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Light on the Dark Bird

pocossin

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Chapter IX of the Mandate of Heaven (MOH) contains much lore on hexagram 36 and "The Mingyi Bird." Simply put, traditionalists (MOH, pp. 4-9) consider the hexagram to refer to the sun, solar crow, and "Darkening of the Light" while modernists (Kunst, Rutt, Whincup, Shaughnessy) consider the bird in question to be a "Bright or Calling Pheasant."

The tradition view is well represented in Michael Nylan's translation of The Great Mystery Classic (taixuanjing) of two thousand years ago. Hexagram 36 is the basis for tetragrams 67 "Darkening" and 68 "Dimming." The Dark Bird is specifically mentioned in 67, Appraisal 7. Nylan comments, "...the Dark Bird may refer to the black crow, symbol of the sun."

There is a simple reason, however, why this interpretation should not have been a part of the original Zhouyi. The Dark Bird was a Shang symbol. Why would the Zhou glorify the dynasty they overthrew by devotion a hexagram to its symbol? What I think happened is that Shang ideas about hexagram 36 survived the Zhou and reasserted themselves as the Zhou declined.

Personally, I favor Whincup's translation of the title of hexagram 36 as "The Bright Pheasant" because it accords with my view that King Wen associated this hexagram with the weaning phase of human life. In weaning, a child is deprived of its accustomed food.

In Chinese symbolism, the pheasant symbolized the scholar who refused to eat the king's grain. For Tetragram 47, Appraisal 7, Nylan says:

"While pheasants win no favor,
Chickens are lavished with grain.

Because of its patterned plumage and rich taste, the pheasant should be valued far above the lowly chicken. Nevertheless, the pheasant's refusal to be domesticated makes it an unreliable source of food or feathers. Given this, it is hardly surprising that the inherently less valuable but domesticated bird is offered the grain.

Since official salary was paid in grain, the verse is a thinly veiled comment on political life. The two birds, of course, symbolize the worthy and the mediocre candidates for office. If noble men avoid government service, only mediocre talents will be left for the ruler to appoint. For this reason, the good man should not regard himself as too pure to accept patronage from others, nor should he forsake the court in periods of decline" (p.215).

This is exactly the state of Prince Ji in line 5: "A bright pheasant like Prince Ji. It is favorable to continue" (Whincup). Also note the reference to "not eating" in line 1 and the reference to "belly" in line 4, which may mean, "The way to a scholar's heart is through his belly."

Tom
 

pocossin

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It's certainly a possibility, Megabbobby.

Another oddity about "Darkening of the Light" -- but I am innocent of Chinese syntax. The Mandate of Heaven, p.106, says:

ming = sun + moon = bright
yi = man + bow = injury

So ming yi = bright injury = injury to the light = darkening of the light.

The oddity is that the modifer is the recipient of the action. Consider the case of 'sunburn'. The sun is the agent, and the thing burned is the recipient of the action. 'Sunburn' does not mean that the sun was burned. If the light were being injured, the expression should be 'yi ming' (injury light), not 'ming yi' (light injury).

Further, Whincup's modification of 'yi' to 'zhi' does not appear to be necessary, and other modernists need not have done it. A released arrow flies through the air as well as injuring, and one of the meaning Marshall gives for 'yi' is "flying animals." I've no personal experience with pheasants, but Whincup says:

"When a pheasant takes to the air, it shoots up [yi!] out of the underbrush and whirrs along with great effort for a short distance before falling back to earth" (p.125).

So "bright shooter" is itself an appropriate name for a colorful pheasant.

Tom
 

lindsay

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Hi, Tom!

I?d rather not get involved in a lot of nonsense about ?traditionalists? versus ?modernists?, but I think it might be helpful to set the record straight about Mingyi. It is true some recent scholars (Kunst, Shaughnessy, Whincup, Rutt) translate mingyi as ?bright pheasant? or ?crying pheasant? or ?calling pheasant? or ?crowing pheasant.? In doing so, they are following ideas put forward by the Chinese scholars Li Jingchi (1931) and especially Gao Heng (1947) that mingyi represents a bird, specifically a pheasant. Gao argued that in ancient China the word yi (?wounded?) and zhi (?pheasant?) were pronounced nearly the same, and that a scribal error in the received text of the Yi had mistakenly substituted yi for the original word zhi.

