The Great Vessel Blog

Wang Bi - A founder of the modern I Ching

Apologies - The earlier post on this went out in error.

The I Ching does not end with any statement about its perfection or the cursing of anyone who adds or removes from it. It has a long tradition of changing to meet the ideas and times in which it is used. Originally it was probably a divinatory system which existed within shamanistic practices. The central ideas were of influencing the ancestors and spirits who were thought to affect the world in which people lived.

By the 9th Century BCE the Zhouyi had been written down. It was now an instrument to penetrate the nature of the time and to divine what actions would or would not be in accord with it. By this time it was believed that those actions which were in accord with the time would be advantageous and those which were not would not go well. Essentially Daoist in nature this earliest layer consisted of the Hexagram glyph or name; the hexagram or gua; the hexagram statements (Judgement in Wilhelm) and the line statements.

Around about the 5th or 6th century BCE the first and second wings (the Tuan Zuan) were added. These were the Commentary on the Judgements and Line Statements, also called the Images. They were largely Confucian in character. Sometime in the Han Dynasty the 6th and 7th wings, the Dazhuan or Great Commentary was added. This is a profound work, perhaps Daoist in nature, and which is still regarded as a keystone to Chinese Spiritual thought.

Still in the Han dynasty the last of the Ten Wings were added. Together these Wings were the only texts to be included in the Zhouyi to form the I Ching. However by this time it would have been possible to fill a library with scholarly works, essays and commentaries.

The heritage of the commonly used I Ching and its slide across to Confucian values was not an even path. Taking the 2nd layer of developments, the Tuanzhuan (1st and 2nd Wings) and the Xiangzhuan (3rd and 4th Wings): Originally these focussed on divination. Whether those who wrote them down were ignorant of their meaning, or whether they chose to change it, is not known. Whichever way there was a radical change of both syntax and of the meaning of some words to make them conform with Confucian values. Later older texts were added as wings and some of these were nearer to Daoism in their values.

This was the world into which Wang Bi was born. It was also a world of political instability which ensued at the end of the Han Dynasty, one of the key formative periods for the I Ching. Born in 226 Wang Bi died in 249 at 23 years of age. He served in Cao Shuang’s court as a tailing, a Court Gentleman. These were turbulent times and when Cao Shuang was deposed in 249 Wang Bi was dismissed from court service. He died of a pestilence shortly afterwards.

In his short life he wrote a commentary on the Daodejing; the Zhouyi lueli (General Remarks on the Changes of Zhou) and commentaries on the Judgements, Line Statements, Commentary on the Judgements and Commentaries of the Line Statements. “A Confucian rather than a sectarian Daoist, Wang Bi wanted to create an understanding of Daoism that was consistent with Confucianism but which did not fall into what he considered to be the errors of the Celestial Masters and their popular religious practices.” Much of his work was retained by the great neo Confucian reformers, Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, who did much to establish the I Ching as a Confucian classic.

In the 18th Century there was a great redaction of the I Ching. It resulted in the publishing of the Chou-i-che-chung, or Kang Hsi, or Palace Edition of the I Ching. This edition drew heavily on the work of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi and so too included much of Wang Bi’s work.

It is this Palace Edition that is so often used as the basis of modern translations. Wilhelm’s translation is from this edition. Richard Jonn Lynn has published a wonderful translation of Wang Bi’s I Ching which includes his essay and some of the principles which he believed underpinned it. (Columbia University Press 1994).

Wang Bi reported that when a new palace was being constructed the workmen found copies of texts pertaining to the Zhouyi. These were written in an older, unknown, script. It is thought that he had access to a number of older texts which are now lost. This is another reason why his work is so valuable. Ronnie Littlejohn has a web page about Wang Bi and his work which I enjoyed immensely.