Shaughnessy "The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes" - Open Access

[fabio galassi]

Dears,

it is a good occasion, to have this book for free at Brill.

Let's study!

The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes​

 

[surnevs]

This is what "I Ching News" are for. Thanks

 

[surnevs]

On Amazon, I got the message that it's currently unavailable...
I wonder. A book published in 2022 ???

 

[surnevs]

I think of Edward L. Shaughnessy, who for research into the I Ching, Sir E.A. Wallis Budge, former keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities in the British Museum, was for research into Egyptian mythology and language of ancient Egypt. Before my interest was caught in the I Ching, in my youth I was likewise caught in Egyptology. I have ordered the book (yet I'm aware it's for free here in PDF format I belong to those who are wise enough to prefer media independence of electricity )* just knowing it's worth reading...

* Add.: independent of electricity concerning this!

 

[surnevs]

Surfing through Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=773860074753801&set=a.491532062986605

"We are honoured and delighted to have Prof. Ed Shaughnessy as our Distinguished Speaker for the coming I-Ching Learning Community Zoom session. Prof Shaughnessy will discuss Part 1 of his book ‘The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes’.

Date: 6 November 2023
Time: 20:30-22:00 HKT (GMT +8:00)"

 

[Liselle]

Very interesting, thanks, Surnevs.

The link doesn't work, though, at least for me.

 

[hilary]

Try this:

'The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes’ with Professor Edward Shaughnessy

Event by SDCF Sinological Development Charitable Foundation on Monday, November 6 2023

www.facebook.com

That one seems to work even for non-Facebook people.

 

[blewbubbles]

This is a fantastic and thank you for the link !
It will take me some time to read, and have appreciation for the research contained in this book, but I would like to ask a few tentative questions. Maybe some of my troubles can be relieved by the expert opinions over here.

It seems that some of the ideas that Shoughnessy are putting forward are becoming convention in some recent English I Ching books, and I'm not sure weather it is justified. Just a quick reference to a statement in Nan Huaijin's introductory essay to the "Zhouyi in contemporary language", he talks about the name Yi, which can be interpreted as referring to various animals, a lizard being the most agreeable. He goes on by saying that the Zhouyi can't be called the "lizard sutra", although some interpretor may want to go that extent. So, having said that, I would like jump to the issue at hand.

The animal names used for hexagram 33, piglet, and 36, calling pheasant, are confusing and unhelpful when it's compared to the traditional translations of "brightness injured" and "retreat". It terms of divination, the traditional names seem to me to be more useful than having to ponder an animal name for implications and hidden meanings. I follow that in the line text of 36 the "brightness injured" in flight etc. makes sense, as referring to a bird, but does it justify it to change the hexagram name to "calling pheasant", when ming yi also translates as suppression of light? As for the piglet in hexagram 33, initial six, in the Wang Bi commentary by R J Lynn (my favourite I Ching text) it reads, "There is danger here at the tail of Withdrawal", which I presume can be referring to the tail of a pig, but how much do we know about farm animals and their fabels to be able to make sense of this reference to a piglet, when "retreat" is a concept that is easily understood, and easily applied?

 

[hilary]

These are all very good questions. (Though personally I find a fleeing piglet a lot more vivid than a more abstract concept like 'retreat'.)

More questions: how long have people been reading Hexagram 36 as meaning 'Brightness Hiding' (/injured)? I don't know exactly, but I should think it's a couple of thousand years at least. So for all that time, in all those countless readings, that's been what it meant: Yi has used to say 'Brightness Hiding'.

Now we learn that the text may originally have meant something else.

What does it mean now?

What do we mean, 'mean'? Whose meaning are we talking about anyway?

(Incidentally, it is perfectly possible for the text always to have meant more than one thing.)

 

[surnevs]

I have always wondered how someone can tell with 100 % certainty how an answer from the I Ching should be understood and was relieved when I read this (marked in oblique lettering): attached PDF.
For my part, most of the answers I get are partly nonsense and have nothing to do with or are no answers at all to my inquiry, frankly speaking, that's what it looks like in my eyes.

 

[hilary]

For my part, most of the answers I get are partly nonsense and have nothing to do with or are no answers at all to my inquiry, frankly speaking, that's what it looks like in my eyes.

If you'd like help understanding any of them, let me know! (Or venture over to the 'Shared Readings' forum, of course.) Finding some imaginary 'definitive meaning' for the text in isolation is a very different thing from connecting with a reading.

 

[Liselle]

Here's the contents of the pdf:

"............ the language in which the Zhou Changes was written is unmistakably Chinese, albeit the archaic Chinese of the Zhou dynasty, and the more we learn about that language the better we can understand the text. Nevertheless, the images of the Zhou Changes are oftenenigmatic at best, and anyone who claims to understand everything in the book is either a trickster or someone who is content to invent his own meaning. Some of these tricks and many of the inventions have developed the meaning of the text in important ways and are fully deserving of study in their own right, but that is a topic for a different book." and to this, a note:

2) For Western readers, the best single-volume history of the Yijing’s exegetical tradition is Smith,

Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering theWorld. For Chinese readers, a still more detailed history is Zhu Bokun, Yixue zhexue shi. English readers interested in a traditional Chinese presentation might consult Liu Dajun, An Introduction to the Zhou Yi (Book of Changes) (Asheville, NC: Chiron Publications, 2019). "

"The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes"

Edward Shaughnessy - 978-90-04-51394-5
Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2023 06:08:46PM via free access

 

[surnevs]

If you'd like help understanding any of them, let me know! (Or venture over to the 'Shared Readings' forum, of course.) Finding some imaginary 'definitive meaning' for the text in isolation is a very different thing from connecting with a reading.

Of course, I was aware, when I posted this comment, that it could be misunderstood. And I know too that my humble knowledge concerning this cosmos that the I Ching represent far from allows me even to quote a capacity like Shaughnessy on such a sensitive question. But I do think that if we are not open to our understanding of the little we grasp out of readings we will hinder ourselves from understanding the fact that there is more to understand beyond the text as read, being Chinese or translated to other languages. And there is only one teacher in exploring an understanding in this particular language I think: our own experience from reading to reading. This is also why commentaries on the text tell more about the publisher/translator than what the answer, given by the I Ching means.
But for me, it's mostly about breaking the barrier or "the little whispering in the ear" consisting of a sort of false belief that I understand the text when receiving an answer to a question like: "Oh, really ?" seen in the light of the huge complexity of "everything surrounding me" from moment to moment; in the next moment the reading is "yesterdays paper" and: did I got what I went for ?
So in this way, it was a relief for me to read a capacity like E.L. Shaughnessy's reminder about the complexity of this text or, that I'm not stupid because I don't grasp its meaning.
Thank you Hilary for your kind offer and Liselle for transforming the pdf.

 

[hilary]

Sorry, I did misunderstand you. I agree that the best teacher is experience (in the Foundations Course we call her Professor Hindsight... ) . We can probably also agree that connecting with a reading is not at all the same thing as finding 'what the text means'.

 

[surnevs]

However, I must confess that my posting above on #10 could have been expressed in more detail, spontaneously written as it was.