About a hundred years ago, it was very fashionable for historians to find all sorts of ?scribal errors? in old manuscripts. In the study of classics and New Testament studies, scholars posited hundreds of alternate readings based on the widely-held theory that medieval monks were frequently ignorant, careless, and incompetent in copying old texts by hand. This theory has been almost entirely debunked by later, more sophisticated textual studies relying on archeological discoveries, which revealed that far fewer mistakes were made in the transmission of old texts than had once been thought. In fact, the degree of accuracy in copying and transmitting important texts is astonishing when medieval copies are compared with truly ancient copies discovered by the archeologists.

Something like this happened with Gao?s argument about Mingyi. The oldest existing texts of the Yi, recovered at Mawangdui in 1973, have Mingyi as hexagram 38 (instead of 36), but the tag is still mingyi, not (as Gao speculated) mingzhi. We know the Mawangdui texts were buried in 168 BC, and the manuscripts of the Yi may be older still. If a scribal error in copying the Yi mistakenly altered the received text, it must have occurred before 200 BC. Keep in mind most scholars date the editorial composition of the Zhouyi to about 1000-800 BC.

It may be possible to show that Mingyi was associated with light and the sun (rather than pheasants) as early as 600 BC, but first it is important to correct a small error of fact in S. J. Marshall?s account of Hexagram 36. On page 105 of the MOH, Marshall briefly states the Zuozhuan records a Yi divination that took place in 537 BC involving Mingyi. This is not quite true. The Zuozhuan is China?s oldest existing narrative history of the Zhou period between 722-468 BC. Although scholars think it was composed sometime in the third century BC, it obviously relies heavily on much earlier materials. According to authority Burton Watson, ?the Zuozhuan represents almost the only written source for the history of this crucial period.?

Recording events for the year 537 BC, the Zuozhuan presents details about the funeral of Shusun Muzi, a high official in the state of Lu (see Legge, pp. 603-604). Among other stories, the Zuozhuan relates a story that occurred when Muzi was born (about 600 BC), in which his father consulted the Yi for his son?s birth reading. The reading, supposed to reveal the baby?s fate, was 36 Mingyi (1) changing to 15 Qian. Apparently Muzi?s father did not feel confident about the interpretation, because he asked a professional court diviner/shaman, Chu Qiu, to explain the reading. Here is what Chu Qiu said (Rutt, p. 192):

?The child will have to travel, but will return to offer the family sacrifices. A slanderer call Niu ?ox? will appear and your son will starve to death.

?Mingyi refers to the sun. As there are ten suns, so there are ten divisions of the day, corresponding to the ten official ranks. Reckoning from the king downwards, the second rank is duke and the third is minister. The sun reaches its peak at noon; the morning mealtime is the point next before noon; and dawn is the third point down. Mingyi means dimness, daylight not fully broken. Does this not correspond to dawn? So I say the child will offer the family sacrifices (made at dawn).

?The base-line statement [i.e., Line 1] compares the sun to a bird. Mingyi is said to be in flight; but the brightness has not broken through, so it says ?drooping its wings?. The image is of the sun moving across the sky, paralleled by a prince traveling. The number three matches dawn, and he is said not to eat for three days.

?Li, the lower trigram of Hexagram 36, means fire; Gen, the lower trigram of Hexagram 15, means mountain. Fire scorches a mountain and a mountain submits. In human affairs this is a parable for speech, and destructive speech is slander. So it speaks of travel and says ?Those who receive him complain.? ?Complain? means slander.

