What am I reading?
Yijing (易经), also widely spelled I Ching, means the Book of Changes. This edition separates the early Zhouyi text from the later commentaries known as the Ten Wings. They are connected, but they do not all speak from the same period or with one voice.
The early text consists of 64 six-line figures, or hexagrams. Each has a short judgment and statements associated with its lines. The opening two hexagrams also include statements called “Use of the nines” and “Use of the sixes.”
Read a figure from the bottom upward.
A solid line is conventionally called yang; a broken line, yin. Line positions run from the first at the bottom to the sixth at the top. In the text, “nine” names a yang line and “six” a yin line. “Nine in the second place” therefore identifies a line, not a quantity of nine objects.
The familiar division into an Upper Canon (1–30) and Lower Canon (31–64) follows the received sequence. Our navigation uses that order.
Start with a real uncertainty.
Would a journey succeed? Would rain arrive? Could a marriage proceed? Should troops be sent? Such questions help place brief and sometimes puzzling statements in the practical world of the text.
Milfoil divination (shi, 筮) used stalks and numbers to obtain figures. Crack-making divination (bu, 卜) used heated bone or shell. Related practices are not identical. This website is a reading edition, not a tool for generating predictions.
Keep three voices apart.
| Layer | What you will find |
|---|---|
| The early text | Chinese judgments and line statements, with English translations. |
| Modern reconstruction | A possible question, setting, and reading adapted from the Chinese website. |
| The Ten Wings | Later interpretations that develop ethical, political, and cosmological meanings. |
Words worth pausing over.
These are working explanations, not fixed substitutions. An early word can mean different things in different passages.
吉 · jí
Auspicious. A favorable divinatory judgment about the matter asked. It is not automatically a moral reward.
凶 · xiōng
Inauspicious. An adverse or dangerous outcome, usually attached to a particular action or situation.
无咎 · wú jiù
No blame. No calamity, fault, or culpability in the relevant setting. This can coexist with an unfavorable outcome.
悔 / 吝 · huǐ / lìn
Regret / distress. Terms for adverse conditions, often less severe than xiong. Their precise force depends on the passage.
利 · lì
Favorable. Beneficial or suitable for an action, frequently followed by what should be done.
有攸往 · yǒu yōu wǎng
Having somewhere to go. Often a specific journey or undertaking, rather than a general encouragement to make progress.
貞 · zhēn
Determination. A deliberately open English rendering. Divinatory inquiry, verification, and constancy are competing or overlapping readings. Later traditions emphasize steadfast correctness.
亨 · hēng
Success / offering. Often rendered “success” in this edition. Some passages favor the related sense of presenting an offering or sacrificial feast.
孚 · fú
Trust / confirmation / capture. “Trust” is a readable default, not a universal solution. Early uses may also concern verification or capture.
君子 · jūnzǐ
Noble person. In early contexts, often a person of status or responsibility. Later commentary develops the ethical ideal familiar from Confucian thought.
大人 · dà rén
Great person. Often someone of authority or standing. “Meet a great person” may concern obtaining an audience or practical assistance.
元亨利貞 · yuán hēng lì zhēn
A disputed formula. This edition often uses “Great success; a favorable determination.” Punctuation and meanings are debated. The four-virtue reading belongs to the later Commentary on the Words.
About the English edition.
This is a new English reading translation and adaptation of 周易古经. It retains that site's distinction between early text, later commentary, and modern reconstruction. The English narratives are adapted for readers unfamiliar with the ancient setting; they are not a word-for-word rendering of every sentence on the Chinese website.
The 64 hexagrams preserve the Chinese source strings supplied by that edition. Each displayed source passage has a corresponding English translation. English titles are navigation aids, not claims that one English word captures every ancient sense. Pinyin distinguishes pronunciation; tone marks can be omitted when searching.
A reading edition, not a critical edition. Many words, received readings, and historical identifications are contested. The translations select plausible readings and have not undergone independent specialist review. Use the linked Chinese texts and scholarly literature for close study.
Some choices remain deliberately visible.
- Hexagram 8: yuan shi may concern examining or renewing a consultation. “Examine the consultation” does not settle the debate.
- Hexagram 23: the English follows the usual sense “unfavorable to have somewhere to go”; the punctuation of the supplied Chinese source is retained.
- Hexagram 25: the farming expression in line 2 has competing readings. The medical statement in line 5 belongs to an ancient divinatory context, not present-day health guidance.
- Hexagram 28: the judgment favors having somewhere to go; a dangerous water crossing appears in the final line. The context note keeps these distinct.
- Hexagram 49: the source text prints 巳日, while the Chinese narrative uses 己日. “When the day has come” leaves the disputed day-expression open instead of silently resolving the difference.
- Hexagram 53: the supplied final line prints 陸 (dry land); the Chinese narrative mentions 逵. The paired translation follows the supplied line, while acknowledging variants.
- Hexagrams 41 and 42: the valuable-tortoise wording admits different grammatical readings. The translation uses a value expressed in pairs of shells.
Ancient gender hierarchies, household roles, captives, and punishments are preserved as historical material. They are not presented as universal ethical instructions. A scenario inferred from several lines is a reading proposal, not a verified reconstruction of one event.
What can we say with confidence?
The textual distinction is central: the early judgments and line statements should not be silently merged with later explanatory works. The Chinese edition situates much of the early material in Western Zhou contexts, while the dates, compilation history, individual word meanings, and details of ancient practice remain matters of research.
Likewise, traditional attribution of the Ten Wings to Confucius should be distinguished from the historical question of how their different layers took shape.
Follow the sources.
The links below are inherited from the Chinese edition. They distinguish text sources from resources for its historical and interpretive approach.
- Wikisource: Zhouyi — the Chinese edition's public text source. Individual pages may combine the early text with commentaries.
- Chinese Text Project: Yi Jing — a comparison text for passages and chapter divisions.
- Shandong University, Center for Zhouyi and Ancient Chinese Philosophy — background on the range of ancient divinatory questions.
- Reexamining uses of the Changes in the Zuo Tradition — distinguishes quotation from accounts of actual divination.
- Edward L. Shaughnessy, “Marriage, Divorce, and Revolution: Reading between the Lines of the Book of Changes” — a historical approach to concrete situations behind the text.
- Handian: 噬嗑 — pronunciation reference for Shì Hé.
- Further Chinese scholarship named by the source edition: Gao Heng, Zhouyi gujing jinzhu and Zhouyi gujing tongshuo; Li Jingchi, Zhouyi tanyuan; Li Xueqin, Zhouyi suyuan.
- Excavated materials for comparison include the Mawangdui silk Zhouyi, Shanghai Museum bamboo Zhouyi, Tsinghua manuscripts' Shifa, and Changes-related material from Wangjiatai.
Open text, clear credit.
The ancient text is in the public domain. The Chinese source website licenses its original interpretations and arrangement under CC BY 4.0. This English adaptation credits that website and is offered under CC BY 4.0. The source website identifies Wikisource page text as CC BY-SA 4.0; any applicable rights in that material remain under that license. See the full attribution notice.