Similar, but different. 45.2 and 46.2

[moss elk]

Hi all,

Many of the same words in 45.2 and 46.2,
but some differences.

Hilary 45.2:
Being drawn. Good fortune, no mistake
With truth and confidence, there is harvest in making the Spring offering.'

Bradford 45.2:
Drawn to the promising
Not wrong
But sincerity precedes the real reward
when offering the modest spring sacrifice.

Then:
Hilary 46.2:
True, hence harvest in making a spring offering. No mistake.
Bradford 46.2:
Sincerity precedes the real reward
when offering the modest spring sacrifice
Nothing is wrong.


I see the difference as being (generally, if you are asking for yourself) that in 45.2 someone else, other than you is doing the promising and the drawing in or Gathering. (It's the scarlet sashed nobles.) In 45.2 the message is that the promise of the other is true/ sincere, and that your small sacrifice will be enough.

In 46.2 your small sacrifice is enough because of the trueness/sincerity/authenticity inside of you.
So, all 45.2's are 46.2,
but not all 46.2's are 45.2.
(Am I making sense?)


Now I am going to wonder some about the similarities between hexagram 15 and hexagram 25.

 

[rosada]

Perhaps we are seeing that whether one wants to move forward with a group (45) or to to move forward on our own (46) the necessary first step is the same - to invest something in the effort.
No matter if the prize is big or small, you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket.

 

[cjgait]

Draft versions of the two lines from Zhou Yi Dao, Living the Yi Jing:

45:2:

Old text:

Six in the Second. Prolonged good fortune. No blame. Beneficial to offer captives in the Yue sacrifice.

New text:

Six in the Second. Drawn along to good fortune. No blame. Loyalty is beneficial to use in a small sacrifice.

The Yue sacrifice was offered in the spring by the Shang and summer by the Zhou and was a key annual sacrifice to the royal ancestors. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the primordial text of the Yi there should be a reference to using human sacrifices in a rite of such importance. The offset in time between the Shang and the Zhou may be ritually significant, or may simply have been an artifact in the differences between their calendars, which differed on when the year began. The use of the term 用, ‘use’ is of interest here, since some scholars have suggested that in Shang Dynasty usage that verb is often used in oracle texts to specifically mean ‘use a human sacrifice’.

The character for stretching or drawing was that for drawing a bow. In the ancient text it was often a substitute for Hong, meaning expansive or great however in the Shang oracle bones it meant ‘prolonged’, so I go with that usage in the old text translation. (See Keightley, 2014, p. 209).

The new text uses the literal meaning of 引, to be drawn along. The situation is moving toward a good outcome and there is nothing you can really do one way or another. Circumstances are pulling you along to the next phase, but in this case that is a good thing. There may be a feeling of anxiety from lack of control of the situation, but that is not of any consequence.

So in this line text we have many differences between old and new, but both serve their purpose admirably for the world in which they are used.

And 46:2:

Old text:

Nine in the Second. The captives can be used for the Yue sacrifice. No blame.

New text:

Nine in the Second. Sincerity makes even a small offering acceptable. No blame.

In the Xia and Shang dynasties the Yue was a sacrifice offered in the spring. In the Zhou it was offered in the summer. In all cases it was made to the royal ancestors by a king. The difference between circumstances is meaningful in how we interpret the text. In the ancient times of the Xia and Shang sacrificing prisoners of war was common. Thus the rather barbarous old text version. This was a spring sacrifice and most combat occurred in winter in order not to interfere with the agricultural cycle. So in the spring there would be prisoners available from the winter’s campaigns. Summer, even though it is the time of nature’s greatest flourishing, is not a rich season for the food items used in sacrifice; those are available in abundance in the fall. So according to some the Yue sacrifice of later times was a rather humble, frugal affair offered to the ancestors. But as the new text interpretation points out, if given with rectitude it was accepted. However, since human sacrifice continued well into the Western Zhou period we may also see the old text version as fitting for the authors of the Yi.

To rise in any hierarchy means looking and moving forward and upward. But at this juncture it is equally important to honor those who went before and those without whom we would not have our present position.