?The hexagram made of two fire trigrams is Hexagram 30, whose hexagram statement mentions cows. The times are disordered and a slanderer triumphs. Triumphing fits the fire hexagram and trigram. So I say his name will be Niu (?ox? or ?cow?, the name of the villain).

?This line statement, Qian-of-Mingyi, is about deficiency: the flight is not high, droops and is not lofty, the wings are not broad. I say your son will succeed you, sir, as an assistant minister, not rising so high as you.?

So here is a reading that is 2,300-2,600 years old that makes it quite clear that Mingyi at that time was associated with light and the sun, not pheasants or even birds. Chu Qiu only mentioned birds in the divination as a possible reference for the line text for 36.1. So Marshall was wrong on two counts: the divination did not occur in 537 B.C., but sometime around 600 B.C.; and the diviner did not ?adduce a connection to a bird? from the hexagram tag Mingyi or even the guaci, but from the first yaoci. Steve really ought to read the primary sources he refers to.

OK, so back to the Gao?s ?scribal error? theory. We have hard evidence from the third century B.C., based on sources that may go back to 600 B.C., that Mingyi meant ?dimming of the light.? There is no evidence whatsoever it meant anything else in the context of the Yi. Are we to suppose there was a scribal error between 1000 or 900 BC and about 600 BC that completely changed the accepted meaning of the gua? Especially when the transmission is completely uniform, with no variants (eg, Mawangdui), for the past 2500 years or so?

Well, decide for yourself. I'm just glad no one here divines like Chu Qiu!

Lindsay
 

megabbobby

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it seems like we really miss out on alot of the imagery by not being native chinese speakers..

imagine what theyre probably talking about on the chinese i ching message board
 

bradford_h

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Megabobby-
If it makes you feel any better, the Yi is every bit the puzzle to native Chinese as it is to us.
They have fared as poorly as we have in understanding the book. One has only to look hard at Han apocryphal scholarship, or to the work of Gao Heng et al, to see this.

Lindsay-
A little unwounded, undamaged and undimmed light of reason there. Thank you.
 

martin

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In India I heard a story about an old and very learned pandit who visited a guru and was initiated by him.
During the initiation the old man burst into tears. He said that despite his knowledge he had never understood anything at all. And now he understood ..

I suspect it is the same with the Yi. It's perhaps impossible to really understand the book unless you come into contact with someone who can give you a "direct transmission".
 

lindsay

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Yes, Martin, I have sometimes found indications the Yi is indeed an esoteric document; that is, it contains references to secret doctrines that are either lost or . . . well, still secret. I suspect any authentic lines of transmission that survived into modern times were snapped during Mao's devastating Cultural Revolution. This is certainly true in other areas like lamaist traditions in Mongolia and Tibet. It is unlikely the diaspora Chinese community, sprung almost entirely from immigrant peasant workers, knows anything about this sort of thing. Taiwan seems equally barren. I know there are some Chinese who claim to be Masters, but nearly all of them seem to be charlatans or cultists from what I can tell. So I guess I'm wondering where you would look to find your transmission?

Lindsay
 

dobro p

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Many, many times I've thought while considering the meaning of a hexagram's main text that it's more than a glimpse into the non-evident contours of a situation, and that it's a lesson of spiritual growth. You have to learn how to be Creative. You have to know how to be Receptive. You need Modesty. It's necessary to be able to navigate Danger. There is a certain kind of Clinging which is Radiant, and you need to know how to do this and be this.

And of course, you need to know the proper time to manifest each of these states or modes once you've learned the lessons. Hm... I wonder how a person would know when to manifest which state? ROFL
 

pocossin

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Linsay, thank you for your thoughtful reply. Perhaps it was not your intention, but the evidence you gave supports the 'bright bird' interpretation of Mingyi.

From Chu Qiu's explanation:

"The child will have to travel, but will return to offer the family sacrifices. A slanderer call Niu ?ox? will appear and your son will starve to death."

Like Bo Yi and Shu Qi (MOH, p.78)and the scholar pheasant, the son will starve to death by being deprived of the king's grain, yes?

