Very early literary mentions of the Yijing

[blewbubbles]

Spending some time in the digital library I come upon an interesting mention of the Yijing.

It is under a topic in the "Museum Wormianum", the catalogue of Olai Worm's museum of curiosities, dating to 1655.

(pp. 372 - 373) A bronze disk with multiple rings filled with characters and symbols simular to the modern feng shui compass, contain the trigrams in the fourth ring, ☰ ☶ ☴ ☷. Worm explains that the Chinese have the books called Yijing, which is made entirely in these figures, consisting of eight material figures composed of imperfect lines ⚋ and perfect lines ⚊, and from these eight are multiplied to 64. They make up symbols of a certain univerality of all things, something Pythagorian in kind but earlier, and which Worm calls the book of CAIN. Worm ends the section leaving us with a promise by Martinius, a contemporary of his time, "that he will soon publish a more accurate explanation of these, together with many other notable ones concerning China"..

 

[Liselle]

What digital library?

 

[surnevs]

What digital library?

Maybe this: https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/rv042t91s#prevq=Museum+Wormianum? (but it's not to be found on pg. 372/373 in the depicted work here... )

Ole Worm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Worm

 

[blewbubbles]

Maybe this: https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/rv042t91s#prevq=Museum+Wormianum? (but it's not to be found on pg. 372/373 in the depicted work here... )

Ole Worm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Worm

Thanks for that link surnevs. That is indeed the book. The scan page numbers are 392-393 over there, but when you look at the actual page numbers on the printed page it is the same as the numbers I mentioned viz. 372-373.
Completely off topic, but on page 301/(scan)321 you will find the drawing of the great auk, which was made from life, and is said to have been one of Worm's pets.

 

[surnevs]

page 392
​

At that time Latin was the language used by academics in Denmark. Tycho Brahe, the Astrologer & - nomer, used that language too.
It could be interesting to know what is written, in Chinese, on this bronze disc. (I don't think it can be found translated into Latin in the book ?)

​

 

[blewbubbles]

Curiosity killed the cat.. so I threw this entry into google image translate on account of my poor latin. So, here goes with google's rough and tumble translation.. My initial guess was wrong. This is a laquered wooden disk. It is indeed a compass, but as Worm points out, not a nautical compass but a compass to guide "in search of a happy place for the beautiful". Worm was convinced that these instruments had been in use for over three thousand years.

Google, semi-corrected by me, translation: (many s's translate as f's)

I will not unhappily report here an elegant SINITI BOX. It is circular in shape, made of wood coated with varnish; containing about a foot in circumference, four and a half inches in diameter, furnished with a lid of wooden cod. In its center there is a hole, the diameter of which scarcely equals the thumb, at the bottom of which is a minute style, which is surrounded by a silver plate pierced with nautical needles, suitable for holding a saucer. But the needle in the other extremity, which faces the south, is infected with a red color; the entire cavity in which the needle is contained is closed by a transparent glass, through which the movement of the needle is conveniently covered. In the circle there are circles, inscribed with black Chinese characters. The outermost parts of which contain 24. so also fruitful & third. The fourth circle has eight areas with the former known in the manner in which they are seen in this express figure. I indeed believed this Nautical box, before I was better informed by the letters of R. P. D. Martin Martinii S. I., who had recently returned from Sinâ. For in the letters of Brussels 27. Feb. In 1654, given to R. P. D. Wilhelm by Aelfe, it differs from this box. As regards the explanation of this box, I mean the Sinenfem, and the most numerous of its kind in China,nand the fuifle already in the most ancient times. In fact, that nation has been using the box for over three thousand years. But this is not a Nautical box, fed forti lega. For Nautica has another form, and is not inscribed with so many characters, except in the extreme limb, where the names of the winds are. This, then, is the strong box which the Montilogs use in Sinai, in search of a happy place for the beautiful. For in conftruing sepulchris no less sumptuose than superstitiosi semper was Sinae, for they think sub terrâ Dracon, fire influent varieties of esse, whence they search the heart, head, or tail, and females in the exact manner in which the Chyromantics confided the veins and features of the hands, and affected by the judges of the Astrologi syderum. But more about these things in my Epitome of Sinensium hiftoriarum, which I will do shortly on the common law. Now that we may explain the box in some way, I add these things in Clariff. Thanks to Mr. Olai. The outermost circle contains 24 parts, from which of the ten letters which they call Can, and the characters of the hours artfully arranged, the house of felicity and infelicity, the same way that the Astrologists, when they erect the figures of the Astrologists, make twelve houses and mold them. And when the Sinae from the hour of death, birth, and day, they also trace the calculation, and happiness or unhappiness, for the deceased's body; hence they had trusted in those letters, by which this nation was divided into nineteen years, days, and hours. In the fertile circle there are all the same characters, but in their order, the first is FZU at midnight:the third is CHU 7 fertile hours after midnight, &c. For if the day and the night are divided into twelve equal parts for the hours, the intermediate ones are literally ten
CANs added to the two which I have noted, the first of which represents the first fortunes of the fire of the sky, the second the election. In the fields of the third circle there are various names of happiness and unhappiness. In the eight areas of the fourth circle are the four letters of the four parts of the world. A. is Auster, B. Occasus, C. Boreas, D. Ortus. This figure represents the sky, this represents the mountains, and then the winds. Finally, the earth. The book of Sinai has Yekeriq; They call him who is entirely in these figures to be explained, in which they form eight figures out of matter == & imperfect --
out of form - & perfect, and from these eight multiplied in themselves 64. They make up symbols,
for a certain universality of all things. Of course I would say something Pythagorean, the Chinese nation must have had the book of CAIN before Pythagoras. Martinius promises that he will soon publish a more accurate explanation of these, together with many other notable ones concerning China, in the Epitome of the Historias Sinensium, à Delivius ad Christum, & Athlante extrema Asiae.

What is interesting to me about this entry is that Ole Worm's attitude towards this object is quite neutral, and although he describes the Chinese method by which these calculations were made as being simular to those used by chiromancers and astrologers i.e. superstitious, he still hails the Yijing as a book "something Pythagorian", which the ancient Chinese possessed even before Pythagoras. Which is high praise, especially in the 17h century time when Christian missionaries were heavily persecuted in China.

 

[surnevs]

For now, here, I can say that this use of the trigrams (contrary to using hexagrams) reminds me of the use of trigrams known from ancient times among the Hmong (by the mainland Chinese called Wild beasts = Miao tribes). I started a thread about this some years ago, HERE. They used trigrams for exorcism and such alike. As I, back then, realised that deeper research for me needed insight, not only into Chinese but also into the language of the Hmong (my reference was mainly books written by missionaries like David Crocket and others who probably did not focus on the Hmong in the light of a connection to the I Ching) I had to make a halt.