Memorizing the I Ching. 29. K'an / The Abysmal (Water)

[sparhawk]

BTW, Karlgren's is not a super-duper dictionary. Difficult to find, about 300 pages of hand written Chinese characters and their glossing. Mine is almost falling apart from old age and a bad spine. Now, you go and ask Harmen or LiSe, since they are both in The Netherlands as yourself, to toss Karlgren to the dustbin. For all the personal opinions Harmen may have on it, I'm sure he wouldn't depart from his possession.

L

[hmesker]

Erhm, well, I just had a 'Burn Karlgren to the DustBin' ritual. Which is also a 'bin' ritual, just like the Shang had. But seriously, of course I would never throw Karlgren's GSR away, but I hardly ever consult it. It is outdated, and when it comes to the original meanings of ancient characters it is not always reliable. I have far better sources which I consult every time. Kalgren made a mile stone with this book, just as Wilhelm did with his Yijing. But both books are a rooted in their time with all the consequences that come with that.

In the case of the meaning if xi Kargren gives meanings which are okay, as far as I'm concerned. But instead of just relying on the meanings that he gives it is better to check the character in the context that he gives. That gives you the opportunity to see if you agree with a specific meaning that he gives. Karlgren mentions the source for every meaning, and I think it is always a good thing to check that. It is very well possible that you don't agree with Karlgren's given meaning in the context or source that he gives.

The GSR is quite easy obtainable as a reprint from SMC Publishing, by the way: http://www.smcbook.com.tw/search.php?textfield=karlgren

Harmen.

[sparhawk]

Hi Harmen,

Gee, I have the 1957 reprint and went to the gates of hell to get it... Thanks for that link to the reprints!

Now, down to business, since we are here to actually learn something and debate it if we have to, how would you interpret "xi2" within the context of the hexagram statement?

L

PS: I'll PM on a completely unrelated matter...

[sparhawk]

Oops, I almost forgot to reply to Bruce about how to show those files. Here is the code. You must have two versions of the same picture file, one a big version and the other is a thumbnail of the first. You upload both to your server and note the addresses. You then use the thumbnail version within the [IMG --- /IMG] code and wrap this one with a [URL --- /URL] code with the address of the big version, as follows:

[url="http://www.yitoons.com/xi2-02.jpg"][IMG]http://www.yitoons.com/xi2-02-thumb.jpg[/IMG][/url]

[url="http://www.yitoons.com/x12-01.jpg"][IMG]http://www.yitoons.com/x12-01-thumb.jpg[/IMG][/url]

L

[sparhawk]

Originally Posted by hmesker

I have far better sources which I consult every time. Kalgren made a mile stone with this book, just as Wilhelm did with his Yijing. But both books are a rooted in their time with all the consequences that come with that.
Harmen.

What can you recommend as good references and better sources? BTW, I did buy the 楚竹書《周易》研究(上下) on your recommendation. They are great and beautiful books, indeed.

L

[laureet]

There is a particularity of water which people usually forget: it doesn't fill a space as a basin or a pit because it flows, it flows because it fills spaces...

Water is not in permanent flow looking for spaces to fill, water is pretty much quiet and settles immediately if no external factors set it in movement...

Water also doesn't flow with intention or knowing where it goes, it is carried to places by diverse factors, but itself, it always tries to settle down... if you give this a thought, you may find more than K'an in K'an

[hmesker]

Originally Posted by sparhawk

Now, down to business, since we are here to actually learn something and debate it if we have to, how would you interpret "xi2" within the context of the hexagram statement?

The way I see this character - for now - is that it talks about something which is repeated over and over again. Not just once, but continuously. Many meanings of this character have to do with this repeatedness: studying, reviewing, teach/train, etc. As an adverb (副詞) it denotes frequency ('表示頻度,相當於'常常', '經常' '; 漢語大字典 p. 3345).

That is why I believe that 坎 means 'sound of drumming' instead of 'pit', because the repeating factor of 習 fits better the sound of drumming - is my opinion. This repeating is also found in the 3rd line, '來之坎坎', where 坎 is repeated. And we know from the Shijing that 坎坎 refers to the sound of drumming (I believe I also mentioned this somewhere else).

Best,

Harmen.

[sparhawk]

Thanks, Harmen,

Originally Posted by hmesker

That is why I believe that 坎 means 'sound of drumming' instead of 'pit', because the repeating factor of 習 fits better the sound of drumming - is my opinion. This repeating is also found in the 3rd line, '來之坎坎', where 坎 is repeated. And we know from the Shijing that 坎坎 refers to the sound of drumming (I believe I also mentioned this somewhere else).