"The image is of the sun moving across the sky, paralleled by a prince traveling." This is also the arcing flight of a bright pheasant.

"This line statement, Qian-of-Mingyi, is about deficiency: the flight is not high." This is characteristic of the flight of a pheasant, as given by Whincup.

"So here is a reading that is 2,300-2,600 years old that makes it quite clear that Mingyi at that time was associated with light and the sun, not pheasants or even birds."

No, this is a false generalization. Chu Qiu was responding to a specific casting, not writing an exhaustive essay on hexagram 36. Simply because something wasn't mentioned in Chu Qiu's explanation doesn't mean that it didn't exist at that time. If Chu Qiu used the trigram associations we now have, then hexagram 36 was associable with a pheasant because the lower trigram is Li.

The question is not whether hexagram 36 is associated with a bird, since it definitely is in the taixuanjing, but whether in the original Zhouyi the bird was understood to be bright or dark. If "The image is of the sun moving across the sky, paralleled by a prince traveling [bright regalia]" then a bright bird is unavoidable.

As I pointed out above, a "scribal error" theory is irrelevant to the interpretation of ming yi as 'bright pheasant'.

Tom
 

Sparhawk

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Hi all,

I took the liberty of pointing this thread to Steve Marshall and he asked me to post his reply. I will not speculate as to why he does not do it himself-I did not ask-but since I was the one that got himself in the middle of it-I guess I don't like to read debates where one variable is missing from the equation-I'll do it all the way. Here it is:

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

Luis pointed this discussion out to me. A response:

The divination referred to was indeed made at the time of Muzi's birth (c.
600BC), but is told at the time of his funeral (c. 537BC). I stand corrected
on that point.

As for the other "correction", some pettyfogging going on here. I never
wrote that the diviner took the idea of mingyi being a bird from the
hexagram tag, I simply wrote "the diviner says mingyi relates to the sun,
while also adducing a connection to a bird".

There is no error of fact here. Mingyi is not just the tag of the hexagram,
it is a way to refer to the hexagram itself. The compound mingyi appears in
five of the lines and those references probably gave rise to the tag in any
case.

It is rich that Lindsay accuses me of not bothering to look at the primary
source material, when he simply quotes from Richard Rutt's work. I hope
he'll notice that the reference given as my source is Legge's work, which as
he may or may not know includes the Chinese of the Zuozhuan.

Anyway Lindsay, thank you for pointing out the first error of fact that I
have become aware of in a book that took quite a few years to research and
write. I try to be scrupulous in these matters and take errors seriously. I
just wish you had not found it necessary to be so snide about it as then I
might have been allowed to find some little pleasure and truth in the old
Chinese saying "He who corrects me is my friend".

Pocossin:? You slightly misrepresent my position, in that I never said it
has been a traditionalist stance to relate the solar crow to hexagram 36.
This is entirely my own interpretation. Incidentally, the Dark Bird
(xuanniao) is not the solar crow. The identity of the Dark Bird is not a
mystery, it is a swallow from a Shang myth detailed in Ode 303 in the
Shijing, and other places. The Dark Bird I don't see as having anything to
do with hexagram 36.

Steve Marshall
<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE>

Luis
 

hilary

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Thanks, Luis - and Steve.

The character of Hexagram 35 looks very much like arrows aimed at the sun. Yi's?
 

aprochaska

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Great discussion. Interesting details.

I now use the Wu Jing-Nuan translation of the I Ching. For #36 in this version, the translator emphasizes light and sun, and the bird flying into the dawn or sunset is the illustration of it. This is about being guided by light, even when darkened by circumstance or vulgarity.

In his book "Animal Guides", Neil Russack discusses at some length how birds have often been transformational figures, bridging the gap between earth and heaven, moving between both realms. This seems central to MingYi as well.

What are the other versions of the I Ching you all mention and use (translator, pub date)?

