Talk:I Ching/Archive 1

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Talk:I Ching Archive 1

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For those interested, my primary reference is I Ching, The Classic Chinese Oracle Of Change by Rudolf Ritsema and Stephen Karcher of the Eranos I Ching Project, an astonishingly complete translation with loads of cross-reference material. Published by Element Books, 1-85230-669-6 is the ISBN code. -- Bignose

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Bignose,

I see some problem in the way you present the hexagrams textually. For example,

|||::: (地天泰 or earch + heaven = tai4) T'ai (Prevading)

is earth on top of heaven. When you rotate the text anti-clockwise, it look right. But if you read the text from left to right, you will read heaven ||| before earth :::, hence it may be confusing. The hexagram (like traditional Chinese text) are usually read from top to bottom, but in your notation, you read from bottom to top.

You are correct on the direction of reading Chinese text, but incorrect on the issue of I Ching hexagrams. They are constructed from the bottom up, their lines are numbered from the bottom up (the bottom line is numbered "first", the top line is numbered "sixth" or "last"), and they are read from the bottom up (the lower trigram, or "inner" trigram, is seen to be changing to the upper, or "outer" trigram). All the literature I have on I Ching confirms this, and I will discuss it in the Divination section. -- Bignose

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Regarding

01. |||||| (乾為天 qian2 = heaven) Ch'ien (Force)

vs.

01. |||||| (乾 qian2) Force

In most Chinese reference, the phrase like 乾為天 qian means heaven, 地天泰 earth heaven tai4 etc. are used as a means to memorize the hexagrams by recitating them like a poem. Although such phrases are useless for non-Chinese speaking readers. Removing them make the article cleaner, but then readers who understands Chinese would miss those phrases as useful tools in reciting the 64 hexagrams.

I'll take your word for it. I think having the title of each hexagram as brief as practical (as in the second example above) is preferable; anything extra can go under that heading. That's why I made them headings. I'm pleased to see someone took the initiative and put the extra content in under the headings. -- Bignose

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Some web links:
A Chinese government site showing some turtle shell oracles and early chinese writings
more

Don't wait for someone else to do it. Be bold in updating pages. -- Bignose

I didn't plan to add these links to the article itself because I feel that these are not directly related to I Ching. However these articles would be useful resource for you if you plan to write more on the topic of divination.

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I have no idea how many people are contributing to this page (am I having arguments with a dozen people, or just one? :-); please adopt the Wiki habit of signing your name to discussion items. Making a Wikipedia account by going to the Preferences page would help too, so we can see your name in the change logs. -- Bignose

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Talk continued at Talk:I Ching