Using the Bradford I Ching

cheiron · Feb 21, 2004

Brad

I have just spent the morning in a peaceful moment reading your I Ching Introduction as well as your ideas on scales?

Then spent some time with your Hx.2 in the matrix version.

It is an astonishing piece of work that you have produced? Your arguments carried me with their depth and good sense.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I did get a little confused with your The Xiao Gua, The Fourteen Small Symbols.

Have I understood it correctly that you have stripped out the key gloss of the listed texts and brought them together as a way of giving a vivid picture of each of the 14 images?

How would you suggest that I use this?

Also when you say contrast? how do I use your work to contrast a gloss?

I think were the only I thing I did in my life was to produce a piece of work like this I would count it well spent.

Sincerely

--Kevin

http://www.hermetica.info/

bradford_h · Feb 21, 2004

Hi Kevin-
Those are some very kind words. Thank you. Sometimes the Work is a little like calling out into the night sky and still hoping for some reply, or even an echo. It's good to have feedback.

"Have I understood it correctly that you have stripped out the key gloss of the listed texts and brought them together as a way of giving a vivid picture of each of the 14 images?

Yes. Each of these Chinese words is a piece of the puzzle that is each individual symbol, given somewhere in the text of the Yi. These symbols are not like English words, surrounded and defined, but more like holograms or gestalts which are capable of adopting or producing any of these glosses when the context is right. The more pieces of this gestalt or hologram you have, the more competent your symbol is when adapting to a specific context.

Also when you say contrastÉ how do I use your work to contrast a gloss?

At the same time, the associations to a symbol have real limits. Because these are finite systems of symbols which attempt to cover the whole of a spectrum of reality ( in the case of the Ba Gua, all changes may be categorized into eight types), they define each other's boundaries. We compare one to the other to get a sense of where one ends and the other begins. Otherwise we'd just go flying around in free-association.

cheiron · Feb 22, 2004

Hi Brad

Thanks for coming back and explaining that.

I find your work is helping me ?move between the layers? that accumulated over time as well? give me twenty years and I may get some clarity on that one (chuckles).

I would trouble you with one more question?

Which ?Zhouyi? (not the wings etc) have you used?

I am sure you said that somewhere, but I cant find it.

I am having an extraordinary time here looking at your work alongside Ritsema Karcher? The sound of scales falling away from my eyes is like that of summer rain falling in woodland!

Thanks

--Kevin

bradford_h · Feb 22, 2004

Hi Kevin-
It's discussed at the beginning and end of the Chinese text section.
In sum, I used both the Harvard-Yencheng and the ZD Sung versions, both checked against Kunst. Both are from the Zhouyi Zhezhong text and include the Wings. I made choices betewwn them 10 times, and three emendations (See Source Text Discrepancies and Emendations at the end). The parsing is my own in lots of places, but all the choices I made are listed at the end).
b

cheiron · Feb 22, 2004

Thanks Brad

I guess I read too much too quickly and could not find those bits again - Apologies to have troubled you on it.

This is brilliant - For the first time ever I feel I can get to grips with the original words.

It is interesting too, that having so many word choices seems to enable me to move beyond the 'intellectual' and find connections in meaning.

I am supposed to be doing a job application right now... but I am having far too good a time working with Hx.30

Chuckling with pleasure

--Kevin

dobro p · Feb 22, 2004

"In sum, I used both the Harvard-Yencheng and the ZD Sung versions, both checked against Kunst"

How old are each of those, Mr B?

bradford_h · Feb 22, 2004

1935 and 1934 respectively
Zhouyi Zhezhong was 1715
Kunst was 1985
b

dobro p · Feb 22, 2004

That's not very old. Hmm... I mean, the Yi's about as old as the Bible, but standard versions don't go back further than 1715? Surely there must be copies of versions that were made in various centuries a long way back?