Thanks.
 

bradford_h

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Hi Aprochaska-
You should bookmark a good Yi bibliography if you're going to expand your collection. The most extensive one online is at my site - www.hermetica.info
Glen Wolfsen's is useful too.
Steve Marshall's site reviews lots of Yi books.
Hilary here has done a bunch.
The most extensive biblio in print is by Ed Hacker, Steve Moore and Lorraine Patsco, and it's well annotated.
 

freemanc

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I'm Freeman Crouch, and I wrote a book based on Modern School stuff. The gist of what I think I've learned is scary-exciting: I'm convinced that almost every hexagram can be tied to Zhou Conquest material.

So I'm going to blunder in. This is such a magnificent thread. You people are smart and are real letter writers, by which I mean you may be talking past each other sometimes, but you read carefully and go pretty slow. I like slow.

There are probably a few programmers, so I'll field this analogy. In software, there's a grand question: to fork, or not to fork? When you fork you end up with two communities that cant use each other's stuff, two communities that are weaker. When you don't fork, you risk killing creativity, killing traditions or lines of thought.

It really is a 3 pipe problem, as inconvenient and sad as religious schism.

Chris L has a line of thought I can't understand at all. I read his stuff and feel like a blind guy at a painting auction. I don't think he's a fraud or anything, indeed, my nose tells me he may be sorta nuts, but he's a very generous, authentic cat. But I truly can't comprehend a word he says, can't make heads or tails of it. And I've dinked at cognitive psychology, and a bunch of the same $9-word-stuff he has.

So, ahem...looks like I'm kinda "forked" whether I want to be or not.

And so that may be the reason there will always be forks in a community. Sometimes, the underlying platform won't run the other stuff.

My take on Hexagram 36 is in terms of the Zhou Conquest story, something like this: It's a 2 or 3 layer pun between "Brilliance Wounded" and "Covenant with the Yi". I believe it has to do with Lord Ji, the Shang tyrant's Grand Tutor, turning to the cause of the Zhou.

If I were to blunder in here and say this was the "true" reading, instead of "a" reading of "a certain kind" (and I really do believe this is a strong and in some non-trivial sense correct reading), then we'd be off in silly polemics land again. And frankly I'm much too timid and high-strung to go there with pleasure.

I sort of like schisms. But I also like syncretions, like voodoo. I think it is possible, and indeed necessary, to take the traditional line, and the ancient narrative stuff, and sort of triangulate. *How* is the question I don't have an easy answer to. I've written a book about it and I still don't feel the question is exhausted.

FC
 

Sparhawk

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Welcome Freeman,

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

Chris L has a line of thought I can't understand at all. I read his stuff and feel like a blind guy at a painting auction. I don't think he's a fraud or anything, indeed, my nose tells me he may be sorta nuts, but he's a very generous, authentic cat. But I truly can't comprehend a word he says, can't make heads or tails of it. And I've dinked at cognitive psychology, and a bunch of the same $9-word-stuff he has.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

Don't feel bad if you didn't get it. I may even add that years of reading it won't help either. There are exceptions, like Martin who appears to be holding his own with Chris. The rest of us have either given up trying to understand or stare, blank faced, in utter amazement... Other than that, I consider him one of the most authentic persons that write in here (hey!, nobody can keep a mask like that on for, what? about 8 years, Chris? It's been that long I've been reading you in different places...)

Luis
 

Sparhawk

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Freeman, are you the one that wrote this:?

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

Untitled
back to top

Timidness is enough to account for
The wadded unfinished things. Its fearful
To have written, and see the product fall
Unnoticed, unmarketable, adored
Not at all. Not to write: that is the norm.
I improvise verse in the mirror, full
Knowing how bad it sounds: Rinse away all
The broken phrases with the whiskers and scum--

Remember when English and me were in love
So in love, pages flying from cheap pens
And pads and notebooks--Even then I'd prove
Too shy to finish the thing--to begin
Living differently--Living a life reserved
For those with discipline, courage, and nerve. <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

If so, cool!!

