I Ching

Author: Xu Qitang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: The Book of Changes (Zhou Yi) is an ancient philosophical work cloaked in religious superstition, preserving the rich views of naive dialectics of ancient people. Starting from the principle that "one yin and one yang constitute the Way," it posits that the movement and change of things are endless and that when things develop to a certain extent, they transform into their opposites. It proposes philosophical propositions such as "When things reach their limit, they must change, and when they change, they find a way" and "When heaven and earth undergo transformation, the four seasons are formed; the revolutions of Tang and Wu followed the heavens and responded to humanity." It holds that the development of things is essentially a process moving from contradiction toward harmony and continuous cyclical repetition. The study of the Book of Changes is one of the most popular topics in the history of Chinese thought and culture. Over thousands of years, there have been thousands of works dedicated to interpreting and commenting on it. These works can be broadly divided into two schools: the Yili (Principle) school and the Xiangshu (Image and Number) school. The Xiangshu school studies the Book of Changes by utilizing the transformations of the Eight Trigrams and other mystical methods to predict the future, uncover the mysteries of the universe, and seek to turn misfortune into good fortune, fulfilling human desires. In contrast, the Yili school views the Book of Changes as a purely philosophical work, employing rational philosophical methods to explore the laws of natural and social development. As the earliest extant philosophical work in China, the Book of Changes has had a profound impact on the development of traditional Chinese culture. The metaphysical cosmology it proposes has become the way of thinking in traditional Chinese thought. Every field of China's traditional culture is built upon the fundamental theories of the Book of Changes, and ancient Chinese scholarship in almost every category can trace its origins to it. The Book of Changes was regarded as a classic by the Confucian school during the Warring States period and has been revered as the "supreme of the six classics" for over two thousand years thereafter. At the same time, it is also a classic revered by the Taoist school. Therefore, studying and understanding the Book of Changes is of great significance for better understanding traditional Chinese philosophical thought and comprehending ancient Chinese culture. This is also the purpose and original intention of our translation and annotation of the Book of Changes.