Fu Hsi's Calendar

[rosella]

John Blofeld's "I Ching, The Book of Change." has in appendix number 12 - "The Seasonal Correspondences." This makes reference to the traditional Chinese calendar sometimes called the Farmer's Almanac.

The months and seasons are given an hexagram as are the weeks, outlined in a table. For instance autumn is represented by Joy and spring by Desisting, Stilling. He notes that in forecasting, the specific question "In which month will so and so happen?" must be asked.

Blofeld says his table and means of reckoning is based upon an elaborate circular diagram attributed to the legendary Fu Hsi.

I would be grateful if someone could give me a link or reference to this said elaborate diagram.

John.

 

[alan]

Hi John,

There is an illustration of the hexagram arrangement you are referring to in Cyrille Javary's book Understanding the I Ching, but the illustration is rather small and I don't believe there is any information about correspondences. Alfred Huang provides a list of hexagrams and their corresponding months in his book.

 

[peter]

John,

Do you mean this chart - http://yijing.narod.ru/Images/c11_64h_mx_r.gif ? (Try to open it in a new window, you'll be also asked about a confirmation.) By <1> - <12> I marked Earthly branches.

Peter

 

[rosella]

Alan.
I have not seen Cyrille Javary's book. Alfred Huang's explanations of what he calls the twelve tidal gua are helpful. Thanks.

Peter.
Thanks for the chart that you have posted. It appears to accurately follow Blofeld's table beginning with the five weeks of February, in order (11,5,17,35,and 40) and finishing with the five weeks of January (19,62,4,42 and 53)although his table seems to confuse 45,49 and 51,52. (Alfred Huang notes that the doubling of zhen is the gua of the spring season.)

As yet I cannot see how Fu Hsi came to this arrangement of the hexagrams in a circular diagram.

John.

 

[peter]

I picked this table from a Chinese book - "Big Dictionary on Zhou Yi". It was named either "Qi of hexagrams" of "Meng Xi chart", so Fu Xi has nothing common with it. It is suposed to be made about 2 AD.

Peter

 

[bradford_h]

Hi Peter-
Do you happen to have the ISBN for your Zhou-Yi Da Ci-dian (Big Dictionary of Zhou Yi)?
All I can seem to find searching in English and Chinese is a library call number, but I'm no whiz at this.
brad

 

[peter]

Bradford,

You're lucky - I have its ISBN, about 2 years ago Harmen Mesker asked me just the same question. Really I have 2 of them, not sure why (much time has already passed):

ISBN 7-5008-0846-1/C 47
ISBN 7-5008-0861-5/C 49

Maybe one is in Simplified Chinese and another is in Traditional?

Sorry, mistyped in previous posting - it must be "Qi of hexagrams" ("Gua Qi Liu-ri-qi-fen Tu") or "Meng Xi Chart" (Meng Xi Gua Tu). There are five rows of hexagrams in it: one is well-known "Bi" (Sovereign) row, "Fu-Lin-Tai-...-Guan-Bo-Kun", and other four seem to be "random" (or at least under very complex rules): "Gong" (Duke), "Hou" (Earl), "Qing" (High Minister) and "Da Fu" (High Official).

I've seen the "Gua Qi" chart in Feng You-Lan's "Chinese Philosophy", and it was totally the same as in "Zhou Yi Da Ci-dian", so I suppose that there are no mistakes in my picture, which I copied from these sources.

Peter

 

[bradford_h]

Thanks Peter-
I can get the help I need now.
Just in case: are you into all this Han Yiweishu?
If you are you, might enjoy George Fendos' doctoral thesis "Fei Chih?s Place in the Development of I-Ching Studies", 1988. It surveys lots of the Han Yixue speculations. Two big volumes like the Kunst thesis, with a 250 page bibliography of Chinese works.
b

 

[alan]

John,

Take a look at the hexagram sequences section of Steve Marshall's website. You might find an answer to your question here.