Luis
 

freemanc

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<blush> that was from about 5 years ago, when I was writing in forms a lot. Thank you for the kind word. What an odd coincidence that you should google it after i'd talked about "timidness" in my post. Thank you for unmasking me a little
happy.gif
... and for the kind word, Luis.

FC
 
C

candid

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Welcome, Freeman.

We're all a little nuts, each in our own noodley way. So no reason to be timid here that I can tell. Some look up and some look down. A few even look straight ahead as equals. Those are my favorite people to read and exchange with.
 

martin

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We are all a little holy, each in our own devilish way. Some are high, some are low, some are just plain nuts.

Welcome to the looney bin, Freeman.
biggrin.gif
 
P

prynne

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Well Im nuts and im about fed up with it. I want to be sane like the rest of the world.


AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
 
P

prynne

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So, what is the deal, did King Wen get tutored by an enlightened tutor when he was captured by the Shang? Is that the story. I dont know this stuff.
 

jerryd

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Freemanic, Austin is a sacred place to me and you appearence here throws me into remembering the last time I was there. It may well have been the last time it actually snowed in Austin. Welcome to Clarity.
 

freemanc

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<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

So, what is the deal, did King Wen get tutored by an enlightened tutor when he was captured by the Shang? Is that the story. I dont know this stuff.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

Oh, gee. Where to start.

The big picture, of course, is that the Yijing is a book which is to some extent, greater or lesser, about the Zhou Conquest, the overthrow of Di Xin, the tyrant of the Shang, and more or less the creation of the empire we know as China. (Sinologues: Is it fair, and not too cute, to call the Western Zhou era China's Camelot?)

Jizi, or Lord Ji, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizi) was a historic figure, a high minister of the Shang tyrant, his "Grand Tutor", which title means one of his very top advisors. He is believed to have been loyal to the end though by one account he was imprisoned, having feigned madness, and freed by the Zhou's conquest.

Was he in prison when King Wen was? He was no doubt aware of the treatment of Wen. But did this, among the tyrant's other excesses, lead him to betray his king?

The Yijing seems to believe that Lord Ji in fact did help the Zhou, that the Zhou "shot him in the heart", "wounded him", meaning they turned his attention or alliegence around to them.

I don't think there is much or any corroborating historic evidence that this is true, though the tale that he was imprisoned is suggestive.

As a Zhou loyalist, I am of course inclined to believe that the Zhou had won Jizi's heart. But I would point out that since the Zhou had to come to terms with the Shang, then to say that Jizi had facilitated the tyrant's downfall would have been first-rate propaganda, and helped legitimize them as rulers in the eyes of the Shang.

Thank you for the other kind words; Austin does have its uncanny aspects...The *last* snow in Austin was Valentine's day of last year. But I think the last before that was in 1983. I was in college and played in the snow with girls from my dorm. Quite a magical day.

FC
 
P

prynne

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Jizi was deeply conflicted, it must have caused him great concern to see the decline of Di Xin and subsequently have his heart won by the Zhou. He was loyal to the end, is he is the one who would not eat the food, in hexagram 36 line 1? In the wikipedia link you supply, after the fall of Shang, Jizi went to a dukedom, I wonder that perhaps he maintained some extremely rare royal knowledge given to the Shang court that Di Xin was in danger of loosing.

This is just my imagination running here. Thank you for feeding the latchkey children.
 

hilary

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Just from memory, isn't Jizi said to have remained loyal to Shang - the early ideals of Shang, that is - and gone into exile when the Zhou took over?
 

jerryd

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It was the 1983 snow which I refer....I have been out of the country and unable to keep watch on Austin for several years.1983 till 2004, 21 years is a long time between flakes EH?
 

jte

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"The Yijing seems to believe that Lord Ji in fact did help the Zhou, that the Zhou "shot him in the heart", "wounded him", meaning they turned his attention or alliegence around to them."

While I certainly have no opinion on the truth/accuracy of the historical accounts, I *do* think the above is a quite insightful and accurate description of one possible meaning/course of action suggested for line 36.4.

- Jeff
 

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