more known…
Read article → 13 August 2012
(Most of the oracle bone images in this article are from the site of Richard Sears. Quotes from classics are from the site of Donald Sturgeon.) The Chinese character yan 言…
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11 June 2012
(To see all Chinese characters in this article use Firefox with the Hanazono font.) A few years ago I wrote an article about the meaning of fu 孚. It was appreciated…
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