This book is aimed at those who already know the
Book of Changes and wish to better understand its original message. The Chinese characters or sinograms that were used to write the
YiJing, have multiple meanings that cannot be fully covered when translated into a Western language, because inevitably their range of meanings is truncated. Although these limitations of
YiJing translations cannot be avoided, this book offers English-speaking readers a tool that will allow them to understand more deeply the many possible meanings that the
YiJing sentences suggest.
This
YiJing translation includes:
The Judgment (
GuaCi),
The Image (
DaXiang) and the comments assigned to the lines of the hexagrams (
YaoCi), but instead of adding our own interpretation to them, we offer tables of meanings of the sinograms, which allow readers to take our translation only as a point of reference. Readers will thus be able, by combining the multiple meanings of the sinograms in different ways, to better appreciate the subtle nuances of meaning of the
YiJing sentences, as well as forming alternative readings of the texts.
We display each
YiJing sentence in a table, or matrix of meanings, which is read from top to bottom, just as traditional Chinese texts. Each line of the table shows the meaning of a sinogram, and is divided into four columns: the first shows the sinogram; the second its pronunciation, using the
PinYin romanization system; the third its number in Mathews’ Chinese-English dictionary and the fourth its range of meanings.
In preparing this book we follow the classical interpretation of the
YiJing text, as it has been read from the
Han to the
Qing dynasty. The original text used for this translation is the
Zhouyi Zhezhong, “Balanced Commentaries on the ZhouYi,” published in 1715 under the patronage of the
Qing dynasty. It is the same text used by Richard Wilhelm and many other Sinologists as the basis of their translations.
Because this book is not aimed at those who are just starting out with the
Book of Changes, but rather at those who are already familiar with it, we do not indicate how to consult the
YiJing nor do we add any other additional material, except for a Concordance that allows readers to study the repetitions of different sinograms throughout the book, according to their corresponding number in Mathews’ dictionary.
NOTE: This book was inspired by the late Bradford Hatcher's translation of The Book of Changes, Vol. 2: The Matrix - Translator's Manual. The differences between this book and Bradford's are that although this book does not include any material from the Ten Wings (as Bradford does), except The Image, the information it has on the meanings of the sinograms is much more extensive; it also shows not only the meanings of each sinogram, but also of different combinations of sinograms, which Bradford's work does not. Another difference is that this book includes, next to the tables with the meanings of the sinograms, an English translation, which is a very valuable starting point for any reader trying to combine the meanings of the sinograms to build coherent phrases.
