AS 201 Classical Chinese Thought
We are about to head into a "unit" where we will look closely at three examples of texts and ideas from early China:
The Book of Changes (易經Yijing),
The Analects (論語、Lunyu), and
The Daodejing（道徳經)
In some ways in probably does not matter in which order we take them up. Kongzi's work is both a classic and extremely well-known and widely read. Likewise, the Daodejing though we know much less about its author, and most feel Laozi is not a real historical figure. We know "Confucius" was, even though he left us no specific works that we know to be written by his own hand. Finally, the Yijing has also been deeply influential for millennia--all three of these have--but it is much more unusual text than the other two. It may also constitute a deeper strata on which the other to draw. As one source puts it:
The Yijing, along with the Hindu Vedas, Upanishads and the Hebrew Bible, is one of the world’s oldest books in continuous use; it has been considered by Chinese to contain their most profound philosophy. Yet it began 3,000 years ago as a humble divination manual, basically a collection of folk expressions, magic spells, and allusions to long-forgotten ancient events. How it came to be an ethical and philosophical text, and now a psychological one, is a fascinating saga that takes us from the beginning of recorded human consciousness to the digital age.
Perhaps we should start there.
1. The early years of the Zhou Dynasty (ca. 1100-900 BCE, are a foundational time for Chinese thought. Later, in the Warring States (770-256 BCE) years, thinkers like Kongzi would look back to these days as a kind of Golden Age, when Sages were present and they could help establish stability, order and good government.
That is why he would praise the texts from this era and say things like "I love Ancient Learning," and "I follow the Zhou." That is what he believed serious minded people must do if they wanted to be right with the world and take the correct posture or stance in a deeply troubled time.
This is also why we have conversations about Confucius in terms of whether he is "merely" a "Transmitter," or is he really an "Innovator."
So when Kongzi spoke of the Way, it was the "Way of the Ancients" or the "Way of the Sages" that he wanted people to emulate and follow. The Doadejing and the Yijing also embrace a "Dao," "Way," but it seems to be a much broader and deeper way, one that goes beyond regulating social and political life, and touches a deeper part of the human experience, where the soul, the spirit and perhaps a mystical experience can be found. This is known as the "Great Way of Nature," or the "Way of the Cosmos."
Actually, while the early Zhou period was indeed exemplary, especially with the triumvirate of King Wen, King Wu and the Duke of Zhou, Chinese philosophers also looked back to another Golden Age, before even the Xia Dynasty was established, when legenday rulers/sages Yao and Shun governed. Yao (r. 2357–2256 b.c.e.) and Shun (r. 2255–2205 b.c.e.) are revered figures because they epitomized wisdom, humility, and unselfishness. Their shared characteristic was that each rejected his own son as unworthy and tried to install the best-qualified man as his successor. See more here.
The practioners of the Yijing methods of divination believed that over the centuries after Sage King Fu Xi created the Trigrams, they had found a pathway to help human beings find their way along these mysterious highways, where they could better understand the circumstances surounding them and thereby have a basis for responsible human action. The earliest version ot the Yijing was actually called the Zhouyi
In the Zhouyi, each section has 4 components
1. a title or tag
2. a six line gua or Hexagram
3. a statement or Judgment
4. individual line texts elaborating on the meaning of each line
But then later were added the Ten Wings Commentaries and these two together constitute the received text of the Yijing that we have today. Thgese commenbtaries pushed the text beyond the limits of being a Divination Manual and into a deep Book of Wisdom, a complex philosophical work, albeit, an odd one!
At one point, the Ten Wings were thought to incorporate the work of Confucius but scholars now think that is not possible.
But, over the centuries these early devotees of the Trigrams and Hexagrams developed a way of combining a Graphic and Verbal expression of human nature, of the human situation, in order to "capture" or take a "snapshot" of the prevailing conditions and circumstances. These Words and Images that we find in the Hexagrams could help people see more deeply into the world around them. The Book could help individuals become more aware, and there is probably no time or place when more awareness, more understanding, is not a good thing.
The great book known as the Yijing may have started as an oracle, a Diviner's Manual, a Handbook. But over centuries and millenia, it emerged as a deeply philosophical work organized around the 8 Trigrams and the 64 Hexagrams. As Song Dynasty philosopher Cheng Yi notes,
The Book of Changes is Transformation. It is the Transformation necessary if we are to be in tune with the Movement of Time, if we are to follow the Flow of the Dao. The book is grand in scope; it is all-encompassing. It is attuned to the very principles of Human Nature and Life-Destiny.
See this link from the AS 201 syllabus concerning the Yijing here.
A. The Eight Trigrams
-
Heaven, the Creative
-
Lake, Marsh. the Joyous
-
Fire, the Clinging
-
Thunder, the Arousing
-
Wind, the Gentle
-
Water, the Abysmal
-
Mountain, Keeping Still
-
Earth, the Receptive
See Link
The Yin and Yang Lines - yes, of course, yin-Yang theory underlies all of these works, especially the Yijing and the Daodejing.
The trigrams are made up of three full or broken lines, which represent the forces of Light (yin) and Dark (yang), the oldest polarities of Chinese cosmology. If the hexagram is the molecule and the trigrams are its atoms, then the lines are the nucleus and electrons of the atom.
But this binary system of lines is not what gives concrete meaning to the hexagrams. For that, they are just too abstract. Also, they are probably combined into trigrams not as much for their yin-yang values as for the image they form.
For example, the Mountain trigram to the right has the very crude form of a mountain, like for example the letter "N".
The Earth trigram, with its three broken lines, show an abyss without end, and the Heaven trigram with its three full lines is an image of the impenetrable sky.
That's not all there is to the combinations of lines in the trigrams, but it indicates that their combinations of yin and yang are not necessarily to be interpreted as saying something definite about their characteristics.
The only exceptions are the Heaven and Earth trigrams, representing pure yang and yin respectively. It is most likely from their appearance that the lines got their forms - yang as full and yin as broken - from the visual impression. In traditional Chinese cosmology, Heaven is perfect and Earth is flawed, so the latter had to be a broken line.
B. The Hexagrams: 6 lines each, made up of 2 Trigrams, mixed solid and broken lines....As one critic, 18th century Liu Yiming, explains:
The Sages created Images to give full expression to Meaning. They constructed hexagrams to give full expression to Reality. They attached Words to these Images and Hexagrams to give full expression to Speech...In its Resonance, it reaches the core of the World. Through the Yijing, the Sage plumbs the greatest depths, Investigates the subtlest Springs of Change. Its very depth penetrates the Will of the World. Knowledge of the Springs of Change Enables terrestial enterprises to be accomplished.
Another oft quoted phrase is about how the Sages looked up and saw the Heavens, and observed the beauty and power of the Cosmos; then they looked down and saw was what occurring here on Earth. They created the Hexagrams so that we could better understand our everyday situations in which we find ourselves here on earth.
Instructions