Best,

Harmen.

Yes, and we ended up talking about French "Can-Can"...

L

[ewald]

Originally Posted by hmesker

But instead of just relying on the meanings that he gives it is better to check the character in the context that he gives. That gives you the opportunity to see if you agree with a specific meaning that he gives. Karlgren mentions the source for every meaning, and I think it is always a good thing to check that. It is very well possible that you don't agree with Karlgren's given meaning in the context or source that he gives.

I do that with some private webpages that I created. They have the Zhouyi and the Shijing in databases, and you can search on single characters or combinations of them (phrases). That gives you (well, me actually) a very handy overview of pieces of text with the phrases, and translations of them. It has helped me out enormously.

I use several digital dictionaries, that are easily accessible from the pages. You just hover your mouse over a character, and you get the meanings that I collected in my private dictionary. Clicking a character gives access to that private dictionary for editing, and several other dictionaries.

So, I use no paper books. I suppose my way of handling this is a lot faster than using them, and makes it easier to have all kinds of views on contexts.

[hmesker]

Originally Posted by sparhawk

What can you recommend as good references and better sources? BTW, I did buy the 楚竹書《周易》研究(上下) on your recommendation. They are great and beautiful books, indeed.

They are, aren't they? I'm glad you like them. The following sources are mentioned in my weblog on several occasions, but I'll try to explain why I use them.

For characters in oracle bone inscriptions I use

• 新編甲骨文 by 精裝本
  Compared to similar dictionaries It contains substantial more characters. Explanations of their form and meaning, with samples of complete inscriptions, as well as a transcript of them.
• 甲骨文字典 by 徐中舒 (ed.)
  Still a good OBI dictionary, but surpassed by the aforementioned title.
• 甲骨文精粹釋 by 王宇信, 楊升南, 聶玉海 (eds.)
  Not much characters, but pictures of almost 700 plastrons and their inscriptions - a rubbing, a drawing, and a transcript in modern characters as well as a modern text version/explanation of the inscription. Helps you to see a character in its complete context.
• 甲骨文編
  Not very helpful as a dictionary, but it gives a lot of OBI forms of a character. No explanation is given though, just the OBI forms.
• 甲骨文簡明詞典 by 趙誠
  Interesting because - as the title says - this is a cidian 詞典, it not only deals with characters but also with phrases, arranged by subject.
• 甲骨文字釋林 by 於省吾
  Detailed explanations of a wide range of characters.

For bronze inscriptions:

• 金文大字典
  Three massive volumes with a lousy index, but if you find a character in it you can read all about its form and use. Lots of pictures of separate bronze inscription characters with the name of the vessel mentioned; not complete texts.
• 金文常用字典
  A dictionary with the most-used characters. Good explanations and samples of their use.
• 金文引得 - 殷商西周卷 and 春秋战国卷
  If you want to see the context of a bronze character then these are the books to have. Thousands of transcriptions - not rubbings - of bronze inscriptions, with indexes to find a character. Invaluable.
• 金文編 by 容庚
  What the 甲骨文編 is for OBI, is the 金文編 for bronze characters. Hardly any explanation, but very good to find variants of BI.

To see how bamboo and silk characters from the state of Chu etc. were written the

• 楚汉简帛书典 by 李正光
  is nice, but also a huge waste of paper because many characters are outrageously large written. Comparable to the 甲骨文編 and the 金文編.

For the usage of characters in pre-Han texts I highly recommend

• 王力古漢語字典 by 王力
  A standard. Not only meanings of a lot of characters, but also examples of their usage with references to the ancient books of China. A must have.

For general usage of characters throughout the history of China I recommend

• 漢語大字典
  If a character cannot be found in this dictionary then it does not exist. Period. That's a little exaggerated of course, but seriously, with 54.678 characters in it it will be hard not to find a character. For every character its old forms are given (when available), and all the possible meanings with samples from a wide range of (classical) books.
• 漢語大詞典
  Comparable to the aforementioned title, but with less characters (> 23.000) and focus on compounds.
• 古文字诂林
  A very complete source for the etymology of characters, summarizing the general findings from major names in the field. Hard to obtain, therefore I reluctantly give a link to a source where you can download the complete collection as Ssreader files.....

Hm, I believe I went a little off-topic here....

Harmen.