Exploring Different Translations and Commentaries of the I Ching

The I Ching (Yijing) is not a single, static text but rather a complex body of writings that has been interpreted and reinterpreted over centuries, leading to a vast diversity of perspectives and translations. This diversity reflects differing technical, philological, religious, philosophical, literary, social, and political viewpoints, influenced by historical events and individual experiences. The very process of interpreting the I Ching has been compared to playing chess, where no two games are alike and infinite possibilities exist.

Historical Commentary Approaches

I Ching writings are broadly categorized into four major areas: textual interpretation, symbols and numbers, divination, and others. This categorization is largely derived from the Chinese system, which divides I Ching literature into the school of textual interpretation (i-li) and the school of symbols and numbers (hsiang-shu). These represent two distinct traditions: the former studies the text itself, while the latter examines its symbols and numbers.

Textual Interpretation (i-li): This approach studies the text of the I Ching. It includes three branches:

• Explanation (ch’üan-shih): Develops interpretations based on a general understanding of the text.
• Commentary (chu-shu): Annotates the text, often sentence by sentence.
• Textual Criticism (k’ao-cheng): Employs sophisticated methods such as philology, phonetics, and higher criticism to study the text.

Symbols and Numbers (hsiang-shu): This approach focuses on examining the symbols and numbers within the I Ching.

Divination: This approach treats the I Ching primarily as a manual for divination. The I Ching is believed to have begun its career as a divination manual nearly three thousand years ago in the Early Zhou dynasty. Early forms of divination utilized yarrow stalks, later supplemented by coin methods. Historical accounts show disagreements among interpreters over the “correct” meaning of the Yi in divinatory contexts.

Others: This category includes schools focused on religion and culture, which apply the ideas from the I Ching to enrich their own theories and rituals. The I Ching has been appropriated by various schools of thought, including Confucianism, Taoism, the Yin-Yang school, certain schools of Buddhism, and folk religion.

The Ten Wings are a significant body of commentary appended to the Zhouyi, believed to have been added during the Warring States period. Confucians since the Han period highly esteemed the Ten Wings and used them to interpret the main text. However, some later scholars believed the Ten Wings frequently misled scholars and regarded them as supplementary materials. Correlative thinking, involving the correlation of the Five Elements, yin-yang, directions, numbers, and trigrams, developed greatly during the Han dynasty and is found in commentaries, but there is no evidence of this system in the original text of the I Ching itself.

Key Historical Commentators

Over the centuries, many influential commentators have shaped the understanding of the I Ching:

• Wang Bi (226-249 CE): Wang Bi is noted as the initiator of the philosophical approach to understanding the I Ching. His approach marked a significant departure from earlier Han dynasty commentators. In Zhu Xi’s time, the majority of scholars had adopted Wang Bi’s interpretation style. Wang Bi’s commentary discussed the dynamic nature of “images” (xiang) and “words” (yan), drawing on the Xici and Zhuangzi texts.
• Zhu Xi (1130-1200): Zhu Xi held a unique view among commentators, regarding the sixty-four hexagrams as the “original version” (guben) and the Ten Wings as supplementary (zhuan). His main commentary, Zhouyi benyi, presented this perspective. Zhu Xi also played a key role in reintroducing and reinterpreting the yarrow stalk divination method described in the Ta Chuan. He interpreted divination not as seeking guidance from a supernatural power, but as an experience of encountering the unknown to understand opportunities. His approach is known as the Originalist approach (Benyi), emphasizing the independent interpretation of each hexagram.
• Cheng Yi (1033-1107): Cheng Yi was another prominent commentator whose work was influential.
• Itō Tōgai (1670-1736): A Japanese Confucian scholar during the Tokugawa period, Itō Tōgai was noted for not treating the different layers of the text as a monolithic unity. He studied the I Chuan (textual interpretation) and Chou-i pen-i (symbols and numbers) separately. He wrote important works including Shūeki hongi shikō and Shūeki kunten idō, and a significant commentary called Shūekō rangai sho.