bradford_h · Feb 22, 2004

Hi Dobro-
This rescension was commissioned by the emperor at the time (Kangxi) to stand as the most historically reliable version of the Yijing, using all of the versions and commentaries floating around at the time, together with a collection of hundreds of the most important commentaries. It was a synthesis that drew heavily on much older texts. It of course misses some recent discoveries, most notably the Mawangdui silk manuscripts, as well as Shang oracle bones and Zhou Dynasty bronzes. But it is generally thought to be as true to the ancient versions as was possible at the time.
b

dobro p · Feb 23, 2004

Thanks for the input. I believe what you're saying, but I don't believe the 'as true to the ancienct versions as was possible at the time'. Look at the differences between the Mawangdui version and the modern ones, for instance. Huge differences. I don't want to get into a discussion of the Mawangdui Yi (it's a minefield LOL). But I just don't believe the modern versions are accurate and unchanged versions of the Yi that people were using 2000 years ago. It's really hard to keep people from changing and tinkering with something as engaging and important as the Yi. I mean, I've got my version that I've worked out, and you've got yours, right? That's 100% of the sample so far LOL.

bradford_h · Feb 23, 2004

Dobro-
Not having a great deal of faith in the sustainability of this civilization, I often imagine that I'm mainly writing for archaeologists. Then I wonder about the accidents that let some things survive and others not. Sometimes I imagine the first two Yijing's rediscovered could be Joseph Murphy's "Secrets of the I Ching" and Diane Stein's "Kuan Yin Book of Changes." What a world!
Wild tangents and idiosyncratic interpretations of the Yi have been in abundance for thousands of years. Then there were the Gu Wen forgeries. I rather suspect the Mawangdui to be a less reliable version, born out of the confusion of the fires of Qin.
Anyway, the Yi would have stabilized quite a bit once it was canonized and institutionalized (136 bce) and it was carved in stone twice between 175 & 248 ce.

dobro p · Feb 23, 2004

"Anyway, the Yi would have stabilized quite a bit once it was canonized and institutionalized (136 bce) and it was carved in stone twice between 175 & 248 ce."

Ah, now you're talking! That's verified, is it? Not just some guy chipping away in 1715 and adding '136 bce' LOL to the bottom of the stone?

bradford_h · Feb 23, 2004

That's verified. Also lots of Han commentary preserves passages to compare with what we have today. And Wang Bi's commentary (by 249 ce) locks a whole paper version in, reinforced by Kong Yingda (574-648)(See Lynn).
What we don't have is Zhou Dynasty texts in pre-Qin writing. The Zuozhuan (c350bce) quotations of the Zhouyi are often said to confirm the reliability of at least these quoted portions of the text, but this isn't sound logic- the Zuozhuan quotes may simply have stabilized these portions.
More stuff on the ealy texts can be had in both the Kunst and Shaugnessy dissertations.
As to my own theory- no, I don't think we have the Original Zhouyi. But I do think that most of the changes it has suffered are from attrition rather than accretion (much more stuff dropped out than added later), which also may account for the unevenness of the received text. This unevenness due to attrition is one of Shaugnessy's current projects.

cheiron · Feb 25, 2004

Brad

I have a friend who is in the later stages of writing his Phd on something to do with ancient civilisations and the influence the people had on the rulers etc.., as you can imagine much recorded ancient history did not explicitly record a lot about the common persons views / influences... So he is in a similar dark as you described re. understanding the older layers of the Yi Jing.

I passed your website link on to him with an esp, 'read the introduction'... He is very delighted with 'the high density of academic reasoning' and your observations of how ones research can be ill reasoned / argued etc... He thanks you and may well write to you... His name is Mark, lives in London.

For what it is worth this guy has had his work published and serialised on radio in a few countries...

Thought you might like to know...

Smiles

--Kevin

bradford_h · Feb 26, 2004

Thanks Kevin-
I hope he writes.
Partly because I don't think it ends with the huge differences between the common man and the nobility.
As you might be aware, I attribute much to another vast gulf between these two and the Shaman/Diviner sub-culture charged with teaching both.
I think this diversity is crucial to understanding the ambiguities in the levels of the Yi and yet it's completely ignored in modern scholarship. It's like they think of ancient China as a homogeneous monoculture.
b

cheiron · Feb 26, 2004

Yes, much politics and power play.

