Matrix of Meanings of the Book of Changes

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.