The comparison between the Wang Bi and Zhu Xi schools demonstrates the significantly divergent historical opinions within I Ching scholarship. By the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), over seven hundred different schools of I Ching scholarship (Yì Xué) could be catalogued.

I Ching Scholarship Outside China

The study and interpretation of the I Ching spread beyond China, notably to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. In Tokugawa Japan, intellectuals from various schools (Confucians, Buddhists, Shintoists, etc.) pursued I Ching scholarship. This scholarship was eclectic, balancing philosophical and divinational, practical and academic, Han and Sung, and Chinese and Japanese approaches. While textual analysis was influential, all approaches enjoyed considerable support. Some Japanese scholars even attempted to “Japanize” the I Ching, claiming it had Japanese origins and reinterpreting it through a Shinto paradigm.

English Translations

Numerous English translations of the I Ching exist, each reflecting different choices in interpreting the source text and its associated commentaries:

• James Legge: His translation, The I Ching, is a notable early English version. It was based on Zhu Xi’s I Hsueh Ch’i Meng and Chou I Pen I. Legge’s translation is mentioned as a standard version used by later scholars.
• Richard Wilhelm: His translation, The I Ching or Book of Changes, rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, is also widely known. It was based on a collection of Sung commentaries that drew from Zhu Xi’s Chou I Pen I. Wilhelm’s work represents a prominent understanding shaped by 12th-century scholarship (via Zhu Xi). The psychologist C.G. Jung wrote a foreword to Wilhelm’s translation.
• Richard John Lynn: His translation, The Classic of Changes, is presented as interpreted by Wang Bi. Lynn’s work provides access to Wang Bi’s prominent 3rd-century CE understanding of the text.
• Edward Shaughnessy: His translation, I Ching: The Classic of Changes, is based on the Mawangdui manuscript, an Early Han period version that differs significantly in hexagram order and names from the received version. He has also published on other recently discovered manuscripts.
• Richard Rutt, Greg Whincup, and Wu Jing-Nuan: Their translations are noted as reflecting speculations about the Changes in its relatively early stages of development (early Eastern Zhou period).
• Thomas Cleary: Cleary translated commentaries from different philosophical traditions, including The Buddhist I Ching (based on Chih-hsu Ou-i), The Taoist I Ching (based on Liu I-ming), and I Ching: The Tao of Organization (based on Cheng Yi). His renderings of hexagram names are noted as being largely consistent across his Buddhist and Taoist versions.
• Rudolf Ritsema and Stephen Karcher: Their translation, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, explicitly adopts a Jungian approach. They aimed to present the text as a psychological tool connecting the individual to the world of images, seeking to revive its divinatory core and psychological root. Their work is associated with the Eranos I Ching Project, which explored the psychological significance of the text.
• Thomas McClatchie: An early English translator, McClatchie interpreted the text through a Christianized lens, comparing its concepts to figures from Greek, Roman, and Mesopotamian mythology, while also criticizing it as un-Christian.

Challenges in Interpretation and Translation

The interpretation and translation of the I Ching are fraught with challenges. The text is written with extreme brevity in classical Chinese, and the meaning can be completely altered by a single wrongly written character or if the meaning of an ancient character has changed or been forgotten. Different versions of the I Ching exist with varying wording, and there are conflicting orders for the hexagrams, adding to the difficulty in determining the original meaning. Later commentators and translators often rely on previous interpretive apparatus, which may not always be correct.

Fundamentally, the interpretive methods scholars choose significantly determine the meanings they impute to the text. Every translation is inherently filtered through the perspective, culture, and lived experiences of the translator. As a result, different authors, whether Taoist, Confucian, Buddhist, secular, or those with backgrounds in occultism, will interpret and phrase the text differently. Some scholars argue that there are as many versions of the Yijing as there are readers and commentators. This diversity of voices necessitates consulting multiple texts and using one’s own perspective to find meaning.