So many layers...

He was largely missing the Chinese out of his thesis as he was having so much trouble finding texts in English...

I have passed your email on to Mark... I suspect you guy's might have a lot of things to talk about.

Cheers

--Kevin

hilary · Feb 26, 2004

<BLOCKQUOTE><HR SIZE=0><!-Quote-!><FONT SIZE=1>Quote:</FONT>

Sometimes I imagine the first two Yijing's rediscovered could be Joseph Murphy's "Secrets of the I Ching" and Diane Stein's "Kuan Yin Book of Changes." What a world!<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE>

mmnnnnngggg.

(Sound of imagination stretching painfully.)

Kevin, has Mark got himself a copy of the Shijing? Many voices of ordinary people, some taking dim views of the glories of war.

cheiron · Feb 26, 2004

Hi Hilary

Yes, thanks, I lent him mine (Waley)... he also enjoyed Steve Marshall's work and Richard Rutt... He is insatiable!

Yes, some of those songs make grim reading re. war? Love seems much the same though (smiles)

I think part of his thesis is looking at the way the ruling groups of developing 'ancient' cultures had to change and adapt their laws and approach to make allowances for the 'ordinary' persons views.

Today he was talking about implicit paradigms and the difficulty of uncovering them in some of the older texts... to be honest I only understand half of what he says... but his writing (post digestion) is wonderfully clear

Cheers
--Kevin

hilary · Feb 26, 2004

Wow - interesting and surely extremely elusive topic... Maybe something like what seems to be going on in the Daxiang of hexagram 20?

bradford_h · Feb 26, 2004

Hi guys
The demands of extensive ritual certainly made the Zhou kings slaves to the expectations of their people. Then, back to the heterogeneity notion, this certainly does not mean that either the king or his diviners believed anything like what the people believed. And this is a huge point missed by the scholars, who seem to assume that this was "the" belief system, bought into by all.
Mohammed is credited (at least by the Sufis) with the statement : Speak to each in accord with his degree of understanding. The Da Xiang of Gua 20 is an excellent expression of this - you adapt the teaching to it's place, in some ways the exact opposite of the missionary approach, and in others the only way missionaries can function.
So, some got taught in terms of myth and ritual, some in terms of meaning and principle, some in terms of image and number, and some in terms of parable and humor.

dobro p · Feb 27, 2004

It's like Shakespeare, innit? All the plays feature kings and queens and nobles, and if there's a commoner, he's a clown or a walk-on part, but for all that, the meaning's there for every Johnny to see.

That's the challenge in constructing your (one's) Yi - how do you make it all-purpose, a "Yi for all seasons"?

bradford_h · Feb 27, 2004

Hi guys-
In case you haven't checked it all out yet, the Sacred Text Archive (that I praised so hyperbolically) has the entire 6 volume Sacred Books of China series translate by Legge at:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/sbe/index.htm
And both the Shijing and Shujing at:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cfu/sbe03/index.htm
Chinese versions of both, and other links, are availailable in my Daoist & Chinese links section:
http://www.hermetica.info/LZDLinks.htm

b

bradford_h · Feb 27, 2004

Hi Dobro-
That's why you gotta do multidimensional matrix translations stuffed into tessellated hypercubes.
Or-
That's why forums like this are so appropriate.
And why I think the original had to be written within a think-tank sort of forum.
The Yi is so much bigger than a single point of view.
There can be no "definitive transation" ever, only the sturdy ones that can hang around and get tested by time.

cheiron · Feb 28, 2004

Oh, my post didn?t 'stick' the other day.

Just to say - Nice one Hilary

Yup Brad - I guess I make the heterogeneity assumption when not thinking... Nice observation

Cheers

--Kevin

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